Ed

I have looked at it and as I stated before, most of the so-called errors can be easily explained.

Quote:

lp: (Jesus Christ and medieval saints working miracles) Ed: Yes, but if you look at the entire time period the bible covers (possibly 15 billion years) the number of miracles is relatively small. ...

lp: Xian apologists are now trying to claim credit for something they had long looked down upon -- the importance of natural law. Can anyone say "all things to all people"?[/quote]

Hardly, Christians were the first to articulate natural law in conjunction with experimental science, ever hear of Isaac Newton?

Quote:

Ed: Hardly, belief in the biblical understanding of miracles does not equate to a chaotic and irrational world.

lp: Except that the Bible nowhere gives a coherent theory of the occurrence of miracles.[/quote]

No, but we do know from the scriptures that they only rarely occur.

Quote:

lp: But why did it take so long to happen? Why wasn't the New Testament filled with experiments and induction? Why didn't the Church Fathers carry on an active scientific-research program? Ed: Because early on their primary duty was the growth of the church. ...

lp: Except that improving science would have made possible improved technology -- and improved military and economic prowess.[/quote]

They considered such things of relatively little importance.

Quote:

Ed: And Galileo's claim is the same as mine and most evangelical Christians today, ie the bible is not a science text. lp: So the early chapters of Genesis are NOT literal history? Ed: No, they are literal history but some of the terms are not as specific as a science text.

One can prove anything one wants to by redefining words. For example, one could "prove" that the Bible demonstrates evolution with the help of appropriate word definitions. [/QUOTE]

Okay, go ahead I am all ears!

lpetrich

I suggest that you post a long critique of the Biblical Errancy pages somewhere; it should be easy for you to acquire the necessary webspace for several pages of text.

Look at the Middle Ages -- what saints were celebrated for was not understanding natural law and using that understanding to that advantage, but working miracles.

And modern science is a revival of what some Greek philosophers had done.

I don't know where the Bible gives any miracle-occurrence rate.

Very convenient.

The Bible has several genealogies, which raises the question of why they are present. For the most part, they have neither entertainment nor dramatic nor edificatory value, so they must be present for some other reason.

Could their presence be a hint that genealogies are an important property of our world? And indeed that is what we find; there is an abundance of evidence that all of the Earth's life can fit into a single genealogy, the "Tree of Life". For more, see the UCMP's site, or the more-technical Tree of Life site.

So by this interpretation, the Bible tells us that evolution had happened, even if not in the most straightforward way.

Ed

The ones that I have read usually produce humans thru some kind of sexual liason among the gods. Provide just one example of one where the humans are made up of earth or dust.

Quote:

Ed: ... could it be that is because the transitions never existed? lp: A reasonable conclusion ONLY if one would reasonably expect fossils to be present. But lots of things simply do not fossilize very well. Ed: Sounds like a theory that is non-falsifiable and therefore unscientific.

lp: Like your hidden global flood of 2 million years ago?[/quote]


Just because there is not obvious evidence at present doesnt mean that we wont find some later on. As I stated earlier much of it has probably been eroded away.

Quote:

LP: I call it special pleading, because he ignores how Genesis 2 has a typical literary characteristic of fairy tales -- talking animals. Ed: But as I demonstrated in an earlier post about the literary characteristics of the whole bible, it does not have the characteristics of myth.

lp: Except that the Bible is NOT a unified, coherent document, but a grab bag of a variety of documents. [/QUOTE]

Although it does contain several different kinds of literature in it, it nevertheless has a unified theme running thru it. The story of God's interaction with his people thru history to the point of his ultimate revelation, ie the sending of his Son.

Ed

No need for the condescending attitude. Of course there are certain soft bodied organisms that do not show up in the fossil record. That is not what I am referring to. There are missing fossils between supposed ancestral major groups that have skeletons and that are easily fossilized.

Doubting Didymus

Easily fossilised? There is no such thing.

Surely you are not suggesting that every vertebrate organism has a good, or even a fair chance of becoming fossilised? Fossilisation is HARD.

How many fossils do you think the currently dead humans will leave, if we were all taken by the rapture tomorrow? I don't know either. That's something for you to do. Find that out. I will put good money on: not bloody many.

Oolon Colluphid

As the late great Bill Hicks might have said: So forgive him. After this many pages, a little exasperation might just creep in, might it not...?

So all the fossils that do exist, that have been found, and which do offer connections between 'major groups' somehow don't count... all that matters is that there are still gaps?

Here's your logic, Ed:

Here's animal A and E. There's a gap between them.

But here's fossil C with characteristics of A and E.

But wait! There's gaps between A and C, and between C and E!

Oh, but here's fossil B, which has indeed got characters in common with A and C.

But wait! There's a gap between A and B! "I win!" says Ed.

Once more, for the hard-of-thinking: gaps do not matter. The evidence we do not have does not matter (though we continue to look for more). What matters is the pattern produced by every single piece of evidence we so far do have.

Patrick can provide references for some such evidence at the drop of a graptolite, I'm sure. And I have given you plenty on hominids and early tetrapods.

Round and round and round Ed goes / When this'll stop, nobody knows....

TTFN, DT

Pee Pee Poodle

[irrelevant image deleted]

Mr Poodle: please do try to contribute constructively to the discussion. Thank you.

GunnerJ

I'd just like to peak in to reflect on something: this is a continuation of the "First Cause Does Not Prove God" thread. I started that thread well over a year ago. So technically, this battle has been going on for over a year. A year of Ed. I salute you resolute warriors for your continued persistence, and I thank Baby Jebus every day that you're on our side.

Doubting Didymus

This thread's been here longer than I have.

Ed

No, because all the chemical bonds of the nucleotides are the same, there is no reason that they would form a pattern that would generate all the proteins necessary to produce a complex organism.

Quote:

lp:And second, why be hyperskeptical about the existence of such elves?

Because they can be eliminated as the cause of the universe using logic.

Quote:

Ed: ... According to evolutionary theory: while they don't die out immediately, generally the descendant species if it occupies the same ecological niche in the same geographical region, it replaces the ancestral species rather quickly in relative geologic time.

lp: Except that a descendant species need not compete with its ancestor species.[/quote]

Not always but generally that is the case.

Quote:

lp: ... Chimps can perform "insight learning", in which they pause for awhile, and then implement a solution. A reasonable hypothesis is that they were working out that solution in their minds as they paused. Ed: But where did it come from to get into chimps?

lp: One would have to understand the mechanism of insight learning before one can get a clue as to its evolution. But if it is due to some immaterial mind-stuff, then chimps must have it also. So look long upon a chimp -- does it also have a soul?[/quote]

Chimps just have a few aspects of personhood, only a full person has a soul. And yet evolution can not logically explain how chimps even got those aspects.

Quote:

lp:Ed, I suggest that you go over to <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org</a> and see if you can refute that site's refutations of Flood Geology.

I already have, most of those refutations are based on a young earth.

Quote:

Ed: ... sometimes water in combination with other factors does weird things. lp: Like hide all evidence of a flood? Ed: No, only some of it. Ask a hydrologist.

lp: And what am I supposed to learn from one?

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p> [/QUOTE]

How water sometimes does weird unexpected things.