Questions for Jesus-Freak

[jesus_freak]

JF, this is simply not true. There was serveral posts showing you how macroevolution worked. There is a diffence between refusing to accept, or not understanding the evidence and not been given the evidence.

If you want people to take you seriously, you need to speak the truth.

very courious for you to explain.

 

[Zep]

Well I beleive in a young eath...that it is around 10,000 years old, as far as I know all those other "humans" supposedly became extinct roughly 30,000 years ago...So I guess to answer your question I do not think they are related to us no.

So where did the people who lived more than 10,000 years ago actually live if there was no Earth if, as you say, God had not yet created it?

 

[Ossai]

Blutarsky

The "typical" response...I can assure you that the majority of the scholarship on the issue supports my claims. I don't care what John Q. Biblethumper thinks. Please spare us any trite quips about christian scholarship, they've all been heard here before.

Let me get this right. I made a claim that was extra-textual and it was a strawman. Nowhere in the Bible does it say he jumped from a cliff, that's an extra-textual argument you have offered.

Nope. I pointed out that the bible states that Judas fell headlong. I also pointed out that people can fall from great heights and have the same effect which, going with a literal reading of the text, is a more realistic explanation than they conveniently forgot to mention the whole hanging, dying, left there to bloat (probably a day or two at least), the rope breaking then the final fall.

When I made the claim that I did, you said I was using a strawman because I offered a non-textual explaination, but when you do it's not a strawman? Please explain the difference, or maybe I'm not following you.

You were using a strawman. The position you were arguing is that the two versions of Juda’s death were somehow rolled into one version when even a cursory reading makes it clear that stories are different. Everything from what he did with the money to how the field received it’s name indicate two different stories.

This isn't a question of literal interpretation...nor is it an issue of contradiction. There simply isn't enough text from Acts to assume it's a contradiction.

Have you actually read the story from Acts?

Ossai

 

[SimonD]

very courious for you to explain.

Sorry JF, what? Can you rewrite that sentence so it makes sense. I am not having a go at you, but I don't understand what this is meant to mean

Do you want me to explain something to you? If so, what?

 

[RandFan]

If you can show me any evidence of "macroevolution" that would be a starting point...up till now no one has.

As a former ID proponent and one who made this statement (or one like it) countless of times I can assure you that there is one hell of a lot of evidence for both macro and micro evolution. Of course you would have to be willing to look at and consider the evidence. I've found that if a person believes that there is no evidence for the existence of the moon then there is nothing one can do to make a person who denied evidence for the moon to see the evidence. It was the evidence for evolution that converted me. A rational and objective look can only lead one to accept that evolution is a fact. We might not have worked out all of the details but evolution, both macro and micro are not controversial but are scientific facts.

Are you willing to look at the evidence and accept the consequences of that evidence no matter what? Remember, you will have to be willing to question your held assumptions. Your world view cannot be sacred. Otherwise the evidence means nothing no matter how compelling it is. And it is very compelling in this case. It is so compelling in fact that one cannot reasonably disagree with the conclusion.

For the record most YEC and ID proponents concede in "macro-evolution", It's the "micro" that they have a problem with. IIRC. I'll concede that it's been awhile since I engaged in any such rhetoric.

 

[flume]

Are you willing to look at the evidence and accept the consequences of that evidence no matter what? Remember, you will have to be willing to question your held assumptions. Your world view cannot be sacred. Otherwise the evidence means nothing no matter how compelling it is. And it is very compelling in this case. It is so compelling in fact that one cannot reasonably disagree with the conclusion.

Is that true? It could be true for some people. But I was trying to find a way so that people could see the basis for evolution without having their beliefs threatened. I posted a couple of times trying to find a way for that to happen.
(Of course there are many devout followers of Christ who do not take Genesis literally, so that even if a literal belief in Genesis were changed, a person would not have to stop being a Christian. Unfortunately I think JF said that in his opinion people who didn't believe the Bible literally were not Christians. But since there are so many Christians who do accept the Bible in that way, maybe he could rethink his position on that.)

Okay, JF, from Randfan's experience you risk changing your faith (doesn't have to be losing your faith) if you investigate the basis for evolution. So keep that in mind. I think there are ways you could accept the reasonableness of evolution while still believing that it didn't happen. But I could be wrong.
So let's accept that there's a risk here to your cherished beliefs if you try to understand the basis for evolution. This means you have a choice. You can think through the evidence to see if you can understand how it makes sense to scientists, or you can close your mind to it. If you close your mind to it, DON'T mistake that for a lack of evidence or flaws in the evidence or scientists being fools! Be honest about what you're doing.

For the record most YEC and ID proponents concede in "macro-evolution", It's the "micro" that they have a problem with. IIRC. I'll concede that it's been awhile since I engaged in any such rhetoric.

You're mixing macro and micro, Randfan.

 

[flume]

duplicate

 

[flume]

duplicate

 

[Rrramon]

yes

Well I beleive in a young eath...that it is around 10,000 years old, as far as I know all those other "humans" supposedly became extinct roughly 30,000 years ago...So I guess to answer your question I do not think they are related to us no.

Well, what about the widely accepted idea that the Neanderthals had the capacity for spoken language? Could a species that uses language exist and still be unrelated to humans?

The idea that Neanderthals lacked complex language was widespread, despite concerns about the accuracy of reconstructions of the Neanderthal vocal tract, until 1983, when a Neanderthal hyoid bone was found at the Kebara Cave in Israel. The hyoid is a small bone that connects the musculature of the tongue and the larynx, and by bracing these structures against each other, allows a wider range of tongue and laryngeal movements than would otherwise be the case. Therefore, it seems to imply the presence of anatomical conditions for speech to occur. The bone that was found is virtually identical to that of modern humans.[12]

Furthermore, the morphology of the outer and middle ear of Neanderthal ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis, found in Spain, suggests they had an auditory sensitivity similar to modern humans and very different from chimpanzees. Therefore, they were not only able to produce a wide range of sounds, they were also able to differentiate between these sounds.

 

[edge]

Okay, Edge, Pascal's Wager has been discussed before, and you aren't adding anything to it.
Ladewig, I stand by my challenge (and I suspect you agree). Those who oppose what they term "macroevoloution" do so by defining macroevoloution as the evoloution which hasn't been proven so definitively that they can still pretend it might not exist. Other than species, there is no defensible real definition of the taxa except our (human scientists) need to define them. The argument from "kind" can be easily refuted by pointing out that our higher taxa are simply abstractions invented by us, so why did god convieniently arrange his "kinds" to agree with the godless evoloutionist's?

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

Learn something new every day.
Never knew anything about him till now.

What did fossils produce along with the vegetation?
Coal, oil and gas.
We weren’t supposed to use this technology.
So there must be something else hidden from us now that we were suppose to have.
A physics or technology we can’t have now, after sin entered in.
Meaning that God made all provision necessary for our survival whatever the out come falling or not.
Scientist want us to fall up not down.
They want us to be dependant on them not God inadvertently or not.
They are being fooled.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge might have been science.
So now we have this conflict.
Science has made our lives easier but it's killing the world, global warming,
Good and evil.
The how to with out God.
Purposely rejecting.

 

[Ossai]

edge

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

Let’s play a game of "Truth Or Heresy"

From Evildave at
Darwinawards (assuming the direct link still works)
------------------
It's all according to how you partition the numbers, really.

Given the breakdown of the odds, from the agnostic POV ("I dunno", or "things proposed so far about deities are probably wrong"), you're covering a value so nearly 100% that it may as well be 100%, because the one "true" answer and description of a deity (or deities, or lack of deity) and its (or their, or nobody's) real wishes (if it/they even know them themself/(themselves), and exist as a real entity to have them) represents one infinitely small possibility we have no way of verifying.

The thing is, that god is not more provable or real than Invisible Pink Unicorns (IPUs), Purple Dinosaurs (PDs), AquaMan (AM), Little Green Men (LGM), Miscellaneous Faerie Tale Creatures (MFTCs), Demons Pushing Electrons (DPE), or Elementary Evil Particles (EEPs). If you break down the odds the "fair" way, there is so little chance that anything said or believed about any deity is wrong that you may as well believe the Tooth Fairy (TF) had an affair with Santa Claus (SC), and an invisible pixy (IP) was the result.

There is no data to support any of these statement, and there is no data to support that there is an uber-being who made everything (and an uber-uber-being who made it, and an uber-uber-uber-being that made the one who made it, recursing into absurdity as you must when offering a "must have been created, couldn't have just happened" argument).

My favorite way to break it down is:

"Truth Or Heresy"

Start with two pieces of paper.

Leave one blank. It's "Nothing".

Write "God" on the other.

No god: 50%

God: 50%

In the absense of all information (and we have no information), then it's a 50/50 chance you're right when you ask the question this way.

Once you agree that there's a 50/50 chance to begin with, this is your "Core Assumption", so now just keep partitioning the remaining halves of "God" by adding True/False (t/f) conditions to the Core Assumption. More than one god? t/f Wants something from people? t/f Gives a **** about people? t/f Has a gift for people? t/f, etc. Every decision subdivides another assumption by half.

It's not fair, but who really wants fair? Certainly not the religious who see everything as good OR evil, black OR white, "my religion" OR "heresy". With this sort of logical model, subdividing true OR false is absolutely correct. Subdividing in any other way is "moral relativism".

The "right" answer is still only shaving into the 50% possibility of "is a god", and not touching the 50% possibility that there is not, because "false" was a "Core Rejection", and was not subdivided because there was nothing about a negative assertion to subdivide. Unless you enjoy "Strange Loops".

When you can't subdivide "truths" any further, get a very sharp knife and cut out that last tiny bit.

The last speck of paper dust you couldn't write in is for the dogmatic believer.

The partitioned and subdivided page with a hole in it (or the pile of torn pieces if you subdivided by tearing in halves) is for the deist or non-dogmatic believer, who believes there is a god but won't pin it down or subdivide from a given possibility.

The blank "nothing" page is for the atheist.

The agnostic couldn't make up his mind, so he just doesn't get any.

Just point at the other potential microscopically small boxes that "might" be right (subdividing it as necessary), if any of the fickle little questions was answered wrong along the way, and point out you're damned if you're even a little off, by definition, so we're probably all damned, or at least that people are more probably wasting their sundays doing "The Wrong Things".
--------------------------

 

[LibraryLady]

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

Learn something new every day.
Never knew anything about him till now.

What did fossils produce along with the vegetation?
Coal, oil and gas.
We weren’t supposed to use this technology.
So there must be something else hidden from us now that we were suppose to have.
A physics or technology we can’t have now, after sin entered in.
Meaning that God made all provision necessary for our survival whatever the out come falling or not.
Scientist want us to fall up not down.
They want us to be dependant on them not God inadvertently or not.
They are being fooled.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge might have been science.
So now we have this conflict.
Science has made our lives easier but it's killing the world, global warming,
Good and evil.
The how to with out God.
Purposely rejecting.

Hence my post .

 

[edge]

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).


There's one problem with that statment there is no middle ground.
That's a choice.

Evildave, It's right there in your face.

 

[ChristineR]

Hey edge, there are so many problems with Pascal's wager I never know where to begin. Whenever I see someone using it I wonder what they were thinking.

First problem is that it is not true that there is no middle ground. I could believe in Zeus or Aphrodite or Shiva or Krishna also. Unfortunately, some of those gods will forgive me for believing in other, non-existent gods, but some will not.

Second problem is that you usually end up believing in the meanest and least understanding SOB god out there. For example, Zeus will forgive me for worshiping Jesus, but Jesus will not forgive me for worshiping Zeus. Therefore, I should worship Jesus, even if the evidence points to Zeus. But Jesus is not the meanest God out there, so at the very least I should be a Muslim.

There are lots and lots of other problems, and a complete analysis gets extremely complicated. But you really should stop using Pascal's wager in this sort of debate, it just doesn't work.

 

[bruto]

Hey edge, there are so many problems with Pascal's wager I never know where to begin. Whenever I see someone using it I wonder what they were thinking.

First problem is that it is not true that there is no middle ground. I could believe in Zeus or Aphrodite or Shiva or Krishna also. Unfortunately, some of those gods will forgive me for believing in other, non-existent gods, but some will not.

Second problem is that you usually end up believing in the meanest and least understanding SOB god out there. For example, Zeus will forgive me for worshiping Jesus, but Jesus will not forgive me for worshiping Zeus. Therefore, I should worship Jesus, even if the evidence points to Zeus. But Jesus is not the meanest God out there, so at the very least I should be a Muslim.

There are lots and lots of other problems, and a complete analysis gets extremely complicated. But you really should stop using Pascal's wager in this sort of debate, it just doesn't work.

When it comes down to it, Pascal's wager was not in good faith, as Pascal framed it, because it contained only two options: atheism and the whole package of rites and sacraments of the Roman Catholic faith. He had already decided that there was only one true way to bet on God, so the game was fixed. If, as most religions teach, you're just as badly off for choosing the wrong sect as for choosing none at all, the odds become far less enticing, and if, as some apologists would have it, God cuts us more slack than that, then we must make the wager on an added assumption: that most religious sects teach the vilest lies about God's jealous preference for their particular brand of faith, so we must then decide on our own whether or not to believe that a God worthy of worship would punish anyone for rational disbelief.

I say that the best wager on any god worthy of the name is to assume that he doesn't exist and that if he does he doesn't care.

 

[RandFan]

Is that true? It could be true for some people. But I was trying to find a way so that people could see the basis for evolution without having their beliefs threatened. I posted a couple of times trying to find a way for that to happen.

To be fair there are many Christians who accept evolution.

You're mixing macro and micro, Randfan.

Yeah, doesn't surprise me.

 

[Ossai]

edge

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss).

Which god? The RCC god? The Southern Baptist god? The church of Christ god? The Mormon god? The reform Jewish god? The Shiite god? The Reformed-Presbyterian god? The Eastern Orthodox god? The Southern Baptist Missionary god? The Baptist god? The Sunni god? The Methodist god? The Orthodox god? The Lutheran god? The Pentecostal god? The Presbyterian god? The Church of God god? The Church of the Nazarene god? The Orthodox Jewish god?
There are a thousands more, shall I continue until you specify which one?

But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all),

Incorrect. At the very least you gain a sense of self worth, an awe of the universe, and your Sunday mornings.

whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

Again which god?

There's one problem with that statment there is no middle ground.
That's a choice.

Actually you’re the one ignoring the middle ground by declaring only two options: god or no god.

Ossai

 

[bruto]

Here's a thought: if the choice is "no god or any god," simply choose the god of the Universalists, who is disinclined to damn anybody, even those who lose their faith. Then lose your faith.

 

[Tony]

What did fossils produce along with the vegetation?
Coal, oil and gas.
We weren’t supposed to use this technology.
So there must be something else hidden from us now that we were suppose to have.
A physics or technology we can’t have now, after sin entered in.
Meaning that God made all provision necessary for our survival whatever the out come falling or not.
Scientist want us to fall up not down.
They want us to be dependant on them not God inadvertently or not.
They are being fooled.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge might have been science.
So now we have this conflict.
Science has made our lives easier but it's killing the world, global warming,
Good and evil.
The how to with out God.
Purposely rejecting.

Are you trying to masquerade as a poet?

 

[Tony]

If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end)

Wrong. You lose your freedom, the full use of your mind, and your sanity.

whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss).

Since when does it take simply believing in god to get into heaven? Do Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Wiccans get into heaven because they believe in god?

But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all)

How do you know? I've gained a lot since I gave up christianity.

whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).

How do you know? God spoke to me last night and said I didn't have to believe in him to get into heaven, so you're wrong.