For everyone, but especially for Theistic Evolutionists

[oxmixmudd]

What IS important is that if God said it and meant it
(as studies have shown) then it must be upheld in its pure form. If you disagree then you are challenging God --
you are not challenging me or Ken Ham or John Baumgardner or ... worse yet, that would mean that you are
in fact preaching a different gospel than what God had intended. This is VERY serious, indeed!!!

So what do you people do to get around this dilemma? Easy! You distort God's Word -- reinterpret, add,
delete, mythologize, allegorize, etc. -- so that it "says" precisely what you want it to say so that there is no
conflict between your story and God's story.

I didn't really address this accusation, and so I thought the following might sum things up:

Genesis 1:6-7:And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.
Job 37:18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, [which is] strong, [and] as a molten looking glass?

Jorge: That there is some kind of hard substance separating waters is NOT what God really meant here. We know (from science) there is no firm separator there. This is just some kind of metaphorical language. The entire text doesn't have to be literal.


Joshua 10:13:And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Jorge: This is not what God actaully meant here. This text is phenomenal, we know (from science) that the Earth rotates and that is what makes it appear as if the sun and moon move across the sky.

I samual 2:8: for the pillars of the earth [are] the LORD'S, and he hath set the world upon them.
Job 9:6 Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.
Psalms 75:3: The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah

Jorge: God did not mean that there are REALLY pillars that hold up the Earth. We know (from science) this just is not the case and this must be a metaphor of some kind.



Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Jim: That this day is a 24 hour day is not what God meant here. We know (from science) the history of the universe was much longer than 6 days;

Jorge: You compromising Christian! You do not take God's word as it is, and you distort, make metaphor, mythologise or otherwise twist the text to make it mean what you want it to mean!







Jim

[KBertsche]

I

I don't see how this list is helpful in this discussion. I read through the list carefully. I fully agree with every point in it. I see no factual or philosophical errors here. I see that someone deluded by religion would be highly offended, just as an ugly person might be offended by a mirror. Indeed, the fact that you list these statements as being misconceptions is illustrative. They do not fit your theological convictions, and you have positioned your theological convictions as the playing field, the metric against which Dawkins' claims must be measured.

Anyway, you might pick ONE of those many quotes, and rather than just plunk it down and label it, you might try explaining WHY you think it's wrong or misguided. Otherwise, as far as I can see, you are only underscoring, emphasizing, reiterating and illustrating precisely what Dawkins is saying. Repeatedly.

I am not surprised that you agree with Dawkins, but I am surprised that you are so blinded by your preconceptions that you cannot see how they are skewing your perspective. I'll briefly comment on a few of Dawkins' statements.

Dawkins

6) “Contrary to Huxley, I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other. … God’s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 50.

© source where applicable

Here he assumes that God must be part of the universe. Thus he is not speaking of the biblical God, a transcendent God who stands outside of the universe and who created it.

Dawkins

7) “I suspect that alleged miracles provide the strongest reason many believers have for their faith; and miracles, by definition, violate the principles of science.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 59.

© source where applicable

Here he presents a false dichotomy between science and miracles. Underlying this is his naturalistic philosophical view that "the principles of science" are causative rather than descriptive. In a biblical worldview, God is the cause both of miracles and of things which are described by "the principles of science". Miracles do not violate "the principles of science; they simply are not explainable by the principles of science.

Dawkins

9) “The point is that the pulsar phenomenon is now understood as a product of simple physics, not intelligence.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 72.

© source where applicable

Similar problems to the previous quote. The fact that pulsars can be explained by simple physics does not rule out the possibility that they are also created by an intelligent being.

Dawkins

19) “I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca – or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan. As the Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Wteven Weinberg said, ‘Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.’” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 249.

© source where applicable

This is just factually wrong. Atheist regimes have destroyed numerous houses of worship of all sorts, and have persecuted religious believers.

[rogue06]

Can anyone top Jim on the list of Jorge's most despised?

Tiggy appears to be the one that really gets under his skin.

[Jorge]

I think Jorge applied that label to Eugenie Scott, as well. You might be the first TWebber to receive the title, tho.

*************************************************

Very good, Sam, you are correct.

I could've sworn that I saw E. Scott and B. Forrest on their broomsticks
last Halloween. Perhaps they were on their way to hook up with Terror (?).

Jorge

[Jorge]

Yes you do. You said:



Then you compared this to:



Accusation: To charge with a shortcoming or error.

The accusations are: A) I mix God's truth with my own desires. B) I operate like Jim Jones.

That's nice, but it has nothing at all to do with whether or not you made accusations of me.

Yawn .............. you are equivocating 'accusation' with observation.

Perhaps you should review what the 'gospel' is Jorge. It is the 'good news'. The good news that God became man, lived a sinless live, then suffered and died on the cross paying the penalty for our sins, and then rose again conquering hell and the grave. Who now sits at the right hand of God and the father and that 'whosoever believes in him shall no perish but have eternal life". This is the Gospel Jorge. The precise mechanics of how man was made and how his soul was infused is not the gospel.

When I think of The Gospel, I think of the TOTALITY of God's Word to mankind. I do not arbitrarily
segregate / isolate / compartmentalize one aspect of God's Word from the others because I consider
that as cheating. Atheists do that all the time. For instance, they will point to God commanding the
Jews to kill every living thing in a city (including women, children and animals) without looking at the
totality of Scripture. It has not escaped my attention that Theistic Evolutionists often do exactly the
same thing - segregate / isolate and compartmentalize Scripture. Given their goals, this makes sense.

Yes, we've been over it multiple times. And I've answered it multiple times. And you have multiple times simply walked away and ignored the rebuttal.

What you call an "answer" is unsatisfactory - period. Do you think that just because you throw
words at something, you've "answered" it?

This is true.

Good - maybe you are finally beginning to realize that I have a much better handle on this
than you have ever given me credit for. Let's see if you continue ...

This is your assumption. An assumption that is contrary to the text and to the revelation of the natural world.

No, it is not my "assumption". The TEXT bears it out. The text has to be distorted to read differently.

I have altered nothing. The text is what it is. When I read it the text remains unchanged, unaltered. We simply disagree on its purpose and message.

Disagreements I can handle - they are part of life. Distortions is something different.
Believe what you wish, I can tell the difference between a disagreement and a distortion.

No, it amounts to saying Jorge is wrong, which perhaps in your world is a mortal sin, but in reality hardly ranks above the importance of what TV show I'll watch this evening.

If that's what you wish to believe then so be it.

A) The bodily resurrection is THE fundamental tenet of the faith.
B) These people are misguided: science has nothing to say about what can happen miraculously
C) There is no physical evidence the resurrection did not take place.

You are wrong in almost every way to try to compare this issue with the issue of the time frame of creation:

A) The amount of time creation took is not part of ANY historical creed or declaration of faith in Christ
B) The physical creation and scientific theory has a very great deal to say about the evidence which remains of the processes which have shaped this Earth and universe
C) The are mountains (literally) of evidence this Earth is many orders of magnitude older than 6000 years

Sorry, no cigar! I am left to wonder where you got your basic theological schooling.
Frankly, it is abundantly clear why you abandoned Biblical Creationism, namely,
because your theological foundation is so poor. Let me answer your A, B, C ...

A. The bodily Resurrection is a fundamental tenet of faith but is not the ONLY fundamental tenet
of faith. For instance, could a person faithfully hold to the bodily Resurrection event yet deny the Virgin
Birth or the miracles of Christ and the Apostles or the very Word of God (the Bible) itself? Could a person
re-write or interpret the Bible as they pleased? What does God Himself say about that?

B. The science of today, as per the definition you will find, does indeed have much to say about what can
happen miraculously. I cannot believe that you aren't aware of the FACT that many "Christians" regard
the miracles in the Bible as "allegorical for instructional purposes only". Why? Because these miracles
do things that run contrary to the laws of nature. Walking on water, for example, opposes the law of
gravity and known facts about the surface tension of water, etc. It is physically impossible to walk on water
as per firmly established laws of physics. The only way is via a miracle but a miracle is "magic" - one must
cease being a 'scientist' to believe in "magic". You cannot have it both ways.

C.There are mountains (literally) of evidence that 3-day-old dead bodies cannot and will not get up to chat
and have lunch with friends. And that evidence is far more robust than the evidence for an ancient Earth.
Why? Let me tell you why : all of the evidence for gigayears is indirect evidence since you cannot test
for this. On the other hand, you can make tests TODAY -- repeatedly and as often as you wish -- to verify
that 3-day-old dead bodies remain dead. Because of this, the evidence against the Resurrection would, in
a court of law, be far more compelling than the evidence for gigayears - the former is direct, observable and
testable whereas the latter is indirect, inferred and rests upon a set of assumptions.

If you can't 'get it' now, Jim, then you never will.

Only in that you've repeated the same misguided and brain dead illogic more times than I can remember at this time.

Your illogic betrays a good deal of the reason you simply can't think clearly on this issue. Not being competent to understand the differences I outline above shows you are utterly incompetent to evaluate the science or theological issues involved - or that you are simply not honest enough to accept and admit its fallacy. And again, the 'gospel' does not encompass the age of the Earth Jorge, nor does it encompass ALL elements of Christian doctrine. This tendency to try to make every possible element of Christian Doctrine 'the gospel' is a relatively recent trend in redefinition of terms in certain circles whose primary purpose as far as I can tell is to exclude all but the special few from being "True Christians".
The Gospel is Christ crucified, dead, and raised. The fundamental tenets of the faith as described in the creeds and basic declarations of the faith. The more you add to it, the more you engage in distortion of the term - the very thing you accuse me of.



This is your accusation (which of course you never make).



Sure Jorge. I always listen to and consider your words, in spite of the utter disdain which drips from every syllable. But hey, if God can use Balaam's donkey - it is certainly possible He can use you.

Jim

Agreed -- if God can use a donkey, then He can certainly use me.

Jorge

[lilpixieofterror]

Very good, Sam, you are correct.

I could've sworn that I saw E. Scott and B. Forrest on their broomsticks
last Halloween. Perhaps they were on their way to hook up with Terror (?).

Now how about you prove me wrong or is insults, in place of arguments, all you're capable of producing?

[Ansgar Seraph]

*************************************************

Very good, Sam, you are correct.

I could've sworn that I saw E. Scott and B. Forrest on their broomsticks
last Halloween. Perhaps they were on their way to hook up with Terror (?).

Jorge

Off to the dark communion, young Goodman Brown, of your dear Faith?

[rogue06]

Off to the dark communion, young Goodman Brown, of your dear Faith?

And I thought I liked to slip in obscure references into my posts.

[oxmixmudd]

Now how about you prove me wrong or is insults, in place of arguments, all you're capable of producing?

lilpix - we all know the answer to that question. Jorge is the master of the tease. Toss out an idea for discussion, get feedback, then refuse to engage beyond insult.


Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

I know Jorge has addressed this to Jim, but many of the arguments in question, I have used too, so let me see if Jorge has accurately answered them/represented them.

Yawn .............. you are equivocating 'accusation' with observation.

Do you know who Jim Jones is Jorge? Jim Jones was a cult leader that brainwashed his followers to have total and complete allegiance to him and him alone. Are you implying that Jim has ‘brainwashed’ Christians (such as myself) to being TE’s? It’s too bad that I came to TE independent of Jim or the other TE’s here on T web and decided to be one based upon the evidence. I also have used arguments pretty similar to the ones I have used against atheist too. Sorry, but despite your fantasy, Jim, Rogue, nor myself are anything like Jim Jones and it is plain character assassination to imply that people you disagree with are like an ego maniac, that brainwashed his followers to kill themselves in a massive suicide.

When I think of The Gospel, I think of the TOTALITY of God's Word to mankind. I do not arbitrarily
segregate / isolate / compartmentalize one aspect of God's Word from the others because I consider
that as cheating. Atheists do that all the time. For instance, they will point to God commanding the
Jews to kill every living thing in a city (including women, children and animals) without looking at the
totality of Scripture. It has not escaped my attention that Theistic Evolutionists often do exactly the
same thing - segregate / isolate and compartmentalize Scripture. Given their goals, this makes sense.

No Jorge, you create strawmen and attack those strawmen over what other people actually said or believe. How typical, but can you show an example of TE’s like myself doing this or is your ‘logic’ equal to, “DUH! They disagree with my views on creation therefore; they are arbitrarily segregating, isolating, or compartmentalizing one aspect of God’s word!” After all, do you take the verses talking about geocentrism literal or not literal? If not literal, why are you attacking TE’s for doing the very same thing you are doing? IE letting science get in the way of the ‘plain reading of the text’? Plain reading of the text arguments are doomed to failure because they do not take into mind that the Bible is several pieces of literature, each with its own genre and assumptions that must be understood before an interpretation can be made of the words. If Genesis 1 and 2 is not supposed to be literal, is there any point in saying it is? Now perhaps you’ll address this point next time instead of another dodge, like this?

What you call an "answer" is unsatisfactory - period. Do you think that just because you throw
words at something, you've "answered" it?

Yet you have been unable to show where any of the TE’s on the board are wrong, other than the fact they disagree with you. Sorry Jorge, but disagreeing with you isn’t an argument. So TE’s are wrong because…

No, it is not my "assumption". The TEXT bears it out. The text has to be distorted to read differently.

Yet you have been unable to show any distortion going on and have been unable to refute the evidence for an older earth. In addition to this, you have been unable to explain why God would give us false evidence of an old earth and universe. Instead, you have dodged all of these questions and pretended you answered, when you didn’t. Is that an honest approach to scripture?

Disagreements I can handle - they are part of life. Distortions is something different.
Believe what you wish, I can tell the difference between a disagreement and a distortion.

Sorry Jorge, but how is ‘disagreeing with Jorge’s literal views of Genesis 1 and 2’ equal to ‘distorting scripture’? I have shown specifically why you are wrong, but you refuse to answer me and instead resort to claiming that I and others are ‘distorting things’, but seem unable to show how or why.

Sorry, no cigar! I am left to wonder where you got your basic theological schooling.
Frankly, it is abundantly clear why you abandoned Biblical Creationism, namely,
because your theological foundation is so poor. Let me answer your A, B, C ...

Not really, but the major problem is your wooden literal views of the Bible and theology, I will show that a bit below.

A. The bodily Resurrection is a fundamental tenet of faith but is not the ONLY fundamental tenet
of faith. For instance, could a person faithfully hold to the bodily Resurrection event yet deny the Virgin
Birth or the miracles of Christ and the Apostles or the very Word of God (the Bible) itself? Could a person
re-write or interpret the Bible as they pleased? What does God Himself say about that?

You are correct that the virgin birth is among the fundamental tenets of the faith, but why is Young Earth Creationism among those fundamental tenets of the faith? The Apostle’s Creed makes no mention of YEC and no major denomination I have ran into makes any mention of YEC being a fundamental aspect of the faith, so why do you keep insisting that it must be a fundamental aspect of the faith, when neither the Bible nor the creeds of the church make any mention of it? Again, it is you, not TE’s that don’t understand theology and thus make poor arguments like this.

B. The science of today, as per the definition you will find, does indeed have much to say about what can
happen miraculously. I cannot believe that you aren't aware of the FACT that many "Christians" regard
the miracles in the Bible as "allegorical for instructional purposes only". Why? Because these miracles
do things that run contrary to the laws of nature. Walking on water, for example, opposes the law of
gravity and known facts about the surface tension of water, etc. It is physically impossible to walk on water
as per firmly established laws of physics. The only way is via a miracle but a miracle is "magic" - one must
cease being a 'scientist' to believe in "magic". You cannot have it both ways.

One that denies the fundamental tenets of the faith can no more be a Christian than a human can claim to be a horse. However; where is YEC described as a fundamental tenet of the faith? Nowhere, but of course your mistake here is the same mistake you make elsewhere, pretending that the Bible is one in the same, at every page, and the same sort of arguments and understandings can be used over the whole thing. The truth is, some parts of the Bible are suppose to be taken to their literal extreme (IE where the Bible talks about history) and other parts are not (such as among the psalms). The major issue is; do you have any evidence that Genesis 1 and 2 is suppose to be taken to its literal extreme? Not that I can see and the fact both Jews and Christians have had quite a bit of leeway to how literal Genesis 1 and 2 is suppose to be is an indication of that. As for the resurrection, the miracles of Christ, or the virgin birth, how are those suppose to be taken? Literal because we find the tradition of literal to be very strong and the writing style is more like an historical bio, then we find with Genesis 1 and 2 (which tends to follow more in line with the creation stories of the neighbors Israel found itself in). So sorry, this is apples to oranges and has already been addressed so stop pretending it hasn’t been.

C.There are mountains (literally) of evidence that 3-day-old dead bodies cannot and will not get up to chat
and have lunch with friends. And that evidence is far more robust than the evidence for an ancient Earth.
Why? Let me tell you why : all of the evidence for gigayears is indirect evidence since you cannot test
for this. On the other hand, you can make tests TODAY -- repeatedly and as often as you wish -- to verify
that 3-day-old dead bodies remain dead. Because of this, the evidence against the Resurrection would, in
a court of law, be far more compelling than the evidence for gigayears - the former is direct, observable and
testable whereas the latter is indirect, inferred and rests upon a set of assumptions.

I have already addressed this one too Jorge and I know others have too. Ignoring the answers and hoping they go away, doesn’t make it work. Anyway, for those that are just joining, the Resurrection is God’s unique signature upon the ministry of Christ along with the miracles Christ performed. It is God’s way of showing that the message brought forth is really from him (just as we find in the OT, when a new message is revealed to those people). While Genesis 1 and 2, is more about telling us that God is the creator of the universe, not the pagan gods of the era. Also, we are told that the heavens proclaim the majesty of God, but why God tell us this if He knew the heavens would not reflect a 6,000 year old earth? I thought our God was a God of truth, so why would he create fake evidence, to fake us into believing the universe and earth are much older than 6,000 years? Apples to oranges again Jorge and the fact you refuse to address this argument and just repeat yourself over and over again indicates that you do not have an answer to this argument. AKA the Resurrection IS impossible without the power of God and the Bible agrees, thus the reason the disciples were amazed when they saw the risen Jesus.

If you can't 'get it' now, Jim, then you never will.

And if you will not address the arguments Jim, Rogue, I, and others have brought forth now, you never will. Perhaps you’ll address them this time instead of ignoring them like you usually do?

Agreed -- if God can use a donkey, then He can certainly use me.

I don’t think you’ve every spoken truer statements…

[lilpixieofterror]

lilpix - we all know the answer to that question. Jorge is the master of the tease. Toss out an idea for discussion, get feedback, then refuse to engage beyond insult.


Jim

That is what I figured. I have addressed his argument about the differences between the resurrection and Genesis 1 and 2 several times now and he seems to ignore it every time. I think it is necessary to explain my thought process though, for those who are interested or just reading this part for the first time. The first step to Biblical interpretation is finding the genre and looking at how people responded to the message contained within. With the resurrection, we find it resembles other historical bios of the era and based on that, we can be sure it was written to be taken (mostly that is) literal. We also find a tradition of literal interpretation right from the earliest era all the way to the modern era and we discover that the non-literal views are a product of the modern era and were called ‘hearsay’ back in the early era. Now we apply this to Genesis 1 and 2 we run into something else. We discover that the story has some similarities to the creation stories of the era, the major difference being that the God of Israel is given credit, while the pagan gods are omitted all together. Likewise, we discover a tradition that goes from MORE literal then modern YEC's take it to one that is close to what modern TE's take it, meaning that the tradition beyond a 'literal interpretation' isn't nearly as powerful as one of the Gospels and there was quite a bit of views about it. This renders Jorge's 'argument' about distortions to be little more than his own ignorance over trying to understand what the Bible tells us. It wasn't written in a vacuum and as such, we need to take in ALL the evidence, not just the pieces that we like to hear. I know I've said this several times and I know you have too, so I do wonder, why doesn't Jorge address the argument given and instead responds to strawmen?

[oxmixmudd]

Yawn .............. you are equivocating 'accusation' with observation.

Sorry. The difference between observation and accusation is in many cases 0:

"I observed the man have sex with the prostitute" is in fact also effectively an accusation - because in almost all moral system having sex with a prostitute is wrong.

In this case you do in fact 'charge' that I have done something which would be wrong for a Chrstian to do. It is therefore an accusation. It is not value neutral.

When I think of The Gospel, I think of the TOTALITY of God's Word to mankind. I do not arbitrarily
segregate / isolate / compartmentalize one aspect of God's Word from the others because I consider
that as cheating.

Well, you are wrong. Because to consider the Gospel in this fashion, then one must pick between the 'gospel' of the Methodists or the Presbyterians or the Baptists or the Pentacostals or the Lutherans or the Anglicans etc etc etc. Each varies from the other based on how they view the "totality of God's word". Clearly then at most one of them can in fact preach an 'undistorted' Gospel. Perhaps this works for you, but it is in fact logically absurd.

To whit: A) If in fact a Christian denomination must hold to the 'gospel' to be historically Christian, yet denominations vary in their understanding of the 'totality of God's word, and there is in fact >1 Christian denomination, then the implication is that the 'gospel' can not be the 'totality of God's word'.

Likewise: B) If in fact to be Christian one must hold to the gospel, and the gospel is in fact the totality of God's word, then if there is >1 view of God's word, then at most 1 denomination can in fact be Christan.

Options other than the above must allow for a Christan group which does not in fact hold to the gospel. A) is the only workable option.

Atheists do that all the time. For instance, they will point to God commanding the
Jews to kill every living thing in a city (including women, children and animals) without looking at the
totality of Scripture. It has not escaped my attention that Theistic Evolutionists often do exactly the
same thing - segregate / isolate and compartmentalize Scripture. Given their goals, this makes sense.

Looking at the totality of scripture does little to solve the many difficulties associated with God commanding the Hebrews to kill every living thing in a city, including women and children. One can accept the sovereign act of God and trust in its righteousness, but one can not 'understand' something like this from a human perspective. If you think you do then something inside you is warped.

What you call an "answer" is unsatisfactory - period. Do you think that just because you throw
words at something, you've "answered" it?

The answer is logical and sufficient. You are one of the few that can't grasp it.

A. The bodily Resurrection is a fundamental tenet of faith but is not the ONLY fundamental tenet
of faith. For instance, could a person faithfully hold to the bodily Resurrection event yet deny the Virgin
Birth or the miracles of Christ and the Apostles or the very Word of God (the Bible) itself? Could a person
re-write or interpret the Bible as they pleased? What does God Himself say about that?

The issues you raise are true, for those elements that are in fact fundamental tenets of the faith. This does not change the fact however that the age of the Earth is NOT a fundamental tenet of the faith. Neither, in fact, is the concept of the canonized scripture (the Bible) being the "Word of God" - even though I do in fact hold that the Bible is the inspired word of God, with the caveat the the Word of God who became flesh is not in fact words written on the page but in fact the risen Christ. (John 1:1-14). We worship the Word of God (Christ), not the word of God (the Bible).

B. The science of today, as per the definition you will find, does indeed have much to say about what can
happen miraculously.

No - here you are completely and totally wrong. A miracle is by definition that which is outside to scope of science to predict or explain per natural causes. For Christ to rise from the dead violates all known natural principles and causes. Science can say nothing about it other than that it was not a natural event as expressed in scripture. Something outside the natural was involved if it happened.

I cannot believe that you aren't aware of the FACT that many "Christians" regard
the miracles in the Bible as "allegorical for instructional purposes only". Why? Because these miracles
do things that run contrary to the laws of nature. Walking on water, for example, opposes the law of
gravity and known facts about the surface tension of water, etc. It is physically impossible to walk on water
as per firmly established laws of physics. The only way is via a miracle but a miracle is "magic" - one must
cease being a 'scientist' to believe in "magic". You cannot have it both ways.

I am fully aware of this line of thought Jorge, and I fully reject it. They have taken the same misguided approach to this subject you have. Science doesn't tell us about the supernatural - it tells us about the natural. Miracles are 'impossible' per natural causes. That's all it can say. It can't say the impossible is not possible with God. Miracles happen. And when they do, science can not explain them. I can believe in the miracle of the Resurrection without any contradiction to my acceptance of the fact bodies do not rise from the grave after 3 days by natural causes.

C.There are mountains (literally) of evidence that 3-day-old dead bodies cannot and will not get up to chat
and have lunch with friends.

Quit leaving out "by natural causes" Jorge. Nobody thinks Christ as a man of physical power alone walked out of that grave. Not even you do. THINK!

And that evidence is far more robust than the evidence for an ancient Earth.
Why? Let me tell you why : all of the evidence for gigayears is indirect evidence since you cannot test
for this.

There is, in fact, no such thing as 'direct evidence' as you are trying to imply. All evidence is indirect in the sense that what we have 'now' is simply a record of what was 'then'. There are only varying levels of potential mapping of a record to its causal event. A video of you reading the Bible implies you read the Bible. As is 1,000,000 layers laid down by a yearly process evidence of 1000000 years having elapsed. Now, both evidences could have been FORGED, but they are both records of the events themselves IF they are in fact not forgeries. What is different is the number of potentiality non-forged events which could have caused the record left behind. But there are many, many physical records on the earth for which are no non-forged events that could leave behind that record without also having passed through millions of years of history.

On the other hand, you can make tests TODAY -- repeatedly and as often as you wish -- to verify
that 3-day-old dead bodies remain dead.

But I can not prove that at no time has a 3 day old body ever risen from the dead by supernatural causes by means of those tests. Those tests say NOTHING about what God may have done in the past, or what He may do in the future.

Because of this, the evidence against the Resurrection would, in
a court of law, be far more compelling than the evidence for gigayears - the former is direct, observable and
testable whereas the latter is indirect, inferred and rests upon a set of assumptions.

The evidence in a court of law is use to establish physcal events that result from physical causes. We do not allow for the possibility of a miracle in a court of law.

If you can't 'get it' now, Jim, then you never will.

Ditto.

Agreed -- if God can use a donkey, then He can certainly use me.

Jorge

And Jorge, if God can use a donkey, then He can also use ME ... think about it.


Jim

[magellan004]

Dawkins

6) “Contrary to Huxley, I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other. … God’s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 50.

© source where applicable

Here he assumes that God must be part of the universe. Thus he is not speaking of the biblical God, a transcendent God who stands outside of the universe and who created it.

I have to agree with Dawkins on this point. There seems no reason why we cannot hypothesise that God made the universe and test it 'scientifically'. People have been doing that for all of human history. Some people don't accept the conclusion that God is the creator but that doesn't render a notion un-scientific.

In any hypothesis of the type Agent A caused Effect X, we don't expect A to be within X. We expect X to have observable hallmarks of A.
(This is why Intelligent design Theory qualifies as scientific. It meets all the requirements that any such hypothesis has to meet.)

Having said all that, I regard Dawkins as an odious celebrity scientist.

Magellan

[phank]

I

I am not surprised that you agree with Dawkins, but I am surprised that you are so blinded by your preconceptions that you cannot see how they are skewing your perspective. I'll briefly comment on a few of Dawkins' statements.

One of us is blinded, no question about it.

Dawkins

6) “Contrary to Huxley, I shall suggest that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other. … God’s existence or non-existence is a scientific fact about the universe, discoverable in principle if not in practice.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 50.

© source where applicable

Here he assumes that God must be part of the universe. Thus he is not speaking of the biblical God, a transcendent God who stands outside of the universe and who created it.

The problem you are carefully wordsmithing around here is, of course, that there is no referent to the pure-noise phrase "transcendcent and outside the universe". The universe is all there is. This is the MEANING of "universe". What you are doing here is crafting a purely meaningless phrase, and claiming Dawkins doesn 't understand it. So where IS this place "outside the universe"? How can it be located, or examined? And if it can NOT be located or examined, then you are Making Stuff Up. Furthermore, if it can NOT be located or examined, how can you even know it exists? Well, of course you can't. Which is why you made it up. Dawkins called you on it. You refuse to be honest. You are choosing instead meaningless babble.

Dawkins

7) “I suspect that alleged miracles provide the strongest reason many believers have for their faith; and miracles, by definition, violate the principles of science.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 59.

© source where applicable

Here he presents a false dichotomy between science and miracles. Underlying this is his naturalistic philosophical view that "the principles of science" are causative rather than descriptive. In a biblical worldview, God is the cause both of miracles and of things which are described by "the principles of science". Miracles do not violate "the principles of science; they simply are not explainable by the principles of science.

Bull. Some religions, like yours, make specific claims well within the purview of science to investigate. And those claims are simply nonsense. And here you are handwaving around the impossible by doubletalking about "causative rather tha descriptive", whatever that might mean - probably nothing, which is why you concoct it. Dawkins is being very straightforward - a "miracle" is something physically impossible according to the rules of the universe. They are fictions. And to justify the imaginary miracles, you must gin up an imaginary god, who exists in a nonexistent location. Do you have ANY IDEA how dishonest you look doing this? Again, Dawkins has called your bluff.

Dawkins

9) “The point is that the pulsar phenomenon is now understood as a product of simple physics, not intelligence.” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 72.

© source where applicable

Similar problems to the previous quote. The fact that pulsars can be explained by simple physics does not rule out the possibility that they are also created by an intelligent being.

Oh please. "Honest, honey, just because the detective you hired has photos of me with that woman, doesn't rule out that these are miracles created by an intelligent being!" Just how far do you think that kind of claptrap is going to get you in the real world? Seriously, that's about the lamest excuse you could put together. Dawkins is again exactly correct. Some nitwits, seeing pulsars and not knowing what caused them, naturally dreamed up some sort of supernatural, magical expanation - my imaginary god, who lives in a nonexistent place and does the impossible except when any sane person is watching, must have magicked it up! And when pulsars are examined by SANE people who don't Make Stuff Up and who find the real explanations, any HONEST person would admit that maybe their religion blinded them to reality and here's a good example. But oh no, YOU have decided that pulsars are STILL magicked up by your imaginary god! And Dawkins has called your bluff again. And you again can't admit it. You are sorry.

Dawkins

19) “I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca – or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan. As the Nobel Prize-winning American physicist Wteven Weinberg said, ‘Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.’” – Richard Dawkins, God Delusion p. 249.

© source where applicable

This is just factually wrong. Atheist regimes have destroyed numerous houses of worship of all sorts, and have persecuted religious believers.

Do you think before you write, or are you on autopilot? Yes, Dawkins has expressed a belief. You may or may not agree with him. You MIGHT consider the buddhist statues that the Taliban blasted off the cliff. You MIGHT consider the books religions have had burned. You MIGHT consider the people various Christian sects have put to death for doing "witchcraft", science, and the like.

But whether you wish to consider these things or not, what you have stated here is a misrepresentation, and a typically poor one at that. Granted, political regimes have attacked those of specific religious faiths. Sometimes for being of a different faith, sometimes for purely political reasons. Your category error is to regard political regimes as either religious or atheistic. This is a conceptual error. Yes, Stalin attempted to stamp out Christian organizations and places of worship. But he didn't do this because he was a member of the "competing religion of atheism", because there is no such thing. Instead, Stalin was concerned that religion was a rallying point, something capable of organizing and focusing political opposition. If there had been (assuming there could be) an "organized and dedicated atheist community" Stalin had seen as a political threat, his response to it would have been precisely the same. And in fact, Stalin's paranoia wasn't by any means focused solely on religious groups. He also targeted political thinkers, philosophers, authors and other writers, jurists he disagreed with, etc. None of which were religious in nature, but all of which (along with religions) seemed threatening.

But I understand that you have little choice but to misrepresent what actually happened, in order to buttress a falsehood in your own mind.

And, not surprisingly, your attempts to explain why Dawkins is "wrong" simply reveals you as both feebleminded and biased beyond all recognition. But don't feel all alone - Televangelists rake in millions and live like monarchs by yanking on everyone's Jesus and milking them of their life savings. People like you (and their victims as well) are a wonderful illustration that you can fool some of the people all of the time. And what Lincoln might have added is, many of THOSE people want so desperately to be fooled they'll believe the most arrant nonsense. No matter how preposterous, there is NO CHANCE that the victims will ever be capable of saying "hey, wait a minute..."

Dawkins laid it out in clear, simple language. As such, he's an excellent litmus test, separating the sensible from the deluded. And you've clearly made that choice yourself. Congratulations.

[Ansgar Seraph]

Well, Jorge is back to calling people witches and phank is back to calling people deluded nitwits.

The quiet was nice while it lasted, at least.