Intelligent Design support letter to the editor

[Skeptic Ginger]

Very interestingly ironic way of saying things. Of course his assumptions are all skewed since they are describing post-Adamic fall conditions which are not atrributable to God. .....

Right, after God got pissed off, the world became bad on it's own.

The point is the people claiming ID also claim God made prefect designs. Most don't point out God made bad things after getting pissed off because that contradicts the other claims that God is loving. It is reasonable for you to interpret the Bible as explaining why God added the cockroaches. Perhaps you should present your hypothesis to ID proponents such as the Discovery Institute.

 

[Radrook]

And a double positive!
So, God's plan went awry? So it wasn't a perfect plan? How does a perfect being come up with an imperfect plan?

Perfection is a subjective term which means that certain criteria are being met to the satisfaction of the one setting them. If the plan would have not given humans freedom of choice then from his viewpoint it would have been a flawed plan.

Two question about this: in which passage of the bible does mankind reject God's guidance? As I recall, Adam and Eve weren't too hip aout leaving the garden. Second, which neutral animal became the cockroach?

1. The events are recorded in Genesis.
2. In what passage does it say they weren't too hip?
3. I don't know.

But he was a liar. He told Eve she would die if she ate the fruit. She ate the fruit. She didn't die.

You mean on the very day? From God's standpoint she didn't last a day since 1000 years are as one day from his standpoint.

How much time? If God's sitting around waiting to see if we'll meess up the earth, then I think the point has been proven well before now. How much worse does it need to get before He comes back and says, "I told you so"?

How much time left?

Mark 13:
36 Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father

Again, in which passage do Adam and Eve request the removal of God's blessings? I don't remember that part at all.

Their disobedience requested it. They knew full-well what the consequeces would be, God's disapproval, but chose that path anyway.

I take exception to the bolded word above. If this were true, there'd be no debate. There'd be no need for interpretation of the bible. And in all likelihood, Christianity would be the only religion.

Inability to comprehend doesn't mean that what was written wasn't written clearly. There are other factors which can prevent comprehension and thus lead to debate and multiplicity of views. There is even full comprehension followed by a decision to go contrary to what is being fully understood.

 

[articulett]

This is where the whole idea of a god falls apart. You don't know. You are supposing. Just because it is written in some book, does not mean it happened. It would be classed as hearsay in a court of law.

And heresy in the Nation of Islam.

 

[Hawk one]

You mean on the very day? From God's standpoint she didn't last a day since 1000 years are as one day from his standpoint.

But this is still complete and utter weak apologism at work. See, if God inspired the bible, and intended it to be read by humans, then surely he would realise that he should keep the timeline accurate from the point of view of the reader. That's one of the first things you learn to do when you're in the business of communicating. So when the bible says "one day", then it should mean one day as it's felt by humans.

Of course, it's a moot point, since it's all a made-up story, but at least it should be an internally consistend made-up story.

Their disobedience requested it. They knew full-well what the consequeces would be, God's disapproval, but chose that path anyway.

Why do you assume they really knew what the consequences would be? They didn't have any knowledge of death. Heck, they didn't have any knowledge that what they did was "evil", because they had to eat the fruit to learn that.

And that's just one of the details that makes no sense. Take a read through this article showing just how silly that made-up story is.

 

[articulett]

'

Third, each person has a right to either reject or accept based on whatever reason he or she feels justifies it. So I really see no reason to engage in any debating. You are happy. I am happy. Case closed!

: )

Sure... if the case is about happiness.

If the case is about truth, that's another story. There IS only one truth that is the same for everybody... but lots of people claiming to have some sort of access to some divine truth or other but no evidence than any actual divine truth exists much less that anyone has it. Scientology makes people happy. Is the case closed? Christians have no more evidence for their divine truths than Scientologists do... or Muslims or Moonies or UFO believers or astrologists, or priests that do exorcisms...

Skeptics usually prefer not knowing something rather than vapidly believing whatever it is they've been inculcated to believe by whatever culture they were born into. We like to hang out together on skeptic forums understanding the facts we humans are uncovering and sharing them with each other. Unfortunately, faithers need to prop up their beliefs by attempting to inflict them upon skeptics not realizing that skeptics require evidence while faithers think the "case is closed" so long as they are happy.

Truth doesn't give a crap about your personal happiness, Radrook... and evolution is a fact even if you think you are going to get happily ever after bonus points for denying it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You are free to opine that way if you wish. However, from a Christian standpoint it shows the consequence of trying to do things without his blessing and guidence. I guess that's where you and Christians differ.

So when the person who lives as piously as possible and prays for guidance and God's blessings gets cancer, then God wasn't paying much attention to that free will thing I guess?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The Christian viewpoint is that we can ask questions and that God has given humans full capacity to understand and that he clearly explains his plans via the Bible.

Better to leave the little peons in the dark and then fault them for their lack of faith and poor decision making I guess.

 

[PBTree]

'
First, I was responding to a question-yours. If you have all the answers already and have decided beforehand to tag all responses as not acceptable-then why ask?

Second, as I explained previously, my only motive for participation on this thread is make sure that you aren't attacking your own ideas while attributing them to Christianity.

Third, each person has a right to either reject or accept based on whatever reason he or she feels justifies it. So I really see no reason to engage in any debating. You are happy. I am happy. Case closed!


: )

Think you will find that I was responding to your response to DrBaltar.

Not engaging in debating. Hmm, tends to negate the reason for this forum.

To each his own I suppose.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

OK! : )

Pope Pius XII

Pope John Paul II

I don't recognize the Pope as having the last word on biblical understanding. Do you? Actually, the CC track record in that area isn't very good.

As I see it, Ocelot's point is asking, "who made you Pope?" IOW, what makes your interpretation superior to the billion other interpretations of the Christian Bible?

 

[Radrook]

Right, after God got pissed off, the world became bad on it's own.

That's because the world was on its own due to the rebellious request via disobedience.

The point is the people claiming ID also claim God made prefect designs.

The claim isn't their idea. It's based on a biblical statement. As I mentioned on another post, perfection is a subjective thing dependent on the criteria by which we evaluate things. Adam and Eve had no physical nor mental flaws. They were designed to live forever in perfect health. The animals, were perfect for their purpose.

Most don't point out God made bad things after getting pissed off ....

Well, stated that way it would seem as you see it. It can also be said in this way:
After mankind chose to wing it on its own without God's help they encountered many difficulties which they later began blaming God for.

because that contradicts the other claims that God is loving.

A person doing that doesn't understand the Bible. There is a contradiction only if one accepts one scripture as annulling all the others which clearly inform the reader that God does certainly hate certain things and certain types of people. So that love is not totally unqualified or unconditional.

It is reasonable for you to interpret the Bible as explaining why God added the cockroaches Perhaps you should present your hypothesis to ID proponents such as the Discovery Institute..

I did not say he added cockroaches. I said that some animals became pestiferous after mankind decided to go about on its own. Man's destruction of natural habitats to be replaced by cities. His conglomerating in huge numbers under unsanitary conditions. Over-hunting, overfishing, destruction of natural predators, introduction of species to control other species, etcetera.

 

[Radrook]

As I see it, Ocelot's point is asking, "who made you Pope?" IOW, what makes your interpretation superior to the billion other interpretations of the Christian Bible?

If an interpretation places human ideas over scripture then it is flawed-regardless of who is doing the interpreting.

What was the Protestant Reformation?

....A church or denomination’s teachings are authoritative and binding on Christians only if they represent the true meaning and clear teaching of Scripture. This is important in order to understand the connection between Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church, and the reason that the Protestant Reformation took place.

http://www.gotquestions.org/Protestant-Reformation.html

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

.....
A person doing that doesn't understand the Bible. There is a contradiction only if one accepts one scripture as annulling all the others which clearly inform the reader that God does certainly hate certain things and certain types of people. So that love is not totally unqualified or unconditional......

I don't want to get this thread off topic here, but this kind of crap makes me sick frankly, and right now I am particularly disgusted. No matter how you spin it, if your god beliefs were true, the horrendous tragedies that have been heaped on these innocent men, women and children because 6,000 years ago one person disobeyed and ate the fruit from a tree is pretty overwhelming proof your god is not "a loving god" by any possible farthest fetched stretch of your apologist brain.

Congo rape victims seek solace

A Brutal War's Machetes Maim Sierra Leone

Subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.

Child slave labor revelations sweeping China

 

[Radrook]

I don't want to get this thread off topic here, but this kind of crap makes me sick frankly, and right now I am particularly disgusted. No matter how you spin it, if your god beliefs were true, the horrendous tragedies that have been heaped on these innocent men, women and children because 6,000 years ago one person disobeyed and ate the fruit from a tree is pretty overwhelming proof your god is not "a loving god" by any possible farthest fetched stretch of your apologist brain.

Congo rape victims seek solace

A Brutal War's Machetes Maim Sierra Leone

Subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.

Child slave labor revelations sweeping China

Assume that the Genesis account is true:

Would you be here if he had not let this world develop? If he had destroyed Adam and Eve then all of us would have disapeared from any possibility of existence. You find that preferable? I ask because I want to know your opinion.

BTW
You are entitled to your opinion. However, please try to refrain from any personal attacks. Thanks!

 

[Radrook]

Deleted

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm afraid it is you who loses the points this time.

Of Dogs and Devils, The Rise of Contagious Cancer



Edited to add, I see this was addressed. But what was your opinion then, US? After all, many argue that viruses are not life forms. Since then we've had transmissible prions thrown into the mix. Personally, I think once a tumor jumps ship and spreads out infecting other organisms it is reasonable to define it as a life form. Identical twins are not considered one lifeform.

I still think we're talking about something that is in that gray area (sort of like we'd expect to develop during abiogenesis) rather than a life form like a bacteria, but, I admit, this is some very fascinating stuff.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...med.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

 

[articulett]

I'm afraid it is you who loses the points this time.

Of Dogs and Devils, The Rise of Contagious Cancer



Edited to add, I see this was addressed. But what was your opinion then, US? After all, many argue that viruses are not life forms. Since then we've had transmissible prions thrown into the mix. Personally, I think once a tumor jumps ship and spreads out infecting other organisms it is reasonable to define it as a life form. Identical twins are not considered one lifeform.

tumors undergo natural selection... they evolve... they mutate fast... we blast them with chemo... if one develops a mutation that makes it resistant to that chemo, it starts a whole new chemo resistant colony... so we pull out the bigger guns...

cervical cancers are primarily spread via hpv virus... that's a clever trick... ride along your vectors primal instincts (sex drive)... and don't kill them too fast--let them feel healthy enough to spread you

Cancer cells are living things as long as they can reproduce themselves (passing on their information to a new generation). Things don't evolve... the information (genomes) to build those things evolves giving rise to new "things". A species dies the same species it is born ass. I'm giving back the one point US took away.

 

[articulett]

Assume that the Genesis account is true:

Would you be here if he had not let this world develop? If he had destroyed Adam and Eve then all of us would have disapeared from any possibility of existence. You find that preferable? I ask because I want to know your opinion.

BTW
You are entitled to your opinion. However, please try to refrain from any personal attacks. Thanks!

Said the guy who readily engages in personal attacks AND thinks that he knows, not only that there is an invisible creator of the universe-- but also that he (radrook) KNOWS what book this dude inspired and how to go about interpreting it and what it "means"!-- talk about arrogant.

And I am not all loving, but I would never make a life form (have a child) if I thought there was even the remotest possibility that it could suffer forever... and you believe in an invisible all loving something or other who would have known in advance exactly which of his creations would be suffering forever AND why. The fact that he blames them, when he was the one who created and raised them and put their thoughts and language in their heads and then decided to punish their sentient beings forever if they didn't believe in his invisible ass is just sociopathic. And how did this magical god communicate with the people he poofed into existence? Was he distinguishable from a schizophrenic delusion? Was Jesus distinguishable from a mythological person or the "Mormon prophet" or a garden variety schizophrenic... many who seem to believe they are gods and/or sons of gods (and Jesus was both by some magical mystery of craziness).

I can't assume the genesis account is true anymore than I can assume Scientology's creation story is true... or Greek Mythology or any of the myriad of creation myths humans have been making up for eons. Why? because there is no evidence in support of any of that mumbo jumbo... none of the information given in any creation stories is the slightest bit prescient regarding knowledge that mortals took many years to accumulate regarding the nature of reality. God didn't mention DNA even. That's a big one to leave out if you're trying to impress your creations with your omniscience... don't you think.... and if he was benevolent--why not clue them in about germ theory--oh, and that females are as sentient as males and shouldn't be subjugated nor impregnated without their consent as god did.

I don't need to be thankful to your invisible illusion any more than I need to be thankful to Zeus or Mohummed or the Sun God that shines because people tossed virgins into volcanoes. What a self-important buffoon your faith has made you! And it's as unfixable as trying to talk suicide bombers out of whatever it is they think is going to land their eternal asses in Muslim paradise.

Ugh. Does it scare you to know that Scientologists and Muslims and Moonies and the assorted cults you don't believe in have as much faith (or more) in their higher truths than you do? Because it scares me. You cannot reason with faith.

 

[Radrook]

But the earth was not created in the beginning. In the first 9.2 billion years of the universe, there was no earth.

The beginning is not referring to the Big Bang event alone. It is referring to what God did as a compendium or as a prelude to the creative week and his creation of man. In any case, notice that the sequence is heavens first and earth later. Created the heavens and the earth. There is a correct sequence there.

What was the light that god created if the stars, sun and moon were created on the 3rd day? There were stars before the earth anyway, and the sun was also mostly formed by the time the earth started to coalesce from matter in the solar system.

Very true. Light itself was present in the universe prior to the beginning of the creative week.
please keep in mind that immediately after the first words Genesis tells us that there was darkness on the earth's surface. So obviously no light was getting through at that stage.

The Hebrew word "created" allows the alternate translation of "made to appear." So the removal of whatever was hindering the light from reaching the surface would have made the stars moon and sun appear for the first time as viewed from earth.

The moon "rules" the night only sometimes. When it's a new moon, it's not visible. It is also in the sky during the day half the time.

Yes, I agree, it does appear during the day. But the operative word here is it would rule or predominate. Even when the moon is present during the day it cannot be said to rule the day since it is always eclipsed by the brighter glory of the sun. Neither does the sun challenge the moon's rule at night.

BTW

Why do you assume that the scripture meant the moon would have to be always present at night?

Are you suggesting the animals of the earth were created in a day? Fossil records do not collaborate this.

The original word used in Genesis for "day" isn't restricted to a twenty-four hour time interval.

How long were the days of Genesis 1?
http://people.ku.edu/~bthomas/Sci_Bible/age_bib.html

In Genesis it says "And God said, Let us make man in our image,...". Who is US?

He was speaking to his Son, the Word of God.

What's up with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? I put my porn mags under my mattress or in a box somewhere if I don't want my kids to see them. Why is god leaving knowledge of evil next to creatures he designed to be curious with 'free will', and then punishes them and every generation afterwards when they inevitably eat the fruit? That's just childish and sadistic.

It can be interpreted that way and some people do. It can also be interpreted in a different way-and some people do.

BTW, how old do you claim the earth is?

As old as science tells us it is.

 

[articulett]

uggh... the brainwashing seems irreversible in radrooks case.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Assume that the Genesis account is true:

Would you be here if he had not let this world develop? If he had destroyed Adam and Eve then all of us would have disapeared from any possibility of existence. You find that preferable? I ask because I want to know your opinion.

BTW
You are entitled to your opinion. However, please try to refrain from any personal attacks. Thanks!

I believe if you re-read what I said the only personal reference in it is a reference to the fact you apologize for the Christian God. I wasn't aware that was an attack. It's my understanding it is a legit description. And this post so illustrates that apologist behavior of yours.

God: "Sorry you got your limbs hacked off and a stick shoved into your vagina until a permanent fistula developed and urine and feces continually run down your legs and your children were kidnapped and will be tortured, raped, and forced to be part of the latest rebel army and your husband was locked in that church which was set on fire burning him alive, but what have you got to complain about? Without me you wouldn't even have a life in the first place.

Oh, and BTW, did I mention that you are supposed to demonstrate your faith by worshiping me now for all I've done for you?"