Biff the unclean

Now wait a minute. I've actually seen Tyre. There are office buildings, apartment complexes, public transportation. Someone even once posted helicopter shots of down town Tyre on this very site. I'd love to hear the magic involved with the Christian apologetics that will make this thriving burg disappear. Twist away, I've got to hear this.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Can't you answer that from what I said? No, I don't believe that actors are sub-human.

I have discussed Tyre for months! Maybe I should make a web page with my position and arguments on it.

Indeed, Tyre was demolished, Renan the archaeologist reported that Tyre was a city of "ruins built out of ruins" when he visited ("Tyre Through the Ages").

And I read the prophecy about rebuilding as follows:

Ezekiel 26:14 "I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more, for I the Lord have spoken," declares the Lord God.

That is, "not be built more," so all building stopping would then satisfy the prophecy, and then other buildings could be built afterwards.

Here is a similar usage:

Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, "As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the Lord's.

Which certainly didn't mean that there would never be hail in Egypt again! And here is another similar usage:

Nehemiah 2:17 Then I said to them ... "Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach."

Well, not on the ruins! That would be an odd place for an archaeologist to pitch his tent, while digging.

This remains to be demonstrated, though! Do you still mean the silent movie set? What are these two instances?

I don't think Hubert Yockey is doing that! And how am I being unrealistic? And disregarding chemistry? I need more specifics, and yes, you have to give specifics for your view that silicon life is possible, as well.

Not for generating proteins via codons! And that's how life does it, so any other scenarios would need to be defended, not just speculated about.

Well, you have not yet responded to my last response to your corrections, this needs to be done.

Regards,
Lee

whiskey the hedonist

Stop... you're killing me, please, stop... I'm lauging so hard I'm choking! Oh... me.
Oh... wow. That's incredible. I get it. So, like, if I were to prophecy that Providence, RI would be built no more, then if there was a sixth month hiatus in new construction in the downtown area, and then it started again, I'm a prophet of the lord! Ice cream on me, people! Or hitler could predict (which he did) that Paris would be destroyed, and then it was, so he's the messiah! I understand, Lee... words mean what you WANT them too!

By that definition, by the way, we could rebuild babylon stone for stone on the original spot using the original stones and reinhabit it with people speaking ancient babylonian and behaving in all ways just as babylonians and you could STILL claim that the prophecy was true, so you will pardon me if I laugh.

Lee, I predict that downtown Savannah, GA, (just the garden district) will be "built no more" during february of 2006. The Flying Spaghetti monster told me so. During february, there will be a complete hiatus of building.

It seems certain that Arabs have pitched their tents within the city limits of old babylon sometime during the last several thousand years, probably for months at a stretch. Archeologists don't pitch their tents on active digs or current ruins, but they do pitch their tents on top of ruins that are still buried.

And if the actors were real people, than they reinhabited babylon... I mean, duh!

And yes, I mean the silent movie set and Saddams palace, both absolutely rebuilding of babylon. Saddam probably had workers pitch their tents (or quonset huts) there too, and they were undoubtably arabs.

Okay... chemical reactions do not happen in a flat probability field. Some reactions are more likely than others. When you make statements that imply that all chemical combinations and reactions are equally likely, you are ignoring the laws of chemistry. Your argument is a straw man.

But I'm not going to argue chemistry with you, or abiogenesis, because neither of us is a chemist or a biologist or for that matter a mathematician. I will say that biologists have posited and defended alternate scenarios for the development of life. If you are genuinely curious, go over to talkorigins and look them up.

It isn't that I can't argue this, Lee, it is just that you are not familiar with either statistics or biology, and neither am I. We just aren't qualified to have that argument with any meaning.

But most biologists, and for that matter, statisticians, are of the opinion that abiogenesis is statistically possible. Those who study it are concerned with the question of what plausible scenarios look like. Unlike psuedo-scientists, real scientists are interested in learning the truth, not knocking down straw men.

So again, I ask you, if no new building in the garden district of Savannah is built in Feb, are you willing to accept the flying spaghetti monster or not?

Why is a flying spaghetti monster not completely believable to you? I don't understand your unthinking anti-pasta prejudice.

lee_merrill

Hi WTH,

Well, the prophecy also requires that all the buildings go down, which they did.

Accidentally, perhaps, but this is not a point that can be easily proved either way, so let's move on.

You have yet to demonstrate that the set was on the site of ancient Babylon, though.

Now I get to laugh? Words mean what you want them to mean, and a tent can be most any kind of building.

But combining amino acids is just the same reaction, every amino acid has the same hook on one end (NH3+), and loop on the other (CO2-), that link up to connect them.

I majored in math, actually, though I'm not sure if that qualifies me as a mathematician. But I did take mathematical statistics. I even remember a little bit of it!

Well, you have not yet refuted me! Nor have you refuted Hubert Yockey, a credible scientist, by all accounts.

"As Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick stated, 'An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle' {LIFE ITSELF, ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE, 1981, p. 88}" - Reasons to Believe

You would also need to refute Francis Crick...

Regards,
Lee

Naked Ape

lee, lee, lee,

There is no need to refute the unproven assertions of any scientist or priest. Credible people are not immune from uttering incredible statements, these departures from credibility do not require refutation, since they lack proof to back them up, sorta like the fanciful tales of your invisible sky friend. Besides, you need to read the quotes that you post a little more carefully, they don't seem to say what you seem to think they say.

To summarize your Crick quote: "armed with all the knowledge available to us now{ in 1981} the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle".

Wow, quite an endorsement from Crick there. Very close, but not quite a miracle, it was in point of fact almost a miracle. It just makes me all tingly when I read an endorsement so glowing, I just get washed away in the unbridled enthusiasm of it all.

So armed with all the knowledge he had in 1981, the origin of life appeared, to be almost a miracle. Have you made much progress with this line of reasoning in the last 24 years? Do tell.

Who needs to refute that wishy wash statment? I can admit that the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so what? Prove to me that it could only be a miracle and you'll be getting somewhere.

You clearly have a very muddled understanding of what constitutes proof of something, and what sorts of statements require proof or refutation. Your statments about Babylon really laid that out in stark detail. Best of luck with that it appears that you will need it.

Mind the hounds.

Cheers,

Naked Ape

Biff the unclean

Oh man, I've got tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.
Lee, you have no shame boy.

John A. Broussard

This is known in elementary logic courses as a fallacy. It's an Appeal to Authority.

If you want to conduct a reasonable discussion, you should learn not to use fallacies--at least not such obvious ones as this one.

whiskey the hedonist

No, they didn't, and no, I don't.

Tyre: At least not all at once, and not as part of the same military action. Some buildings were destroyed, but not all. Tyre has been continuously inhabited since biblical times. So we really have to stretch the definitions... now "all buildings go down" means that, "over several thousand years new buildings replaced old ones that had fallen into disrepair on a continously inhabited site".

Which is a bit of a stretch.

I have refuted your biology claims utterly and completely, thusly:
1. I can come up with authorities that have plausible and statistically believable scenarios that are different and lead to life.
2. I demonstrated that your scenario, with a different and plausible group of assumptions, is much more likely than you say it is.

Since neither of us know enough biology or statistics to argue with the authorities on this, the IRREFUTABLE FACT that most biologists NOW are on the side of Abiogenesis is a refutation of your older sources. You saying I "haven't refuted" you doesn't make it so, it just makes you repeat yourself.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Well, we are interested in what is most probable, are we not? No one can prove their conclusion here without a doubt, and yet Francis Crick has not, it seems, changed his mind, or we probably(!) would have heard of it.

Yes, the interval for fulfilling the prophecy was not specified, so this would be acceptable, IMHO, and all that.

Well, no, I gave my own estimate! And also quoted a (non-back-of-the-envelope) estimate by Hubert Yockey, upon such estimates as Yockey's, I would expect Crick's conclusion to be based. It certainly is the basis of my conclusion, which I am now officially asking you to address, specifically.

How, specifically, have you done this? You have not yet responded to my last points, in response to your last specific points about this probability calculation.

No, actually, it's not. If you can't refute my calculation specifically, then you cannot claim a refutation by "most biologists," that won't cut it. This is really what John was speaking about, an appeal to authority, and is indeed a fallacy.

I can think of some problems with my calculation, by the way! I'm working on another one, they are rather easy to come up with in this area.

Regards,
Lee

whiskey the hedonist

Lee, I don't have to refute your calculation, because your calculation is not about anything important to abiogenesis. It is merely a statement that ONE particular chain of events is not likely under a very questionably set of assumptions. It says nothing about abiogenesis in general, and changing assumptions slightly (as I did) changes the numbers.

A refutation does not need to show that your math is bad. It can also show that your math is irrelevant to the actual question at hand, which it is.

Now, on to your tyre prophesy: There is no conceivable set of circumstances, as you interpret that prophesy, that could possibly not fulfill it. Basically, you have reduced the prophecy to: "Tyre either will, or will not, exist forever, and chances are good that it will experience war and natural disaster."

Since those conditions have held true for approximately 100% of all human cities ever built, I call bullshit on that prophesy.

As for babylon, I interpret the prophesy to include forbidding the building of big babylon inspired movie sets in southern california. Compared to the gymnastics you are invoking on tyre, that is practically a canonical reading.

Why, by the way, is your interpretation better than mine? I mean, besides the fact that yours supports the works of your false god, and mine don't.