For everyone, but especially for Theistic Evolutionists

[Jorge]

And yet, Jorge is unable to show how those that disagree with him, are 'distorting' the Bible.
Are you going to show it, someday?

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

Give it a break, Terror ... you are irrational in your "thinking" (or whatever it is that you do).

In my over 11,000 posts I've presented many examples of how you people distort the Bible.
But your MO is well known -- you just keep repeating, "Show me ... show me!!!" regardless
of what is presented to you. Then, because you haven't gotten what you want to hear, you
can always claim some sort of perverted "victory" (as you've done many times, including here).

Now go away .... Aren't you due at the coven with Scott and Forrest?

Jorge

[oxmixmudd]

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

Give it a break, Terror ... you are irrational in your "thinking" (or whatever it is that you do).

In my over 11,000 posts I've presented many examples of how you people distort the Bible.
But your MO is well known -- you just keep repeating, "Show me ... show me!!!" regardless
of what is presented to you. Then, because you haven't gotten what you want to hear, you
can always claim some sort of perverted "victory" (as you've done many times, including here).

Now go away .... Aren't you due at the coven with Scott and Forrest?

Jorge

Jorge, what you have not established is why these differences of opinion amount to distortion. Indeed, in several cases, I have listed examples where you apply the very same kind of interpretive paradigm you are calling distortion when used by a non-YEC, Yet you've never actually discussed why when you do it's ok, but if we do it its an evil distortion.

The reality is, if two passages are equally amenable to a given interpretive paradigm, there is no way you can justify using it on one while condemning its use on the other.


Jim

[Jorge]

You mean like how YECs such as yourself make dramatic leaps of meaning from the text to modern scientific concepts, such as in the way you misquote Ps. 104, which deals with the Creation and shoehorn it into your interpretations concerning the Flood? You know, "distort[ing] the Bible so as to make it say what they want it to say."

The real irony in your case is that you're an avid supporter of KJVO, calling other translations inferior, yet you throw the KJV under the bus here and take one of the "inferior" translations over it because for you YECism comes first and foremost.


Well now that we've established that YECs "distorts the Bible so as to make it say what they want it to say" in order to support their YEC preconceptions I guess we can now conclude that YECs "ought not to consider him(her)self a "BIBLICAL" Creationist"

Spell after me ............... C - L - U - E - L - E - S - S

That is what you are, R06 .... clueless !!!

Leading the list again

Don't be such a hog! You've always been in the lead,
only that you've had to share that position with several others.

Jorge

[lilpixieofterror]

lilpixieofterror by "better" method of testing ,I meant perhaps a newer one that is more reliable (the arguments so far have done a good job of making radiometric dating look a lot more reliable to me).

Radiometric dating is something that peaked my interest a few years back, so I did some research on it and when comparing the YEC understandings of these views, I found they were ill-informed or even outright dishonest. For example, I remember reading one YEC group talking about how a recently dead shell was dated to being 200 years old by Carbon-14 dating, so the article implied we should doubt radiometric dating, the problem with this is that there is a 500 year margin of error with Carbon-14 dating, so 200 years would be well within the margin of error. Another problem with this is that Carbon-14 is just one radioactive isotope that we test, there is about half a dozen with half lives from thousands of years (in the case of Carbon 14), to billions of years. All of these istopes continue to show an old earth, not a young one, so that right that is kind of a problem with some understandings of how radiometric dating works.

Other than the people on this site ,the people I have dealt with so far ,have been saying things like Eve being symbolic of mother nature(his major point on this one being that Adam named her Eve ,because she would be "mother of all the living" ,and since this can't literally happen the whole story is completely symbolic ,instead of perhaps just maybe the statement not being literal.) ,Eden being symbolic of mother nature's womb ,and some other things that seem to be nonsense. The majority of people on that site seem to think that Jesus never existed ,and even one guy on there seems to think that Judaism ,Christianity ,and Islam are the source of ALL evil in the world.

I personally don't accept that view, but the Jesus myth is a laughable position.

If Genesis is real history ,don't Adam and Eve have to be real people?

What do you mean by 'real history'? What is the main focus of the story?

Doesn't the salvation Jesus offers depend on Adam and Eve being historical people who did sin against God(the way I understand it there would be no curse of death without Adam's sin ,and we would have no need of Jesus' work of atonement)?

The concept of an original sin is something you find more common within western thinking, but eastern thinking tends to reject that idea. Whatever idea you accept though, humanity sinning and falling short of the glory of God is a fact that can't be denied.

It also says in the Bible that death is a result of sin (the way I see it this specifically refers to nephesh animals ,and Humans not plants or skin cells as I have seen mentioned earlier). Also Matthew has Jesus' genealogy going all the way back to Adam ,why would this be done if Adam never existed. I ask these questions ,because I don't really understand a Theistic Evolutionist perspective on these matters.

That's actually Luke's genealogy, but we must first ask ourselves this question, what is the major goal of the genealogy? Is it to tell us literal history or is Luke trying to make a point? Luke's goal was to link Jesus with all of humanity, not to necessarily say that Adam really existed (which I tend to say he did). As a result, we shouldn't try to pull any other conclusions beyond that, from it.

Things like this also applies to Noah. Like why would he have to build the Ark ,and take all of those "kinds" of animals on the ark if they simply could have just moved away from the rest of humanity since it is described as a local flood by many Theistic Evolutionists. After all Lot only had to leave the area of Sodom and Gomorrah ,and he didn't have to rescue any animals either. You've probably heard these questions a lot ,but I have never seen a satisfactory answer anywhere. This site seems to have many people who are well informed on all these issues (I definitely count you among these well informed people lpot. I have been reading a lot of the different threads on here ,and I thought you did a really good job explaining things to Pitchforkpat about absolute morality). I figure that even if I don't agree with the answers I get (I feel that I still need more information before I change my views) ,I will still at the very minimum learn a few things about the opposing viewpoint.

First, thanks a lot and second, what is the main goal that the flood story is trying to tell us? One of the major things we need to figure out when it comes to Biblical interpretation (or really, interpretation of any book) is we must try to understand the intentions of the author and story first because if these passages were trying to teach more of a moral lesson about how humanity has inherit sin, would it be proper to take it as literal history?

I have so far seen some really good arguments ,but would still like to discuss this further ,even if only for the fact of sharpening my debating skills. The subject that I have studied the most is Islam ,so this is not exactly my area of expertise( I look forward to the responses on this). Again thanks for responding in a civilized manner ,I don't see that very often where I originally started posting.

Where did you start posting?

[lilpixieofterror]

Give it a break, Terror ... you are irrational in your "thinking" (or whatever it is that you do).

Most tend to disagree, but whatever you want to tell yourself.

In my over 11,000 posts I've presented many examples of how you people distort the Bible.
But your MO is well known -- you just keep repeating, "Show me ... show me!!!" regardless
of what is presented to you. Then, because you haven't gotten what you want to hear, you
can always claim some sort of perverted "victory" (as you've done many times, including here).

I have seen some of these Jorge and myself and others (such as Rogue or Jim) have refuted them and used your logic to show how inconsistent your method is. What do you do with all of this? Ignore it and repeat yourself elsewhere seems to be your usual MO.

Now go away .... Aren't you due at the coven with Scott and Forrest?

Do you just make up random crap and hope it makes sense?

[rogue06]

Quick point...

Things like this also applies to Noah. Like why would he have to build the Ark ,and take all of those "kinds" of animals on the ark if they simply could have just moved away from the rest of humanity since it is described as a local flood by many Theistic Evolutionists.

Perhaps God wanted Noah and his family to witness the destruction first hand. To see God's judgment with their own eyes for instance.

Or, perhaps having Noah build the Ark amidst sinning humanity was meant as a witness to the coming judgment. This seems to fit the pattern in that God sent angels to Sodom before its destruction, and sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn them of their coming judgment. If mankind would have taken the warning to heart, as the people of Nineveh apparently did, then the Flood may have been avoided. But they didn’t.

Continuing with the second possibility, if God had merely told Noah to move away from the flood area, the people would not have been warned of the impending judgment. By having Noah construct his Ark among them meant that they were without excuse in their rebellion against God.

[rogue06]

Spell after me ............... C - L - U - E - L - E - S - S

That is what you are, R06 .... clueless !!!

Now there's a concise rebuttal. Sans a scintilla of supporting evidence, but concise.

Don't be such a hog! You've always been in the lead,
only that you've had to share that position with several others.

Jorge

I shall cherish this moment yellow-smiley-victory.gifsmiley winner.gif

[phank]

First off thanks for actually posting arguments that have been so far very convincing.

Thanks, and hello again. Good to see you.

Phank ,I read those links you gave me. I have to admit that they do go over my head somewhat ,but from what I did understand very convincing. Sorry about forgetting to post a link to my information about the Kaye paper. I give it here http://creation.com/doubting-doubts-...he-squishosaur

You understand, I asked about your sources because most creationists who cite (as you do) what are called PRATTs (Point Refuted A Thousand Times), get their material from creationist sources. Unsurprisingly, your source was creation.com, a committed creationist source. And these sources are considered highly suspect outside of creationist circles for multiple reasons. They are of course committed to "discovering" a creationist interpretation where no rational such interpretation exists. And they do so by false assertion, half-truth, cherry-picking, quote-mining and other untrustworthy techniques. And sadly, it seems to be the practice of many creationists (not all) to confine themselves to congenial sources.

Anyway, what your creationist source somehow omits to mention is that while there is legitimate scientific dispute over the dinosaur tissue-like material, there is no dispute over the age of any dinosaur. The issue is, how could such "soft tissue" have lasted 100 million years, and still be "soft"? The two sides here are (1) It didn't. We're looking at what very will might be contamination; and (2) It did, by some preservation process currently unknown. And you will notice that when creationists get hold of this dispute, they START with the presumption of a very young universe, and "interpret" this debate according to convictions neither scientific side shares at all.

I don't think that debate will be resolved, due to sheer insufficient data. If the sample was mapped, as one account tells us, with 200 hours of examination with an electron microscope, it's not like we're going to learn more about it. At least your source was honest enough to conclude "I would concede the possibility, even likelihood, that their evidence points to bacterial action after the specimen was buried. "

I am not the most knowledgeable about all of these subject ,but I am at least trying to learn. Thus far when I have been discussing such things ,I have mostly just been insulted ,and never given an argument.

This is unfortunate but hopefully understandable. The point about a PRATT is that it HAS been refuted a thousand times. You may not be aware of it, but when someone has taken the time to refute a bogus claim hundreds of times and here it is AGAIN, they get a bit testy. Their attitude is, if you were honest YOU could have done this homework.

One time that I actually did their source had a rather large margin of error for the possible ages on the subject matter. The particular subject had to do with some sort of sea grass. It was said to be between 12,000 years old ,and 200,000 years old (It might have been 210,000 years old for the upper limit. I have poor short term memory due to a condition I have called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy aka Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.)

I don't know anything about the sea grass example, so I can't really comment. However, I do know that not everything is amenable to accurate dating methods. A factor of 20 seems unusually large to me, but again, I'd have to see the details.

[JonF]

For example, I remember reading one YEC group talking about how a recently dead shell was dated to being 200 years old by Carbon-14 dating, so the article implied we should doubt radiometric dating, the problem with this is that there is a 500 year margin of error with Carbon-14 dating, so 200 years would be well within the margin of error.

I don't know much about the margin of error, but a major problem with dating aquatic shells is that the carbon isn't derived form the atmosphere but rather is derived from old limestone and what-not reservoirs of old carbon dissolved in the water, so one of the major prerequisites for 14C dating is violated. This is well understood and we know what can and cannot be dated, even if creationists don't. E.g. Claim CD011.3.

[Jorge]

Jorge, what you have not established is why these differences of opinion amount to distortion. Indeed, in several cases, I have listed examples where you apply the very same kind of interpretive paradigm you are calling distortion when used by a non-YEC, Yet you've never actually discussed why when you do it's ok, but if we do it its an evil distortion.

The reality is, if two passages are equally amenable to a given interpretive paradigm, there is no way you can justify using it on one while condemning its use on the other.

Jim

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

Pllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzz !!!

How many times in the past did I not define what I meant by 'distortion'? Is it coming back to you?

Distortion = adding to, deleting from, ad hoc interpretation, allegorizing, mythologizing, and similar acts.

Is it now coming back? I lost count but it's scores of times over the years.

Let's take a recent example : in The End of Christianity, W. Dembski distorts Scripture when he introduces
the notion of "retroactive sin" into the biblical account. Why does he do this? Well, because he
has accepted the billions of years and sees the serious theological problems of gigayears in the light of
pain, suffering, death and sin. The problem is solved if the gigayears are eliminated but Dembski
will not do this. That leaves only one alternative : distort the Bible - insert something into it that is not
there ; Enter "retroactive sin", stage left.

You people (Theistic Evolutionists) do exactly the same. Soul-less proto-humans; gaps of time, Day-Age,
Framework Hypothesis, etc ... etc ... etc ... You distort (as defined above) whatever you have to distort
in Scripture as long as this allows you to retain your gigayears (which, of course, you must have if you are
to have Evolution).

It is disingenuous for you to even suggest that we Biblical Creationists do the same. We read the Words
in Genesis as they are written and it is from those Words that we get our circa 6,000 years.

You're not even wrong, Jim ... you're way off into deep, dark space with your suggestions.

Jorge

[phank]

whatever you have to distort
in Scripture as long as this allows you to retain your gigayears (which, of course, you must have if you are
to have Evolution).

And astronomy, and geology, and paleontology, and plate tectonics, and radiometry, and stratigraphy, etc. etc. etc.

So I emphatically agree with Jorge. One can accept reality as viewed through the lenses of basically every scientific discipline ever devised, or one can reject ALL of these in favor of a literal interpretation of the derivative fables of stone age goat-herders. But one can NOT have both.

Fortunately, it's a wide world, plenty of room for me to have knowledge and for Jorge to have superstition. And for me to learn while Jorge cannot. Takes all kinds.

[Jorge]

And astronomy, and geology, and paleontology, and plate tectonics, and radiometry, and stratigraphy, etc. etc. etc.

So I emphatically agree with Jorge. One can accept reality as viewed through the lenses of basically every scientific discipline ever devised, or one can reject ALL of these in favor of a literal interpretation of the derivative fables of stone age goat-herders. But one can NOT have both.

Fortunately, it's a wide world, plenty of room for me to have knowledge and for Jorge to have superstition. And for me to learn while Jorge cannot. Takes all kinds.

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

I also agree ... it does take all kinds. God will allow the wheat and the chaff to grow together,
side-by-side, until the day of the Harvest. Then each will go to their proper place.

Jorge

[rogue06]

How many times in the past did I not define what I meant by 'distortion'?

Haven't forgotten

The fact of the matter is that you distort (as I have defined 'distort' here many times)
Scripture in order to accommodate (1) billions of years, (2) death before sin
and (3) a secular view of how present life came to be.

I have NEVER stated that TEs, OECs or PCs aren't based on the Bible. I HAVE stated
that you people are based on a DISTORTED version of the Bible (as I've defined how
this 'distortion' is carried out).

“As I’ve defined how this ‘distortion’ is carried out.” As you’ve defined the word. The way you define ‘distortion.’ And how have you defined distortion here? It’s how “TEs, OECs or PCs” interpret the Bible. Thus, according to your own definition it is “TEs, OECs or PCs” who distort and since you are a YEC, by definition, you don’t distort. Only others distort. So in your mind, when you are twisting Scripture to suit your own desires it can’t be distorting it because that is something that only “TEs, OECs or PCs” do but not YECs.

So according the Jorgean Lexicon, distorting the Bible is something by this definition a YEC such as Jorge can not do for distorting the Bible only means accepting any or all of the following: "(1)[/B] billions of years, (2) death before sin and (3) a secular view of how present life came to be."

IOW, taking passages describing the Creation and saying they're really talking about Noah's Flood isn't distorting. It may be abusing Scripture. It may be misapplying Scripture. It may even be twisting, contorting, perverting and warping Scripture. But it most definitely isn't distorting (as Jorge defines it here) Scripture

The same rule applies when Jorge proclaims that mankind had spread out all over the world prior to the Flood despite what Gen. 11:8 says. But Jorge needs mankind to inhabit the entire planet to explain why a local flood wouldn't suffice in wiping out mankind. So under the bus Gen 11:8 goes if it means supporting YECism.

Likewise Jorge will assert that the animals came to the Ark just to drop off infants and eggs in spite of what Gen. 7:2, 18; 8:19 says. Twist, contort, pervert and warp (but not "distort") the text as necessary if his YEC beliefs are on the line.

And even though Paul instructs us not not just once but twice (I Tim 1:4 and Titus 3:9) to have nothing to do with genealogies for whatever reason, Jorge and other YECs continue to engage in calculations based upon these genealogies to determine the age of the Earth.

[phank]

And even though Paul instructs us not not just once but twice (I Tim 1:4 and Titus 3:9) to have nothing to do with genealogies for whatever reason, Jorge and other YECs continue to engage in calculations based upon these genealogies to determine the age of the Earth.

Clearly, Paul distorted scripture.

[Cerebrum123]

lilpixieofterror I started posting on a site called www.islam-watch.org. It's a site made by ex-Muslims who want to expose the teachings of Islam for what they are ,and using their own sources too. They are biased against Islam ,but from their stories ,and information understandably so(this site is NOT the only place I used for my information on Islam. I used many different site ,even J.P Holding's Tekton Apologetics site). Most of the people over there seem to think that the Bible is just a bunch of "fairy tales" ,with little or no moral value whatsoever. One of them goes even as far to say that Judaism ,Christianity ,and Islam ,are the root sources of ALL evil in the world.
I originally had hoped to reach out to ex-Muslims over there with the message of the Gospel ,but it turns out the people that needed this message the most weren't the ex-Muslims (although they need it too ,and I have been trying to reach out to anyone willing to listen) ,but mostly atheists. They mostly complain about things in the OT (mostly argument from outrage stuff) ,or the Crusades and Inquisitions. They never seem to understand the simple fact that things like the Crusades were not the result of Christian teachings.
Thanks for correcting me on the genealogies for Mathew and Luke (I have a hard time keeping things ,even simple things, straight due to bad short term memory). When I said that Genesis being "real history" ,being that it was written in a style of historical narrative ,and that the people and events mentioned did take place. As for "original sin" ,I don't believe that we inherited any sin from our ancestors ,but that we have a sinful nature. I believe that the curse of death didn't enter the world until Adam and Eve's sin. I think that it's very hard to understand there being millions of years of death and suffering before humanity. Also the word for day in Genesis "yom" is mentioned with morning and evening as qualifiers afterwards. This is almost universally done when a literal 24 hour day is in mind (I believe there is only one example in the whole Bible that is against this trend).
I noticed that you earlier said that for thousands of years (I believe it was you who posted this) the Bible was interpreted to mean a geocentric solar system ,and science overturned that. I'm not a 100% on this ,but I'm pretty sure that isn't the whole story. Ptolemy and Aristotle had a geocentric system in their philosophy ,and this had been accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as real science. They blindly accepted Ptolemy and Aristotle's work as real science ,and interpreted the Bible accordingly. This is what made things so bad during the time of Galileo. Prior to Ptolemy and Aristotle it seems that there were some who did believe in a heliocentric system of some kind ,but it wasn't as accurate as what we know ,and didn't have as much predictive power as that of Ptolemy and Aristotle. It eventually became that they believed if Aristotle was wrong ,so was the Bible.

phank , I had been doing research from places that I had felt were reliable ,and I even looked at all of the sources that the people I was speaking with would give me. Most of their stuff was like the above sea grass thing (I believe it was posted on that site mentioned earlier PLoS One ,and had to do with some type of sea grass found in the Mediterranean Sea). With the margin for error being so high ,I certainly found it hard to take seriously. Other stuff they had posted were usually never real arguments ,or were references to places like www.jesusneverexisted.com.
When the stuff they had been previously posting were either completely ridiculous ,or just outright attacks rather than arguments ,it made it hard to take anything they took as an authority seriously. One guy talked about how the universe began with something he called the "circled cross". I thought he was making a reference to some new scientific theory ,but he was talking about some kind of occult thing. This made him even harder to understand ,especially when he says that he cares about the scientific evidence.