Mad Kally

Nope. But then I just scroll right past anything he posts.

That is something I will never understand.

Ed

Huh? But the doll IS in the second box! The older child and the chimp would be wrong. But anyway, this is not really abstract reasoning, it is just a memory test. I never said that chimps were not intelligent and didnt have good memories.

Quote:

Ed: Atheistic evolution is based on impersonal time plus chance, neither of which nor in combination has ever been empirically observed producing persons. jtb: This change would have been observed over time by successive generations of hominids: therefore it is false to claim that this has never been directly observed. You may claim that it hasn't been directly observed by modern scientists, but neither have many things accepted as fact (such as the formation of large volcanoes from flat ground by successive volcanic eruptions: I've used that example before). And, of course, no scientist has observed creation.

What? You're kidding right? No evolutionary scientist worth his salt believes that one can observe macroevolution taking place in a human lifespan! And that is all the "hominids" would be able to observe. The only way they could see macroevolution occur is if they transcended time! And only humans can transmit information over generations, Australipithicines are not human so they would not be able to transmit information from one generation to the next.

Jack the Bodiless

In other words: NO evidence.
Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
He is nonexistent, Ed. I have no reason to fear a nonexistent being. But even if he DOES exist, he's so "merciful" that he will not punish at least 90% of those that "deserve it" (400 years is about 16 generations, assuming 25 years per generation).

A justice system that kicks in only once every 16 generations is seriously incompetent, not "merciful".
You have dodged the question, Ed. What is the basis for your assumption that the rule applied ONLY to the Hebrew government, and was NOT a general moral principle?

Deuteronomy 24:16: "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

You are claiming that it is NOT IMMORAL for anyone (EXCEPT the Hebrew government) to kill children for the crimes of their parents.

According to you, God can do this.

According to you, Osama Bin Laden can do this.

According to you, I can do this.

According to you, Deuteronomy 24:16 specifically states this.

NO, IT DOES NOT.
It is rationally assumed that God does not exist.
You are lying again, Ed.

Do you seriously think that I wouldn't bother to check your fradulent reference?

Here is your latest lie exposed for all to see:
Tamar was NOT betrothed to someone else.

This verse proves what we have been telling you all along: that rape is a crime against a MAN, the husband or betrothed. That the rape of adult single women is entirely legal.

Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
In other words: in Hebrew society, might made right. If you broke the law, it didn't matter, because nobody enforced the laws. Strong men could do anything, including murdering the weak on a whim.

Is this what you believe the "morally superior" Israelite society was like?
A repeat of the same lie. I specifically referred to UNMARRIED women, and Deuteronomy 22:23-24 specifically refers to MARRIED (or betrothed) women.

And please don't bother with the excuse that you didn't realize the distinction. There have been MANY posts on this topic.

Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
Another "lie of convenience", Ed.
Again, there is no excuse for this level of wilful ignorance.

Re-read this entire thread. NOW.
Persons have been empirically observed producing persons like God did, from clay?

When and where?
They are a range of transitional forms between apes and humans. The "transitional" nature of the forms (the range of intermediate characteristics between ape and human) has certainly been observed!

The "no transitional forms" argument is a well-known creationist lie, Ed. The lie is in the claim that such fossils SHOULD exist if evolution were true, but DO NOT exist. Whereas actually they DO exist, just as evolution predicts!
We have the same "junk DNA" and design DEFECTS, Ed.
Most DNA is junk DNA, Ed. This has nothing to do with design similarities.
Given.

You have a reading problem, Ed?
There is no reason to assume that God ACTUALLY IS good.

And there is no reason why God SHOULD be good.

Therefore you have no support of ANY sort for your belief that God is good.

Therefore the belief that God is good is irrational.
Of course the doll is in the second box! But that is NOT the question being asked!

Human children can make this distinction at four years old or thereabouts. You have demonstrated that you have not yet reached this mental age, Ed. This is presumably due to either:

1. The mind-crippling effects of your religion.

2. Inept programming (AI is still a new field).
Macroevolution and microevolution are the same process, Ed. Any observation of microevolution is also an observation of ongoing macroevolution. Certainly no creationist has ever succeeded in defining "macroevolution" as a different process that has never been observed! Speciation has been observed, information increase has been observed, and so forth. If you believe that macroevolution has never been observed in a human lifespan: that's another "lie of convenience", Ed.

And many animals can pass information from one generation to the next. Elephants teaching their young where to find water, for instance.

In other words: the principle that "only humans can transmit information over generations" is like the principle that "only persons can produce the personal". It is pure invented garbage, with absolutely no relevance to the real world.

Starboy

Don't be bothered by that, I started this thread and Ed has yet to answer a post made almost two months ago.

Starboy

beyelzu

jtb,

I really admire your stubborn refusal to allow ed off the hook. I personally wouldnt have the patience, but I do admire yours.


I especially like your last post, I think that it may have been the most damning of ed so far.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Exactly. This guy has provided you all now with indisputable evidence that he is one dim bulb.

Ever try to teach algebra to a pig? Lotsa luck guys.

winstonjen

Hear hear. :notworthy :notworthy

Thank you, JTB, for putting Ed in his place. Perhaps his "programmers" (probably a pedophile priest who wants to legalise rape somewhere) will stop using the same fallacies. They may even invent new ones!

Ed

See my posts to Jack.


[quote]
Ed
Hardly. See above about why he waited. Actually many Israelites did believe in an afterlife read Job, Daniel, and about what King David said concerning his infant son who died. But even if they didn't believe in an afterlife, that is irrelevant, because the fact is there is an afterlife. Someones belief about the existence of a thing does not effect the reality of the thing's existence.

Quote:

nogo: I will answer this one in full shortly in another post. Nothing in Job points to afterlife, quite the opposite.

Read Job 19:25-26.

Quote:

ng: As for David's son ... Yahweh killed him because David arranged to have a man killed in order to have his wife. The child was an illigimate product of an adulterous relation. The woman did not cry out and therefore they should both have been put to death according to the law. Instead Yahweh killed the innocent child to "punish" David. Another example of punishing the innocent children for the crimes of the parents.

You are correct they did both deserve to die, but God was merciful to them. As far as the child see my posts to Jack.

Quote:

ng: "you shall blot out the memory of Amalek" Unfortunately, this was not to be since we are still talking about them today. Ed He meant that the memories of Amalek will not be positive, as they had been for 400 years to the surrounding nations and Amalekites themselves. Not even Egypt was able to do what they did to Israel. ng: It is amazing that you know exactly what Yahweh meant and it is often, as it is in this case, contrary to what the Bible actually says.

It is a rational assumption given the historical context. Given that the Bible does not give all the reasons why they were killed, how is what I said contrary to what the bible says?

Quote:

Ed No, Deut. 24:16 refers to the government of Israel and by extension, all human governments unless specifically commanded by God to do so and this was only done during the Hebrew theocracy. ng: You are saying here that Yahweh can give a law and then ask that this law be broken. Where in the bible does it say "unless specifically commanded by God to do so" Are you saying that Deut. 24:16 is not a universal moral principle which applies to everybody including God?

It is not broken if their deaths are justified. And the verse is referring to the situation from the perspective of humans. See also my explanation to Jack.

Quote:

Ed: "Deut 24:16 refers to the government of Israel" Really!, Let's look at the context Deut 24 14 "You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your towns. 15 "You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the LORD and it become sin in you. 16 "Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin. 17 "You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow's garment in pledge. 18 "But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing. 19 "When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. None of this sounds like instructions to governments. This is another of you creative distortions to justify the unjustifiable.

No, it is obvious given the context that verses 16 and 17 are directed to the Hebrew government because other verses show that only the rightful authorities can put people to death and mete out justice. Actually even the rest of the verses are general societal rules, this is agreed by all biblical scholars both liberal and conservative.

Quote:

Ed: Because only God knows all the circumstances surrounding the situation both physically and spiritually. But only God can do this, no human government can do such a thing as stated in Dt. 24:16. ng: You are qualifying your statement here which opens the possibility that other elements justify the punishment. But Dt24:16 is stated as a general moral principle. The Bible does not qualify the statement as you do. If there are other elements which would make children guilty of something then that would be punishment for their own sins. This is not what Deut24:16 is about. Specifically Deut24:16 prohibits anyone from avenging themselves upon the children of people who have committed a crime. That is exactly what 2Sam 15 is all about, revenge.

It is written from the perspective of humans. To us it looks like that is the only reason for the children's death but there are other reasons given what know about the Christian God.

Quote:

Ed, ... Then He prophesizes that they will become guilty of the very thing that they deny and the very thing that their fathers did. That is what he means by the above verse. They already are filling up with guilt but they will become full after they have done the very thing their fathers did that they condemned. ng: So, Ed, you are saying that it was a prophecy. Once again you ignore what the text actually says and invent what you think is a good story. [30] saying, `If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' [31] Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Once again, Ed, Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are "TESTIFYING AGAINST themselves" Why? Because "you (the pharisees) are the sons of those who murdered the prophets" This is all happened ... IN THE PAST. [32] Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. [33] You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? "fill up" is in the present. No prophecy here. Fill up what? The measure of guilt of your fathers. PAST! No prophecy here.

The reason it is in the present is because he knows that they have already starting plotting against him and planning his death. And He also is a prophet. So by plotting to kill him they are doing exactly what their fathers did, even though at the same time they are denying it with their words, this is how they testify against themselves. He is using irony here. Their denial is actually a testimony to their guilt. Then later on he predicts that they will try to kill his followers in verse 34.

Jack the Bodiless

Thanks, guys!

I think we are very slowly prising open the cracks in Ed's worldview. Not much is penetrating his dense skull, but I think he is nevertheless beginning to realize that he is in deep trouble.

Look at his overlapping and contradictory responses to the issue of the punishment of innocents for the crimes of others.

The Amalekites were allegedly guilty of "celebration", therefore they "deserved it". This argument is in tatters now.

But it's OK, because punishment for the crimes of others is moral for everyone except the government of the Israelites. The Bible says so. Except that it doesn't. And God is good, so that would be wrong (even though Ed said it was OK), so Ed has invented "spiritual DNA" to make it right. Except that GOD would have to actually make the stuff, and then be powerless against it (like Superman's Kryptonite allergy? No explanation). And the whole "God is good" premise is collapsing anyhow: he can't justify it.

Also, his fabrications are becoming increasingly desperate. He's moved from things not mentioned in the Bible, to actual false claims about what the Bible DOES say. He's lying, and I think he's beginning to realize it. Originally, it's possible that he was merely repeating the lies of others without realizing they WERE lies, but he's been corrected so often that he no longer has the excuse of ignorance.

NOGO

Ed, you cannot argue a point by ignoring the evidence.
You have just fabricated a story as to why they are testifying against themselves. This is pure fiction.

This is what the Bible says.

[31] Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

This verse says that by admitting to be sons of those who murdered the prophets, they are testifying against themselves.

See, Ed, you can never just read what the Bible says because you are ashamed of it. You cannot justify it so you need to invent some other story in order to patch it up. Did it ever occur to you that the so called "word of God" should be clear on its own and in no needs of your patches. Does God have problems communicating that He needs your help?

The Pharisees had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus' death.

According to your faith Jesus' death was planned by God ages before it happened. The people involved were just being used to achieve God's plan. They were framed.