I don't know what I have been trying to do, but it is not really working.
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. - Proverbs 24:4
Or as Mark Twain put it,
“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
I think I have finally come to my senses, and I am done here.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 8:31 am
by Snowfire
Literalists love to pose the notion that atheists are closed minded and that they themselves are actually very open-minded. Of course, like many of their other bizarre statements, the exact opposite is true. Many of them, Ken Ham and Ray Comfort included, have made it clear that there is no amount of evidence that could ever change their views. When asked what he'd do if it proven that god doesn't exist, Ray Comfort stated that he would pray to god for guidance. When asked what evidence would change his views on creationism, Ken Ham told Bill Nye that there wasn't any amount of evidence that would change his mind.
The fact is, that in order to hold to a biblical perspective on human origins, one has to either ignore or manipulate every bit of scientific evidence in order to hold to that perspective. The thing we all have to remember however, is that for fundamentalists like Ham and Comfort, this perspective towards science is necessary to validate their religious beliefs. For them, the Christian perspective only works in a literalist context.
Ten Questions Biblical Literalists Cannot Honestly Answer
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2015 7:07 pm
by Ted
Maybe the fundies don't trust God.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 5:43 am
by Pahu
Snowfire;1485768 wrote:
Literalists love to pose the notion that atheists are closed minded and that they themselves are actually very open-minded. Of course, like many of their other bizarre statements, the exact opposite is true. Many of them, Ken Ham and Ray Comfort included, have made it clear that there is no amount of evidence that could ever change their views. When asked what he'd do if it proven that god doesn't exist, Ray Comfort stated that he would pray to god for guidance. When asked what evidence would change his views on creationism, Ken Ham told Bill Nye that there wasn't any amount of evidence that would change his mind.
The fact is, that in order to hold to a biblical perspective on human origins, one has to either ignore or manipulate every bit of scientific evidence in order to hold to that perspective. The thing we all have to remember however, is that for fundamentalists like Ham and Comfort, this perspective towards science is necessary to validate their religious beliefs. For them, the Christian perspective only works in a literalist context.
Ten Questions Biblical Literalists Cannot Honestly Answer
Here are answers to some of those questions:
Is the Bible ‘evil’?
Moral accusations against God and Scripture fall flat
by Lita Cosner
Every so often, we receive emails from Christians who are troubled by anti-Bible websites lurking in the darker hovels of the Internet. One such website (not linked to, since we don’t want to give them any undeserved publicity) accuses God of being morally corrupt, and Scripture of reflecting this in the commands and actions it records. Christians should not be surprised that unbelievers would attack Scripture, and it should not cause us to doubt our faith. For one thing, few of the skeptics’ attacks on the Bible are new, and the ones that did arise in modern times are even more incompetent than the previous ones.
The website alluded to above has a pretty exhaustive list of the passages that nonbelievers object to, so it is ideal to serve as a basis for the refutation of the claims that the Bible condones morally bad behavior.
Human Sacrifice
There is no passage where God condones actual child sacrifice; in fact, some of the worst condemnation comes to those who sacrifice their children (archaeological evidence shows that it was usually infant sacrifice) to Moloch (Lev. 18:21; 20:2–5; Jeremiah 32:34–35). In the Bible, human sacrifice is detestable because it falls under the category of the murder of an innocent human being, which is always condemned. But skeptics cite a number of passages where, they say, God condones and even commands human sacrifice:
Genesis 22:1-8: The fact that God never intended for Abraham to kill his son doesn’t let Him off the hook, in the atheists’ mind (neither does the fact that the atheist doesn’t actually believe that He exists). It’s still an incredibly horrible thing for someone to do, the argument goes, and had Abraham lived in modern days, he’d be arrested for child abuse!
But there are several things to consider in this case. Abraham, by this time, is an old man, and Isaac is old enough that he could have struggled and gotten away if he wanted. The fact that Abraham was able to bind him and put him on the altar suggests that Isaac was cooperating with the whole thing. Second, Abraham himself didn’t expect Isaac to die, or at least, he didn’t expect him to stay dead. Abraham told his servants that he and his son would return. Abraham knew very well that Isaac was the son through whom God had promised to build a great nation. So the only options were that God would provide another sacrifice (as eventually happened) or that God would resurrect Isaac.
Exodus 13:1-2; 11 16: An average, rational person would have trouble seeing what this has to do with human sacrifice, so the atheistic argument must be spelled out: apparently, the priests are threatening to kill the kids unless they are redeemed with a burnt offering. This isn’t the case. The firstborn males are consecrated to the Lord, which means the firstborn males of the clean animals are destined to become burnt offerings (and the firstborn males of other animals and of humans must be redeemed with a burnt offering of the clean animals). Atheists unanimously ignore the context and symbolism of the consecration.
Leviticus 27:28-29: These two verses refer to different situations. In the first instance, a man has made a vow to give something over to God; perhaps a family member, or an animal, or a piece of land. This is saying that he can’t pay to get out of keeping the vow. Verse 29 refers to a person “devoted to destruction; i.e. a person who has committed a capital offense under the Law, so must be killed. Neither one of these is a human sacrifice; in the first case, the person would face life-long Temple service, and in the second, it’s capital punishment.
Judges 11:29-40: No list of Bible atrocities would be complete without the case of Jephthah’s daughter. First, the vow was public—his daughter would have known about it. This makes it likely that she was the first one out of the house on purpose. Second, even if Jephthah had intended to make his daughter into a burnt offering, a Levite would be extremely unlikely to allow that. Third, the book of Judges is all about how bad Israel became when they forgot God and there was no king to enforce the Law. So this is an example of the Bible reporting something that it doesn’t necessarily condone. Most importantly, the fact that Jephthah’s daughter was much more concerned about her perpetual virginity than the end of her life strongly suggests that she was dedicated for lifelong Temple service, not burnt as an offering.
Joshua 7; 1 Kings 13:1-2; 2 Kings 23:20-25: Joshua 7 is the case of Achan being killed for taking things that were supposed to be dedicated to the Lord and destroyed. The method of killing happened to include burning the corpses after stoning them. This is again an execution not human sacrifice, for a crime of treason, since Achan’s actions endangered the new nation. The prediction in 1 Kings 13 and its fulfillment in 2 Kings 23 involved people being burned on pagan altars to defile the altars and as a sign of judgment, not human sacrifice.
[continue]
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 5:46 am
by Pahu
Is the Bible ‘evil’?
[continued]
Rape
The passages in the Bible which skeptics accuse of advocating rape fall into several broad categories, so I will cover them according to those categories:
“Rape which is actually marriage:
Judges 21:10-24: It should be noted that the book of Judges records a lot of atrocities that it doesn’t condone; the whole point of the book is that there was anarchy and that the nation of Israel got worse and worse when they forgot God and had no king to rule them. That being said, this incident doesn’t imply rape; it implies kidnapping and forced marriage. These women became the wives of their abductors. That doesn’t make the incident honorable, but the Bible doesn’t condone it in any case.
Slavery was an evil that occurred on all inhabited continents, and all races have practised it and been its victims (the word comes from a heavily enslaved ‘white’ race, the Slavs). It was finally abolished only by evangelical Christians in the West using explicit biblical reasoning (see Anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce: Christian hero). Yet who do the antitheists single out for the evil of slavery? The Christian West!
Numbers 31:7-18: The Midianites were previously involved in leading Israel into sin which caused God to judge the nation, so the death penalty for those involved was just. The virgin girls who were spared would have been mostly little girls who were too young to be married, and too young to be much good as slaves. So this is a case of the girls being mercifully absorbed into the nation of Israel.
Deuteronomy 21:10-14: This passage laid out the rules for marrying a captive woman from the nations that the Israelites conquered. This is not rape, but marriage. This was actually merciful; the fact that there are any laws to protect captive women shows how far ahead of its time the Mosaic Law was. The woman was not allowed to be sold as a slave if the man disliked her; he had to let her go free.
Exodus 21:7-11: This is one of the most-cited instances of misogyny in the Bible; apparently, the skeptic crows, the Bible regards women as property, so the father can sell his daughter as a slave if he wants to! But this is more like the following situation: A family is destitute. The father has the choice of letting his teenage daughter starve with the rest of the family, or he can ‘sell’ her to someone better off who can take care of her, and the money he gets can help the rest of the family to survive. This is really a form of giving in marriage, but such that the woman’s children do not automatically have inheritance rights (the husband can give her the status of a full wife, and her children full inheritance rights, at a later time if he wants). It isn’t what one would read in a modern romance novel, but in the ancient world (without any social welfare system), it would mean the difference between survival and starvation for the woman and her family.
Passages taken out of context to support rape:
Deuteronomy 22:28-29: To understand the reason behind this law, it is necessary to point out a few details. First, the Hebrew word here is simply the word “to have sexual relations with; some English translations simply interpret this as “rape. In the ancient world, women were so closely guarded by their families that it is possible that in this instance, it is not rape at all, and that the woman was willing. Furthermore, even in the case of rape, the woman might well demand that the man marry her because she would be unmarriageable. See 2 Samuel 13:1–22 for an instance where a rape victim demanded marriage.
Deuteronomy 22:23-24: Like the above, this law uses the word for “to have sexual relations with; some modern translations assume the meaning “rape but this is not in the original. This refers specifically to engaged women (in the ancient world engagement was as legally binding as marriage and required a divorce to cancel) who are inside a town. As closely-packed as ancient towns were, she would be helped if she screamed; since she did not scream, there is an assumption that it was not rape, but adultery.
Furthermore, why is the atheist concerned? Two atheistic evolutionists wrote a book with the horrifying claim that men rape for evolutionary reasons1—one of them squirmed in an interview to justify why rape should be considered wrong under his worldview.2
[continue]
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 5:47 am
by Pahu
Is the Bible ‘evil’?
[continued]
Murder
God condemns murder in so many places that to accuse Him of murder (that is, the intentional killing of persons which have committed no capital offense) is ludicrous. But if illogical arguments were eliminated from the atheists’ arsenal, the apologist would have considerably less to answer.
If antitheists really want to show concern for murder, they could start with all those murdered by atheistic/evolutionary regimes: 77 million in Communist China, 62 million in the Soviet Gulag State, 21 million non-battle killings by the Nazis, 2 million murdered in the Khmer Rouge killing fields.
The “atrocity lists invariably include the death penalty passages from the Mosaic Law. But these are made into capital offenses, so someone who is killed as a result of disobeying these laws is being executed, not murdered. Unbelievers might complain that capital punishment for these reasons is unjust, but the burden of proof is on them to prove that it is unjust. So the death penalty passages will not be dealt with in this article. Killing in the biblical wars is also not dealt with, because criticisms of war killing assume that the war is not just, which the critic must prove.
2 Kings 2:23-24: The mauling of the forty-two youths is a mainstay of the atrocities lists. Once again, the context will show that this is not an unreasonable act at all. First of all, the word that is translated “youths more accurately means teenagers or young adults. Second, the reference to “bald head probably refers to Elisha’s shaved head in mourning that his mentor Elijah was taken from him (male pattern baldness was not common in ancient times,3 so this explanation is the most likely). So a group of at least 42 young men is jeering at Elisha’s bereavement, and “go on up is probably a threatening wish that the same thing that happened to Elijah would happen to Elisha. Elisha is therefore protecting himself by cursing them (and God obviously agrees because he sends the bears). 42 of the young men are mauled (the word can refer to an injury as minor as a scratch). That two bears were able to injure so many indicates that the youths were fighting the bears, and didn’t scatter.
Furthermore, in the ancient world, what were 42 young men doing idle? They should have been helping their families. They were dangerous juvenile delinquents. A modern day equivalent would be finding one-self in a shady, abandoned part of town, and a gang of young thugs starts jeering.
1 Samuel 6:19-20; 2 Samuel 6:3-7: This involves the deaths of some Israelites who looked in the Ark of the Covenant and the death of Uzzah when he touched the Ark. Numbers 4:1–20 has very specific instructions for moving the Ark, with the explicit warning that anyone who touches the Ark or looks in it will die. Multiple instructions had been disregarded in both passages before anyone died; the people moving the Ark were not even Levites—and only Kohathites were supposed to move the Ark. The Ark was moved on a cart instead of on poles carried by Kohathites. God actually showed incredible mercy in only killing those who actually touched and looked into the Ark. This is an example of God upholding His holiness; He had to draw the line somewhere.
Acts 5:1-11: The death of Ananias and Sapphira is often mis-credited to Peter in the atrocity lists. But Peter never lays a hand on them; he simply announces the death sentence, which God carries out. The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not holding back some of their own property; Peter says very clearly that the property was theirs to do with as they wished. Immediately preceding this story, Barnabas was noted for selling his field and giving the whole proceeds to the apostles. Ananias and Sapphira sold their field to compete with Barnabas, and by keeping some of the money back for themselves, they were trying to take credit for more than they were actually doing, which involved lying to the apostles and to the Holy Spirit. Especially with the Church in its infancy, such a thing had to be dealt with severely so it would stop others from doing the same thing.
If the antitheists really want to show concern for murder, they could start with all those murdered by atheistic/evolutionary regimes: 77 million in Communist China, 62 million in the Soviet Gulag State, 21 million non-battle killings by the Nazis, 2 million murdered in the Khmer Rouge killing fields.
The Bible is criticized for allowing slavery, and for not condemning it. At best, it’s seen to be a reflection of the morals of its time, at worst, actively evil. But it is a mistake to view the institution allowed in the Bible as equivalent to the slavery of Africans in American history. The slavery in the Bible is more like a form of indentured servitude. Such an arrangement would allow a poor man to survive. While not ideal, in an era before government welfare programs, slavery would be preferable to death, especially when some forms were more equivalent to modern-day employment than what we think of as slavery.
We also see the rank hypocrisy of atheistic attacks on the Bible. Slavery was an evil that occurred on all inhabited continents, and all races have practised it and been its victims (the word comes from a heavily enslaved “white race, the Slavs). It was finally abolished only by evangelical Christians in the West using explicit biblical reasoning (see Anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce: Christian hero). Yet who do the antitheists single out for the evil of slavery? The Christian West!
Conclusion
Atrocity lists in the Bible are not so much a product of bad hermeneutical skills as a complete lack of knowledge about the social context of the passage, and even basic reading skills. While this article only covered a sampling of the most common “biblical atrocities, this serves to show that the arguments of those who accuse God of moral depravity based on episodes from Scripture unravel upon closer examination.
Evil Bible fallacies - creation.com
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 10:58 am
by Snowfire
Passages taken out of context to support rape:
Ironic or what ?
How would you know. You obviously don't understand the concept of "taken out of context"
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 11:11 am
by Ted
The Bible makes it seem like God is in favour of war crimes. Read Num. 31. Excuses don't cut it here.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 11:23 am
by Ted
That is almost too funny. In Num 31 the writer obviously new soldiers. "Keep the virgins for yourselves" and written supposedly by God. LOL
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 1:10 pm
by Pahu
Ted;1485834 wrote: That is almost too funny. In Num 31 the writer obviously new soldiers. "Keep the virgins for yourselves" and written supposedly by God. LOL
The Killings of Numbers 31
by A.P. Staff
The first five books of the Bible are full of stories of the conquest of Caanan. But one story that sometimes stands out in the minds of skeptics is the one found in Numbers 31, where God seemingly gives no reason for killing defenseless women and male children. In addition, it has been suggested that the young girls mentioned in the account were spared so that the Israelite men could rape them. Such accusations are baseless, however, as is evident when they are viewed in light of other related passages.
The most widely questioned section of Numbers 31 is verses 17-18: “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women-children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. To understand this passage, one must realize that Numbers 25 is the “prequel to the events recorded in Numbers 31. Numbers 25 tells how the Midianites, specifically the women, led the Israelites astray into worshiping the Baal or Peor. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He struck them with a plague. The plague ended when Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, killed an Israelite man and the Midianite woman he brought into his family (Numbers 25:6-9). The relations with Midianite women were in direct violation of God’s commands in Deuteronomy 7:3-4: “[N]either shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.
As a result of these events, God instructed the Israelites to “Vex the Midianites, and smite them; for they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor (Numbers 25:17-18). When, in Numbers 31, the army brought back the women, it was in direct violation to God’s order in Numbers 25 to destroy the Midianites, who would lead the Israelites into apostasy.
But how can we explain the destruction of the young boys? Why were they not spared along with the young girls? Skeptics read of events such as the conquest of Canaan, and contend that no God could be so cruel as to call for the destruction of an entire nation. The mere idea of the God of heaven ordering the death of women and innocent children so outraged infidel Thomas Paine that he said such a scenario was sufficient evidence in and of itself to cause him to reject the divine origin of the Bible (1795, p. 90). In fact, he condemned the Bible for its alleged moral atrocities, and even went so far as to blame the Bible for virtually every moral injustice ever committed. He wrote:
Whence arose the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? (p. 185).
However, to allege that the God of the Bible is some sort of “monster for ordering Israel to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan exhibits an ignorance of biblical teaching. Those inhabitants were destroyed because of their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4; 18:9-14). They were so evil that their Creator no longer could abide their corruption. That they had numerous opportunities to repent is evident from the prophetic books (Nineveh did repent, for example, and for a time stayed the day of destruction). Complaining about Jehovah’s order to destroy innocent children is a vain gesture when one realizes that the children were spared an even worse fate of being reared as slaves under the domination of sin. Instead of having to endure the scourge of a life of immorality and wickedness, these innocents were ushered early into the bliss of Paradise. If the male children had been allowed to mature, they most likely would have followed the pagan ways of their forefathers, and eventually would have taken vengeance on the Israelites. Killing the males not only prevented them from falling into the same abominable sins as their parents, but also kept Israel from having to battle them later.
Man hardly can blame God and His Word for the awful consequences of sin; rather, he has only himself to blame (Romans 3:23; 5:12). A parent who warns a child of the consequences of disobedience, threatens an appropriate punishment, and then is true to his word at the event of infraction, generally is considered to be a firm-but-loving parent by clear-thinking people. Yet, critics ask us to view God as some type of ogre for following the same course of action. The discrepancy is not with the Almighty, but with His cowering critics.
The allegation that the Israelite men spared the young girls in order to rape them is nothing but baseless supposition predicated upon a lack of biblical knowledge. In the custom of the time, marriages were conducted at a young age. Therefore, the reference to the young girls who had not “known man by lying with him would indicate that they were very young, likely under the age of twelve. These girls were too young to be able to lead the men of Israel away from Jehovah; therefore, these girls were allowed to live. As to raping them, it is more logical to assume that they wanted these girls for servants. This would be similar to Joshua 9, where Joshua allowed the Gibeonites to live in compelled servitude to the Israelites. Moreover, it would have been sinful for the Israelite men to rape the Midianite girls because rape was (and still is) abhorrent to God (Deuteronomy 22:23-28, esp. 25).
The simple answer to the questions surrounding Numbers 31 is that God ordered the Midianites to be killed in Numbers 25:17-18. When the army did not carry out this order at the time of the Midianite defeat, it was carried out in a delayed fashion when the army returned with the captives. As to Moses allowing the young girls to remain alive, that was a judgment call from the man with God’s authority over the Israelites.
God is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and all-righteous “I Am Who is over all things—so He may do whatever He wishes, so long as it is not in violation of His character. However, God does everything for a reason. Sometimes that reason may be unclear to us. In the case of the destruction of people like the Canaanites, God’s reasoning had to do with His justice. Deuteronomy 32:3-4 records: “For I will proclaim the name of Jehovah: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. The Rock, his work is perfect; For all his ways are justice: A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he (emp. added). Men may not always understand God’s justice, or His reasons for exercising it as He does. As Job 4:17 asked: “ Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? (emp. added). The fact is, God does condone killing—in the name of justice (whether it be justice in regard to one person, or a whole nation). Even in modern times, the death penalty is an acceptable means of administering justice (Romans 13:1-7; cf. Genesis 9:6). While God is all loving, He also is a God of justice, and He will execute that justice in the most propitious manner—including by means of death.
Apologetics Press - The Killings of Numbers 31
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 1:15 pm
by Snowfire
Pahu;1485845 wrote: This is an example of God's judgement against the Midianites which were to be destroyed for the injury they had done the Israelites, by sending their daughters among them, who enticed them to commit uncleanness with them, and then drew them into the worship of their idols, which brought the wrath of God upon them, and for which 24,000 persons were slain. God showed mercy on the little ones and the virgins.
Then if that is your God, you are welcome to him. I am glad such a creature is not in my life. Why do you even need a Devil when such evil can come from God himself ?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 3:43 pm
by FourPart
I have come to the conclusion that Pahu is not a person at all, but a very simple computer spambot script, randomly pasting snippets from a limited database of a single book. In fact, the script may even have been written by Dolt Brown in order to promote his work of fiction. Even his name is probably an abbreviation for something like "Patent Human".
Think of it - if Pahu were human, how would he ever be able to put in all the hours he clearly spends pasting all this twaddle into so many forums around the net. A computer script, on the other hand would thrive at this task, as the one thing that computers excel at is repetition. They have no opinions of their own. They just blindly perform a limited list of commands.
If Pahu were a lifeform he would probably evolve to such a point where he would start to think for himself. To come up with cogent reasons for his claims & against others rebuttals, but as a computer script his reactions are totally predictable by his simply pasting another random selection.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 7:20 am
by Pahu
Snowfire;1485846 wrote: Then if that is your God, you are welcome to him. I am glad such a creature is not in my life. Why do you even need a Devil when such evil can come from God himself ?
Where is the evil? God is judging wickedness. He created everything and everyone. He makes the rules. Doesn't that give Him the right to discipline those who choose to disobey Him? Whether you like it or not, He is in your life. The only question for you is whether or not you will obey Him. He is merciful and good, but He does judge those who disobey Him.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 1:33 pm
by Ted
God did not make humans to automatons. As for the rest there is a very logical position. Humans like security and they like it promised and many even like it in a contract signed sealed and delivered and thus the Bible becomes an object of idolatry. The fundamentalist way seems to like it that way. One wonders if those folks will hold God to its promises even if they have to go to court. They like it all because it seems to promise security in a world where there is none. Pahu's God is not the one we see manifest in one Jesus of Nazareth. In fact look at the sermon on the mount where Jesus says "you have heard it said . . . but I say onto you. . . " Jesus clearly changed the famous 10.
It's all wishful thinking that the Bible is the inerrant unadulterated word of God. Yes God does speak to Christians through parts of the Bible. It is not inerrant in and of itself.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:50 am
by Pahu
Ted;1485949 wrote: God did not make humans to automatons. As for the rest there is a very logical position. Humans like security and they like it promised and many even like it in a contract signed sealed and delivered and thus the Bible becomes an object of idolatry. The fundamentalist way seems to like it that way. One wonders if those folks will hold God to its promises even if they have to go to court. They like it all because it seems to promise security in a world where there is none. Pahu's God is not the one we see manifest in one Jesus of Nazareth. In fact look at the sermon on the mount where Jesus says "you have heard it said . . . but I say onto you. . . " Jesus clearly changed the famous 10.
It's all wishful thinking that the Bible is the inerrant unadulterated word of God. Yes God does speak to Christians through parts of the Bible. It is not inerrant in and of itself.
Jesus did not change the Ten Commandments. In fact He said: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt. 5:17-19).
The expression; "But I say unto you" is a Rabbinical way of speaking, used when a question is determined, and a false notion is refuted; it is a magisterial form of expression, and well suits Christ, the great teacher and master in Israel; who spoke as one having authority, opposing not the Ten Commandment Law but the false teaching the ancient doctors had added to it, with which their later ones agreed.
Since the Bible is the word of God, it is inerrant. Here are the facts:
Bible Accuracy
1. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible:
The Rocks Cry Out
In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the reliability of the Bible? • ChristianAnswers.Net
2. The Bible is not a science book, yet is scientifically accurate:
Scientific Facts in The Bible
Science Confirms the Bible - RationalWiki
SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE BIBLE
Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge
Science and the Bible
3. The Bible is filled with hundreds of accurately fulfilled prophecies:
100prophecies.org
101 End Times Bible Prophecy
About Bible Prophecy
Bible Prophecies Fulfilled
Reasons To Believe : Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible
Bible Prophecy
No other book, religious or secular, comes close to those requirements.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 7:04 am
by FourPart
Strokes of the pen deliberately fraudulently editing the meaning of Tacitus, for instance.
The book is not of God - it is of MAN. Genesis - the first book of MOSES. Exodus - the second book of MOSES etc. Moses was not a God. The entire book is fictional. There are many instances where conversations between 2 people, where only 2 people are present, are taken down verbatim - supposedly by some non-existent 3ed party who witnessed it all. No doubt your answer will be "It was revealed to Man by God". Total codswallop. I could just as easily say that I am writing this post as God revealed it to me, and who are you to say otherwise. Indeed, in your refusing to believe this, you are going against the word of God. It is a MAN that has claimed it to be the word of God. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 7:23 am
by Pahu
FourPart;1486022 wrote: Strokes of the pen deliberately fraudulently editing the meaning of Tacitus, for instance.
The book is not of God - it is of MAN. Genesis - the first book of MOSES. Exodus - the second book of MOSES etc. Moses was not a God. The entire book is fictional. There are many instances where conversations between 2 people, where only 2 people are present, are taken down verbatim - supposedly by some non-existent 3ed party who witnessed it all. No doubt your answer will be "It was revealed to Man by God". Total codswallop.
How do you know?
I could just as easily say that I am writing this post as God revealed it to me, and who are you to say otherwise. Indeed, in your refusing to believe this, you are going against the word of God. It is a MAN that has claimed it to be the word of God. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Then how do you explain the following:
Bible Accuracy
1. Archaeology confirms the historical accuracy of the Bible:
The Rocks Cry Out
In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the reliability of the Bible? • ChristianAnswers.Net
2. The Bible is not a science book, yet is scientifically accurate:
Scientific Facts in The Bible
Science Confirms the Bible - RationalWiki
SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF THE BIBLE
Eternal Productions - 101 Scientific Facts and Foreknowledge
Science and the Bible
3. The Bible is filled with hundreds of accurately fulfilled prophecies:
100prophecies.org
101 End Times Bible Prophecy
About Bible Prophecy
Bible Prophecies Fulfilled
Reasons To Believe : Fulfilled Prophecy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible
Bible Prophecy
No other book, religious or secular, comes close to those requirements.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 9:07 am
by Ted
Sorry but with al due respect your last post is in my mind and those of many others, rubbish.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 10:40 am
by FourPart
Asking how I explain it's accuracy is like asking if I've stopped beating my wife yet. For you to ask how I explain its accuracy presumes its accuracy in the first place. I can't explain its accuracy BECAUSE IT IS NOT ACCURATE. However, having said that, if you continue true to form, no doubt you will quote me in saying "I can't explain its accuracy".
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 10:57 am
by FourPart
As for the Bible being filled with hundred of accuracy fulfilled prophecies - that is all down to interpretation. Lay down a set of vague conditions, and just as with the horoscopes to be found in any everyday tabloid you will always find "Prophecy Fulfillments" - no doubt you believe in the predictions of your horoscope as well, because one thing's for certain, for the same amount of text, when comparing a tabloid with the Bible, there are FAR more horoscope predictions that believers will claim have come true than those supposedly claimed for in the Bible. Think of it - assuming there even was a census (which there is no record of, nor would it have involved anyone having to return to their place of birth), a prophecy might say a Man & a Woman will arrive on a Donkey & she will have a baby. Ok. The prophecy doesn't say where. It doesn't say when. It just says that sometime, somewhere there will be a baby born of a woman riding on a donkey. Wow!!! How accurate is that???
I could predict that sometime in the next week there will be someone arrive in the Emergency Room suffering from the effects of a love affair with a vaccuum cleaner. When that happens - and I prophesise it will, will that exalt me to the level of the Prophets?
I further prophesise that somewhere within Pahu's next few posts there shall be further pastings of the false Prophet, Walt Brown, and yea, I say unto you that Pahu, his one and only disciple, shall continue to preach this fool's Gospel from the mouth of a fool immortal, for it is truth that he is as an ass of the field.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 11:43 am
by Ted
Lol
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:38 pm
by Pahu
Big Bang? 12
If a big bang occurred, what caused the bang? Stars with enough mass become black holes, so not even light can escape their enormous gravity. How then could anything escape the trillions upon trillions of times greater gravity caused by concentrating all the universe’s mass in a “cosmic egg that existed before a big bang (x)?
x. One might also ask where the “cosmic egg came from if there was a big bang. Of course, the question is unanswerable. Pushing any origin explanation back far enough raises similar questions—all scientifically untestable. Thus, the question of ultimate origins is not a purely scientific matter. What science can do is test possible explanations once the starting assumptions are given. For example, if a tiny “cosmic egg (having all the mass in the universe) existed, it should not explode or suddenly inflate, based on present understanding. Claiming that some strange, new phenomenon caused an explosion (or inflation) is philosophical speculation. While such speculation may or may not be correct, it is not science. [See “How Can the Study of Creation Be Scientific? ]
[From “In the Beginning by Walt Brown]
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 7:10 am
by Pahu
FourPart;1486035 wrote: Asking how I explain it's accuracy is like asking if I've stopped beating my wife yet. For you to ask how I explain its accuracy presumes its accuracy in the first place. I can't explain its accuracy BECAUSE IT IS NOT ACCURATE. However, having said that, if you continue true to form, no doubt you will quote me in saying "I can't explain its accuracy".
Then you deny the evidence?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 7:14 am
by Pahu
FourPart;1486036 wrote: As for the Bible being filled with hundred of accuracy fulfilled prophecies - that is all down to interpretation.
The non-Bible fulfillments are a matter of history.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 11:39 am
by Ted
Usually written after the fact.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 11:42 am
by Ted
The latest discovery in South Africa of skeletal remains once again shows the evolutionary process towards the development of the human being.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:00 pm
by FourPart
Lo - I am thy prophet. Bow down before me. My prophesy was fulfilled was it not?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:17 pm
by FourPart
Pahu;1486064 wrote: Then you deny the evidence?
Absolutely, because you have not provided any. And before you set about quoting more drivel from Walt Brown - a person who is making the claims cannot be cited as evidence for his own claims. Nor can a list of random names & publications without individual reference to the claims in question. I could list the London Telephone Directory and a Database from the National Library. Both are valid publications. Individually they mean nothing. Only when you match them up in the following manner does it take on any validity.
Name.
Publication
Relative article within the publication.
Date of publication.
All you have ever done is to mirror Walt Brown by pasting his list of names & publications, with absolutely no validating reference as to how they are relevant or where. They mean less than nothing because if his claims of having been validated were true he would have jumped on them. As it is, the only quotes he has directly attributed to anyone have already been located in this very thread & proved to have been taken totally out of context, so as to reverse their original meaning. This is commonly known as Malicious Fraud. Malicious because it is misrepresenting the original person who was misquoted, and Fraud because it is not portraying the original intent of the words. Therefore, unsubstantiated lies at the expense of someone else's reputation. To this effect we have provided evidence. You have not provided any evidence other than Walt Brown's fantasies to support himself. Your posting follow the sort of logic like this:
Walt Brown: The evidence is there that the earth is flat.
Scientist: What Evidence?
Pahu: "Walt Brown: The evidence is there that the earth is flat."
Scientist: Where is this evidence? What makes you think the earth is flat?
Walt Brown: Because I said so.
Pahu: "Walt Brown: Because I said so." - Do you deny the evidence?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:23 pm
by Pahu
Ted;1486101 wrote: Usually written after the fact.
Where is evidence supporting your assertion? Here are the facts:
Does the Bible really predict the future?
To say that the Bible predicts the future could be more accurately stated as the Bible records the future in advance. What's the difference? Bible prophecy is not guessing about the future based on what we see now. A prediction most often is a statement about the future based on clues you look at now. The passages in the Bible that talk about future events were not guesses. They tell of what would happen, rather than what might happen. They declared things that God, who is eternal, already knew. The purposes were to warn people about the results of their actions, to give instruction, to give people hope in times of despair and to show the authenticity of God's Word.
The most important examples of how and why God included prophecy are the hundreds of prophecies about the Messiah. If those prophecies were not there, anyone could claim they were the Messiah. Even so, many did, to the peril of those who followed them, because they ignored God's Word. Other prophecies include what will happen to certain nations in the future. As the prophecies came to pass obviously they became more meaningful. After a prophecy has come to pass not only can we still benefit from the message, but it becomes the fingerprint or seal of God on that message. There is no other book in history with this fingerprint on it.
How to Disqualify a Prophecy
Should we test if the prophecies in the Bible are valid? Absolutely! There are many ways someone could make up a prophecy that seems to be fulfilled or for someone to fulfill a prophecy and claim God was involved in its fulfillment. Are the prophecies in the Bible of this sort?
1. Self-fulfilling a prophecy.
When a person who knows the prophecy causes it to take place then it can be called a self fulfilling prophecy. But this can be the case only if all aspects of a prophecy can be engineered by the person or people desiring its fulfillment. An example from the Bible would be when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on the very day it was predicted that the Messiah would come. Jesus knew the prophecies and chose to fulfill them by his actions. But does this disqualify the accuracy of the original prophecies?
If these were the only prophecies about the Messiah then they would certainly be disqualified. Jesus chose to ride in on a donkey; he also chose the correct day. Any one could have done that. How many other would be Messiahs rode in to Jerusalem on that day? If that were all there were to being the Messiah then anyone could have fulfilled it. But there were a number of things required that Jesus could not have guaranteed. The unbroken donkey colt would have to be ridden. The crowd had to declare that he was Messiah and King. The religious leaders had to reject him. Jesus specifically chose several aspects of the prophecy that the Messiah was to fulfill, but he could not have engineered the rest.
Also there were hundreds of prophecies, many of which were out of Jesus' control. When Jesus was born the wheels preparing for the Messiah had been in motion for well over a thousand years. But because there were certain prophecies that Messiah had to do and do successfully. Jesus had to deliberately fulfill them, giving sight to the blind for example. So even if a prophecy is can be deliberately fulfilled it can be considered authentic if other non-self fulfilling prophecies were contingent on it or related to it. If we eliminate the few prophecies which the prophets themselves caused to pass, there are still many hundreds left to consider.
2. Fake it.
Imagine someone writing a prophecy about an event that had already occurred and then claiming it was written by someone else at an earlier time. This act of fraud is often claimed of the Bible, but has yet to be shown true. The Old Testament was finished 400 years before Christ and translated into Greek 270 years before Christ. The prophecies contained in scripture about Christ therefore could not have been written after the fact as some claim. There are many other prophetic events that occurred well after the books that predicted them were written, events that occur even after the most liberal dates given by any scholars. A good example is the book of Daniel. Liberal scholars have attempted to date in 165 BC because the book contains an accurate history of the Greek empire up to that point in history. But Daniel lived in the 6th century BC. So since the scholars don't believe that prophecy is possible, Daniel must have been an impostor. The problem is that the book of Daniel continues to accurately predict events that occur after 165 BC. So how did an imposter writing history after the fact accurately predict events and dates in the life of Jesus? Prophecy can be faked, but the Bible is authentic.
3. Revise the text.
This would be an attempt to alter existing documents so it looks like they were originally predictive. This only works when you have a few copies. Once you have many copies the changes have to be made to all existing copies in order for a revision to go unnoticed. We have thousands of copies of the Bible, and while there is a small amount of disagreement, mainly spelling, very few have any impact on prophecy in the Bible. Remember also that the prophecies of the Messiah were in the Torah, the Jewish Holy Book, what we call the Old Testament. They would have had to agree to alter all the existing texts to make it look like it contained the prophecies of the Christ that Jesus fulfilled. There have been many archeological confirmations that the Bible we have today is in fact very close to the original. So while it is possible to revise or change a document, the evidence tells us that this did not occur with the Bible.
[continue]
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:24 pm
by Pahu
Does the Bible really predict the future?
[continued]
4. Be vague.
A prophecy written in such a way that the prophecy could fit a lot of things. Such as "A great leader will come and make war with his enemies." The Bible however is not vague. It gives names, places, times, actions and details. Bible prophecy was not written in such a way that it can fit anything. It is the real revelation of God to his prophets, and it is not at all vague.
5. Predict the obvious.
When the enemy is at the doorstep of a city and your king's armies have been defeated, the citizens have been reduced to eating moldy bird dung and you say, "Very soon the city will fall." That's nothing more than what you might get in the morning news headlines. The Bible however does not make predictions of likely events. It often was very contrary to what people thought would take place. Consider the fact that in the nineteenth century many Bible scholars scoffed at the idea that Israel would ever become a nation again in spite of what the Bible clearly said. So to solve the contradiction many held to the doctrine that the Church had taken the place of Israel. Even today whenever they read "Israel" or "Jew" in the New Testament, they replaced it with "the Church." Its amazing how so many can still hold to this doctrine today even with the evidence right before their eyes? Another example is that the details of the crucifixion first appeared in prophecy five to seven hundred years before crucifixion was even invented. Sometimes things in scripture may seem obvious to us only because we live centuries after the fulfillment took place. The predictions in the Bible were not predictions based on the obvious, but on the truth.
6. Set no time limits.
This allows a prophecy to be fulfilled at any time after it was written. We of course assume that this would increase the likelihood of a prophecy being fulfilled because it has a longer time to happen. That's the same mentality that justifies evolutionary stories. But in reality, time limit or no, the longer a prophecy is left unfulfilled, the less likely it is to be fulfilled. Things change, civilizations, governments rise and fall. How could a prophet know what was going to happen centuries later based on what he could see then? The Bible contains both prophecies with a date and those with no specific date for fulfillment.
7. Cover all the bases.
If a lot of things are predicted then a few of them might actually happen. People are often impressed with the writings of Nostradamus because some of his predictions seemed to have come to pass. Yet only a small percentage of his prophecies can be tied to events that actually occurred, and those require interpretation. His prophecies would be a good example of covering all the bases and vagueness. The Bible does contain a lot of prophecy, but those prophecies are not ones that just proclaim random things or numerous possibilities that are likely to occur given enough time. The facts tell us that Bible prophecy hits it right on the mark, over and over again. Why else would the liberal scholars attempt to date, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel and many others as being written after prophecies were fulfilled? They know the prophecy is an accurate record. But their belief compels them to reject the idea that the records could have been written before they happened. The fact is that even the liberal scholars don't believe that prophecies are just thrown out hoping some will stick. The prophecies in the Bible are specific and they relate to the Bible's message. They are not just there for dramatic effect. They were made for a purpose and hundreds of them have been fulfilled. That's not the result of lucky guesses.
Does the Bible fit neatly into any of the above categories? The answer is no. The prophecies in the Bible are authentic and prove it’s divine origin. As you look at Bible prophecy it is good to test it against the above ideas. You will not find that it can be labeled as fraudulent, or that it has been tampered with, or that is it just plain lucky.
Why Bible Prophecy Is Genuine
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:25 pm
by Pahu
Ted;1486102 wrote: The latest discovery in South Africa of skeletal remains once again shows the evolutionary process towards the development of the human being.
Where is evidence for evolution in those bones?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:35 pm
by FourPart
You are confusing Prophesy with Prediction - 2 totally different animals.
A prophesy implies a foretelling by way unsubstantiated divine vision - Something that can later be interpreted to fall in line with the facts, that can also be conveniently reshaped to meet to vague parameters of the prophesy.
A prediction is a scientific observation. Such as "I saw Domino A fall against Domino B, causing it to fall against Domino C, thus causing a chain reaction. I am now watching Domino M falling. Based on this evidence I can predict that this pattern will continue until it reaches the last one, Domino Z, when the cascade will cease". THAT is a prediction - NOT a prophesy. You see - Walt Brown doesn't even know the difference.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:35 pm
by Pahu
Originally Posted by Pahu:
Then you deny the evidence?
FourPart;1486106 wrote: Absolutely, because you have not provided any. And before you set about quoting more drivel from Walt Brown - a person who is making the claims cannot be cited as evidence for his own claims. Nor can a list of random names & publications without individual reference to the claims in question. I could list the London Telephone Directory and a Database from the National Library. Both are valid publications. Individually they mean nothing. Only when you match them up in the following manner does it take on any validity.
Name.
Publication
Relative article within the publication.
Date of publication.
All you have ever done is to mirror Walt Brown by pasting his list of names & publications, with absolutely no validating reference as to how they are relevant or where. They mean less than nothing because if his claims of having been validated were true he would have jumped on them. As it is, the only quotes he has directly attributed to anyone have already been located in this very thread & proved to have been taken totally out of context, so as to reverse their original meaning.
Please supply evidence of the quotes changing the meaning of the contexts.
This is commonly known as Malicious Fraud. Malicious because it is misrepresenting the original person who was misquoted, and Fraud because it is not portraying the original intent of the words. Therefore, unsubstantiated lies at the expense of someone else's reputation. To this effect we have provided evidence. You have not provided any evidence other than Walt Brown's fantasies to support himself.
In reality, the list of scientists who confirm Brown's conclusions can be checked for accuracy by going here: The Center for Scientific Creation: Home of the Hydroplate Theory and then the index and then the name of the scientist. Here they are again:
Scott Tremaine, David Stevenson, William R. Ward, Robin M. Canup, Fred Hoyle, Michael J. Drake, Kevin Righter, George W. Wetherill, Richard A. Kerr, Luke Dones, B. Zuckerman, Renu Malhotra, David W. Hughes, M. Mitchell Waldrop, Larry W. Esposito, Shigeru Ida, Jack J. Lissauer, Charles Petit, P. Lamy, L. F. Miranda, Rob Rye, William R. Kuhn, Carl Sagan, Christopher Chyba, Stephen W. Hawking, Don N. Page, Huw Price, Peter Coles, Jayant V. Narlikar, Edward R. Harrison, Govert Schilling, Eric J. Lerner, Francesco Sylos Labini, Marcus Chown, Adam Riess, James Glanz, Mark Sincell, John Travis, Will Saunders, H. C. Arp, Gerard Gilmore, Geoffrey R. Burbidge, Ben Patrusky, Bernard Carr, Robert Irion, Alan H. Guth, Alexander Hellemans, Robert Matthews, M. Hattori, Lennox L. Cowie, Antoinette Songaila, Chandra Wickramasinghe, A. R. King, M. G. Watson, Charles J. Lada, Frank H. Shu, Martin Harwit, Michael Rowan-Robinson, P. J. E. Peebles, Joseph Silk, Margaret J. Geller, John P. Huchra, Larry Azar, J. E. O’Rourke, Peter Forey, J. L. B. Smith, Bryan Sykes, Edward M. Golenberg, Jeremy Cherfas, Scott R. Woodward, Virginia Morell, Hendrick N. Poinar, Rob DeSalle, Raúl J. Cano, Tomas Lindahl, George O. Poinar, Jr., Monica K. Borucki, Joshua Fischman, John Parkes, Russell H. Vreeland, Gerard Muyzer, Robert V. Gentry, Jeffrey S. Wicken, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Thomas H. Benton, Bland J. Finlay, Peter R. Sheldon, Roger Lewin, A. C. Noé, etc.
The above scientists were quoted from the following peer review science journals:
American journal of science
Astronomical journal
Astrophysics and space science
Astrophysical journal
Bioscience
Geology
Icarus
Journal of Geology
Journal of Theoretical Biology
Nature
New scientist
Physics Today
Physical review
Physical review d
Physical review letters
Science
Space science reviews
The American Journal of Science and Arts
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:42 pm
by Pahu
FourPart;1486113 wrote: You are confusing Prophesy with Prediction - 2 totally different animals.
A prophesy implies a foretelling by way unsubstantiated divine vision - Something that can later be interpreted to fall in line with the facts, that can also be conveniently reshaped to meet to vague parameters of the prophesy.
A prediction is a scientific observation. Such as "I saw Domino A fall against Domino B, causing it to fall against Domino C, thus causing a chain reaction. I am now watching Domino M falling. Based on this evidence I can predict that this pattern will continue until it reaches the last one, Domino Z, when the cascade will cease". THAT is a prediction - NOT a prophesy. You see - Walt Brown doesn't even know the difference.
What does Brown have to do with prophecy. He has made a few scientific predictions, but no prophecies. You can observe his predictions here: In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - What Are the Predictions of the Hydroplate Theory?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:42 pm
by FourPart
Pahu;1486112 wrote: Where is evidence for evolution in those bones?
The evidence is like this....
1. First fossil records found.
2. More fossil records, becoming more like human.
3. Even more fossil records becoming even more human.
4. Nothing found.
5. Still nothing found - Pahu claims lack of evidence is proof of non-existence.
6. Fossil evidence from section 4. discovered.
7. Pahu doesn't understnd the relationship of a missing number coming between 3 & 5.
8. Discovery 7. proves continuing existence of earlier brain development (or lack of) from level 2.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:44 pm
by Pahu
FourPart;1486116 wrote: The evidence is like this....
1. First fossil records found.
2. More fossil records, becoming more like human.
3. Even more fossil records becoming even more human.
4. Nothing found.
5. Still nothing found - Pahu claims lack of evidence is proof of non-existence.
6. Fossil evidence from section 4. discovered.
7. Pahu doesn't understnd the relationship of a missing number coming between 3 & 5.
8. Discovery 7. proves continuing existence of earlier brain development (or lack of) from level 2.
That's not evidence. All that is is a different series of bones. Evidence for evolution is missing.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 12:55 pm
by FourPart
Pahu;1486117 wrote: That's not evidence. All that is is a different series of bones. Evidence for evolution is missing.
There. You have put your finger on it & explained the evidence - "A different SERIES of bones". If you take a random set of photographs & show them one after the other, you just get a blur. When you put a SERIES of photographs together & show them one after the other, lo & behold, you get a moving picture. If your notion of a creator were so, there would be no series of things to be found. All there would be would be the same old random selections with no connection to each other. There would be no families of animals. No genres. Nothing. Everything would be entirely individual & unique.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 3:14 pm
by Ted
Sometimes I just can't get over this guy. You could put credible evidence in his nose and he still would find some excuse. LOL
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2015 3:42 pm
by FourPart
Ted;1486140 wrote: Sometimes I just can't get over this guy. You could put credible evidence in his nose and he still would find some excuse. LOL
As far as he is concerned, there is only the one evidence, and that is the sacred word of his Lord & Master, Walt Brown, the divine entity who can provide the evidence of his own ramblings by further ramblings. Pahu has, on many occasions been challenged to substantiate his claims from independent sources, but the nearest he ever gets to that is to quote certain people who, when you do a little bit of Googling just happen to work for the Creationist organisation that Brown set up - hardly independent. He continues to stick dogmatically to his famous list of names from Who's Who & the stock list from the local newsagent, without any attempt to match one with the other. Of course, there is a very simple reason why he doesn't take up this challenge, and that is because his one & only source is his Holy Book, "In The Beginning", and Walt Brown conveniently doesn't provide this information either.
Isn't it ironic that you mention physical evidence supporting evolution, with dates, times, places, names, etc., and this is denied as being any sort of evidence whatsoever, but he pastes his famous list of names & publications & expects us to accept that as evidence.
I know it's not right to mock the afflicted, but he is fun to play with, though. He's like the nutter on the bus who suddenly stands up & starts preaching at the top of his voice.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:28 am
by Pahu
Originally Posted by Pahu:
That's not evidence. All that is is a different series of bones. Evidence for evolution is missing.
FourPart;1486119 wrote: There. You have put your finger on it & explained the evidence - "A different SERIES of bones". If you take a random set of photographs & show them one after the other, you just get a blur. When you put a SERIES of photographs together & show them one after the other, lo & behold, you get a moving picture. If your notion of a creator were so, there would be no series of things to be found. All there would be would be the same old random selections with no connection to each other. There would be no families of animals. No genres. Nothing. Everything would be entirely individual & unique.
Which is exactly what the fossils show. Here are the facts:
The fossil record
Becoming more random all the time
by John Woodmorappe
Summary
The reality of the geologic column is predicated on the belief that fossils have restricted ranges in rock strata. In actuality, as more and more fossils are found, the ranges of fossils keep increasing. I provide a few recent examples of this, and then show that stratigraphic-range extension is not the exception but the rule. The constant extension of ranges simultaneously reduces the credibility of the geologic column and organic evolution, and makes it easier for the Genesis Flood to explain an increasingly-random fossil record.
Different kinds of fossils do not occur randomly. Instead, they tend to be found at specific horizons, and these horizons can be located in rocks all over the world. For example, the evolutionist asks us why a layer of rock containing trilobites is never found to contain dinosaurs, and why a layer with dinosaurs is always found above one with trilobites and never the reverse. Fossil succession can be viewed in terms of solitary fossils, commonly called index fossils. Otherwise, groups of fossils can be used. These are often called fossil assemblages or assemblage zones. The essence of fossil succession, however, remains the same whether individual fossils, of groups of them, are used.
For approximately the last two hundred years, this succession of fossils in sedimentary rock has been used to argue that the earth has undergone successive events. For instance, trilobite-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when trilobites were the dominant life form on earth, and dinosaur-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when dinosaurs were dominant on the earth. However this view is weakened because the range of fossils from one supposed time period keeps extending and overlapping fossils ostensibly typical of another period of time in the past. In this article, I will examine some examples of increases of overlap of fossils that are assigned to different geologic periods of time.
Implications of fossil succession
At first, Bible-believers tried to cope with this discovery of successively-different types of fossils by retreating from the single Creation and Flood as clearly described in the Bible and replacing them with a series of creations and global floods. That was Baron Cuvier’s compromise, and it did superficially seem to account for multiple and differing horizons of fossils. But Cuvier’s notions obviously violated Scripture. The Word of God teaches only one episode of special creation, and only one global Flood, not many!
As is the eventual fate of all compromises, it was only a matter of time before any semblance to Scripture (in this case, the multiple creations and the multiple floods) had been dropped altogether. After Darwin, evolution was added to the picture, and thus the notion of transformation of one life-form to another replaced the earlier belief that each horizon of fossils represented a separate creation and world-destroying flood. Both considerations, of course, tacitly suppose that each type of horizon of fossils represents a distinctive period of time over which the particular organism lived.
But what are the ramifications of fossils seeming to occur in multiple, different horizons in the earth’s rock strata? Is the succession of life-forms, over long periods of time, the only way to explain the succession of fossils in earth’s sedimentary rocks? Certainly not.
Creationists, including myself,1 have provided a variety of alternative explanations for fossil succession. These include such mechanisms as the sorting of organisms during the Flood, differential escape of organisms during the same, ecological zonation of life-forms in the antediluvian world (such that different life-forms in different strata reflect the serial burial of ecological life-zones during the Flood), and TABs (Tectonically-Associated Biological Provinces—wherein different life forms occur in successive horizons of rock as a reflection of successive crustal downwarp of different life-bearing biogeographic communities).
All of these mechanisms do away with the notion that horizons of fossils demand successive passages of time during which the organisms lived. In other words, they allow for there to have been only one set of mutually-contemporaneous living things on a young earth, instead of a repetitive replacement of living things over vast periods of time. Most of the earth’s sedimentary record is viewed as being deposited by the Noachian Deluge, and not over successive depositional events in analogues of modern sedimentary environments on an evolving earth.
Unfortunately, some modern creationists have also bought into the belief that successive fossils represent horizons of time. These neo-Cuvierists have, as their original namesakes, relegated the Noachian Deluge to only a small fraction of the earth’s fossiliferous sedimentary rocks. This contradicts common sense as well as Scripture. After all, if all kinds of life had been created by God in six normal-length days several thousand years ago, then all fossil and contemporary life-forms must have been contemporaneous, and it makes absolutely no sense to use succession of fossils to delineate time-stratigraphic horizons in sedimentary rock.
For example, although trilobites and dinosaurs were contemporaries of each other, there is no basis for believing that trilobite-bearing and dinosaur-bearing rocks were necessarily deposited at the same time all over the world. During the Flood, trilobite-bearing beds at one point on earth were probably being deposited at the same time as dinosaur-bearing beds at another place on earth.
Nor can it be said that, when dinosaur-bearing beds locally overlie trilobite-bearing beds, the former are significantly younger than the latter. This, of course, excepts the small amount of difference in time, within the Flood, that elapsed between the burial of the trilobites and the burial of the overlying dinosaurs.
[continue]
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 7:29 am
by Pahu
The fossil record
[continued]
Just how real is fossil succession?
The irony of the position taken by Cuvierists, neo-Cuvierists, and standard evolutionary-uniformitarians is the fact that fossil succession is a reality only to a limited extent. As we shall see, the Flood-related mechanisms discussed above need not have been overly efficient to account for only the limited degree of fossil succession that does exist. Successive episodes of time, however conceived, also are completely unnecessary to explain the limited degree of fossil succession.
When we consider the fact that fossil succession is limited in overall extent, it is another way of stating that there are many fossils which are found at many stratigraphic intervals. In fact, only a minority are confined to rocks attributed to only one geologic period.
Since the early days of the acceptance of the standard geologic column, fossils have been turning up in ‘wrong’ places as more and more fossils have been collected, and this process continues to this very day. And even this does not include the numerous instances where fossils are supposed to be reworked from older strata, often with no independent supporting evidence.
Furthermore, extension of stratigraphic ranges occurs not only for individual fossils, but also for presumed grade of biologic complexity (that is, so-called stratomorphic intermediates). A stratomorphic intermediate is supposed to reflect a certain grade of complexity attained by all living things up to a certain point in the geologic time scale. An example would be the first appearance of vertebrate legs in the stratigraphic record. I will discuss stratomorphic intermediates shortly. Let us now consider some recent examples of stratigraphic range extension.
The disappearing geological column
Let us now examine the progressive randomisation of the fossil record in the light of the history of the geologic column. Modern researchers are not the first to notice the progressive extension of fossil stratigraphic ranges with increasing collection of fossil specimens from the world’s sedimentary strata. During the time that parts of the geologic column were still being worked out in the mid 19th century, the Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer commented on the illogicity of the geologic column in his appropriately-named essay, Illogical Geology.20 In doing this, Spencer could hardly be accused of creationist bias. After all, he was a hardened atheist who had been an enthusiastic supporter of both social Darwinism and ‘scientific’ Darwinism.
One of the things Spencer challenged was the use of fossils for the correlation and dating of strata. Specifically, he took issue with the practice of using particular fossils as supposed time-markers for the global correlation of strata, and then not questioning the whole procedure when frequently finding such fossils in the ‘wrong’ strata with further collecting of fossil specimens.21 As we have seen, the finding of fossils in previously-unrecognised stratigraphic horizons has continued unabated to this very day, and dwarfs anything that Spencer could have been familiar with. What would Spencer think were he alive today?
Let us take the aforementioned occurrence of Lystrosaurus to its logical conclusion. Since Lystrosaurus has always been used to correlate rocks into time-equivalent horizons, and to place them all into the Early Triassic, the Permian find of Lystrosaurus should now mean that Permian and Triassic are contemporaneous! An analogous line of reasoning should lead to the position that Cretaceous and Tertiary are now contemporaneous because the Upper Cretaceous genus Parafusus is now known from Early Tertiary rocks.
Of course, the uniformitarians would never follow their own reasoning to its logical conclusion because it would lead to the very reductio ad absurdum discussed in the previous paragraph. At minimum, it would require the uniformitarians to acknowledge the fact that the Permian-Triassic and Cretaceous-Tertiary are now respectively contemporaneous. Such a conclusion, of course, destroys the very foundations of the geologic column, and is unthinkable to standard uniformitarian dogma. In order to paper over this fatal flaw in the geologic column, uniformitarians simply back-pedal, discard Lystrosaurus as well as other once-esteemed index fossils as time-stratigraphic indicators, choose other index fossils as presumed time-indicators, and otherwise act as if nothing has happened in terms of empirical evidence. This enables them to go right on believing in such things as the Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary periods. Heads I win, tails you lose. Clearly, the evolutionary-uniformitarian geologic column has become protected from falsification. To the uniformitarian, no possible fossil discovery would ever count as evidence that would invalidate the sacrosanct geologic column. It is thus clear that use of index fossils and assemblages of such fossils for correlation of strata is an exercise in special pleading.
Some scientific creationist implications
Clearly, now more then ever, creationist scientists should resist the temptation of buying into any sort of scheme which presumes that fossils can be used to delineate time-horizons in the earth’s sedimentary rocks. Even at the local level, fossil succession is related to Flood-related processes instead of changes in fauna over time. This fact discounts neo-Cuvierism. And, for the mainstream diluvialist, the extension of stratigraphic ranges has implications in terms of Flood-related depositional processes. As the fossil record comes closer to randomness, proposed Flood-originated non-temporal mechanisms22 for fossil succession need to be less and less efficient in order to account for a fossil succession that is becoming more and more crude as more and more fossils are gathered23.
The fossil record - creation.com
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:46 am
by FourPart
As per usual, your only 'evidence' is sourced from a biased Creationist site - not science.
According to your logic, you have 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
I find a 4. You say, "That's not evidence of anything. That's just a number."
On their own, the bones are not evidence of anything, but when viewed with the rest of the sequence they become evidence of a pattern.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 10:45 am
by Pahu
FourPart;1486178 wrote: As per usual, your only 'evidence' is sourced from a biased Creationist site - not science.
Do you prefer a biased evolutionist/atheist site? Do you deny that fossils are found all over the world in strata that does not fit the geologic column? Practically nowhere on Earth can one find the so-called “geologic column. Most “geologic periods are missing at most continental locations. Only 15–20% of Earth’s land surface has one-third of these periods in the correct order. Even within the Grand Canyon, more than 100 million years of this imaginary column are missing.
These are facts of science.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:08 am
by FourPart
Pahu;1486188 wrote: Do you prefer a biased evolutionist/atheist site?
I prefer a site that take the hard evidence, rather than relying on the word of some unsubstantiated piece of hearsay being moulded to fit the facts.
Do you deny that fossils are found all over the world in strata that does not fit the geologic column?
I most certainly do. The logical strata is found worldwide.
Practically nowhere on Earth can one find the so-called “geologic column. Most “geologic periods are missing at most continental locations. Only 15–20% of Earth’s land surface has one-third of these periods in the correct order. Even within the Grand Canyon, more than 100 million years of this imaginary column are missing.
So at least we are making progress. You now admit that these examples of hard evidence do exist for what they are.
15% - 20% is not that far away from one third. Therefore, for 15% - 20% of the land's surface to have one third of the records is, in itself quite significant. The fossil records as well as basic geology confirm that the land grew up out of the sea due to Continental Drift. Therefore, the land surface is much newer than that below the oceans.
The rocks of the Grand Canyon is primarily sandstone - a sedimentary rock, and very young in the overall scale of things. However, even within that relatively short timeframe the evidence of the time structure is internationally renowned for what it is. It doesn't matter how you try to twist it, it is what it is, and there's no way you're going to change that.
These are facts of science.
Wrong. These are your attempts to extrapolate things that don't exist to match your own fantasies of what you want to exist, pretend that they do exist & then put it forward as 'evidence'. Furthermore, in science you cannot take the non-existence of something as evidence of its non-existence. In science, nothing is considered to be non-existent simply because we cannot know what cannot exist simply because we have not found it. Once we do find it, though, the evidence is there that it does exist. Last year, for instance, you might have claimed that the absence of these bones were evidence of their non-existence. Now that they have been found you deny that they have any meaning because the meaning that they have goes against what it is that you so dearly want to believe.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:56 am
by Pahu
FourPart;1486190 wrote: I prefer a site that take the hard evidence, rather than relying on the word of some unsubstantiated piece of hearsay being moulded to fit the facts.
I agree! Do you deny that fossils are found all over the world in strata that does not fit the geologic column?
I most certainly do. The logical strata is found worldwide.
Not according to scientists:
The Geologic Column: Does it Exist?
by John Woodmorappe
It has been claimed that the geological column as a faunal succession is not just a hypothetical concept, but a reality, because all Phanerozoic systems exist superposed at a number of locations on the earth. Close examination reveals, however, that even at locations where all ten systems are superposed, the column, as represented by sedimentary-thickness, is mostly missing. In fact, the thickest local accumulation of rock is only a tiny fraction of the inferred 600-million year’s worth of depositions. The global ‘stack’ of index fossils exists nowhere on earth, and most index fossils do not usually overlie each other at the same locality. So, even in those places where all Phanerozoic systems have been assigned, the column is still hypothetical. Locally, many of the systems have not been assigned by the index fossils contained in the strata but by indirect methods that take the column for granted—clearly circular reasoning. Thus the geologic column does not exist and so does not need to be explained by Flood geology. Only each local succession requires an explanation and Flood geology is wholly adequate for this task.
does geologic column exist - creation.com
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:15 pm
by Snowfire
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:41 pm
by Ted
There has been so much movement in the tectonic plates, bending, folding uplifts and down forces. Hey all I can say about that link is typical fundamentalist Christian who had made up his mind but didn't want to b presented with the facts. Nonsensical thinking.
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 2:02 pm
by FourPart
Ted;1486198 wrote: There has been so much movement in the tectonic plates, bending, folding uplifts and down forces. Hey all I can say about that link is typical fundamentalist Christian who had made up his mind but didn't want to b presented with the facts. Nonsensical thinking.
Remind you of someone...?
Science Disproves Evolution
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2015 7:44 pm
by Ted
LOL. U dubs this thread a bit of a joke. However it gives me a good laugh at times.