Sunday April 5th at 8pm, Discovery Channel is showing a special on the life and times of Jesus.
They're sort of trying to recreate the historical circumstances. Just thought you guys might be interested, if at the very least to argue with how they do it. I don't know if I'll remember to watch, but, meh. Figured I'd share, anyway.
Discovery Special
(79 posts) (8 voices)-
johnosevens
MemberWed Mar 25 2009 9:30 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberThat makes me wish I had the Discovery Channel. There's a lot of things like that, on the science of the Bible, especially Noah's Flood. There's a group called Creation Research Science Education Foundation (CRSEF) My mom used to be a member of it. They do research into Biblical events. There's actually a museum in Kentucky called The Creation Museum that shows these things. I've been to it.
Wed Mar 25 2009 10:00 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberI've never heard of him. Their website is http://www.AnswersInGenesis.org Check it out.
Wed Mar 25 2009 11:07 pm # -
John, the Discovery Channel programs have a tendency to adopt the liberal/modernist view of biblical history--which is not really very defensible even on the basis of standard historic methods. I don't imagine you're missing much.
On the other hand, it might have good background material in it. There's a lot about first century culture that helps in understanding bits in the New Testament.
--M. J. Young
Thu Mar 26 2009 5:44 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberI've created three worlds that are heavily influenced by Creationist study.
One guy on a website which you can probably find if you google 'beowulf dinosaurs' argues that the 3000 plus line poem describing Beowulf never uses the word 'troll', and in its first part bears the marks of close observation.
In other words, Beowulf and his guys were professional dinosaur hunters aiming to clean out the creatures so that humans could sail the oceans and walk the land unmolested.
I think McCallister enjoyed it quite a bit.
It was low-ish in magic, and low in psi, and low-medium in tech.
If Creation occurred 6-10000 years ago, then it seems likely that dinosaurs did hang on in certain areas, and that humanity would not appreciate the cow-killing, people eating beasts. Consider how wolves were nearly driven extinct by ranchers to protect their sheep.
This leads to another world possibility. I've never read it, but I'd like too...The Beast in the Garden is about the re-proliferation of predators, and humans going into the wild to live, and humans not training the predators to leave them alone...which leads the predators (like mountain lions) to thinking that they can climb through a bedroom window and make off with Sparky the cocker spaniel.
Some people when there were such problems came to the community meeting 'to speak for the lions'.
So...stretch that out a bit further....
Imagine a world where killing a predator is illegal, even blasphemy. The rich, who make these rules, live behind sonic barriers and tear gas autocannons. They believe there are too many people, but they're not willing to say that because that would lead to the French Revolution with them cast as the nobles.
The poor, using telecommuting, and pre-fab snaptogether cabins, live in the woods to get away from the decaying cities.
The rich, seeing their servant base, trying to flee their 'tender grasp' pushed various impositions on to the 'cabin kooks' such as the Predator Protection Act.
Lets say that freedom of religion is still official, but the Children of Gaia believe that killing a predator is blasphemy, and that it seems that Children never get prosecuted for punishing an unbeliever for blasphemy (which usually involves flying an autogyro over a cabin and dropping an incendiary grenade on the cabin in the middle of the night.) The elite squawk about how horrible these burnings are, but then say 'its understandable' and never prosecute.
Things are heading back to the Dark Ages with a nobility (the elite), a priesthood (the Children of Gaia), and peasants unable to defend themselves in the wilderness.
============
Anyhoo,
back to Creation...
2)There's also the world in which the goddess is not willing to punish her creation so they choose evil and destroy good. Its basically an arguement for Noah's Flood.3)And of course, Nikolaj is in the Dinosaur Beach world with the space cadets and is fighting off pirates.
Thu Mar 26 2009 2:51 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTad, you want to read something cool? There are descriptions of 2 dinosaurs in the Bible. Job 40-15 to the end of 40, and all of Job 41 talk about the Behemoth and the Leviathan. The Behemoth is a Brachiosaurus-type dinosaur. The Leviathan was a fire-breathing dragon.
Thu Mar 26 2009 4:33 pm # -
Unless of course they are poetic descriptions of the hippopotomus and the Nile crocodile, two creatures who in the lands where the story was penned would have been known only by descriptions from foreign lands. Oh, but it's God speaking, and He couldn't lie about such things, could he? I didn't say He lied; He described what His audience believed and asked whether they were in control of such things. After all, he also asked them if they'd seen the storehouses where he keeps the snow. Either there are no such storehouses, or yes, the snow is kept in those dark clouds from which it falls.
It could be that the beasts described are a dinosaur and a dragon, but remember the problem with description. When we were recalling the old Game Ideas Unlimited series, did we get as far as Empiricism? That points out a lot of the problem involved in trying to describe a creature your audience has never seen. Regretably, Jim Denaxas' picture of the giraffe is not visible there; you can see it if you pick up Game Ideas Unlimited Volume 1 in print, as well as read the first six months of the series in an off-line convenient format. (The leprechaun painting is also in that volume, and on the back cover.)
In any case, the descriptions in Job might be suggesting such lost creatures, but it's not necessarily the case.
--M. J. Young
Thu Mar 26 2009 7:28 pm # -
Mark, the problem with Job is that we don't know where Job is or when even. I've heard that it's probably the oldest book of the bible. Suppose that it was written during, for example, the 400 year period that Israel was in Egypt, courtesy of Joseph. Israel has the Nile, and thus Hippo's and Crocodiles.
John, poetic description just has the point of not being literal. It has nothing to do with rereading. The fire in the mouth of Leviathan could just be a figure of speak for power. Now, I don't believe that, but I do believe in the power of poetry. You've got a point with the Hippo's tail. I would have no clue how they would have been able to transform that into a mighty cedar, or why. I've read the article that Mark is referring to. And I liked it.
The thing is, there are people that live in jungles these days that when first discovered and shown pictures of dinosaurs, testify to having seen them.
But if this is going to become a creationism debate, I'm opting out and will have probably said my last piece in this discussion. There have been too many of that already.
Thu Mar 26 2009 7:49 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberBut if this is going to become a creationism debate, I'm opting out and will have probably said my last piece in this discussion. There have been too many of that already.
Well, as with the pro-contra smoking argument. As far as I'm concerned, it would only become a debate if you took the anti-creationism side. As far as I know, everyone here believes in creationism.
Thu Mar 26 2009 7:58 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberI'm a Young Earth Creationist, largely. Like I've said before, the only thing I lack for being the Figure of Perfect Evil in the modern media is I'm not rich.
White, Male, Christian, Fundamentalist, Southerner, Republican, Conservative, American Nationalist....well that and I'm not a businessman. I guess I'm only 80% Evil. :)
Niko,
I think there will be more debates. I think we stand on the precipice of a great cultural change, and the forces of reaction are trying to stop it. Its like the few years before the Berlin Wall fell, the Communists were hating on Reagan because he was opening a door to the future. When a philosophy feels mortally threatened as Communism was, and Evolution is, well, it tends to escalate its attacks. And frequently its enemies are driven to higher exertions as well.So you're not likely to get your wish of peace and harmony. But hopefully we will all live to see the Berlin Wall fall, and truth rise from the rubble of a palace of false knowledge.
I think thats not a Creationist debate, but more of a meta-debate point.
But we can also discuss world design informed by Biblical history.
Thu Mar 26 2009 9:15 pm # -
the thing is, every religious debate or discussion derails to creationism these times. This topic started with John saying that there was a documentary on the life of Jesus. The problem of creation debates is that it often gets the attention off of even more important stuff.
Thu Mar 26 2009 9:30 pm # -
I had a very interesting conversation with my (#3) son while taking him back to college last weekend after his spring break. It was the more interesting because he is majoring in the biological sciences and not so well versed in theology as might be hoped.
It began with him saying something like, "I may have asked you this before, but do you lean one way or the other on that [creation versus evolution] debate?"
My first response was, "Actually, you have never asked me that before; none of my sons have." After that we had an interesting discussion. My position is that I am not committed, and since I am not in the biological sciences I do not have to be. I recognize that there are strengths and weaknesses on all sides, and that I do not have the information to resolve them.
For those who think that I must be terribly liberal in my approach to Biblical interpretation to think that the Genesis accounts might be anything other that fully literal, I will mention that St. Jerome (as cited by C. S. Lewis), writing in around the fifth century, said that those first chapters appeared to be written in the manner of a folk tale. I count that significant, because Jerome had no pressure to conform his interpretation of scripture to any modern science, or to find a way to date the creation of the world to an earlier period or stretch it over a longer time. He wrote that it was written in the manner of a folk tale because it seemed to him that it was. I cannot say that his opinion was unbiased, but I can say that it was not biased by the forces that are at work in our own age.
The second reason why I find this significant is that folk tales are stories written to convey truths but not necessarily facts. If Jerome is correct in his insight, then the value and meaning of those texts is not that they provide us with a scientific, geological, or biological history of the creation of the world, but that they give us an understanding of the foundation and origin of all that is, and why it is as it is.
That also strikes me as important in connection with the current debate. What I notice is that for people on both sides of the argument, the only question that seems to matter is whether the first chapters of Genesis are literally and factually true. That seems to me to be the least important question in connection with those texts, and I find that the argument prevents those on both sides from moving beyond the relatively unimportant question of the factual accuracy of those passages.
I am also reminded that there were no witnesses to the events of the first five and a half days of the Creation account. This is how God described it to someone--possibly Moses, possibly (if you can accept the notion that large portions of Genesis were recorded and preserved by those involved and passed through the generations of firstborn to come to Abraham and his descendants) Adam. Calvin has suggested (and again, he was not under pressure to conform to modern scientific thought about the eons over which the world was created) that sometimes God "lisps" to men, as a nursemaid to a child--that is, He speaks to us in simple words and phrases, in "baby talk" as it were, so that we will understand the part that we need to understand, and not be confused by the parts that are confusing. I can certainly understand God explaining Creation to Adam or Moses as a succession of days in which He did this part, and then that part, and then the other part, rather that confusing the matter with eons of careful planning and development.
I can also understand that God may well have created the entire thing in six days. It does face the question of, if He did so, He must have created intentionally deceptive evidence to cause men to believe otherwise. I am not more comfortable with the notion that God created the universe "already aged" in a way that would mislead our best investigators concerning the dates of creation than I am with the notion that He explained what He did in terms that conveyed all the important truths but which were factually incomplete or inaccurate.
But Nikolaj is right: the important question is not whether the universe was created in six days in a past whose distance can be measured in millennia, but what the text is trying to teach us about God, us, and the world in which we are living.
So I guess in the creationism debate, I'm the guy here who is wearing the black hat.
--M. J. Young
Thu Mar 26 2009 10:11 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberHmmm, I'm not sure I wholly agree with your first theses, but it does happen. I'll be happy to move on.
Okay as to the liberal modernist vs. Biblical conflict, I'm wondering how to portray this in a world. We need a metaphor for both sides, and since I'm not that respectful of the modernist, its going to be one that bites.
Modernist lack a fairminded approach because they 1)Want to try to control the Uncontrollable. 2) Want to be accepted in the club by other elites.
So....
There is a ring of city-states joining into a League of mutual defense on the rich flat lowlands by the coast. They are trying to imitate the mother country, and ape her fashions, but always a few years out of date.
What with the speed of sailing ships, it takes time for the newest fashions to reach League.
The League is slowly industrializing with steam engines and windmills and canals and water wheels. It needs minerals and the Halstl Hills have that in plenty.
The League sends forth buyers, but the Hillfolk claim that the Earthmaker has told them they are not to sell. The League is enraged, but it lacks the power for full on war, and so it sends Scholar Teachers and Preachers to the Hills to convince them that 'sure, the Earthmaker we all worship exists, but He doesn't actually tell people advice.'
We might have a sub-universe boundary with a lower bias for magic in the cities on the coast.
The Merchants of the coast also try to showcase new technologies like the Steam Engine Washing Machine but the Hillfolk say the Earthmaker says not to buy those either.
The Coastal League is getting really cheesed off at those hard-headed, reactionary, uneducated, superstitious Hillfolk.
The real reason the Coasties are angry is two-fold. 1)Their consience is pricking them and that's never fun. 2)They are trying to take advantage of the Hillfolk in a way that would end up with the Hillfolk becoming the servants of the Coasties, and the Hillfolk aren't going along with the scam.
And the Earthmaker, the local deity in this universe, is talking to the Hillfolk because he knows very well what the Coasties have planned, and he doesn't approve.
I'd say this should be a 3@1 or so universe for magic.
Thu Mar 26 2009 10:15 pm # -
Oak
MemberAll too few realize just how important and absolutely fundamental the creationism/evolution debate is.
Think carefully on some of the issues involved, and their implications.
Were we created by the Sovereign LORD, or did "nothing, plus time, plus chance" create everything and everyone, "from goo to you"? Do we owe allegience to our Creator as created creatures, or do we need only worship ourselves? Is there a Judge of Absolute Truth, and Right, and Wrong? Or is everything Relative, and is there no such thing as Sin?
Is the Bible trustworthy and reliable? If so, that starts with the first jot and tittle of Genesis 1:1. If not, and you try to handwave away what the first few chapters of Genesis plainly state, then where do you draw the line to say "oh well, these chapters aren't reliable, but these other ones are"?
Did Jesus Christ die for any particular reason, such as saving man from sin and death? "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Or was death already in the world long before man or any Fall in Eden, with generations living and dying and evolving before humans ever existed?
Answers in Genesis (answersingenesis.org) is indeed a good resource for learning more about the issues, and about their implications.
Informed Creationists and informed Evolutionists understand all too well the stakes involved. Is it important whether or not there is a Creator and Judge, or whether or not the Bible is trustworthy and reliable, or whether or not Jesus Christ really died to save us from sin and death?
I think there are very few things indeed that I would classify as "even more important"... :)
Thu Mar 26 2009 10:30 pm # -
The only reason that I find the debate important is for those reasons, but it never really goes about that in the debates.
The only reason that I believe that God created everything is because I believe the bible is the Word of God, there is a point where sin came into the world and became a sin to entire humankind. We have a sinful nature. If we hadn't had that Jesus wouldn't have come. And Jesus is a new Adam, implying that Adam indeed was without sin first. But the entire part about the Grace and redeeming is pushed aside in the discussions. Even here, where the reason I fear to look the documentary which started this thing was not for the creationism debate, but because of the probably use of "apocrypha" gospels and stuff like that, making less people believe in our Savior.
Thu Mar 26 2009 10:43 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberMJ,
You are aware that notions of an eternal universe were around in pre-modern times?
Have you come across the theory that the eleven collophons in Genesis are to be placed at the end of their sections and not the beginning of the next section? Which would have these sections being the tablets handed down from father to son, and the first tablet either written by Adam or God.
I think the general rule in Bible studies (which I'm pretty bad at) is one assumes literal without good reason otherwise. Is that correct?
Was their death in the world before Adam?
And now to ground I'm more comfortable with...
'Best investigators'...Are these the same people who willfully spread a lie about Ernst Haeckel's embryology etchings that were known to be fraudulent in the 18th century, but were taught as true in the 20th? The same people who deliberately lied about Neanderthal Man walking ape-like, and didn't discover the obvious fraud for 45 years?
Are these the same people who are taking gov't cheese which is corrupting? I believe in the Separation of Science and the State because it corruupts good science. You get massive fraud like Anthroprogenic Global Warming, and you get Evolution. Bad Science. If its bad for religions to take gov't cheese, its bad for scientists to do so. One becomes a puppet of the powers that be.
You get people's careers being destroyed for not espousing Darwinism. (The movie 'Expelled' is fun and scary, and quite well done.)
The Fossil Record supports Special Creation.
Polonium Halos tell us that the creation of primordial granites took less than three minutes.
Its interesting that there are legends worldwide of Dragons which share a striking similarity to Dinosaurs.
Uniformatarianism is giving way to Catastrophism in the Establishment.
Evolution is on the way out just like Communism. A preference cascade is coming.
Thu Mar 26 2009 11:05 pm # -
JTM
MemberPlease explain the appearence of anti-biotic resistant bacteria without evolution. I've never actually seen that done before, and therefore am somewhat interested in seeing it done.
Also, don't confuse geology with evolution, as they are different. Not even in the same field of science.
Fri Mar 27 2009 12:20 am # -
Is there a Judge of Absolute Truth, and Right, and Wrong? Or is everything Relative, and is there no such thing as Sin?
Those are not the only two choices.
Fri Mar 27 2009 2:03 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberJTM,
Let me deal with this in reverse order.
1. Dinesh D'Souza explained in his latest book that there are eight commonly accepted definitions of evolution. Only one of them is proven. One suspects that evolutionary leaders like the confusion this causes. It makes it harder to pin them to the ground when they can shapeshift.2.Bacteria that are defective such as having a much slower metabolism have an advantage when they are swimming in a sea of poison (antibiotics). After all, the less frequently you sip poison, the better off for you.
I believe there is also the case where a chemical lock is stripped (rather like a screw gets stripped), and thus multiple things can fit in there. Which might mean that there is competition for that spot, and thus less of something dangerous can fit there. This is a net loss of information even as it increases effectiveness in specific circumstances although probably not in general life.
I would say that resistant bacteria are proof of the only type of evolution by mutation that has been actually observed, that is, degeneration.
H.G. Wells in The Time Machine has his hero visit Earth 600,000 years in the future where the Last Human, a sub-sentient pain-filled crawling mass wiggles its way back to the sea. He was quite right. The only problem was that he had too much faith, or not enough logic. How did the Human get to the high estate from which subsequent millenia drove it ever downward? Every generation of man carries a greater and greater genetic load on its back. Eventually it will break us (or genetic engineering might fix the problem, but I'd say it only delays it.)
Our ancestors of a couple millenia ago were probably potentially smarter and stronger and longer lived than us. We have science and good food and fast cars to make up for our ongoing decay.
Cheerful stuff, eh?
Fri Mar 27 2009 2:31 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberPlease explain the appearence of anti-biotic resistant bacteria without evolution. I've never actually seen that done before, and therefore am somewhat interested in seeing it done.
You mean you're surprised that something created by God (the bacteria) is stronger and smarter than something created by man (the antibiotics) That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
Fri Mar 27 2009 2:42 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberHey Osevens, don't take it so hard. A good Bible discussion is always fun. You can add your own thoughts on it as well.
As I said earlier, my mom was a member of CRSEF. The account of creation has an interesting quality. The word "Day" as used in the creation account, in the original language means a single 24 hour day. No where else that this word is used is the meaning debated, EXCEPT in the account of creation. Any other use of the word in the Bible means a single, 24 hour day. In the account of creation, people debate the meaning. That should tell you that its meaning is a single, 24 hour day. God created the world in six, 24 hour days.
Fri Mar 27 2009 3:59 am # -
JTM
Member1. Dinesh D'Souza explained in his latest book that there are eight commonly accepted definitions of evolution. Only one of them is proven. One suspects that evolutionary leaders like the confusion this causes. It makes it harder to pin them to the ground when they can shapeshift.
Please tell me the seven unproven ones, since i've never heard of more than one.
Also please tell me what that has to do with the fact that evolution is not the same as geology.
2.Bacteria that are defective such as having a much slower metabolism have an advantage when they are swimming in a sea of poison (antibiotics). After all, the less frequently you sip poison, the better off for you.
I believe there is also the case where a chemical lock is stripped (rather like a screw gets stripped), and thus multiple things can fit in there. Which might mean that there is competition for that spot, and thus less of something dangerous can fit there. This is a net loss of information even as it increases effectiveness in specific circumstances although probably not in general life.
And because somthing that used to be a survival disadvantage is now an advantage, resistant bacteria are becoming the most common, and nearly immune strains of TB are cropping up. The fact that it was formerly a disadvantage has no bearing on how much of an advantage it is now.
You mean you're surprised that something created by God (the bacteria) is stronger and smarter than something created by man (the antibiotics) That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
But that's not what happens. They don't outsmart the antibiotic, it stops properly affecting them.
Fri Mar 27 2009 10:56 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberI'll do it from memory as my google-fu was not up to the challenge.
1. Abiogenesis.
2. Cosmic evolution.
3. Stellar/Planetary evolution (here's your geology)
4. Microevolution aka Variation aka Selective breeding (the only form that is proven.)
5. Macroevolution (creating new body plans, organs, etc.)I've also heard of Chemical Evolution and we've discussed Degenerative Evolution.
Everyone agrees with #4, and Evos like to use #4 to prove everything else.
Evos use Evolution to refer to Geology quite frequently except when its convenient not too. I suspect this is deliberate. Its a means of trying to make large claims and then when pressed into a corner by a debater, they can sneakily change the terms of the debate.
As to survival advantage...you're effectively claiming that you can start in the bottom of the Grand Canyon and fall downward (lose information and capability), and keep on falling downward and somehow arrive on the top of the Empire State Building.
Or...
Bob was a very bad soldier. It might be because he was fifty pounds overweight, and had most of the ailments of mankind between A for Allergies and M for Muscle Spasms. Besides, he'd never fired his rifle because he was scared of loud noises.
The other soldiers in Bob's platoon were all healthy, agressive, energetic sharpshooters.
However, Bob's cousin, George was a general. General George was as dim and thoughtless as Bob, and so he ordered the platoon to charge an impregnable hill.
They did. They died. Bob would have died too, but on the march to the hill, he passed out from the exertion of walking a hundred yards. So he survived.
Bob has survival advantages. He's more fit than all those studly guys.
This is of course, nonsense, and it reveals that Evolutionary concepts of survival of the fittest are indiscriminate nonsense. Bob's survival is a degeneration of the human race and a giant step 'forward' to the Last Man portrayed by Wells.
Fri Mar 27 2009 3:40 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberBut that's not what happens. They don't outsmart the antibiotic, it stops properly affecting them.
Well, I don't know the technical mumbo jumbo. Smarter and stronger just seemed like the easiest way to put it. But still, fact remains. Something created by God (the bacteria) is able to defeat something made by man (the antibiotics) and people are surprised at that? Whatever the technical mumbo jumbo is, it STILL doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
Fri Mar 27 2009 3:45 pm # -
JTM
MemberBy "proven" i assume you mean observed in action, since they all have left clear traces.
#1 is not called evolution and is only related to evolution to the extent that it is the starting point. It has also been proven that chemicals can become amino acids due to an electric charge.
#2 is called evolution but is not what is generally referred to as evolution. It actually is reasonably supported by a number of things, mostly a combination of how far it is possible to see, fusion rates of stars, the cosmic background radiation from the big bang, and how much hydrogen there is compared to other elements.
#3 is also called evolution but again is not what is generally referred to as evolution, and in fact i have never heard it or cosmic evolution referred to in that way. It is connected to #5 mostly because it is involved in locating fossils and dating them properly, which is why it shows up so often in debates. It is supported by radiometric dating and the shapes of continents.
#5 isn't proven only because it takes a long time to see, and is an outgrowth of #4. It is supported by fossils and radiometric dating, as well as vestigial organs such as the appendix. It is not currently noticeable in progress due to how slow it usually is.As for your example, if bob is usually in situations he survives by being overweight and unable to effectively participate in combat, he actually does have a survival advantage. However, if he is usually at a higher risk of death than the people who do participate in combat effectively, then he has a survival disadvantage. If being like the rest of bob's squad tends to improve survivability, then they are more fit and people will slowly tend to resemble them more. If being like bob tends to improve survivability, he is more fit and people will slowly tend to resemble him more. The fact that fit also has a definition relating to health has no bearing on it's use as a term relating to evolution.
Well, I don't know the technical mumbo jumbo. Smarter and stronger just seemed like the easiest way to put it. But still, fact remains. Something created by God (the bacteria) is able to defeat something made by man (the antibiotics) and people are surprised at that? Whatever the technical mumbo jumbo is, it STILL doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
It's not really a surprise, actually, though it might have been when it was first noticed. The technical mumbo-jumbo is that some of them are harmed less by toxic chemicals than others, and therefore don't die, so they reproduce and most descendants are also harmed less by toxic chemicals than the ones that died.
Fri Mar 27 2009 7:54 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberNo, actually I'm not going for that firm a defiition of proven. Both sides have the same data, but one side's interpretation of that data makes more sense than the other side. I say that the Evos theories (in the broadest sense that the word is used) runs from problematic to completely lame. Thats what I mean by 'proof'.
A fair number of people have said that Survival of the Fittest=Those who survive is a tautology and hence meaningless.
All of these are called Evolution at times. I contend that Evos shift their definition.
#1 You're referring to the Miller-Urey experiments? You don't want to lean on that weak reed.
#2 There are other theorie(s) that do better with the CBR. Its also interesting that there are macrostructures of which galaxy clusters are buildng blocks that would require trillions of years to form whereas the Big Bang only allows billions. Also, there's something called Dark Matter. 90% of matter is undetectable. Its not clumped because you could spot it with gravity if it were. Its not spread out because then it would interfere with starlight. So, its undetectable and invisible and is 90% of everything....
You do know I'm giggling about this point, right? I'd liked to sell you a car. Granted you can only see the steering wheel, but the rest is there, really, honest. You just can't see it. :)
#3 It is part of Evo. Let me add another correlation between Geology and Biology. Biology needs billions of years for Evo to be remotely credible. But you go to the Grand Canyon and you look at the evidence and realize it supports Catastrophism, and suddenly those billions of years start to vanish.
With dating technologies returning absurd figures for rocks of known age...they dated some volcanic rock which was perhaps thirty years old and got some five figure date...
Shape of the Continents is a good example of the same data but differing interpretations. What if the speed of movement today is the tail end of a much faster process which had been set in motion when something very large smashed the Earth or passed very close by? To be more plain, what if Africa was receding from South America at a rate registered in miles per hour at one time? What if the description in the Bible of mountains skipping like rams is more or less literal?
#5 is an outgrowth of #4. Thats the theory anyways. I've got a theory. I can build a ten foot tall tower with timber. And then I can build a tower all the way to the moon. The first is eminently possible. The second is not possible.
If a kind varies too far from its base, it becomes sterile, or dies, or reverts back to its base.
Besides, the Fossil Record supports Special Creation. His biggest opponents in the day were paleontologists. He told them they needed to do more work to find what his theory predicted. Its been a hundred fifty years, and the proof is in. Darwin was mistaken.
Bob is the resistant bacteria. They survive by being less effective. Thus the RB or the Robert is disposed of, I think.
Can you point to one mutation that added information? We both agree that certain mutations might make someone more effective in odd circumstances, but those mutations are losses of information or copies from other sources. There is no net gain of information.
Sat Mar 28 2009 12:57 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberShape of the Continents is a good example of the same data but differing interpretations. What if the speed of movement today is the tail end of a much faster process which had been set in motion when something very large smashed the Earth or passed very close by? To be more plain, what if Africa was receding from South America at a rate registered in miles per hour at one time? What if the description in the Bible of mountains skipping like rams is more or less literal?
There's something to this. That during the Biblical account of The Great Flood, it speaks not only of rain, but also of floodgates of the deep opening up. These floodgates of the deep were places where water came up out of the ground. When these floodgates opened, the tectonic plates split apart. Prior to The Great Flood, there would have been no seismic activity. The floodwaters fell, the floodgates opened. The earth was covered in water. Well, where did all of the water go? Just was Eric said. Africa and South America were connected at one point. That means that the Atlantic Ocean wouldn't have been there prior to the flood.
Sat Mar 28 2009 1:32 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberShape of the Continents is a good example of the same data but differing interpretations. What if the speed of movement today is the tail end of a much faster process which had been set in motion when something very large smashed the Earth or passed very close by? To be more plain, what if Africa was receding from South America at a rate registered in miles per hour at one time? What if the description in the Bible of mountains skipping like rams is more or less literal?
There's something to this. That during the Biblical account of The Great Flood, it speaks not only of rain, but also of floodgates of the deep opening up. These floodgates of the deep were places where water came up out of the ground. When these floodgates opened, the tectonic plates split apart. Prior to The Great Flood, there would have been no seismic activity. The floodwaters fell, the floodgates opened. The earth was covered in water. Well, where did all of the water go? Just what Eric said. Africa and South America were connected at one point. That means that the Atlantic Ocean wouldn't have been there prior to the flood.
Sat Mar 28 2009 1:33 am # -
It should not surprise me that this thread has exploded thus.
From John Oakmaster:
Were we created by the Sovereign LORD, or did "nothing, plus time, plus chance" create everything and everyone, "from goo to you"?
As Scott says of some other point later in the thread, those are not the only two possibilities.
Even before Darwin, there was a version of the Gap Theory which saw the history of Earth in Epochs. The problem was that there were fossil records of incredible creatures for which there were no human records. The solution was that when "in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth" He did not create "the earth...without form and void", but created something complete, which He then destroyed and recreated, possibly several times, before turning His attention to reforming what was already here into the iteration familiar to us. Even today, there are some who hold to a version of the Gap Theory, in which Lucifer was the prince of an Earthly kingdom of angels that was destroyed by God's judgment.
You also have Day Age believers, who hold that God did everything He said in the order in which He stated, but did so over countless stretches of years which He chose to describe as days. After all, to the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, and no matter how we take that statement it at least opens the possibility that what God described as a day was considerably longer than twenty-four hours.
There is also a strong contingent of Theistic Evolutionists, who believe all that science claims about the timeframe, the steps taken, but hold that it was all guided and crafted by God. Indeed, the recent announcement by former famed atheist Anthony Flew that he had been persuaded to theism based on the complexity of DNA inherently suggests that he is a theistic evolutionist, believing that some divine being was behind the creation of life as we know it; and the Intelligent Design school is focused on the same point, that there is a designer controlling the formation of what is, such that if evolution is the means it is still the tool in the hands of the divine.
The rest of what you say in that paragraph can be based on any formulation of creation which treats it as divine creation. If God made us, then things are as He says. It is not absolutely necessary that it He did it the way we think He did.
Is the Bible trustworthy and reliable?
One of the truly helpful realizations I had in the past few years (and I must thank my interactions with the Lutherans for some of this) is that nearly all of us who are believers believe that the Bible is literally true except where it does not intend itself to be taken literally. Let's start with the easy examples.
Jesus told His disciples that they were the salt of the earth. I don't know anyone who believes that He meant His followers were chloride compounds. He was using a metaphor to convey a truth about our interaction with the world around us.
Similarly, when He said we are the light of the world, He did not mean that we were comprised totally of photons formed in waves. Again He was using a metaphor to describe a reality.
He said He was the vine and we were the branches, but again he did not mean we were woody strands connected to a woody root. It was a way of conveying truth by metaphor.
Now it gets tougher.
Jesus told a story about a rich man who died, and a beggar named Lazarus who also died. He said that the rich man was tormented and the beggar rested in the bosum of Abraham, and then described a conversation between Abraham and the rich man. Some people believe that this literally happened, and they go to great lengths to create a conception of the afterlife in which this is possible. Personally, I think it's a fictional story that Jesus created to convey what is really a very important point: people who won't believe the message of God are not going to believe it merely because someone comes back from being dead. I notice that some time after that, Jesus did bring a man back from death whose name happened to be Lazarus--but that man was never a beggar. I also notice that rather than be convinced by this, the enemies of Jesus decided that they needed to find a way to kill Lazarus, too. So the fictional story Jesus told was in some ways confirmed by the reality He later created.
At the last meal Jesus shared with His disciples, He broke bread and said "This is my body", and He similarly indicated that the wine in the cup after supper was His blood. (Exactly what he said is important to this consideration, but it clouds the issue at hand.) There are many Christians who think that the bread and wine of communion must literally become flesh and blood, because that's what Jesus stated. There are others who use the formula "in, with, and under", to indicate that it is both bread and wine and simultaneously flesh and blood. There are those who assert that it is still bread and wine, but that there is a spiritual presence of flesh and blood connected to it. Then there are those who believe that those statements are metaphorical, that Jesus was telling them to see the bread and wine as symbols of His body and blood. I happen to fall into the last group.
The problem with the creation account is the same problem we have in all of these other cases: does the Bible intend for itself to be understood literally here, or not? Jerome apparently would have said not; C. S. Lewis would have said not. I know many believers who would agree with them. I know many who believe that those first chapters must be literal history or the rest of the text falls.
Sure, this means that on some level we are standing in judge of what is true, factually, in the Bible. However, we are always doing this. When we read Jesus' words that He is the vine and we the branches, and we conclude that this is not a literal description of our real existence as woody tendrils bearing leaves and grapes but an allegory intended to give us a sense of a reality that is unseen, we have stood as judge on the text, declaring that part of it is not literally true because it does not intend itself to be so taken. When I say that Jesus did not mean that the bread and wine were literally converted into flesh and blood, I am standing in judge on the text by declaring that it is not literal. I have what I believe are good reasons (good exegetical reasons) for doing so, but it is still my interpretation of the text.
Or was death already in the world long before man or any Fall in Eden, with generations living and dying and evolving before humans ever existed?
I may appear to have embraced the theistic evolutionist position here, but I have not; were the forum filled with theistic evolutionists, I would be pointing out the problems on their side. This is probably the biggest problem they face. I cannot answer it easily. I wonder whether perhaps there is a temporal disruption, that God created everything as described in Genesis, and then at the moment when He drove Adam and Eve from the Garden the entire universe reverted to billions of years past and was created a new by a big bang and the guiding hand of a Lord who brought all things to the place where Adam and Eve walked the now ancient recreated world, with the knowledge that they had destroyed all that they knew and been transplanted to something different. If that is what happened, it is no wonder God did not try to explain it--I can barely wrap my head around it, and I answer time travel questions every week. So sure, that's a problem that has not been adequately answered by the theistic evolutionists; but then, there are also problems that have not been adequately answered by the young-earth creationists.
Turning to Eric:
Dinesh D'Souza explained in his latest book that there are eight commonly accepted definitions of evolution. Only one of them is proven.
4. Microevolution aka Variation aka Selective breeding (the only form that is proven.)
I have this reliably but second-hand.
Variation through selective breeding, under the view which opposes evolution, allows for the development of varieties of dogs, horses, cats, and any other animals for which variety is possible, but insists that all variations are still members of the same species. "Species" means that they can still interbreed. Although we have difficultly imagining it, a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard can be crossbred to create viable offspring, dogs of mixed breed.
I was under the impression that there was no evidence of any species dividing into distinct incompatible species. It may be that I was mistaken. My son, the biology major, has been made aware of a study of slugs in a major city. The situation is, slugs cannot cross the street. Thus for as long as there have been streets in our cities, the slug populations in each block have been isolated from each other, unable to intermingle. A recent study has determined that the slugs on each block have become incompatible with each other--they can no longer breed with those on other blocks, because they have become distinct species.
Now, maybe someone has a different test for species, or maybe there's something wrong with the data, but this sounds to me like evidence of species diversification by evolution, and I don't see an easy way around that.
I do understand that this does not necessarily mean that there could be kingdom diversification by evolution. However, the evolutionists are correct that to see that much change we would have to observe over a much longer period of time than we can arrange without time machines. The argument that selection cannot lead to species diversification may have been disproven; it is not so big a step as we'd like to think to cover the rest.
I'll close this here, as I've already spent too much time on too little information, and I've got games to run.
--M. J. Young
Sat Mar 28 2009 1:47 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberPeople will slowly tend to resemble the more fit members of Bob's squad...
You've got a few forces at work...
1. Survival pressures.
Mutations tend to decrease survival chances. You might tend to find the soldiers becoming stoic, and hardy, and so expressing the innate variability in their Kind, but beyond this survival pressure will act as a conservative rather than a creative force. Mutations will be trimmed off.2. Genetic decay.
Make enough copies of copies a Xerox and you'll start to see degradation. Keep exposing that Xerox machine to a hail of cosmic rays and you'll see more.If someone is radically different (a major mutation) he gets trimmed off. If he's a little different, he might survive and pass on his defective genes. These get passed around and the other defects as well with the result that the soldiers over generations as a group get slowly less effective.
Now, you're hoping for a chain of coincidences that has to be expressed in scientific notation with at least three zeros....like 10 to the 2000 power coincidences that will be beneficial.
The problem is that you're betting against the house. House always wins. Even with only a 52-53% chance in its favor, the house will beat the player. You have odds way worse than 48%. And eventually you'll run out of intelligible genes to gamble and be left with a pool of mush, and then the bouncers will escort you out of the casino.
Sat Mar 28 2009 1:51 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberThe snail example is similar to Chihuahua and Great Dane I would think. Its either the proof of extensive variability within a Kind, or of Degenerative Evolution.
And the theory outlined in the book Starlight and Time is an interesting solution to the Old Light problem for YEC's. I'm not qualified to judge it.
In essence, Earth is the center of the universe or pretty close. We're near the central black hole and so time on Earth was dilated as per relativity?? Meanwhile, the farther away from Earth, the more time has passed.
Sat Mar 28 2009 2:04 am # -
JTM
Member#1 Yes, and it proves that it is in fact possible with at least one mix of materials, thus meaning it could possibly have happened on earth with the materials present.
#2 Not much is actually known about macrostructures because they are so very big that it's hard to see enough of them. Also, dark matter is thought to exist because distant galaxies bend light far more than things of their observed mass should.Also, the universe has a high minimal age due to the speed of light and how far away we can see things
#3 The grand canyon is formed by a river. I'm going to ask for the details on the dating in question, since it is entirely possibly they used a bad method or did it wrong.I'm skipping number 5, since if you ignore the fossil record it is not provable due to the long timescale.
As for a gain of information, see HIV. Used to be a monkey virus, now can infect humans. See also the spanish flu of 1918.
As for time dilation, the central black hole of the universe blew up, and the largest black hole observed to date would be the one in the center of the galaxy, about 26,000 light years away.
Sat Mar 28 2009 2:31 am # -
johnosevens
MemberJust so you'll know I'm not ignoring you, A1Nut, I'm not chiming in on this debate any further because you all know how I feel about the whole creation vs evolution thing already. Also as one of the few (I'm not the only one, am I?) non-Christians in the house, I really have no common ground to argue these points from, so I'm better off just keeping my mouth shut.
Sat Mar 28 2009 3:22 am # -
You're not the only one, O'Sevens. I just can't justify posting here when all my game threads are outstanding. It would be too much time and effort better spent on other things.
I'm pleased to note that I agree with MJ on most things that don't actually commit me to a version of Christianity (with the exception that I'm not nearly as skeptical about speciation).
Sat Mar 28 2009 4:38 am # -
Tadeusz
MemberMiller-Urey had three problems.
1. The atmosphere used turns out not to be what it is now thought it would be.
2. All amino acids in humans bend one way. MJ knows about this in part because I and Graeme tortured his character with it in a universe where the aminos were bent the opposite way. In M-U, it was fifty-fifty.
3. They had to have some sort of trap to hold the formed aminos so that the next lightning bolt wouldn't denature? the priors. Thus, in order for this experiment on Unguided Evolution to work, they needed an Intelligent Designer. :)#2 You don't at all see the massive similarity to Ether, the substance that carries photons according to 19th century scientists? Doesn't this just smell funny? Are you saying that Dark Matter is invisible, almost undetectable, 90% of the universe, and is only available out on the edge of the universe? I do think there's a saying...extraoridinary claims require extraordinary proof. And DM is way past extraordinary. Its downright miraculous.
#3 High minimal age...I mentioned the Old Light problem for YEC's and one possible solution. I'm not qualified as I said to wade neck deep into serious cosmological physics. I took one look at some info related to Starlight and Time and backed away quickly.
The Grand Canyon has layers of stone revealed by the action of erosion. We all know that. If the Evos are correct, these layers were laid down very slowly, and the differing layers represent breaks in the laying down, and time off from laying down, and then a restart. So you'd expect to see erosion on the top of a layer before the next layer came along.
Unfortunately its not. If this is extensive enough not to be passed off as some sort of fluke or some other cause, then one is driven to the conclusion that the Grand Canyon was either formed in the Noahic Flood or immediately afterwards when some sort of remnant inland sea broke loose and roared to the ocean shortly after the Flood during the beginning of the Ice Age when the Neanderthals were getting rickets over in Europe (I'm serious, but I also know I'm firing way too fast there, but its a fun theory).
We do know from living history that a very large canyon can be formed very quickly by large amounts of water. The equation is Water+Time=Canyon. More water, and you need less time.
I'm not ignoring the fossil record. I'm claiming it for my side. I've read Evos who admitted that they needed to avoid the record. Just how do you explain the Cambrian Explosion? I think it was Stephen Jay Gould who said that the record looked like species suddenly appearing, staying for a while unchanged, and then dying. This is one of the high priests of evolution admitting the record is not helpful to evolution.
As for HIV, you might want to read Duesberg who was on his way to a Nobel Prize before he committed heresy and suggested that HIV was not a virus, but the natural result of people using drugs, partying all night,a nd generally abusing themselves. Now he can't get a grant. Burn the witch. And once I convince you, you might want to watch Expelled so that you can make sure you don't anger the Bishops and get excommunicated.
But I thought we'd already dealt with the bacteria issue and it was shown that it was degenerative evolution? I also thought we didn't really know what caused the Spanish Flu. I suspect that somewhere in China someone got close to a pig, and a degenerative mutation of a virus that had never species leapt before (so virgin field epidemic logic kicks in with a vengeance) leapt to a Chinese peasant. This virus had a specific chemical lock that attached itself to pigdom, but it broke, and now more keys could fit in the lock. It lost information, but it gained a brand new host.
And the rest is history.
And it might not be a Chinese man. Nowadays most flus come from China, but I'm not sure about back then.
I don't need much faith to believe in Special Creation. Science supports it.
Sat Mar 28 2009 5:46 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberEric, I know I said I would stay out of this, but I've heard a theory about Noah's Flood that would blow your frigging mind. It explains the fossil record, it explains the Biblical accounts, even explains why we have earthquakes and volcanoes. If you're interested, let me know. Too tired right now though.
Sat Mar 28 2009 7:27 am # -
Eric - Please, please don't tell me you actually believe that HIV is not a virus, but rather a symptom of self-destructive behavior. I dearly hope I'm reading your post incorrectly.
Sat Mar 28 2009 6:28 pm # -
Scott, could I get your e-mail address please, not about the current thing, but you've said something interesting that I want to ask more about earlier in this discussion and I don't want to derail it any further then it is already. Mine is denolaj@gmail.com
Sat Mar 28 2009 6:49 pm # -
Tadeusz
MemberWodium,
Here's what I know....1. AIDS has gotten massively politicized. Politics is bad for science.
2. Duesberg is the possible discover of the retrovirus, and a man likely to receive the Nobel Prize in biology.
3. Duesberg suggests that our whole approach is mistaken. He gets kicked out of the Establishment and can't get a grant.
4. We spend billions of dollars in AIDS research with little to show for it. Its seems reasonable to spend a couple hundred thousand checking out this wild idea.
5. AIDS is not a ridiculous as Dark Matter, but I have heard talk about latencies reaching twenty years. I'm wondering if this is more of the same DM garbage.
6. The logic seems clear. Stay stoned, share needles so that you pick up lots of diseases, take antibiotics casually and not how the doctor ordered, sleep outside, have sex with lots of different people...its not surprising your immune system collapses. We worry about walking in the cold winter rain and how it might suppress our immune system.I do not know. I do know that if Stephen Hawking came forward and said "Our approach to fusion is fundamentally flawed, and I need three hundred thousand bucks to prove it." I'd support giving him the money.
I do know that you sound politically offended by my theses, and that politics and science should not mix. The truth has no politics.
John,
Sure, I'd like to hear it.Sat Mar 28 2009 8:31 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberEric, OK, the theory on Noah's Flood goes as follows.
First question, where did the floodwaters come from?
We know from the Bible that a few things were very different about the world prior to the flood. First, there was no rain. Secondly, no rainbows, and third, people lived much, much longer. Into the 900 year range. What would cause this? The theory is that the entire planet was enveloped by a huge water cloud. A cloud cover so dense and so thick that sunlight could not penetrate it. This would cause the earth's climate to be extremely humid, eliminating the need for rain. Since sunlight couldn't penetrate, there would be no rainbows, and people would live much longer, as they would not be affected by the sun's harmful radiation.
When God flooded the earth, he poured that cloud cover down on the earth. As stated earlier, the floodgates of the deep opened. This is the theorized reason for tectonic plate activity. Prior to these floodgates opening, the earth's crust would have been a single tectonic plate, therefore, no volcanoes or earthquakes. When these floodgates of the deep opened, the tectonic plates slid apart at an alarming speed. This is why Africa and South America seem to fit together.
Last question, where did the water go?
When the plates were together, the Atlantic ocean wouldn't have been there.
Sat Mar 28 2009 9:53 pm #
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