Thats where I don't understand, the bible is suppose to be from an all powerful, being, yet it has to lie or be very 'unspecific' in what it has created? Actual proveable, historical and scientific facts would've helped our race a HUGE amount. When there aren't any of these in the book, and the ones that are in the book are wrong, doesn't one start to question the credibility of the whole book? Or do you just say, oh well, those are wrong, but I'll believe everything else because, well...just because. At some point doesn't the track record have some bering on the crediblity of the book in general? Or does it just not matter? I think the bible SHOULD have facts like these in it to prove its validity, otherwise it just a 'he said' kind of thing. Hell the author of gooten's article constantly talks about unobserved facts, yet thats all the bible seems to be.
Regardless of religion, this is just a bad argument. Why are (many) impressionable young children taught that Santa Claus brings them presents on December 25th as if it is the truth? Why did the Greeks follow and believe their mythology as if it was the truth? The Egyptians? Sumerians? Etc.? B-Bob, True, this is not a real discussion in that neither side will ever believe the other, since religion is involved...but, I think they are worth it for the simple fact that scientists such as yourself are pulled out of their science shells to pass along some knowledge about all sorts of things. As I have said before, science is so far out of the public's mind, that anything added is beneifcial in that it is 1. knowledge and 2. accumulatory which, hopefully, can "demystify" it a bit. Science is not like history or most humanities in that they are so approachable. Science, I think, is intimidating to most. Because we are stupid. Not really, but you know why.
Hey! Nobody said the first ones lived very long! edit: rimbaud, I basically agree. I like this thread and want to have a discussion. But I suppose my main point is that the discussion will suffer (and has suffered) if people focus precisely on Looney's arguments, such as they are. I'm going to email you something boring about science communication. Apologies in advance.
Yeah, but children are told the truth about santa eventually(Rimbaud, did I just ruin something for you? ) , are they not? Yet adults will tell you that God created the world in 7 days as Fact. Aren't your mores and values about life learned a great deal in your youth? Parents and their beliefs have a huge impact on kids and the way they think, why do you think,more than likely, kids follow the religious and political agendas of their parents? I fail to see how this is a bad argument. Children can be made to believe many things by their elders, can they not? How many 5-8 year olds are going to try to research the truth about what sunday school is teaching them? They're going to accept it as fact and nobody is going to tell them otherwise...until they get onto a message board.
Well, light and day and night were created before plants and the sun. The plants don't need the sun if they still have light.
Thanks for the very interesting discussion, fellas. Suffice it to say, my view of "creation" (whatever that means) is not the reason for my faith...I simply see the myriad of coincidence after coincidence with infintesimal odds against it and think that is at least evidence of a Creator. But that's really not the basis of my faith...that's much more personal...much more on the micro level than the macro level. But I do find it odd that we appreciate beauty...that we have a sense of appreciation of art...and the created world...I think, in my mind, there's almost something "divine" about that. Something sparked by Someone. I don't want to pound this down anyone's throat...It's just my fairly uneducated view of things. The stats I quote and the views I present aren't my own...frankly, if they were, they would be relatively worthless...I'd rather lean on greater thinkers than myself for this kinda stuff. Again...good stuff, guys.
I don't think a poem is a lie. I realize that only references one particular part of the bible. But part of the genius of it, is that it's not so specific. It would've been discarded long ago because times and people change. As our understanding grows, the bible unfolds different things. It's all there and it's been there all the time, but mankind changes. The point of the bible isn't about the facts. It's about the message. They have found evidence of King David recently, though the facts about what they discovered are somewhat different in terms of size and scope than the biblical account of David. But none of that changes the messages and lessons learned from the biblical account of David's life. Those are what is important. If the people who put those stories down to writing did so with exaggerated numbers doesn't change the point of the story. I believe that message is divine, and whether humans distorted other things in the recording, it doesn't matter. If you look at the legend of Robin Hood, and say 'that can't be right. Prince John was really in Devonshire when it says he was in Nottingham. The story is false, and I won't even bother it.' then you are missing the point. The point of the story is greed, oppression and injustice are bad. Whether some facts in the telling aren't correct doesn't belittle that message at all.
How do you have day and night before the sun? Eternity means no beginning and no end. I believe the universe is eternal. Nothing comes from nothing. Energy is neither created nor destroyed.
More logical? Do you mean more likely? It does not fit any fossil evidence. DON'T THE FOSSILS PROVE EVOLUTION? RESEARCH PAPERS No, it boils down to this: If it is unobservable in the present, can there be other explanations than what is presented so far? Both sides must be open to other viewpoints, and ultimately the scientific results that support those viewpoints. One side saying that only the other is "faithfully blind" is being hypocritical. Dating Techniques EVOLUTION: REAL SCIENCE OR NONSENSE? As for some penicillin & E.Coli in a petri dish with enriched agar, the study showed that survivability was due to the disablement of the E.Coli's DNA that was responsible for the antigens that was the vector used by penicillin. Microevolution does not prove macroevolution. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obviously I'm not proving anything here. I would just like for everyone to understand that scientific evidence has an opportunity to be wrongly interpreted, and should always be scrutinized before acceptance. I test my beliefs all the time.
Cool, I wish you could tell that to all the people that quote the bible and say "See it says it right here, thats what happened!" Unfortunately not everyone sees it the way you do. I think the message the bible tries to give is great, but to say that all the stories are actual events and is used as a historical reference is laughable. To a lot of people, the bible=scientific fact. Looney Toons is a great example.
Yeah, that's for sure. You and the websites you are copying from are certainly teaching us a bit about incorrect interpretations. Thanks for the link to those research papers though, must have missed them the first time they appeared in "Science" or "Nature." I particularly Genesis plate tectonics ones. Take that Pangea you punkass beatch! Knock knock Who's there? Gondwanaland! Gondawanaland who? Gonnawanakickyourlameass!
Enough of the creationism sites Gootan. Have you ever been to an actual science website? The 'scientific fact' in some of those articles is laughable. You need to get out and read something non-christ based. Hell, that dating techniques link is just a link to an empty BBS site, with like 2 articles of nothing.
The part that interests me the most is that the alternative is that it always had to be sparked by "Someone". Many ancient cultures, such as the Maya, believe in a very complex spiritual world, with many gods, many layers of heaven/hell...heck, they believe that land is really a giant turtle swimming in a really big ocean and that one day (relatively soon I think...according to their calender, 2012 or 13 or something like that) the world will come to an end and be reborn again as it has happened in the past (was this always just a spirtual idea or a physical one - the world will actually en - as well). I just think it's interesting that when questioning evolution or like topics, everyone immediately turns to the Bible story as the only logical other choice. It was just a story written by some dude...even if you do beleive GOd created it all, there is no reason he had to create it the way it is portrayed there...maybe he actually DID create the earth as simply a giant turtle swimming in some water...if the answer is spirtual, it coudl be ANYTHING.
LOL, yeah, I was a little relieved. I didn't want to sift through more ridiculous articles with facetious remarks and distorted facts. Thats pretty much the theme of all the articles on that site.
I've been glacing through my book trying to find where I read it. But with the telescope, they observed other universes and galaxies, but they said there are galaxies out there just like ours that are getting farther away from each other at an astonishing speed. They are getting farther from each other, therefore, there was a BEGINING to it all. The Bible, which was written some-3,000 years ago, knew alot facts, and stated it clearly in the scriptures. It states that the world was a sphere, when for a while everyone thought it was a flat land. It talks about the sun rotating, which infact, after many years of research, the sun is actually on a journey that will take a great amount of years to complete. The Bible speaks of there being water elsewhere outside the earth (there is water on the north/south caps of Mars and lots of comets out there made up of nothing but ice). It goes on to mention just North of the earth's tip, there is a wide space of no stars to be found, Thousands of stars are found in every other direction except directly North of the Earth's tip. The Bible mentions the second coming of Christ will be in the "day", then it goes on to say it will be at "night." A fool reading the Bible would say it contradicts itself. (This was before we knew the world was round), they thought it was a lie. But come to find out, when he comes, it will be day on one side of the earth and night on the other.
It has always been my understanding (and you may know this, SRF) that the Bible was "divinely inspired" but because it was written after all the events took place, there was going to be inconsistencies and errors. The way I always looked at things like dinosaurs, neanderthal men, evolution, etc is like this: All we are told from the Bible is that God created everything in 7 days. But we run into trouble when we start equating our time to the time back then. I mean who is to say that a day back then wasn't equal to thousands of years? I am a Christian but I also am someone who has studied science in my times. I don't see why the two can't co-exist with one another.
