Jack the Bodiless

Please cite your experiments in which you proved that humans and chimps definitely cannot interbreed.

Also, please cite examples of successful wolf/chihuahua crossbreeding. Dogs are undergoing speciation, wolf/huskies don't prove that wolf/chihuahuas can exist.
Prove it.
Then that passage needs correction.

Do they have an entry on "abiogenesis"? If so, quote it.
One word: EVOLUTION.
Prove it.

You DO realize that apocalyptic literature was written in an "old" style to make it sound more impressive? No, of course you don't.
No, it's based on the fact that the Bible is riddled with historical errors that any competent Biblical scholar would know about.

Ed

Since I am concentrating more of my time on this thread, I have only been able to post on that thread about once a week.

No, what the bible teaches about sin is very similar to something like "spiritual DNA". I never said we had absolute free will, our will is limited in many ways even besides our desire to rebel against God. But as personal beings we have the ability to overcome desires. Many men have the desire to have sex with every pretty girl they see, but they dont act upon it. So therefore we ARE responsible for what we do even if we have a desire to do something that is wrong.

No, see above.

God didnt design it, it came about because of our sin. He can fix it, all you have to do is ask Him.

No, many of Christ's teachings are implied and exemplified in his life rather than explicitly spoken. For example, how he treated unbelievers with respect and kindness. And convince them by persuasion, not force.


There is no evidence for this assertion. They wanted everyone to convert but they always used persuasion by argument and evidence.

This parable is of Judgement Day. For all of your time on earth you have freedom of conscience but once the time has come for you to enter his kingdom, ie your death, he cannot allow any enemies within his gates. No kingdom can countenance such a thing. It would be like letting terrorists live and travel freely in the US. But actually since His enemies hate him anyway they would not enjoy living in his kingdom. So they are sent away to eternal death, ie hell.


No, Christians believe that the bible is a unified whole and therefore you interpret scripture with scripture. Especially difficult passages that appear to contradict other passages. The difficult passages are interpreted with the clear passages.

Why not? Given that there are many cases down thru history of societies commemorating great victories even longer than 400 years.

Evidence?

So did I. Living matter is the ultimate cause of living matter,

No, being an American is just a matter of geographic location.
Being personal is intrinsic to the thing itself.

This is the end of part I of my response to this post.

lpetrich

Ed:
No, what the bible teaches about sin is very similar to something like "spiritual DNA". I never said we had absolute free will, our will is limited in many ways even besides our desire to rebel against God. ...

Something that an allegedly omnipotent, omniscient being would be responsible for by omission if not by commission. St. Augustine was honest enough to admit that; he apparently claimed that god makes people wicked, and thus they commit sins.

(our sinful nature...)
God didnt design it, it came about because of our sin. He can fix it, all you have to do is ask Him.

No, it was not our fault that we are born guilty of some alleged "original sin". Though St. Augustine had maintained that babies are terrible sinners, being guilty of gluttony, jealousy, and the like.

No, many of Christ's teachings are implied and exemplified in his life rather than explicitly spoken. For example, how he treated unbelievers with respect and kindness. And convince them by persuasion, not force.

That would not be apparent from his vilifications of those who would not listen to him. Socrates and the Buddha had been MUCH more civil in that regard.

jtb: Luke 19:27 "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me".

It is ludicrous to suggest that this is "freedom of conscience"

This parable is of Judgement Day. For all of your time on earth you have freedom of conscience but once the time has come for you to enter his kingdom, ie your death, he cannot allow any enemies within his gates. ...

An omnipotent being would be capable of neutralizing every possible enemy.

No, Christians believe that the bible is a unified whole and therefore you interpret scripture with scripture. Especially difficult passages that appear to contradict other passages. The difficult passages are interpreted with the clear passages.

Pure circular reasoning. And there is no book in the Bible called "How to Interpret Me".

... Living matter is the ultimate cause of living matter,

Thanx to Ed's Law of Resemblance, of course.

Jack the Bodiless

Nearly a whole month has elapsed since you failed to support your claim that "there is no fossil C". You have posted on that thread several times since then, and every post has dodged the issue. You have not provided ANY actual examples of major gaps in the fossil record.

In fact, you have been defeated on every single issue you have raised in that thread.[quote]
You are still missing the point that it is NOT OUR FAULT that we suffer from "corrupted spiritual DNA". Therefore we CANNOT be justly punished for it, therefore "we are all sinners deserving of death" CANNOT be just. Because this would mean that ALL OF US actually sin because of it: NOBODY can resist it.

If some people DO resist it, then THEY are not sinners deserving of death. This contradicts Christian doctrine.

Also, the problem is GOD'S FAULT anyhow.
No, God designed it. God supposedly designed EVERYTHING. And it didn't come about because of OUR sin! You have never answered the question of why WE must suffer because of the sin of OTHERS.
The Bible is NOT a unified whole, and many passages DO directly contradict other passages. What you're describing is the process of ignoring what the Bible actually says. If some other author says something you like, you will quote it and pretend that the problem has gone away.
ANSWER MY POINT, ED.

NO "physical accounting" for the initial killing.

NO "physical accounting" for many subsequent generations "celebrating" it.

Why did you even bother to say that "from what we know about human nature they probably were celebrating", when it is SO VERY OBVIOUS that this could NOT have been a relevant factor?
Books are alive? Telephone calls are alive? These are "personal communications" made of dead matter. Personal relationships aren't made of matter at all (except electrochemical patterns in brains).
No, it isn't. That's why you can't define "personal".

And are you now claiming that there are no American soldiers in Iraq? Because of their geographical location, they are now Iraquis?


(Note to all: I'll probably be off the Net for the next week. Have fun with the Ed-butting).

NOGO

Respect?
Matthew 15
24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

Calling people 'dogs', now, that is respect.


This is what you call persuasion.

John 3
36 "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

I call it threats.

Ed

Fraid so, it is called continuation of identity thru time. Every 7 years almost every cell in the body is replaced and yet the person is still the same person. But with physical enitities such as a table it is not like that, if you replace almost every part of a table it is no longer the same table.

Quote:

jtb: An "ad hominem" is a logical fallacy, an attack upon the person instead of the argument. But, where I have accused you of "lying", I am specifically attacking your argument (or lack of one). Ed:No, when you accuse someone of lying you are imputing on them a motive of deception. This is an attack on the person's character NOT the argument. You have engaged in several ad hominems of late. This generally means you are unable to refute your opponent's argument. jtb: But I HAVE refuted your arguments. I have exposed the fact that many of them are lies. You are a liar BECAUSE you lie, Ed. Your motive of deception is evident FROM your use of lies. I haven't said "You are a liar, therefore your arguments are wrong". I'm saying "Your arguments are lies, therefore you are a liar".

You have yet to prove that my arguments are lies and there is no difference between those two statements.

Quote:

jtb: You lied when you referred to Deuteronomy 22:23-24 as proof that the Hebrews wouldn't tolerate the rape of unmarried women. Ed: You have yet to "expose" my statements as being false. Actually I was referring to Deut. 22:23-27. I explained to you that there were very few single adult women in ancient societies, so the law that applied to betrothed women also applied to single adult women. The OT judges did basically what modern judges do today, the laws do not cover every single scenario or case, they derived legal principles from cases explicit in the law and used them in cases not specifically mentioned in the hebrew law code. jtb: And you KNOW that this is not true. You KNOW that the rape of unmarried women wasn't punishable by death. You KNOW this, because the Bible says so, and we have PROVED that the Bible says so. No matter how desperately you WANT to believe that rape carried the death penalty, you KNOW that it did not. So you were LYING when you referred us to Deuteronomy, KNOWING that it did NOT support your position.

No, I do not "KNOW" these things. I have already stated what I KNOW.

Quote:

jtb: You lied when you claimed AGAIN that atheism is inferior to Christianity because it has "no rational basis" for morality (this is a lie because the evolutionary basis for morality, and the lack of any rational basis for WHY God should be good, have already been explained repeatedly). Ed: You have yet to provide a rational reason why humans should be treated better or even differently than other species. jtb: You KNOW that this is a subjective, EMOTIONAL judgement. You KNOW that there is no entirely "rational" reason why humans should be treated better or even differently than other species. You KNOW that Christianity doesn't provide a "rational" reason either. You KNOW that evolution DOES provide a rational reason for the existence of the EMOTION. You KNOW that Christianity does not. You KNOW these things. But you wish to pretend that you do not. You don't want this line of argument to continue. Hence your FEIGNED ignorance, and your refusal to LISTEN anymore.

No, Christianity DOES provide a rational reason to treat humans better than other creatures, only they are created in the image of the Creator of the universe. Your other absurd comments are not worthy of any response.

Quote:

jtb: You lied when you tried to pretend that the Amalekites were punished for what THEY had done, and not who they were. You lied when you tried to pretend that this is moral anyhow for all except governments. Ed: Evidence I lied? jtb: You stated that ON THIS THREAD (which you refuse to re-read), and then denied it.

Fraid not, read Romans 6:23 and 3:9-23. They were punished for what they did.

Quote:

jtb: You lied when you stated as fact your wild and ridiculous speculations made about Hebrew genealogies: speculations based, not on fact, but purely on a desire to move the date of Noah's Flood. You lied when you claimed this was a "correct translation" of the Bible. Ed: These are hardly wild and ridiculuous, the ancient Egyptians also abbreviated their genealogies and I demonstrated several cases where the hebrews plainly purposely abbreviated some genealogies. Evidence that the ancient Egyptians also abbreviated their genealogies: { }

Actually I made a mistake, I meant to say Mesopotamians. Read "Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts" by S. Langdon.

Quote:

jtb: And you didn't demonstrate ANY cases where the hebrews "plainly" purposely abbreviated some genealogies. You only cited more Biblical errors. But I was referring primarily to your ludicrous attempt to redefine the meaning of "became the ancestor of", which had absolutely no basis in historical fact, but purely on a desire to move the date of Noah's Flood. And you DID lie when you claimed that your claims about the Matthew genealogy were a "correct translation" of the Bible.

No, you have yet to demonstrate I and the Princeton scholar that I referenced are incorrect.

Quote:

jtb: I could go on... But the big unanswered question is, WHY are you doing this? Why is it necessary to go to such extraordinary and deperate lengths to preserve your belief in the integrity of the primitive superstitions of Bronze Age flat-Earthers? Ed: What extraodinary and desperate lengths? Everything I have stated is how almost all ancient documents are studied, ie understanding the historical and textual context. jtb: You have repeatedly ignored the historical and textual context. Why else would you quote Paul's ramblings, written centuries later, to "interpret" Old Testament passages? But you still haven't explained WHY..

See above how Christianity is based and interpreted on the bible as a whole textual unit. Just as any book is understood. You use other parts of the book to understand the difficult parts.

Ed

There are multiple systematic gaps. Why do you think Gould et al, came up with punctuated equilibrium theory?


No, but often similar molecules react in similar ways to radiation so it is likely that if the DNA is similar then the mutations would be similar.

No, similar retroviruses infect similar parts of the genome. Modern birds have all those characteristics at some stage of their life, so those are also avian characteristics and therefore irrelevant for determining descent.

Reread the thread now.

Given that chimps are much more intelligent than horses, it would be much more difficult to do so.

This is the end of part I of my response.

lpetrich

Ed: Also, there is evidence that human life is more than a chemical construct.

jtb: Nope.

Ed:
... it is called continuation of identity thru time. Every 7 years almost every cell in the body is replaced and yet the person is still the same person. But with physical enitities such as a table it is not like that, if you replace almost every part of a table it is no longer the same table.

First, where is this 7-year-replacement figure from?

Also, if one gradually replaces that table's parts over time, it nevertheless retains a continuity of structure, which makes it the "same" table in a structural sense.

It's somewhat clearer with a river -- it keeps the same shape and flow pattern despite the continual change of the water that flows in it.

Furthermore, one's mind/consciousness/personality changes over time, and does not remain absolutely fixed.

What Ed is advocating here is a crude sort of metaphysical materialism that I've seldom seen; I seem like an immaterialist by comparison, willing to believe in the reality of nonmaterial things like organization and flow patterns.

Ed:
No, Christianity DOES provide a rational reason to treat humans better than other creatures, only they are created in the image of the Creator of the universe.

Traditional Xian theology may be interpreted as a manifestation of bipolar disorder, a.k.a. manic depression. The manic part is claiming to be carbon copies of the creator and ruler of the Universe, while the depression part is claiming to be an original sinner who can never do anything right, and who deserves to be burned alive and otherwise tormented for an infinite amount of time.

Comparing to the traditional sort of deity, the only thing that we have in common is sentience. We otherwise have much more in common with a chimp than with some alleged omnimax/eternal deity.

(on the Amalekites...)
Ed:
Fraid not, read Romans 6:23 and 3:9-23. They were punished for what they did.

Seems like the Protocols of the Elders of Amalek. That's what the Nazis claimed about Jews -- that Jews were guilty of a variety of terrible crimes.

(stuff about skipped genealogies...)

If that is the case, then it is strange that the Bible does not warn about this. A book with lots of lists of begots and gorily-detailed instructions for animal sacrifices ought to contain some comments of that sort.

[b\See above how Christianity is based and interpreted on the bible as a whole textual unit. Just as any book is understood. You use other parts of the book to understand the difficult parts.[/b]

Except that that presumes that a book is necessarily a unified, self-consistent treatise. And many books aren't.

There are multiple systematic gaps. Why do you think Gould et al, came up with punctuated equilibrium theory?

List some of these gaps for us. And explain what you think that punctuated equilibrium is.

jtb: Nonsense. A lot of mutations are due to radioactivity. Are you claiming that radioactive particles would hit the DNA strands in exactly the same places every time? This is obviously not true.

Ed:
No, but often similar molecules react in similar ways to radiation so it is likely that if the DNA is similar then the mutations would be similar.

Which does not explain why radioactivity would consistently change adenine 27 in some gene to guanine in several different species -- and not adenine 3 or adenine 214 or adenine 110? This is a hypothetical example, but it is inspired by real sequence comparisons.

[i] jtb: This evidence includes retroviral DNA that has found its way into the genome and now shows up in all species descended from the infected organism, and the dormant DNA in birds which codes for reptilian characteristics such as teeth, claws and scales. More powerful evidence for common descent.

No, similar retroviruses infect similar parts of the genome. Modern birds have all those characteristics at some stage of their life, so those are also avian characteristics and therefore irrelevant for determining descent.

And where did you get that idea about retroviruses, O Ed? I don't think that I want to do a lot of retrovirus research for you, when you could easily do it yourself.

Also, when do birds have teeth?

And among birds, only Hoatzin chicks have wing claws; however, many birds have foot claws. But reptiles typically have claws on both front and hind limbs (when they have those limbs).

NOGO

Ed, you seem to be a walking library of silly apologetic arguement ever concocted.

This is a typical example. This arguement actually proves that what you say is false yet you believe that it proves your point. :banghead: :banghead:

Ed, you got it all wrong. What you need, Ed, is total re-education.

First I will deal with the "physical entities" as you call them.
Take salt as an example. Salt is composed of two atoms ie Sodium and Chlorine. Together these two elements gives us the chemical properties we call salt.

Now suppose we take a salt molecule and replace its sodium atom with another sodium atom. What do we have? Salt!
Suppose we then replace the Chlorine atom and replace it with another Chlorine atom. What do we have? Salt, once again.

The conclusion is that, what makes salt, salt, is not its specific constituent atoms but the resultant chemical structure itself. It is the structure which we call "salt" and which has the properties we associated with salt.

This is obviously true for every chemical structure.

Life is a chemical structure.

Therefore a living organism can replace every single atom in its structure and still keeps all the characteristics associated with the chemical structure.

As an example take memory.
Memory is like a sheet of paper on which is printed some textual message. You can photocopy it and as long as the same dots that were black on the original are still black on the copy the message is preserved. If, however you tear the paper, or burn it then the message is destroyed.

The same is true with human memory. Replace every single atom in your brain with a similar atom and at the same place and your memory is preserved. However if you get into an accident and the brain is damaged then the memory is lost.

Through accidents where the head is involved people have:
1) passed out (ie loss of consciousness)
2) coma
3) loss of memory
4) loss of brain higher functions (vegetable state)

All of these are clearly a breakdown in the chemical structure of the brain.

If your memory was more that the chemical structure then it would be preserved even if the chemical structure were damaged. It does not!

Ed

No, it is unlikely Yahweh was manmade due to his high moral standards especially in the area of sexual morality. If he was manmade you would be able to have sex with whomever you wanted not just your wife, also you could lie about things anytime you wanted, and etc. In addition, I have shown using the law of causality that he is logically the most likely cause of the universe.

Quote:

Ed: If the vice president was sent to Iraq and Hussein killed him, the reaction by the US would be much more severe than if you went over and got killed. ng: The point is that wiping out all Iraquis is strictly speaking an over-reaction. The punishment would simply not fit the crime. What would fit the crime is to arrest and put on trial all who participated in the crime. But to wipe all Iraquis is a genocide. YES the word is genocide, because not all participated in the crime which means that those who did not participate are being killed for just being Iraquis. Ed: First of all wiping out all the Iraquis for killing the vice president would be an over reaction. But he only represents a nation, the israelites were representing the King and Creator of the Universe, this is much more serious crime. Also read my posts to Jack and read Romans 6:23 and Romans 3:9-23. ng: The Israelites were the self-proclaimed representatives of the God which THEY created. If you want to use this as an arguement you need to prove it.

See above.

Quote:

ng: Even so where does it say that killing an Israelite is a more serious crime than killing someone else. This is strictly speaking, racist. The nazis would be proud of you, Ed.

It is plainly implied by episodes like the Amalekite scenario. No, it cannot be racist because all the peoples in the land of Canaan were Semitic, so they were the same race as the hebrews.

Quote:

ng: Romans 3:10 as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; How wrong can you be ... Noah Genesis 6:9 ... Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. Genesis 7:1 Then the LORD said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time. JOB Job 2:3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause." Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous. Luke 1:5-6 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. All Christians 1 John 3 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God..

These are all referring to people of faith. Faith in God's redemption causes your sins to be taken away and forgiven therefore you are considered righteous. Read Genesis 15:6.