Why Evolution is a Myth

[Micah12]

We need to start with the first big myth with Evolution: The Big Bang.

Long ago, in the universe, there was nothing (I'd like to know where the universe came from). And over a long
period of time the dirt (that came from nothing) compressed itself into a dot, smaller than a period at the end of this sentence (where did the gravity come from to compress that dirt?). Then after a long period of time the dot started to spin. And it spinned so fast that it exploded and here we are today. Did you know that if something is spinning and something breaks off from it that that piece will be spinning in the same direction? So, if your little dot was spinning and then exploded, why are some of the galaxies spinning backwards?

I have a few questions for you.

1) Where did the universe come from?
2) Where did the dirt come from?
3) Where did the force to compress that dot come from?
4) Why are some of the galaxies spinning backwards?

[ocmpoma]

Go get this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553380168/qid=1109719828/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-3276863-3121457) and read it. All of it. If it's too technical, post questions here. We will explain.

[Little Earth Stamper]

We need to start with the first big myth with Evolution: The Big Bang.

Long ago, in the universe, there was nothing (I'd like to know where the universe came from). And over a long
period of time the dirt (that came from nothing) compressed itself into a dot, smaller than a period at the end of this sentence (where did the gravity come from to compress that dirt?). Then after a long period of time the dot started to spin. And it spinned so fast that it exploded and here we are today.
...
I dunno, That story seems as poetic and convincing as any of the others I've heard about where we come from.

[ocmpoma]

Too bad poetry isn't quantifiably verifiable.

[Dayspring]

We need to start with the first big myth with Evolution: The Big Bang.

Long ago, in the universe, there was nothing (I'd like to know where the universe came from). And over a long
period of time the dirt (that came from nothing) compressed itself into a dot, smaller than a period at the end of this sentence (where did the gravity come from to compress that dirt?). Then after a long period of time the dot started to spin. And it spinned so fast that it exploded and here we are today.
...
I dunno, That story seems as poetic and convincing as any of the others I've heard about where we come from.
To LES,

Is there a remote possibility there exists a being larger than yourself in the universe somewhere?

[D'Man]

To LES,

Is there a remote possibility there exists a being larger than yourself in the universe somewhere?
Can't speak for LES, but I know for certain there are beings larger than me in the universe, in fact, the ones I know about are on this very planet. I like to call them elephants, whales etc.....

[Hacim Nosretep]

mmmm...clever. To be somewhat more direct, I have a pretty good idea that there isn't a God, based on the evidence currently available. However, there is an almost negligible possibility, as I have stated elsewhere on the RA, that God does exist, and just decided to feed us a lot of bulls**t evidence refuting his existence.

To address the original topic, though, the "Big Bang" as Micah (Hacim reversed, by the way) conceives it probably is a huge load. In fact, it hasn't been a popular theory among astrophysicists for some time now. Let me describe for you the "new" theory, although I'm by no means a definitive source.

OK, so we have an infinite void. empty space. nothing. You can have as much of this "nothing" as you want. think of it as complete neutrality. Now, imagine "membranes" of multidimensional space, time, plus whatever other dimensional concepts we are as yet unaware of. they are entities composed of unbalance, of energy, matter, and its anti-parts. Now imagine that a couple of these 'branes come into contact w/ each other, like a pair of linen sheets hanging parallel on a line touching briefly. This triggers an enormous exchange of energy/matter (it's all the same thing, if you speed it up enough), resulting in the creation of "stuff" within our own little "membrane." The result: Earth and whatnot. g'bye.

[Micah12]

We need to start with the first big myth with Evolution: The Big Bang.

Long ago, in the universe, there was nothing (I'd like to know where the universe came from). And over a long
period of time the dirt (that came from nothing) compressed itself into a dot, smaller than a period at the end of this sentence (where did the gravity come from to compress that dirt?). Then after a long period of time the dot started to spin. And it spinned so fast that it exploded and here we are today.
...
I dunno, That story seems as poetic and convincing as any of the others I've heard about where we come from.
I fail to understand why this "poem" seems so convincing. 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing. And then the nothing exploded and then life appeared. You've got to be kidding. If that sounds convincing I don't know what wouldn't.

[Micah12]

You atheists believe that 4.6 billion years ago dirt.....

I believe that 6,000 years ago God created the universe. And I believe that God has the right to judge this world when he wants to, and he did in the days of Noah.

I believe the Flood happened around 4400 years ago. I'll tell you why.

The oldest tree in the world is around 4400 years old. If the theory of evolution is true, why don't we have trees that are a few million years old?

The desert in Africa is dated to be around 4300 years old. If evolution is true, why don't we have older deserts?

There are many more things that date around 4400 years old.

[Micah12]

Did you know that the sun is burning down at 5 feet per hour. If the sun is getting smaller then it used to be bigger. You have to be at least that smart to be an evolutionist. If evolution is true, the sun would swallow up the first four planets. That would be kind of hard on life here.

At the rate the moon is collecting dust it has been dated at 10,000 to 6,000 years old. If evolution is true why isn't there hundreds of feet of dust on the moon?

[ocmpoma]

First off, biological evolutionary theory (you know, the one about organisms) has nothing to do with BBT, cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, or, more particularly, the age, size, and changes in the sun and moon. So you're arguments, even if correct, are straw men.

But they aren't correct:
Stellar evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution);
Origins of the Moon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon).

[Micah12]

First off, biological evolutionary theory (you know, the one about organisms) has nothing to do with BBT, cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, or, more particularly, the age, size, and changes in the sun and moon. So you're arguments, even if correct, are straw men.

But they aren't correct:
Stellar evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution);
Origins of the Moon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon).
What I'm trying to say is that the universe is not billions of years old.

[Micah12]

The earth's rotation is slowing down. So, as you might have guessed, it used to go faster. If the earth were billions of years old, as you evolutionists believe, the earth would spinning so fast that the days would be a couple of seconds long.

I know what happened to the dinosaurs. They got slung off the earth. (laugh)

[Micah12]

As the moon circles our globe it is getting further away. So it was closer as anyone would know. If the universe were billions of years old, the tides on the earth would be so strong they would drown everyone twice a day.

[Micah12]

At the rate our planet is filling with people (if evolution is true) the population would be over 100,000 people per square inch.

Oof! Scoot over man! Ouch!

[Hacim Nosretep]

hmmm, it seems that someone is unfamiliar with logistic growth and decay models... that is complete CRAP.

[schemanista]

At the rate our planet is filling with people (if evolution is true) the population would be over 100,000 people per square inch.
Evolution is true. What does that have to do with population growth?

Only covered linear progression in your apologetics courses, eh?

Say, here's a question for you: compare estimated crop yields in both developed and developing countries for the past two hundred years with global population trends. Factor in the lack of plague-level epidemics as a result of medical and pharmaceutical advances during the same period of time.

Show all of your work and make sure you include a pretty graph. But read the book ocmpoma suggested first. Then take a geography course.

Chance you'll actually do any of this: zero. Cost to me for a few minutes of banter: zero. Watching a YEC fundie try to discuss science: priceless.

[Dux]

The oldest tree in the world is around 4400 years old. If the theory of evolution is true, why don't we have trees that are a few million years old?

The desert in Africa is dated to be around 4300 years old. If evolution is true, why don't we have older deserts?

There are many more things that date around 4400 years old.
And there are a lot of things that date much older than 4400 years old.

And a quote I found googling that seemed suitable:

When one is investigating how old the Earth is, any statement of the general form "thus-and-so could have formed in as little as X number of years" is useful only for establishing a lower limit to the range of possible values for Earth's age; such a statement does nothing to establish an upper bound for Earth's age. Anyone who believes that such a statement does establish an upper bound for Earth's age, is invited to explain how and why the notion of a 4.5-bilion-year-old Earth is contradicted or refuted by the existence of surface features that are (significantly) younger than 4.5 billion years.
Nuff said.

[schemanista]

I fail to understand why this "poem" seems so convincing. 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing. And then the nothing exploded and then life appeared. You've got to be kidding. If that sounds convincing I don't know what wouldn't.
What you fail to understand is that 4.6 billion years ago there wasn't nothing.

Take ocmpoma's advice. Get the book. Read it. Come back when you're done.

[Erik]

micah12,

The rotation of the Earth has been slowing at a rate of 0.002 seconds per century. This means that in the Devonian period, there would have been around 400 days per year, which in fact corresponds to the approximately 400 daily growth layers per year present in Devonian corals. In addition, this rate becomes much less accurate with increasing time (particularly back to near the origin of the Earth). There are still arguments over the forces which dominate the slowing, and how much stronger or weaker they would have been when integrating backwards in time. (Stassen 1997). See also Tim Thompson’s note at: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/apr99.html and its links.

As for the Earth and moon and tides, please see: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html.

Finally, respecting population: I assume you mean that extrapolating backwards at current birth rates, the human population began only a few thousand years ago? I’ve heard this one before. Despite the problem of overlooking death rates, things like wars, famine and disease, your proposal, when worked from the other end, leads to some funny conclusions. But before I get to that, perhaps you would like to explain how you think the human population began and grew.

[schemanista]

The earth's rotation is slowing down. So, as you might have guessed, it used to go faster. If the earth were billions of years old, as you evolutionists believe, the earth would spinning so fast that the days would be a couple of seconds long.
Yes, the earth's rotation is slowing down. I've seen estimates that the earth's "day" was only about 18 contemporary hours long about 900 million years ago. Do a google search on tidal braking.

I know what happened to the dinosaurs. They got slung off the earth. (laugh)
You'd actually be funny if you knew your ass from your elbow.

Take a freaking geography course at your local college. After you read the book ocmpoma suggested.

[Micah12]

I fail to understand why this "poem" seems so convincing. 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing. And then the nothing exploded and then life appeared. You've got to be kidding. If that sounds convincing I don't know what wouldn't.
What you fail to understand is that 4.6 billion years ago there wasn't nothing.

Take ocmpoma's advice. Get the book. Read it. Come back when you're done.
I think I do understand that you believe 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing. And then that nothingness berped and life popped up. If you do not believe that is how we got here than how do you think we got here?

[StillSurviving]

If you can't personally understand and explain every facet of every scientific theory, then Micah12's God exists, and deserves your worship. At least that's how Micah12 makes it sound.

[ocmpoma]

"I think I do understand"

Nope. You don't. If you did, you'd smack yourself in the back of the head, bum a couple of bucks off your old man and buy a clue.

Read it. Learn it.

[Erik]

micah12,

Questions for you: You say the flood was 4400 years ago. Do you believe it covered the whole earth? If so, why doesn't the pyramid at Cheops show any sign of having been flooded, and why didn't the Egyptians, who were very sensitive about flooding, record it?

I take you also believe that everyone was wiped out except Noah and his family? Assuming a doubling of the population every 40 years or so, I get a population of about 50,000 by about 3900 years ago. Wow, these folks were really really really really busy. I mean, they built some serious cities and pyramids in Mesopotamia, Crete, Palestine, Sumeria, China and Egypt, to name a few.

Give it up.

As far as burping nothingness goes, let's take a moment to recap some events in science history. Flat earth? Discredited by science. Earth-centered system? Discredited by science. Global flood? Discredited by science. Earth's age of 6,000 years? Discredited by science. Existence of a soul (that is, mind-body dichotomy)? Rapidly being discredited, if not already fully discredited by science. Lack of hard evidence for evolution? History. Concerns over discovery of mechanism by which evolution works? DNA discovered, 1950.

All you have left is basically some contention that there is no way life could possibly have started from the chemicals on earth billions of years ago. That's it. That's all you got. See recap above. My money's on science.

[schemanista]

I think I do understand that you believe 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing.
I think you don't understand anything.

And then that nothingness berped and life popped up. If you do not believe that is how we got here than how do you think we got here?
Singularity wasn't nothing.

You're not familiar with logical constructs so I'll nudge you in the right direction. Making up an argument (i.e. "the Big Bang theory says that the universe came from nothing"), which your oponent in a debate has never claimed and then refuting it is known as a straw man argument.

The only way your pitiful understanding of science could make a statement even approximating what the evidence suggests is to re-phrase your argument as "so you atheists are saying that in the beginning was everything! So how did we get here?"

But that requires a level of intellectual honesty to which you probably can never aspire.

Read the book. Come back when you're ready.

[schemanista]

Hey Micah12

I've got a great idea. We're going to switch roles.

You play the informed debater ('s okay, you can still be a Christian) and I'll do the part usually reserved for the Young Earth Creationist twit.

Ready? Here goes!


{role reversal}

AtheistMe: You stupid Christians, how can you believe such a silly myth. There's absolutely no proof for your faith.

Micah12: Yes there is, it's called the Bible and it contains what we believe to be eyewitness accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

AtheistMe: Hah, you fools. If the Bible is true, how come it doesn't mention the fact that Jesus was an eight-foot tall rabbit? Huh? Huh?

Micah12: That's ridiculous. There's no evidence that such a thing ever existed. Read some historical accounts of the period. Jesus was undoubtedly a man. Again, read the bible. It will answer most of your questions.

AtheistMe: Ha ha loser. If Jesus wasn't a rabbit then why did God create lettuce? Huh? If you don't believe that, then what's your explanation for lettuce? You Christians are just deluded.

Micah12: Okay, now you're being ridiculous. There are lots of sensible explanations for how lettuce came to be. One of them is that God created it along with all of the other plants. The fact that lettuce exists doesn't say anything about whether Jesus was a man or not.

AtheistMe: Oh yeah: check out www.jesuswasaneightfootrabbit.com. There's the proof that you need...

{/role reversal}


So Micah12, how's it feel to debate a dumbass instead of playing one on the internet?

[Little Earth Stamper]

Um... there was stuff in the universe before the earth appeared, Micah.

You know, people here are making a lot of fun of you, but you don't seem to grasp something; The advent of the universe, the advent of earth, and the advent of life on earth are three different events. This is basic middle school science stuff. I don't know who told you what our arguments for an old earth are, but they were sorely mistaken.

Until you understand what our arguments are a bit better then you do, you shouldn't try to refute them. Most of your arguments are fairly common and refutations have been diseminated on the internet. Instead of arguing about what people say we say, you should argue about what we do say.

As for the poetry of the big bang, you say that it's ridiculous, but you seem to be a Christian. As far as I can tell, there was a void, and then God was there. Why is it more plausible for your god to come into existence for no reason then it is for our universe to come into existence for no reason?

PS Dayspring, There is in fact a remote possibility that a being bigger then myself exists. Why do you ask?

[Dayspring]

Assuming a doubling of the population every 40 years or so, I get a population of about 50,000 by about 3900 years ago.
I'm still laughing! 50,000 people in 500 years! When I was growing up, my family lived next door to a couple who had 24 children, an increase of 1,000%. Several hundred years ago it was not uncommon for families to have several dozen children, though, of course, many died. Let's say 2/3 died and 8 of them lived. That's still an increase of 400%. Now let's go back further and add a couple wives. How many kids could you have in 20 years if you had several wives? (Answer: Too many.) King Solomon, a historical figure for those of you who've never heard of him, had 1,000 wives. How many kids would a thousand wives produce? Even in this "enlightened" age I personally know people who actually love kids and have 8 or 10 or 12 of them. Populations can increase very rapidly without birth control and abortion to slow them down, and they could easily be in the millions long before 500 years had gone by.

[Dayspring]

The oldest tree in the world is around 4400 years old. If the theory of evolution is true, why don't we have trees that are a few million years old?

The desert in Africa is dated to be around 4300 years old. If evolution is true, why don't we have older deserts?

There are many more things that date around 4400 years old.
And there are a lot of things that date much older than 4400 years old.

And a quote I found googling that seemed suitable:

When one is investigating how old the Earth is, any statement of the general form "thus-and-so could have formed in as little as X number of years" is useful only for establishing a lower limit to the range of possible values for Earth's age; such a statement does nothing to establish an upper bound for Earth's age. Anyone who believes that such a statement does establish an upper bound for Earth's age, is invited to explain how and why the notion of a 4.5-bilion-year-old Earth is contradicted or refuted by the existence of surface features that are (significantly) younger than 4.5 billion years.
Nuff said.
I would like for you to notify me of these things. I know that there are rocks that are older than 4400 years because they would survive anything. I would like to hear about some once living things that are older than 4400 years.

[Micah12]

Um... there was stuff in the universe before the earth appeared, Micah.

You know, people here are making a lot of fun of you, but you don't seem to grasp something; The advent of the universe, the advent of earth, and the advent of life on earth are three different events. This is basic middle school science stuff. I don't know who told you what our arguments for an old earth are, but they were sorely mistaken.

Until you understand what our arguments are a bit better then you do, you shouldn't try to refute them. Most of your arguments are fairly common and refutations have been diseminated on the internet. Instead of arguing about what people say we say, you should argue about what we do say.

As for the poetry of the big bang, you say that it's ridiculous, but you seem to be a Christian. As far as I can tell, there was a void, and then God was there. Why is it more plausible for your god to come into existence for no reason then it is for our universe to come into existence for no reason?

PS Dayspring, There is in fact a remote possibility that a being bigger then myself exists. Why do you ask?
If there was stuff before the earth appeared where did it come from?

I thought you evolutionists believed that the world was billions of years old.

God did not just come into existence. He has always been here. If the universe had an end (such as a brick wall) what would be beyond the wall. So the universe has no end. In the same way God has been here for eternity.

[Micah12]

I think I do understand that you believe 4.6 billion years ago there was nothing.
I think you don't understand anything.

And then that nothingness berped and life popped up. If you do not believe that is how we got here than how do you think we got here?
Singularity wasn't nothing.

You're not familiar with logical constructs so I'll nudge you in the right direction. Making up an argument (i.e. "the Big Bang theory says that the universe came from nothing"), which your oponent in a debate has never claimed and then refuting it is known as a straw man argument.

The only way your pitiful understanding of science could make a statement even approximating what the evidence suggests is to re-phrase your argument as "so you atheists are saying that in the beginning was everything! So how did we get here?"

But that requires a level of intellectual honesty to which you probably can never aspire.

Read the book. Come back when you're ready.
Um, if there was stuff before the big bang (big dud) then where did it come from?

[VOICE-of-REASON]

If the universe had an end (such as a brick wall) what would be beyond the wall. So the universe has no end.
Funny how you fail to grasp the full meaning, and the logical implication of that assertion. IF the universe has no end, i.e.: that the universe is everywhere, and everywhere is the universe--then whatever god you invent is necessarily INSIDE, and PART of the universe, in which case he could not have created it in the first place--in which case he would not be 'god'.

[Erik]

Dayspring,

You are apparently not much of a history student. It is only in recent centuries that populations have been able to grow at that sort of rate, because the technologies became available to produce enough food and subsequently to prevent death from diseases. This is leaving aside the evidence that the cities of Sumer, Egypt and Palestine didn't just spring up overnight. Solomon may have had a gajillion wives and concubines, but there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the population of Palestine exploded at the time period Solomon is alleged to have lived. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way.

[schemanista]

Um, if there was stuff before the big bang (big dud) then where did it come from?
Still haven't read the book?

Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: read the goddamn book.

Or at least read this article (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.shtml).

[schemanista]

I would like for you to notify me of these things. I know that there are rocks that are older than 4400 years because they would survive anything. I would like to hear about some once living things that are older than 4400 years.
Do I understand you correctly? Are you insisting that no life existed before 4,400 years ago? I wonder how you'll support that assertion.

Could you start by explaining how rocks as old as 3.5 billion years don't really contain prokaryotic fossils, as paeleobiologists claim? Or maybe you could explain how the method (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html) used to arrive at the date of those rocks is inaccurate (you'd better know an awful lot about radioisotopes).

How about explaining to archaeologists that, depending on how one defines it, human "civilization" cannot really be dated to between 11,000 and 9,500 years ago, as they assert?

Are you gonna dance all night with your hand on his ass, or do you really intend to do the nasty?

[ocmpoma]

How about some bristlecone pines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine)?

Or perhaps a creosote [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1853828.stm]bush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creosote_bush)?

Maybe some other really old stuff (http://www.extremescience.com/OldestLivingThing.htm)?

Of course, the age of living things has not much to do with the age of the earth, which has not much to do with the age of the universe. For Thor's sake, go get that book (http://www.psyclops.com/hawking/brief_history.html).

[Dux]

I would like for you to notify me of these things. I know that there are rocks that are older than 4400 years because they would survive anything. I would like to hear about some once living things that are older than 4400 years.
I would, but I get a feeling you'd ignore it, so why bother.

Edit: ocmpoma apparently did the job for me, but I'm sure you can debunk his claims, right?

[Paradox]

I would like for you to notify me of these things. I know that there are rocks that are older than 4400 years because they would survive anything. I would like to hear about some once living things that are older than 4400 years.
I would, but I get a feeling you'd ignore it, so why bother.
if your not going to bother convincing us otherwise, why the hell are you posting here?

[Micah12]

Um, if there was stuff before the big bang (big dud) then where did it come from?
Still haven't read the book?

Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: read the goddamn book.

Or at least read this article (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.shtml).
I am working on getting the book so don't bother me about it again.

You don't know where it came from. And you're calling me a fool because I say that a superior being made everything. First, get your ]THEORY[/b] straightened out before you call me stupid.

[schemanista]

I am working on getting the book so don't bother me about it again.
Your argument in this entire discussion is as stupid as if I claimed that the Bible said that Jesus was an eight foot tall rabbit. The Gospels make no such claim. And you don't know enough about Big Bang cosmology nor the evidence (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.shtml) on which it's based to even discuss it intelligently.

If you don't know where the stuff before the big bang came from then why do you stick with such a dumb ferry tale you are calling science. And I don't know why Christians have to pay our tax dollars to support a lie that is sending our nation to hell.
If you don't know enough about the scientific claims which you're attempting to refute to even represent them properly, then how can you evaluate their truth or their falsity?

When you say "it's stupid to say that the big bang created the universe from nothing", the only stupidity which you expose is your own. A fifteen minute Google search could arm you with more understanding of Big Bang cosmology than you've displayed so far.

You are constantly surrounded by the results of scientific inquiry, you know, the stuff you say is a fairy tale, but you are too ignorant to understand that they all represent the fruits of centuries of diligent, public inquiry.

If you think that science and the scientific process is a "ferry tale"[sic] then do you believe that elves (or angels in your case) make the lights in your house come on? Or do you think that little angels are drawing the images and words on the computer screen in front of you? Or do you believe that God makes all of the airplanes in the world fly? Does a little man turn the light off in your refrigerator? Does the little Advil Cold and Sinus pill you take banish Satan's Cold Demons from your nasal cavities and is that why you experience relief from sinus congestion? The theories of Evolution and the so-called Big Bang model of cosmology have been arrived at through exactly the same scientific method which allows you to appear as Moron of the Year on The Raving Atheist Forums.

The real question is not "why are Christian tax dollars going to support the lie that is science", but rather, with all the tax dollars being spent on education, how did you wind up so fucking uninformed?

The funniest part about this is that, even as you're being mocked, none of the people responding to you are asking you to take their assertions on faith and that's far more respectful than what you're asking of us.

[ocmpoma]

Glad you're working on getting the book. If you have any questions (about what is said in the book, mind you), feel free to ask them, and I will try to clarify. Keep in mind the timeline when you read it, too. Also, remember while reading it that the science is a little dated, the book originally came out in 1988.

[Dux]

if your not going to bother convincing us otherwise, why the hell are you posting here?
So you're telling me someone will be convinced? I sincerely doubt that. Why I'm here? I like to jump in now and then when I think I can contribute to the debate. Sometimes I just don't see the point in repeating what so many has said before (I've spent a whole lot of reading these forums before i posted myself), and sometimes I think others will say it better.

[Sir Sin-O-Lot]

I need the references you got these from. And what the hell makes Creationism so plausable if evolution is true?

[chris26]

God doesn't want to show himself. He said clearly in the bible that the evidence for his handiwork is in the universe and the great complexity of the world we live in. We live in 4 dimensions, and there are 11. He exists outside the universe. Thats like searching for a penny inside a barn when the penny is outside. You ain't gonna find it no matter how hard you try. God does not want to make himself evident. A god that is almighty has no point in making himself evident except in his creation. God does not need to prove anything. He is not boastful or willing to take away our free will.

The bible says the greatest test of faith is the flesh.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,


(Romans 1:18-22, KJV)"
I need the references you got these from. And what the hell makes Creationism so plausable if evolution is true?
Creationism? That is an old archaic term. I believe in the bible, evolution, old earth and the big bang. Science and Christianity have said to have been in conflict. Quite the opposite. The bible is not a scientific book. The point of the bible is salvation, not knowing the details. The details are not important, our soul is what matters in this temporary earth.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein

Science and religion are not enemies of each other. Many parts of the bible are misinterpreted. The reason many scientists don't believe in the bible is because the interpretation was wrong to begin with and when it is interpreted correctly it agrees with science.

If you want to know how Christianity and Science can go in harmony read to your heart's content. This the greatest article I've came across online about this topic.

http://www.kiva.net/~kls/

The more I learn about science the stronger my faith becomes.

[Sir Sin-O-Lot]

God doesn't want to show himself. He said clearly in the bible that the evidence for his handiwork is in the universe and the great complexity of the world we live in. We live in 4 dimensions, and there are 11. He exists outside the universe. Thats like searching for a penny inside a barn when the penny is outside. You ain't gonna find it no matter how hard you try. God does not want to make himself evident. A god that is almighty has no point in making himself evident except in his creation. God does not need to prove anything. He is not boastful or willing to take away our free will.

The bible says the greatest test of faith is the flesh.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,


(Romans 1:18-22, KJV)"

If he is almighty, why not show himself? What evidence though, you just used a Bible quote.

[schemanista]

The more I learn about science the stronger my faith becomes.
So how do you handle the historical problems?

And I'm confused, that article you linked to seems to re-hash the same territory covered by the ID folks and others who would argue from incredulity.

What makes it so "great" in your opinion?

[chris26]

If he is almighty, why not show himself? Whar evidence though, you just used a Bible quote.
First off that would destroy his whole plan of free will. He doesn't create robots. He loves us so much he gives us the right to choose our fate. If you disbelieve in god he gives you wish and gives you eternal death. If you accept him and Jesus Christ for the sin of man you can enter eternal life.

What evidence? The bible. The bible has been around for 2,000 years and it is still around. Read that article please. Once you read it you'll be hardpressed to dismiss the Bible. The Bible is dead on with science.

More evidence for god?

When the body has hunger it expects food and knows there is food to satisfy that desire. When one is thirsty, it is expected there is water to quench that thirst. The human mind has a hunger for a higher power, to survive death and continue on and love. God is the father and we are the sheep. With him we shall not be afraid nor weary. God holds his creation and loves us very much, even if we go against him. God gives that hunger for hope. With him there is no fear of death because once we pass on, we go to where we came from. Each human possess a wonderful gift, a soul. We are the crown of god's creation. No animal pales in comparison to our intellect, our yearning desire to live and our capacity to love or hate. Nature is balanced. For death there is life, for doubt their is hope, for sadness there is happiness and for hate there is love. For our desire to live and meet our loved ones once again, god fulfills that.


So how do you handle the historical problems?
Please elaborate. I'm not aware of any historical problems. Do you mean contradictions? Almost 95% of contradictions are solved with different definitions or meaning of the terms or a different time period. The other contradictions could be errors from copying or from the scholars. The bible is gods word but it was written by man. Any contradictions do not interfere with the prophecy. The overall message is clear.


The bible talks about a great flood. Evidence for a global flood in the same time period is evident through science. God made a period of a week of darkness as a plague. The sun is off by that amount. The bible states woman was created by a rib from man. A woman has one less rib than a man. I believe that the only thing god created was the universe through the big bang, the laws of nature and man.

[schemanista]

Please elaborate. I'm not aware of any historical problems.
Well, here's one (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html)
which I've never been able to get a Christian to address. There's also Dougherty's (http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/) work, problems with textual authenticity, etc. etc.

Where would you like to start?

[schemanista]

First off that would destroy his whole plan of free will. He doesn't create robots. He loves us so much he gives us the right to choose our fate. If you disbelieve in god he gives you wish and gives you eternal death. If you accept him and Jesus Christ for the sin of man you can enter eternal life.
So why did he show himself to the apostles? How come they were special?

[ocmpoma]

"...our soul is what matters in this temporary earth."
"God is the father and we are the sheep."
These two quotes are blatant examples of how Christianity undermines self-worth, the importance of our lives, and our role as parts of a larger, interlinking network. Thinking like this excuses every atrocity committed against ourselves, each other, and future generations.

By the way, isn't that the same link you posted earlier? The one that Tenspace dutifully looked at and dismissed?

And finally:
"A woman has one less rib than a man."
This is pure, unadulterated, 100% BS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rib). For the love of Aphrodite, read something besides the Bible!
http://scd.mm-b.yimg.com/image/176154842

[chris26]

I'm not historian. With anything else, there are things we cannot answer. Science like religion has questions we cannot answer. While evolution has a strong base, it still has holes either indicating it is false or we just don't know yet. Does that mean we totally dismiss it? For every question concerning the historically correctiveness of the Bible, there are 20 dead on historically correct proofs.

http://www.spotlightministries.org.uk/acts.htm

http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/ds/q0402/

http://www.seeking4truth.com/historical_accuracy_of_the_bible.htm

http://www.slsoftware.com/study/html_outlines/Accuracy_Of_The_Bible.html

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t003.html

http://www.myfortress.org/archaeology.html

http://www.cornerstoneuk.org.uk/q3_historic3.html


The bible is too correct in my opinion to quickly dismiss it as a bunch of myths. This is not Greek Mythology here. Christianity in reality is the only feasible religion to believe in as it is the only religion where the God is possible to exist. Also, no other religions deal with the issue of sin. For a 2,000 year old book, the bible is pretty significant. Just like a theory, if 90% of it is feasible to believe in and 10% is not, it is still reasonable to believe in it. Like the theory of evolution, even though we only know maybe 20% of the fossil record it is still quite reasonable to believe in it.

[ocmpoma]

"Christianity in reality is the only feasible religion to believe in as it is the only religion where the God is possible to exist. Also, no other religions deal with the issue of sin."

Seriously. Go to a library. Get a book - any book - that is a work of non-fictional and non-religious in origin. Read it. Seriously.

[chris26]

"...our soul is what matters in this temporary earth."
"God is the father and we are the sheep."
These two quotes are blatant examples of how Christianity undermines self-worth, the importance of our lives, and our role as parts of a larger, interlinking network. Thinking like this excuses every atrocity committed against ourselves, each other, and future generations.

By the way, isn't that the same link you posted earlier? The one that Tenspace dutifully looked at and dismissed?

And finally:
"A woman has one less rib than a man."
This is pure, unadulterated, 100% BS. For the love of Aphrodite, read something besides the Bible!
Thanks, I didn't know that. I never researched that statement but I've heard it from others so I believed it to be true. I do read things other than the bible. Why don't you read anything else except articles refuting the bible? I spend much of my time reading many articles. Why am I in an atheist forum? Am I blinding myself to other positions on religion? I dont see Christian forums at the top of the screen...?

Christianity undermines self-worth. :lol:

Christianity says we are the ultimate creation from god. We have souls. We aren't some mutated ape. Hmm, we're a holy being or an ape formed by evolution. I think a holy being being the crown of god's creation is a stronger case for self-worth thank you very much.

"Christianity in reality is the only feasible religion to believe in as it is the only religion where the God is possible to exist. Also, no other religions deal with the issue of sin."

Seriously. Go to a library. Get a book - any book - that is a work of non-fictional and non-religious in origin. Read it. Seriously.
I spend much of my on the internet reading about the big bang, how life arose, the phenomena of light energy, physics, theories proposed as to what brought about the laws of nature, the other dimensions of the universe, how our universe works etc. I find myself reading more science articles 90% of the time than the bible.... I love science, I take Physics. I find our universe fascinating and the knowledge one can gain in this life is endless. I have a huge thirst for knowledge. I guess that still shows I'm some bible finatic. Your hostility to religion is making it evident as to why you refuse to even consider it in the first place. ;)

Your hostility and quick dismissal is not going to make yourself more open to possibilities. I am extremely open. Once I find the bible unfeasible to believe in then I'll dismiss it. Until then, I'll take it to heart and live my life by it. The bible says to search for the truth, and well, I am.

I guess this idiot will continue to bury himself in the bible :rolleyes:

Damn, this forum is filled with many people with hatred toward religion. I except your belief, why do you automatically assume I'm folly for believing in the bible?

[ocmpoma]

Mostly I read history, science, evolution, mathematics... hell, here's (http://geocities.com/ocmpoma/Biblio-File.mdb) a list, if you're really curious. I hardly ever read things that specifically refute the Bible. If I did, I'd have to spend time reading things that refute every other religious text. That would be a waste. The Bible is self-evidently untrue and its teachings are insidious.

Let's see - would you rather be a 'mutated ape' or a sheep made from dirt? Would you rather be a unique individual or some sky-boy's entertainment source? Would you rather assign meaning to your life or spend it bowing down in mindless worship of some being that obviously doesn't need you (since it's perfectly willing to send you to Hell)? Would you rather have the future open before you, or have it laid out as part of our sky-daddy's big Plan?

By the way, you said:
"I believe in the bible, evolution, old earth and the big bang."
and
"We aren't some mutated ape."
Are you sure you think evolution is factual? Because it pretty much says that humans are primates - you know, a 'mutated ape'

[chris26]

There is much evidence for evolution. However, there is no real evidence humans were a product of evolution. Humans suddenly appeared. There is a gap between humans and primates or what ever the hell they are. I believe god let the earth form life and that god only created man as man is the point of all creation.

Your view of religion and god is extremely incorrect and biased. Your description of god is totally wrong. You take religion the way you want it. You want it to look folly and pointless, then you make yourself. You can look at a car and make yourself believe it is the ugliest thing ever made. You can look at it in a different perspective and notice all the fine craftsmanship put into it and it's ingenuity.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/hell.html

Would you rather have the future open before you, or have it laid out as part of our sky-daddy's big Plan?
Oh yes, we do have a marvelous future. :) How it was laid out is what makes it that much more marvelous. Nothing on this earth can suffice as to what is possible once this body returns to the ground.

[ocmpoma]

Right. Perhaps you should get a book about human evolution when you go to the library.
My view is not incorrect. Viewpoints are personal. None are objectively correct or incorrect - they're just different. For example:

You think that falling on your knees in a pathetic display of self-abasement is a good thing. I'd rather stay on my feet.
You think being led around like a pack animal by a guy with a stick is a good thing. I'd rather tell him to shove the crook up his ass.
You'd rather have some being whom you cannot understand take away your ability to think, make decisions, or take responsibility for your actions (that's what a Plan which exists for the future means, by the way). I'd rather live my own life.
You'd rahter have everything on this Earth and in this life mean absolutely nothing - if that's not destructive of self-worth, I don't know what is. I'd rather have life, and self, mean everything.

[schemanista]

I'm not historian. With anything else, there are things we cannot answer. Science like religion has questions we cannot answer. While evolution has a strong base, it still has holes either indicating it is false or we just don't know yet. Does that mean we totally dismiss it? For every question concerning the historically correctiveness of the Bible, there are 20 dead on historically correct proofs.
Proofs? Please. The authors of the new testament were crafting their story specifically to make sure that it appeared as if old testament prophecies were fulfilled.

The biggest problem in scholarship that you face is that the gospels were written after the epistles. As the gospels progress from earliest (Mark) to latest (John) they show growing signs of embellishment and a gradual Hellenizing of their message. Read against the historical backdrop of Gnostic Christianity, the gospels really only make sense if they are seen as apologetic texts intended to establish an orthodoxy in the hurricane of competing second century CE Christian sects. And Acts was made up out of whole cloth. Contemporary scholarship is almost unanimous in agreeing that all of the speeches in Acts were later interpolations.

A good place to start would be Bruce Metzger's work. Don't worry, he's a Christian as well as a historian so he shouldn't lead you too far astray.

Whatever you do, don't read Dougherty's The Jesus Puzzle, nor Dennis R. MacDonald's Review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. ;)

The bible is too correct in my opinion to quickly dismiss it as a bunch of myths. This is not Greek Mythology here.
Oh the irony. Maybe you should read MacDonald's book. You'll see disturbing parallels between the Bible and Greek Mythology.

Christianity in reality is the only feasible religion to believe in as it is the only religion where the God is possible to exist.
Come again? Muslims might disagree with you about that one. And I know some Hindus who just know you're wrong about that.

[schemanista]

There is much evidence for evolution. However, there is no real evidence humans were a product of evolution. Humans suddenly appeared.
Oh, how embarrassing (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html) for you.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/hell.html
You're, like, the 20th Christian to refer someone to that site. I'll ask you the same thing I asked the other 19: okay, I see the "God", where's the "science"?

[Paul123]

First off that would destroy his whole plan of free will. He doesn't create robots. He loves us so much he gives us the right to choose our fate. If you disbelieve in god he gives you wish and gives you eternal death. If you accept him and Jesus Christ for the sin of man you can enter eternal life.
So why did he show himself to the apostles? How come they were special?
And why did he inform us he exists?

[Micah12]

Um, if there was stuff before the big bang (big dud) then where did it come from?
Still haven't read the book?

Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: read the goddamn book.

Or at least read this article (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/bigbangredux.shtml).
I read the article. I found several things wrong with it. He said: "the universe began in a small, superheated state" 14 billion years ago. BEGAN? So when the universe started it was just already there? I would like to know where the universe came from. And where the energy to heat that universe came from.

[Dux]

I would like to know where the universe came from.
And I would like to know where god came from, but obviously I'm not going to get a straightforward answer to that.

[schemanista]

I read the article. I found several things wrong with it.
Oh, do tell?

He said: "the universe began in a small, superheated state" 14 billion years ago. BEGAN? So when the universe started it was just already there? I would like to know where the universe came from. And where the energy to heat that universe came from.
Well, if you brush up on your high school math and apply for certain educational grants, you could begin an undergraduate degree in physics. That should take you about 4 years. Then you could apply for post-graduate studies, specializing in astrophysics. You can then compete for grants which will get you telescope and computer time so that you can painstakingly check the last two decades of radio astronomy and optical telescopy, plus design computer simulations to tell you that the answer to your question is "we don't know"

There is a temporal threshold (Plank time) beyond which we cannot observe because cosmologists speculate that the conditions of the proto-universe were so different that none of our existing tools can measure them. Remember that matter, space and time were all compressed into singularity.

Yes, if you want to be intellectually lazy, you can scoff at this necessary expression of scientific honesty and insist that it must have been God who created the universe because scientists can only speculate about the conditions which existed before Plank time. But your problem is that naturalistic assumptions about the universe, on which science is predicated, are demonstrable and verifiable. If you invoke a supernatural explanation for cosmic genesis then you have to try to explain why he left no evidence behind.

So tell me, oh enlightend YEC, why God created a universe whose gross physical characteristics could only lead an honest researcher to conclude that the best explanation for its origins was the current inflationary universe theory? The IUT (what you call the Big Bang) doesn't assume anything other than what can be observed. Your god hypothesis invokes a process which has never been verifiably observed, cannot be tested and is impossible to falsify because it's a creative fiction, a meme if you will, which is the product of human imagination.

The exact same reasoning holds for evolutionary theories: if God spontaneously created all life on this planet no earlier than about 6,000 years ago, why did he design the earth so that it appeared to have rock strata billions of years old? Why also did he embed fossils in those strata indicating that life had been gradually developing in complexity over the course of a couple of billion years? Why did god arrange the evidence so that any responsible observer could not help but deduce that all life had common ancestory and demonstrated a progression of complexity over the years? Why would he go the additional length of re-setting the radioisotope "clocks" so that it would appear to an honest researcher that the universe was older than the earth and that both were older by several orders of magnitude than the 6,000 years accounted for by some creationists? That's the mountain of evidence upon which scientific claims are based.

All you have is the Chewbacca Defence.

Now we come to the point I've been making all along. You reject science as a matter of faith and refuse to learn anything about it: fine, that's your choice. But when you attempt to discuss something that you know nothing about, you come across as an illiterate asstool and the only responsible way to debate you is to mock you in the most viscious manner possible.

Once you've read A Brief History of Time get ahold of Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God. Miller is a Christian who carefully outlines the evidence for evolution and refutes your brand of creationism. While I can't adopt his religious position, I respect him for refusing to let his Christianity taint his science and his science obliterate his Christianity.

And please do tell me what's wrong with Carrier's evidence, other than you don't like the argument that he's advancing.

[schemanista]

The following, from an article (http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Brown_Alumni_Magazine/00/11-99/features/darwin.html) by Ken Miller might convince you that evolution and Christianity are not incompatible. As I mentioned, Ken Miller's pinky finger contains more scientific knowledge than I will obtain in my lifetime, so while I cannot adopt his faith for myself, I cannot help but respect the man and the clarity of his thinking. Christian apologists could learn a lot from him. They might not even come across as total buffoons when discussing religion with materialists and could actually have a greater chance of getting the other side to listen to their message.

We know from astronomy, for example, that the universe had a beginning, from physics that the future is both open and unpredictable, from geology and paleontology that the whole of life has been a process of change and transformation. From biology we know that our tissues are not impenetrable reservoirs of vital magic, but a stunning matrix of complex wonders, ultimately explicable in terms of biochemistry and molecular biology. With such knowledge we can see, perhaps for the first time, why a Creator would have allowed our species to be fashioned by the process of evolution.

If he so chose, the God whose presence is taught by most Western religions could have fashioned anything, ourselves included, ex nihilo, from his wish alone. In our childhood as a species, that might have been the only way in which we could imagine the fulfillment of a divine will. But we've grown up, and something remarkable has happened: we have begun to understand the physical basis of life itself. If a string of constant miracles were needed for each turn of the cell cycle or each flicker of a cilium, the hand of God would be written directly into every living thing - his presence at the edge of the human sandbox would be unmistakable. Such findings might confirm our faith, but they would also undermine our independence. How could we fairly choose between God and man when the presence and the power of the divine so obviously and so literally controlled our every breath? Our freedom as his creatures requires a little space and integrity. In the material world, it requires self-sufficiency and consistency with the laws of nature.

Evolution is neither more nor less than the result of respecting the reality and consistency of the physical world over time. To fashion material beings with an independent physical existence, any Creator would have had to produce an independent material universe in which our evolution over time was a contingent possibility. A believer in the divine accepts that God's love and gift of freedom are genuine - so genuine that they include the power to choose evil and, if we wish, to freely send ourselves to Hell. Not all believers will accept the stark conditions of that bargain, but our freedom to act has to have a physical and biological basis. Evolution and its sister sciences of genetics and molecular biology provide that basis. In biological terms, evolution is the only way a Creator could have made us the creatures we are - free beings in a world of authentic and meaningful moral and spiritual choices.

Those who ask from science a final argument, an ultimate proof, an unassailable position from which the issue of God may be decided will always be disappointed. As a scientist I claim no new proofs, no revolutionary data, no stunning insight into nature that can tip the balance in one direction or another. But I do claim that to a believer, even in the most traditional sense, evolutionary biology is not at all the obstacle we often believe it to be. In many respects, evolution is the key to understanding our relationship with God.

[Micah12]

I would like to know where the universe came from.
And I would like to know where god came from, but obviously I'm not going to get a straightforward answer to that.
If you knew that you wouldn't get a straight forward answer than why did you ask?

If you give it a little thought you will probably realize that the universe has no end. If the universe had an end, such as a brick wall, after a little while you would begin to wonder what was beyond the end, right? It will blow your mind, after a while, if you think about it. In the same way God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal.

[chris26]

And I would like to know where god came from, but obviously I'm not going to get a straightforward answer to that.
And I'd like an answer as to how the laws of the universe came about. Did they come about after the big bang or were they there before? They can't be before because before the big bang time did not exist (complete nothingness). They can't come after the big bang because the big bang would require these laws to even start. You cannot create a universe and it's laws at the same exact time. What came first, the chicken or the egg.

You want a straightforward answer? God exists outside the universe. Just as a watchmaker exists outside the watch, god exists outside the universe. He is not confined to the 11 dimensions we live in. Gee, no wonder god is not evident in the universe....



Right. Perhaps you should get a book about human evolution when you go to the library.
My view is not incorrect. Viewpoints are personal. None are objectively correct or incorrect - they're just different. For example:

You think that falling on your knees in a pathetic display of self-abasement is a good thing. I'd rather stay on my feet.
You think being led around like a pack animal by a guy with a stick is a good thing. I'd rather tell him to shove the crook up his ass.
You'd rather have some being whom you cannot understand take away your ability to think, make decisions, or take responsibility for your actions (that's what a Plan which exists for the future means, by the way). I'd rather live my own life.
You'd rahter have everything on this Earth and in this life mean absolutely nothing - if that's not destructive of self-worth, I don't know what is. I'd rather have life, and self, mean everything.
If you understood christianity, you would not post this incompetant rubbish. You have every right not to follow. If you don't want to follow, do as you wish. Jesus stated if he knocked on the door of your soul and you answered he will come unto you. None of this is necessary, if you refuse God's plan. Now you begin to see your statement is pointless. You can sit their waxing your car all day and I can bash you over the head with a can of turtle wax and mock you saying, "oh look how you worship that car." To me, it is foolish but to you, it is an important work, one that has meaning and one that shows results. It is not foolish to you.

And why did he inform us he exists?
Ahh, good question. It is not through good deeds we have been saved, but by faith alone as we have been saved by grace. God created the universe but man with their own free will, turned to sin (adam and eve). God did not need to make himself known if there was no sin as love glorifies god and therefore no redemption of sins was needed before sin. Therefore, because of the sin of adam and eve, through god the bible was written by man to promise a savior to redeem us of our sins and it was necessary for god to make himself known. God made it evident that we must repent for our sins and accept jesus christ to bridge the gap of sin between man and god. God expects us to show the same love back. Once sin came into play, god had to inform man that he exists to prevent us from dying from our sins.

Oh, how embarrassing for you.
Yes.......your point? God says he created man and breathed the breath of life into him. No wonder why humans are amazingly smart compared to chimps. Chimps hanging around in a cage eating bananas all day while humans build skyscrapers and airplanes. Wow, there is a huge leap there. How did we go from a chimp chucking spears to an all of the suddent advanced creature?

You have millions of years of evolution and than all of the sudden man becomes highly intelligent? Overall, I agree with the theory of evolution and it's basis but there are holes in it.


Well, if you brush up on your high school math and apply for certain educational grants, you could begin an undergraduate degree in physics. That should take you about 4 years. Then you could apply for post-graduate studies, specializing in astrophysics. You can then compete for grants which will get you telescope and computer time so that you can painstakingly check the last two decades of radio astronomy and optical telescopy, plus design computer simulations to tell you that the answer to your question is "we don't know"

There is a temporal threshold (Plank time) beyond which we cannot observe because cosmologists speculate that the conditions of the proto-universe were so different that none of our existing tools can measure them. Remember that matter, space and time were all compressed into singularity.

Yes, if you want to be intellectually lazy, you can scoff at this necessary expression of scientific honesty and insist that it must have been God who created the universe because scientists can only speculate about the conditions which existed before Plank time. But your problem is that naturalistic assumptions about the universe, on which science is predicated, are demonstrable and verifiable. If you invoke a supernatural explanation for cosmic genesis then you have to try to explain why he left no evidence behind.

So tell me, oh enlightend YEC, why God created a universe whose gross physical characteristics could only lead an honest researcher to conclude that the best explanation for its origins was the current inflationary universe theory? The IUT (what you call the Big Bang) doesn't assume anything other than what can be observed. Your god hypothesis invokes a process which has never been verifiably observed, cannot be tested and is impossible to falsify because it's a creative fiction, a meme if you will, which is the product of human imagination.

The exact same reasoning holds for evolutionary theories: if God spontaneously created all life on this planet no earlier than about 6,000 years ago, why did he design the earth so that it appeared to have rock strata billions of years old? Why also did he embed fossils in those strata indicating that life had been gradually developing in complexity over the course of a couple of billion years? Why did god arrange the evidence so that any responsible observer could not help but deduce that all life had common ancestory and demonstrated a progression of complexity over the years? Why would he go the additional length of re-setting the radioisotope "clocks" so that it would appear to an honest researcher that the universe was older than the earth and that both were older by several orders of magnitude than the 6,000 years accounted for by some creationists? That's the mountain of evidence upon which scientific claims are based.

All you have is the Chewbacca Defence.

Now we come to the point I've been making all along. You reject science as a matter of faith and refuse to learn anything about it: fine, that's your choice. But when you attempt to discuss something that you know nothing about, you come across as an illiterate asstool and the only responsible way to debate you is to mock you in the most viscious manner possible.

Once you've read A Brief History of Time get ahold of Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God. Miller is a Christian who carefully outlines the evidence for evolution and refutes your brand of creationism. While I can't adopt his religious position, I respect him for refusing to let his Christianity taint his science and his science obliterate his Christianity.
Young earth creationists are fools. They deny every evidence. They wear diamond rings that took millions of years to form and wig out when they realize that ring wouldn't have a diamond on it if the earth were 6,000 years old. The bible translation of a day is not literal. There is lots of evidence for long days in scripture, periods of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The creation of earth as the bible states it is in the same chronological order as what science tells us.

[chris26]

Theoretically the universe does have an end. It does have boundaries but ouside it nothing exists. It is expanding at such a rate that it can be said it doesn't end. It is still in creation.

We can also tell the universe is constantly expanding by the galaxies drifting apart indicating the universe is not a closed system. Secondly, we can see stars being created, new galaxies forming and such. However, the light we see from them is billions of years old as it takes that long for the light to reach us.

[Dux]

If you knew that you wouldn't get a straight forward answer than why did you ask?

If you give it a little thought you will probably realize that the universe has no end. If the universe had an end, such as a brick wall, after a little while you would begin to wonder what was beyond the end, right? It will blow your mind, after a while, if you think about it. In the same way God has no beginning and no end. He is eternal.
And then you purposely ignored the fine post above, by schemanista.

You still haven't answered, though.

And I'd like an answer as to how the laws of the universe came about. Did they come about after the big bang or were they there before? They can't be before because before the big bang time did not exist (complete nothingness). They can't come after the big bang because the big bang would require these laws to even start. You cannot create a universe and it's laws at the same exact time. What came first, the chicken or the egg.
You're talking about the chicken and the egg, and don't see a problem with an eternal god? I'm no expert in physics, for one, but I do know that there are still problems to be solved. The difference is that physics rely on logic, while you rely on the text of a book you have no way of knowing the author(s) to, and what their purpose was. But ok, say that almost every physicist on this planet is wrong. Let's say that there's not one shred of evidence in favor of the big bang-theory, or better yet a non-godly origin. The same could be said about the god-theory. Why would the god-theory be more valid?

[schemanista]

Yes.......your point?
Did you read the link? You said there was no evolutionary progression from primates to human. The Fossil Hominid FAQ establishes that link for you. That's why you should be embarrassed: you made an unsupported assertion which was proved wrong.

God says he created man and breathed the breath of life into him. No wonder why humans are amazingly smart compared to chimps. Chimps hanging around in a cage eating bananas all day while humans build skyscrapers and airplanes. Wow, there is a huge leap there. How did we go from a chimp chucking spears to an all of the suddent advanced creature? You have millions of years of evolution and than all of the sudden man becomes highly intelligent? Overall, I agree with the theory of evolution and it's basis but there are holes in it.
Please keep your argument straight. Are you even aware that you're retreating from your assertion that there is no established evolutionary lineage for the primate branch and now you're trying to bootstrap Intelligent Design by invoking the 'Great Leap Forward'?

C'mon, do you want to discuss the fossil record or not? If not, then don't bring it up in support of your argument. And modern chimps are modern primates, why are you even discussing them? I'm seriously doubting your earlier claim that you read about evolution. If you do, you're not paying much attention to the evidence.

Edit I realized upon re-reading, that you weren't limiting your assertion to the fossil record. My bad. Still, my point stands on the broader evidence for humans as the evolutionary members of the primate taxonomy. How do you want to establish this? Want to look at the genotype? Want to discuss other taxonomic similarities? I'm game.

I will admit that, given geologic time scales, to go from simple primates to Cro-Magnon cave paintings does seem "sudden". Does it seem so sudden if you realize that this development occurred over more than a million years and correlates with increases in brain size? Does it seem sudden if the patterns of stone tools from homo habilis through homos erectus, neanderthalis, heidelbergensis to sapiens shows a steady development in sophistication and technique?

Yes, homo sapiens sapiens is different: compare the last two centuries of technical progress with the previous thirty five and it's breathtaking. But it's not completely inexplicable if one combines increasing brain mass with a "critical mass" of population, allowing larger social networks to accelerate the pace of information exchange.

Young earth creationists are fools. They deny every evidence. They wear diamond rings that took millions of years to form and wig out when they realize that ring wouldn't have a diamond on it if the earth were 6,000 years old. The bible translation of a day is not literal. There is lots of evidence for long days in scripture, periods of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The creation of earth as the bible states it is in the same chronological order as what science tells us.
What do you mean by "long days"? Are you speaking figuratively, as in "each day really means several years", or do you mean exactly "the days were longer than they are now". If it's the latter, you've just made another gaffe.

[chris26]

Please keep your argument straight. Are you even aware that you're retreating from your assertion that there is no established evolutionary lineage for the primate branch and now you're trying to bootstrap Intelligent Design by invoking the 'Great Leap Forward'?

C'mon, do you want to discuss the fossil record or not? If not, then don't bring it up in support of your argument. And modern chimps are modern primates, why are you even discussing them? I'm seriously doubting your earlier claim that you read about evolution. If you do, you're not paying much attention to the evidence.

I will admit that, given geologic time scales, to go from simple primates to Cro-Magnon cave paintings does seem "sudden". Does it seem so sudden if you realize that this development occurred over more than a million years and correlates with increases in brain size? Does it seem sudden if the patterns of stone tools from homo habilis through homos erectus, neanderthalis, heidelbergensis to sapiens shows a steady development in sophistication and technique?

Yes, homo sapiens sapiens is different: compare the last two centuries of technical progress with the previous thirty five and it's breathtaking. But it's not completely inexplicable if one combines increasing brain mass with a "critical mass" of population, allowing larger social networks to accelerate the pace of information exchange.
It's quite possible they are primates and were not given souls. It is possible God let man evolve to make him most suitable by his invironment through his creation of nature. Then he would take man as he saw it was good at that point and gave him a soul. Perhaps, humans were created and those primates had nothing to do with man. Quite honestly, I don't have the answer to that. And yes, I read your link. Overall, it does not prove the bible part on the creation of man wrong. When god says he formed man from the dust of the earth it doesn't specify if that was already done through evolution or god made man right there at that moment.

What do you mean by "long days"? Are you speaking figuratively, as in "each day really means several years", or do you mean exactly "the days were longer than they are now". If it's the latter, you've just made another gaffe.
Each day is longer than a 24 hour period of time. Much evidence is shown in the bible that a day to god is not a literal 24 hours. Other words are used to describe days that are actually 24 hours. I agree, that latter would be a foolish statement.

[Micah12]

Theoretically the universe does have an end. It does have boundaries but ouside it nothing exists. It is expanding at such a rate that it can be said it doesn't end. It is still in creation.

We can also tell the universe is constantly expanding by the galaxies drifting apart indicating the universe is not a closed system. Secondly, we can see stars being created, new galaxies forming and such. However, the light we see from them is billions of years old as it takes that long for the light to reach us.
We don't see stars forming. We might see a dust cloud moving out of the way and a star behind it.

The Bible says that God made everything mature. He made Adam at an able age, He made the trees already grown. This would explain why we see light from stars billions of light years away.

The Bible does talk about God stretching out the heavens or universe.

[chris26]

The bible says that God made everything mature.
Can you provide that verse? I've never heard anything to that effect. I'm curious.

[schemanista]

We don't see stars forming. We might see a dust cloud moving out of the way and a star behind it.
You just keep settin' 'em up and I'll jes keep knocking (http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2003/cloverleaf/) 'em (http://www.astrosmo.unam.mx/rmaa/RMxAC..15/PDF/RMxAC..15_megeath.pdf) down (http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~hanes/p014/Notes/Topic_063.html).

The Bible says that God made everything mature. He made Adam at an able age, He made the trees already grown. This would explain why we see light from stars billions of light years away.

The Bible does talk about God stretching out the heavens or universe.
The sound you hear is not people laughing with you...

[schemanista]

It's quite possible they are primates and were not given souls. It is possible God let man evolve to make him most suitable by his invironment through his creation of nature. Then he would take man as he saw it was good at that point and gave him a soul.
The only supportable argument for ID would be at the 'Great Leap Forward'. If I were going to argue for the embuement of homo sapiens sapiens with this mystical, unmeasurable, unverifiable essence called the "soul" that would be the only sensible place for it to occur.

Perhaps, humans were created and those primates had nothing to do with man. Quite honestly, I don't have the answer to that. And yes, I read your link. Overall, it does not prove the bible part on the creation of man wrong. When god says he formed man from the dust of the earth it doesn't specify if that was already done through evolution or god made man right there at that moment.
Keep reachin', kid. Why not just admit that Genesis is a myth and its only purpose is to establish God as the creator of this universe? You don't need to make any attempt to rationalize it with historical facts and your faith shouldn't suffer as a result. It's just a story that tells an important "truth" about God, not something to be accepted as fact.

So when the materialist says to you "at what point did humans get souls", you can just respond "who knows and why is it relevant?" ;)

Each day is longer than a 24 hour period of time. Much evidence is shown in the bible that a day to god is not a literal 24 hours. Other words are used to describe days that are actually 24 hours. I agree, that latter would be a foolish statement.
Okay, just checking.

[Micah12]

I read the article. I found several things wrong with it.
Oh, do tell?

He said: "the universe began in a small, superheated state" 14 billion years ago. BEGAN? So when the universe started it was just already there? I would like to know where the universe came from. And where the energy to heat that universe came from.
Well, if you brush up on your high school math and apply for certain educational grants, you could begin an undergraduate degree in physics. That should take you about 4 years. Then you could apply for post-graduate studies, specializing in astrophysics. You can then compete for grants which will get you telescope and computer time so that you can painstakingly check the last two decades of radio astronomy and optical telescopy, plus design computer simulations to tell you that the answer to your question is "we don't know"

There is a temporal threshold (Plank time) beyond which we cannot observe because cosmologists speculate that the conditions of the proto-universe were so different that none of our existing tools can measure them. Remember that matter, space and time were all compressed into singularity.

Yes, if you want to be intellectually lazy, you can scoff at this necessary expression of scientific honesty and insist that it must have been God who created the universe because scientists can only speculate about the conditions which existed before Plank time. But your problem is that naturalistic assumptions about the universe, on which science is predicated, are demonstrable and verifiable. If you invoke a supernatural explanation for cosmic genesis then you have to try to explain why he left no evidence behind.

So tell me, oh enlightend YEC, why God created a universe whose gross physical characteristics could only lead an honest researcher to conclude that the best explanation for its origins was the current inflationary universe theory? The IUT (what you call the Big Bang) doesn't assume anything other than what can be observed. Your god hypothesis invokes a process which has never been verifiably observed, cannot be tested and is impossible to falsify because it's a creative fiction, a meme if you will, which is the product of human imagination.

The exact same reasoning holds for evolutionary theories: if God spontaneously created all life on this planet no earlier than about 6,000 years ago, why did he design the earth so that it appeared to have rock strata billions of years old? Why also did he embed fossils in those strata indicating that life had been gradually developing in complexity over the course of a couple of billion years? Why did god arrange the evidence so that any responsible observer could not help but deduce that all life had common ancestory and demonstrated a progression of complexity over the years? Why would he go the additional length of re-setting the radioisotope "clocks" so that it would appear to an honest researcher that the universe was older than the earth and that both were older by several orders of magnitude than the 6,000 years accounted for by some creationists? That's the mountain of evidence upon which scientific claims are based.

All you have is the Chewbacca Defence.

Now we come to the point I've been making all along. You reject science as a matter of faith and refuse to learn anything about it: fine, that's your choice. But when you attempt to discuss something that you know nothing about, you come across as an illiterate asstool and the only responsible way to debate you is to mock you in the most viscious manner possible.

Once you've read A Brief History of Time get ahold of Ken Miller's Finding Darwin's God. Miller is a Christian who carefully outlines the evidence for evolution and refutes your brand of creationism. While I can't adopt his religious position, I respect him for refusing to let his Christianity taint his science and his science obliterate his Christianity.

And please do tell me what's wrong with Carrier's evidence, other than you don't like the argument that he's advancing.
"We don't know" it just happened. That is very convincing I'm telling you what.

The rock strata (God created) is not billions of years old. A World-wide flood is the answer for that. The water stirred up the sediment and it settled out into layers covering and fossilizing many of the little creatures.

There are many things that prove a young universe. The planets are still hot. If you came into a room and I said: Don't touch that cup of coffee its hot. You say: Well, who's is it? I say: I don't know it's been sitting there for 4,000 years.
The planets wouldn't be hot if they were a few billion years old.

I do not reject science I love it. What I reject is a fairy tale that ya'll are calling science, and using our tax dollars to put it in the public schools.

You said: The only way to debate you is to mock you in the most vicious manner.

Whoever throws mud, loses ground.

I don't read fairy tales. I guess that's why I don't know much about your theory.

As for Ken Miller, I wouldn't believe in a God that would be dumb enough to use your stupid theory to create everything. The Bible says that by man death was brought into the world. Ken Miller says that by the evolution theory death brought man into the world. Ken Miller is not a true Christian.

[schemanista]

"We don't know" it just happened. That is very convincing I'm telling you what.
That's called intellectual honesty. I'm not surprised that you don't recognize it when you see it.

The rock strata (God created) is not billions of years old. A World-wide flood is the answer for that. The water stirred up the setiment and it settled out into layers covering and fossilizing many of the little creatures.
Okay, we're definitely in tinfoil hat territory now. Aren't you the least bit embarrassed by your own conduct?

There are many things that prove a young universe. The planets are still hot. If you came into a room and I said: Don't touch that cup of coffee its hot. You say: Well, who's is it? I say: I don't know it's been sitting there for 4,000 years.

The planets wouldn't be hot if they were a few billion years.
So when a volcano erupts, the lava is only hot because it was warmed by Satan's fire, right? Or are there lava angels who warm it up so that it can flow properly, and are they related to the guy who turns the light off in your refrigerator?

The cup of coffee would be hot if it was subjected to the same pressures as those in the earth's mantle, was re-heated constantly through the process of radioactive decay and if it had been surrounded by an extremely efficient insulating medium (interplanetary vacuum). But like everything else, don't let a little bit of investigation prevent you from playing an idiot on the internet.

I do not reject science I love it.
You wouldn't recognize it if it came up and kicked you in the ass. See, there it goes again! And all the time you thought it was me doing that.

What I reject is a fairy tale that ya'll are calling science, and using our tax dollars to put it in the public schools.
Would those be the same public schools that are planned, built, heated/cooled, and lit with the results of centuries of scientific inquiry (I noticed you completely dodged that point, several posts back--or maybe the computer angels forgot to paint it on your monitor)?

Whoever throws mud, loses ground.
Fortunately, I've got acres and acres of it to fling. And your mother wears army boots. Or something witty.

I don't read fairy tales. I guess that's why I don't know much about your theory.
The truly funny thing is that you think I'm worse off for this.

[schemanista]

As for Ken Miller, I wouldn't believe in a God that would be dumb enough to use your stupid theory to create everything. The Bible says that by man death was brought into the world. Ken Miller says that by the evolution theory death brought man into the world. Ken Miller is not a true Christian.
But you're a true moron. Thanks for playing. But next time, try to address some of the really difficult points that I made, eh?

[sog345]

From what it appears Micah12 is not any kind of moron. It look like his is right on, in fact. If you've got acres and acres of mud to sling go ahead and sling it, cause it won't hurt me. There will come a day when you won't have any mud to throw, cause you will be kneeling in front of God begging for mercy. You have seen the truth here, do not reject it! Jesus Christ is Lord and King! One day you and the rest of us will kneel down before Him.




Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

[schemanista]

From what it appears Micah12 is not any kind of moron. It look like his is right on, in fact. If you've got acres and acres of mud to sling go ahead and sling it, cause it won't hurt me. There will come a day when you won't have any mud to throw, cause you will be kneeling in front of God begging for mercy. You have seen the truth here, do not reject it! Jesus Christ is Lord and King! One day you and the rest of us will kneel down before Him.
You guys were in Zoolander together, weren't you?

Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
Look, a new toy! Can I keep him? Huh, can I?

[chris26]

Keep reachin', kid. Why not just admit that Genesis is a myth and its only purpose is to establish God as the creator of this universe? You don't need to make any attempt to rationalize it with historical facts and your faith shouldn't suffer as a result. It's just a story that tells an important "truth" about God, not something to be accepted as fact.

So when the materialist says to you "at what point did humans get souls", you can just respond "who knows and why is it relevant?"
Is that you speaking or god? :lol:

Wow, its nice to see kindness/support for a change like that. :) Too many times I find myself getting hostile over things as others do to me when that serves no purpose.

Quite honestly, I don't know. Perhaps it isn't even important to know. Maybe it's foolish to even try to find the truth. Perhaps, our goal is to just worry about what we have and not worry about things we can't grasp. Instead of greediliy grasping answers, we should help the others in this world. The poor person does not need to know about the big bang. They need food, shelter, clothing and love just like anyone else. I sometimes take a step back and ask myself why is it such a big deal? We are here so why worry about it and live life to the fullest and believe in what you want to believe. That's the great thing about life, it is ours for the taking and we can live life however we want. I personally believe in god because god gives me hope, answers the unknown to me and placing my faith in him makes me feel good. I'll admit that whatever findings I come across, I will build my faith in god around that. Perhaps god is hope and hope is god. What is it that gets us out of bed in the morning. Perhaps it is just human nature or the motivation of god. I'm sure if there is a god, he is laughing at us trying to even fathom. We probobly know 1% of what there is to know. Maybe the true kind of act is to do something and stick to it instead of saying, "everything is in the hand of god." We can't sit around. The action is in our hands.

The rest is details to me. Life is too great to worry about these things. One must seek what make him happy. If religion makes man happy, than it has served its purpose. :)

[Little Earth Stamper]

What the hell is this "animals don't have souls" bullcrap?

Thousands of years of asian and American religion would have to be wrong for this to be true, and there's no evidence of it.

Micah: Go away and do a lot more reading about viewpoints opposing your own. Other people have answered your questions better then we can, and you just don't grasp what we "evolutionists" believe well enough for this argument to be anything but frustrating. Come back in a couple of months.

And Sog, you can talk about this made-up Jesus cat all you want, but you'll be smiling on the other side of your face when you're in Mictlan and nobody is sacrificing food to you.

[schemanista]

Wow, its nice to see kindness/support for a change like that. :) Too many times I find myself getting hostile over things as others do to me when that serves no purpose.
Well, even if we couldn't agree on toppings for pizza, there's no reason why we can't have a discussion about issues on which we disagree. I've had to ask for clarification of a couple of your points, but I've found that you're at least willing to discuss the issue and that puts you head and shoulders above your competition here ;)

Quite honestly, I don't know. Perhaps it isn't even important to know. Maybe it's foolish to even try to find the truth. Perhaps, our goal is to just worry about what we have and not worry about things we can't grasp.
Refusing to worry about things over which you have no control is an essential survival skill. But I don't think that you should stop learning and studying.

Instead of greediliy grasping answers, we should help the others in this world. The poor person does not need to know about the big bang. They need food, shelter, clothing and love just like anyone else. I sometimes take a step back and ask myself why is it such a big deal? We are here so why worry about it and live life to the fullest and believe in what you want to believe. That's the great thing about life, it is ours for the taking and we can live life however we want.
There's a noble sentiment but don't get trapped in the "White Man's Burden" mindset. Poverty has many causes, and you can do more harm than good by trying to "save" people who might not be in a position to or not even want to be saved. This is why you shouldn't just turn your brain off and follow your beliefs. Learning as much as you can, as often as possible makes you better equipped to make a difference in the world.


If religion makes man happy, than it has served its purpose. :)
But has it, really? I know that some individuals have found it a useful compass to chart their lives with, but on the whole, are we really better off as believers? Don't mind me, I'm currently plowing through Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches?, so everything has the taste of wormwood to me.

[Micah12]

As for Ken Miller, I wouldn't believe in a God that would be dumb enough to use your stupid theory to create everything. The Bible says that by man death was brought into the world. Ken Miller says that by the evolution theory death brought man into the world. Ken Miller is not a true Christian.
But you're a true moron. Thanks for playing. But next time, try to address some of the really difficult points that I made, eh?
What were some of the difficult points you made?

[Micah12]

What the hell is this "animals don't have souls" bullcrap?

Thousands of years of asian and American religion would have to be wrong for this to be true, and there's no evidence of it.

Micah: Go away and do a lot more reading about viewpoints opposing your own. Other people have answered your questions better then we can, and you just don't grasp what we "evolutionists" believe well enough for this argument to be anything but frustrating. Come back in a couple of months.

And Sog, you can talk about this made-up Jesus cat all you want, but you'll be smiling on the other side of your face when you're in Mictlan and nobody is sacrificing food to you.
"Thousands of years of Asian and American religian would have to be wrong for this to be true"
And those religions can't be wrong. But of course my religion has to be wrong because it goes against your religion. Wait a minute, if you're an atheist than aren't those Asian religions wrong? So anything they say can't be trusted.

[Sir Sin-O-Lot]

What the hell is this "animals don't have souls" bullcrap?

Thousands of years of asian and American religion would have to be wrong for this to be true, and there's no evidence of it.

Micah: Go away and do a lot more reading about viewpoints opposing your own. Other people have answered your questions better then we can, and you just don't grasp what we "evolutionists" believe well enough for this argument to be anything but frustrating. Come back in a couple of months.

And Sog, you can talk about this made-up Jesus cat all you want, but you'll be smiling on the other side of your face when you're in Mictlan and nobody is sacrificing food to you.
"Thousands of years of Asian and American religian would have to be wrong for this to be true"
And those religions can't be wrong. But of course my religion has to be wrong because it goes against your religion. Wait a minute, if you're an atheist than aren't those Asian religions wrong? So anything they say can't be trusted.
You missed the point. What you're saying is contradictory to the Asian religions. But what makes them less plausable than yours?It kind of like saying, you're wrong and I'm right without giving justification.

[Micah12]

"We don't know" it just happened. That is very convincing I'm telling you what.
That's called intellectual honesty. I'm not surprised that you don't recognize it when you see it.

The rock strata (God created) is not billions of years old. A World-wide flood is the answer for that. The water stirred up the setiment and it settled out into layers covering and fossilizing many of the little creatures.
Okay, we're definitely in tinfoil hat territory now. Aren't you the least bit embarrassed by your own conduct?

There are many things that prove a young universe. The planets are still hot. If you came into a room and I said: Don't touch that cup of coffee its hot. You say: Well, who's is it? I say: I don't know it's been sitting there for 4,000 years.

The planets wouldn't be hot if they were a few billion years.
So when a volcano erupts, the lava is only hot because it was warmed by Satan's fire, right? Or are there lava angels who warm it up so that it can flow properly, and are they related to the guy who turns the light off in your refrigerator?

The cup of coffee would be hot if it was subjected to the same pressures as those in the earth's mantle, was re-heated constantly through the process of radioactive decay and if it had been surrounded by an extremely efficient insulating medium (interplanetary vacuum). But like everything else, don't let a little bit of investigation prevent you from playing an idiot on the internet.

I do not reject science I love it.
You wouldn't recognize it if it came up and kicked you in the ass. See, there it goes again! And all the time you thought it was me doing that.

What I reject is a fairy tale that ya'll are calling science, and using our tax dollars to put it in the public schools.
Would those be the same public schools that are planned, built, heated/cooled, and lit with the results of centuries of scientific inquiry (I noticed you completely dodged that point, several posts back--or maybe the computer angels forgot to paint it on your monitor)?

Whoever throws mud, loses ground.
Fortunately, I've got acres and acres of it to fling. And your mother wears army boots. Or something witty.

I don't read fairy tales. I guess that's why I don't know much about your theory.
The truly funny thing is that you think I'm worse off for this.
If you have acres and acres of mud to throw, then throw it. I'll just wipe it off and step on it and gain ground.

Like Sog345 said, you're gonna run out of it some day. And you're going to be on your knees begging for mercy at the throne of your maker. And I'm going to be there watching.

[Sir Sin-O-Lot]

Like Sog345 said, you're gonna run out of it some day. And you're going to be on your knees begging for mercy at the throne of your maker. And I'm going to be there watching.
I highly doubt anyone here will do that.

[Micah12]

What the hell is this "animals don't have souls" bullcrap?

Thousands of years of asian and American religion would have to be wrong for this to be true, and there's no evidence of it.

Micah: Go away and do a lot more reading about viewpoints opposing your own. Other people have answered your questions better then we can, and you just don't grasp what we "evolutionists" believe well enough for this argument to be anything but frustrating. Come back in a couple of months.

And Sog, you can talk about this made-up Jesus cat all you want, but you'll be smiling on the other side of your face when you're in Mictlan and nobody is sacrificing food to you.
"Thousands of years of Asian and American religian would have to be wrong for this to be true"
And those religions can't be wrong. But of course my religion has to be wrong because it goes against your religion. Wait a minute, if you're an atheist than aren't those Asian religions wrong? So anything they say can't be trusted.
You missed the point. What you're saying is contradictory to the Asian religions. But what makes them less plausable than yours?It kind of like saying, you're wrong and I'm right without giving justification.
Where did I say that animals didn't have souls? And I never said that the Asian religions were wrong and I was right. Although I do think my religion is right, just like you think you're religion is correct.

[Micah12]

Like Sog345 said, you're gonna run out of it some day. And you're going to be on your knees begging for mercy at the throne of your maker. And I'm going to be there watching.
I highly doubt anyone here will do that.
Why do you doubt your senses, and resist your conscience.

[Sir Sin-O-Lot]

Like Sog345 said, you're gonna run out of it some day. And you're going to be on your knees begging for mercy at the throne of your maker. And I'm going to be there watching.
I highly doubt anyone here will do that.
Why do you doubt your senses, and resist your conscience.
My senses and conscience are telling me not to believe in a god.
Where did I say that animals didn't have souls? And I never said that the Asian religions were wrong and I was right. Although I do think my religion is right, just like you think you're religion is correct.
Oh really?Well allow me to retort.
religion-Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
The life or condition of a person in a religious order. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

atheism-Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
The doctrine that there is no God or gods. Godlessness; immorality.

Atheism is NOT a religion, I repeat is NOT a religion, and we are skeptical. If you want to play with words at least take the time to know what the fuck they mean.

source: dictionary.com

[Reality Check]

Atheism is NOT a religion, I repeat is NOT a religion, and we are skeptical. If you want to play with words at least take the time to know what the fuck they mean.

source: dictionary.com
Gotcha. Atheism is NOT a religion. So there are a few differences between what you call atheism and what I call religion - which, by the way, is a term I hate with a passion. Religion is the problem with the world today. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only cure for this world. But looking strictly at religion in general - using your dictionary definition - I will agree with you that atheism really doesn't fit the description.

ATHEISM: RELIGION:
1) There is no God. 1) There is a God; He created the world.
2) Man is the highest being. 2) God is the highest Being.
3) Man must therefore be in charge. 3) God must be in charge.

Unfortunately the atheist is still stuck believing in a supreme being, namely, himself. Only he isn't powerful enough to create the universe, or, for that matter, anything without the raw materials being provided for him. He isn't wise enough to govern it; no one has successfully governed/ruled this one planet, much less the universe complete with trillions of stars and innumberable gallazies.

I, on the other hand, believe that God, namely, Jesus Christ, created the world out of nothing. Infinitely larger, wiser, and more powerful than we, He spoke it into existence. With His wisdom He planned the rotation of the planets, the laws of gravity, centrifugal force, inertia, inverse square, etc.

Yes, I have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Supreme Being. May I point out that you also have to believe that man is the greatest being. This is where both religion and atheism come together. We are both placed at the crossroad of belief.

[Asimov]

Gotcha. Atheism is NOT a religion. So there are a few differences between what you call atheism and what I call religion - which, by the way, is a term I hate with a passion. Religion is the problem with the world today. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only cure for this world. But looking strictly at religion in general - using your dictionary definition - I will agree with you that atheism really doesn't fit the description.
Interchanging "religion" and "relationship" is a silly cop-out. You believe and revere a higher power, you have a doctrine based on that higher power. That is a religion.
ATHEISM: RELIGION:
1) There is no God. 1) There is a God; He created the world.
2) Man is the highest being. 2) God is the highest Being.
3) Man must therefore be in charge. 3) God must be in charge.
Uh...no.

Atheism: Lack of belief in a God.
Theism: Belief in a God(s).

religion: reverence or belief in a supernatural power, a doctrine and system of worship based on that supernatural power.

Unfortunately the atheist is still stuck believing in a supreme being, namely, himself. Only he isn't powerful enough to create the universe, or, for that matter, anything without the raw materials being provided for him. He isn't wise enough to govern it; no one has successfully governed/ruled this one planet, much less the universe complete with trillions of stars and innumberable gallazies.
Unfortunately, supreme being is a misnomer that theists use to try and interject some form of God into the equation. If they don't believe in your God, the atheists must therefore believe that they are God. False dichotomy.

May I point out that you also have to believe that man is the greatest being. This is where both religion and atheism come together. We are both placed at the crossroad of belief.
Why do atheists have to believe that man is the greatest being?

[VOICE-of-REASON]

Gotcha. Atheism is NOT a religion. So there are a few differences between what you call atheism and what I call religion
“…what you call”…what makes you think that you have the power, right, authority or whatnot, to redefine concepts to your liking in the first place?

Religion is the problem with the world today.
I will agree with you that Religion is part of the problem—sometimes I even think that it’s only a symptom of what’s really wrong—Religion is not an irreducible primary. However playing linguistic acrobatics won’t get you around the problem.

A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only cure for this world.
A personal relationship with Jesus IS a religion. As for it being the cure, I suspect that you might have forgotten what you wrote a few lines earlier, that RELIGION IS THE PROBLEM WITH THE WORLD TODAY.

Unfortunately the atheist is still stuck believing in a supreme being, namely, himself.
Supreme?—in relation to whom? Or do you just think that you can use relational concepts out of their proper context?
And what is the basis of your assumption that human beings have the inherent need to believe in a supreme being anyway?

Only he isn't powerful enough to create the universe, or, for that matter, anything without the raw materials being provided for him.
(1) Why don’t you define your concepts, primarily “Uni-verse”, and see if you can intelligibly repeat that sentence?
(2) What makes you think/assume that the universe was created in the first place?—isn’t that what you need to DETERMINE first? Only after that can you inquire about who ‘created’ it.
(3) “creation” (metaphysically/existentially speaking) does not and cannot mean the power to bring SOME-THING into existence out of NO-THING. Creation merely means to power to rearrange the already existing materials into new combinations, integrations, or arrangements that had never existed before. This is of course supported by an overwhelming amount of empirical data and sustained by the First Law of Thermodynamics. So any assertion to the contrary is yours to prove.

He isn't wise enough to govern it; no one has successfully governed/ruled this one planet, much less the universe complete with trillions of stars and innumberable gallazies.
Well, you do give one side of the equation—the ruler. WHO is to be ruled then? I have a reason to suspect that you certainly do not mean the lifeless planets and stars—but conscious, living human beings.
What makes you think that human beings are pack animals, or mindless automatons that cannot exist without being ruled? And what makes you think that rational human beings want to rule anyone, anyway? What makes you think that human beings cannot exist outside of a slave-master relationship?—with you wishing to be the master, of course.

I, on the other hand, believe that God, namely, Jesus Christ, created the world out of nothing.
I will disregard the fact that that is a self-evident contradiction in terms. Just prove it—remembering that I will grant you no assumptions.

With His wisdom He planned the rotation of the planets, the laws of gravity, centrifugal force, inertia, inverse square, etc.
That’s the talk of somone who has not yet figured out that A is A.
The so-called ‘Laws of Nature’ are not some mystic, disembodied laws that were wished into existence after some mystical creation. The Laws of Nature are inherent in the things that exist. There is no such thing as ‘force divorced from matter’. All the forces of the universe are dependent on matter—and they all operate according to the law of identity (the law of causality is nothing but he law of identity applied to action). There would be no such things as mass, weight, gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, or any other force/law if there were no matter, just as there is no such as motion without an entity that moves.

The universe does not need an entity outside of itself (whatever the hell that would mean) in order to work—it works well all by itself.