Ed

While Jacob was showing a lack of faith by trusting in an old wives tale, God had promised to bless him and God keeps his promises.

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Ed: Maybe creation week occurred 15 billion years ago or maybe the processes of Genesis 1:1 took 14 billion years or more and then creation week occurred. The bible doesnt say how long it took for God to create "the heavens and the earth". lp: Very ingenious. But it would be easier to regard Genesis 1 as comparable to the Earth's four corners in the Book of Revelation.

No, Revelation is apocaplyptic literature, Genesis is not. Also, four corners just means all four geographic regions. It does not mean that there are actual corners on the earth.

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Ed: A global flood which gradually overcame first the sea and then the land explains the primary order of major groups in the fossil record (sea to land)just as well as macroevolutionary theory. ... lp: Flood Geology is long-discredited sauropod dung. There is zero evidence for anything like Noah's Flood in the last 400 million years -- at least. It would have left some big mixed-up sediment deposits, which are simply not found. Instead, the sediment deposits form nice layers with specific fossils, which correlate nicely across the globe. Ed, I suggest that you study some geology before sounding off on this subject.

Maybe not, given that the flood only lasted a year, if it occurred 400 million years ago there may not be much evidence left after millions of years of erosion and etc. If you mix different soil types in jar full of water and shake it up the soil granules nicely segregate into strata. Just like the flood. Go ahead try it sometime with your children.

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lp: Furthermore, Genesis 1 gets a lot of the appearance order just plain wrong; it states that flying animals came before land ones, and that angiosperms (fruit trees, etc.) came before land animals.

Their position in the fossil record could be because of their greater ability to avoid the flood. And fruit trees usually occur in the lower elevation ecosystems so it would expected that land animals would be further up in the strata.

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lp: Also, the sea-to-land order is a natural result of origin in bodies of water; living on land requires lots of adaptations to slow down water loss while doing gas exchange with the air. Thus, sea before land qualifies as a lucky hit.

Maybe, maybe not.

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Ed: (on divergence from some long-ago ancestor) Such a reason for the diversification of language cannot be discovered just by studying language itself. lp: On the contrary, it is a reasonable extrapolation from the recorded history of human languages. I suggest that you try comparing Latin and the Romance languages some time.

No, you misunderstood. I was referring to the act of God of changing the languages. This would not show up in an extrapolation of historical languages.

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Ed: From a biologist's perspective viruses are obviously not alive. Only to those not very familiar with biology think viruses might be alive. The 7 main characteristics of life from BIO 101 are: 1. Living things are highly ordered. 2. Living things take energy from their environment. 3. Living things respond actively to their environment. 4. Living things are adapted to their environment. 5. Living things develop (development is not the same thing as change). 6. Living things reproduce themselves. 7. The information that each organism needs to survive, develop, and reproduce is segregated within the organism and passed on to its offspring. lp: These 7 attributes describe viruses multiplying inside their host cells; outside those cells, viruses are inactive.

No, viruses are not highly ordered. They are just a fragment of DNA in a protein coating. Viruses do not take energy from their environment. Also viruses do not develop. So viruses only have four of the characteristics of life so most of the evidence points to them not being alive, given that the 3 that they lack are some of the most important.

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Ed: (on Louis Pasteur) In other words he disproved abiogenesis. lp: Sheesh, Ed, what will it take to show you that Louis Pasteur had done no such thing? Here's an analogy: Let's say that you are concerned with the color of crows. Every one you have ever seen is black, but only one white crow is necessary to show that this is not a universal rule. Louis Pasteur is like a careful birdwatcher in your neighborhood who only records the colors of well-illuminated crows in full view. But he has not seen all the world, and there might be some distant place where there are some white crows.

Well maybe he didnt disprove it, but in conjunction with all the modern evidence discovered against abiogenesis, his work is one more strike against it.

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Ed: No, theoretically anything is possible, but some theories are more logical than others and claiming that somehow the impersonal can produce the personal is illogical. lp: You haven't explained why, Ed.

Because it has never been observed throughout all of human experience.

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Ed: Persons have a mind, will, and conscience, non-persons don't. lp: However, mind, will, and conscience develop as each individual grows; does a fertilized egg cell have any of these?

It has them in potential form. And in addition it contains a complex languagelike code(DNA), which throughout all of human experience only minds have produced complex codes.

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Ed: I am referring to the ultimate cause not the process by which the effect was achieved. God may have guided or intervened at times in evolution to produce persons and part of that guidance may have resulted in animals that have aspects of personhood. lp: Extraterrestrial visitors or time travelers could also have done that. And many of the features of Earth life could be due to their limited powers and even fallibility ("Why did you make Earth life dependent on something rare like phosphorus?" "Putting phosphorus in nucleic acids seemed like a good idea at the time.").

Extraterrestrials or time travelers are personal beings also, so the ultimate cause's characteristics would still stand.

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lp: If there is any positive evidence for any such designing going on. Which there isn't.

Actually there is, see above about the existence of a complex languagelike code.

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Ed: (responding to Rimstalker's list of Biblical atrocities...) All human beings have an innate desire to rebel against the true God. lp: This is so harebrained that I'm at a loss for words. I'm a creator of programs, and I try to make them faithfully obedient. As to free will, read what Jesus Christ said about removing parts of one's body that lead one astray. By extension, if free will causes wicked behavior, then get rid of it.

Free will doesnt cause wicked behavior, humans using their free will cause wicked behavior.

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Ed: God probably was rescuing the babies from going to hell before their later more serious behavior kicked in as adults raised in a barbarous society. lp: It might be better to keep people from creating "barbarous societies". I do that all the time with all the software that I create.

That would take away our freedom.

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Ed: The destruction of animals was an unfortunate side effect of man's rebellion against God. lp: As if God was not capable of saving them. :-P

Of course, he was capable of saving them but in order to show to man what horrible things sin can result in he allowed it to happen.

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Ed: God was demonstrating the extreme seriousness of man's rebellion. The prophet was God's representative on earth, it is as though they were mocking God himself. lp: So God has a skin thinner than Kleenex?

No, that is the way the universe is ordered, rebellion against God usually has serious natural and supernatural consequences.


[b] There are major differences between being a wife in ancient Israel and involuntary prostitution. The ancient jews had to conform to the golden rule for one big difference.

Jack the Bodiless

Ed, this is a REPETITION of what I said earlier on this subject:
..."Fruit trees usually occur in the lower elevation ecosystems", but GRASS does not??? And even grass pollen grains all fled to higher ground???

Ed, it is perfectly obvious to everyone else here that you have LOST this argument. So why do you continue with this BS?

I suspect that you know that the whole Flood story is basically crap, and you're continuing this head-in-the-sand denial to hold back the terrible reality that's about to crash in on you: the knowledge that the Bible is false.

You've been living in a dream, Ed. It's time to wake up now.

LinuxPup

Not that this has to do with the First Cause argument, but anyways, I guess I would disagree with both of you. I believe the Bible's flood story, but I don't think that it covered the earth. Not only because of the lack of physical evidence, but because the Bible leans towards a local one. Psalms 104 says that the waters would not come back to cover the face of the earth after Day 3 of creation. One of the better explanations of a local flood interpretation of Genesis is found here:
<a href="http://www.reasons.org/resources/books/genesisquestion/gq18.html" target="_blank">http://www.reasons.org/resources/books/genesisquestion/gq18.html</a>

I really suggest reading it.

lpetrich

What difference does being "apocalyptic literature" make? But all the translations I've seen say "corners" instead of "regions". And it also states that angels were holding back the winds, so no wind was blowing.

However, we now know that winds are produced by other causes, such as some parts of the Earth being hotter than others.

However, humanity simply did not exist back then -- there are no human remains except in VERY young rocks (young by geological standards), and the older such remains have a suspiciously half-simian appearance.

And if that flood had not left much evidence, then that is conceding that Noah's Flood was the cause of essentially none of the rocks.

However, there is a lot of ordering that simply does not fit into the single-flood theory. For example, the Grand Canyon has a variety of rock types in no special order; sandstone, limestone, and shale alternate in rather irregular fashion. And to claim that it is all due to a single flood directly contradicts the claim earlier that Noah's Flood had left little evidence behind.

Ed has just contradicted himself, because what he claims would require ALL the sediments of the last 300 million years or so to be due to Noah's Flood. Furthermore, there are plenty of slowpoke marine animals, like clams, in high layers.

In a relative sense, perhaps; depends on what counts as being "highly ordered."

As have many other things whose existence is inferred. Ed, I don't see you kvetching that Laurasia or Gondwana or Pangea or Rodinia have never been observed.

However, DNA -&gt; protein is actually a rather simple sort of code: 3 nucleic-acid bases -&gt; 1 amino acid. But regulation and development control are much more complicated.

And if a mind had done it, how can we be sure that it was not an extraterrestrial visitor that had done it? How can we be sure that no other place in the Universe is inhabited?

However, time travelers can be part of a closed causal loop; they can cause their own existence.

But free will enables it.

I don't care; you are dragging in irrelevancies.

An omnipotent being could save Itself a lot of trouble by creating entities incapable of sinning.

There was no serious enforcement of that rule, however.

This reminds me of one clergyman's response to Tom Paine on this subject -- that those young ladies were not going to be used for "immoral" purposes, but would instead become slaves, to which, he claimed, there was no ethical objection.

Ed

Granite by itself IS inadequate to produce a statue. You need an intelligent creator. A hammer by itself IS inadequate to kill a president, it needs an intelligent murderer. Now volcanic activity utilizing simple geologic laws CAN produce a mountain without an intelligent creator. And in fact has been empirically observed doing so. Personal beings cannot be produced by any known natural laws and in fact have more in common with a carved statue and a planned murder with a hammer. And in both those cases an intelligence is required, and they are extremely simple compared to personal being, so therefore a personal being requires an intelligence even more so.

Ed

I am afraid you are confusing the structure of a solid as compared to a gas with laws of logic. The Law of Non-contradiction applies to both solids and gases. I could very well have used the example of one molecule of oxygen and one molecule of nitrogen under a tree. They cannot be at the same place at the same time and in the same relationship. I just used rocks because they are little easier to visualize. So my statement still stands that the laws of logic are part of the universe and are not made up by humans.

Jack the Bodiless

And hydrogen and helium need the operation of various physical principles (gravity, nuclear fusion, chemistry) to produce a personal being. But not intelligence: all known intelligence is the end product of millions of years of evolution. If you wish to argue otherwise, please give an example of intelligence that has been observed to arise without evolution (even computer "artificial intelligence" is a product of OUR evolution).

Can a hammer kill a President if it falls off a high shelf?

Is a pretzel adequate to kill a President? Must it be planted by an Al-Quaeda terrorist to be effective?
No mountain comparable in size to Vesuvius has ever been observed to form from a volcano. You're taking about "micro" mountain-building: "macro" mountain-building has never been observed, and is therefore impossible. Standard creationist logic.
Evolution, Ed. EVOLUTION. We already know (from computers) that evolutionary algorithms can solve problems intelligently. Evolution is sufficient to produce personal beings.

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: Jack the Bodiless ]</p>

Ed

Actually there is evidence that we all descended from one woman, ie mitochondrial Eve. Again as I stated before, the scriptures do not tell us WHEN humans were created.

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Ed: Maybe creation week occurred 15 billion years ago or maybe the processes of Genesis 1:1 took 14 billion years or more and then creation week occurred. The bible doesnt say how long it took for God to create "the heavens and the earth". Rim: Sure it does: six days. Ed's fuzzy "day-age" arguments not only contradict themselves, but also betray just how desperate he is to salvage the Bible in the face of empirical evidence. He can't be serious about man being made six days after the BB, or that each "day" could be a billion year span and that the events in them are actually consistant with the evidence. If so, his crippling ignorance shines through as a beacon of stupidity to be avoided by thinking people everywhere. If Ed, or any other Xian, hopes to convince people of the Bible's relevance in a time when "revelation" is not longer the dominant paradign for finding out how the Universe works, he'll have to try harder. I doubt he will, though.

It is possible that there could be billions of years between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2.

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Ed: A global flood which gradually overcame first the sea and then the land explains the primary order of major groups in the fossil record (sea to land)just as well as macroevolutionary theory. Rim: Let's put aside the fact that this is pure, unadulterated horseshit that anyone with half a brain cell and a knowledge of geology rightfully turns their nose up at. Let's unsheath good ole Occam's razor. The Global Flood involves the entire surface of the Earth, up to the tallest mountains, being covered in water. Some questions arise: Does Ed know how much water would be required to do this? (Hint: A huge f___ lot!) Where the hell did it come from? Where the hell did it god? It sure as hell ain't here today! These questions can only be answered with supernatural non-explainations, and therefore get shaved away.

No need for the crudities and obscenities. That is a sign of a shallow thinker. Some scientists have proposed that there was a vapor canopy over the earth prior to the flood or that the water came from under the earth's crust.

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Rim: For the education of the lurkers, here's a tiny list of problems with the Global Flood story. I hope someone gets something out of this. Ed probably won't bother to click on it, as knowledge gets in the way of his ability to make ignorant, unevidenced assertions.

I have looked at it and most of them can be reasonably explained.

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Ed: Such a reason for the diversification of language cannot be discovered just by studying language itself. Rim: Here, we see Ed cowardly avoiding the issue of how modern linguistics is in no way compatible with the Tower of Babel story. It's too bad he doesn't have the balls (no offence to all the fine lady debaters here who don't engage in such shoddy practices) to deal with the actual thrust of my argument, and must instead misdirect the focus of the debate.

Modern linguistics says that there was originally one language, so does the scriptures. The fact of God causing the diversification of language cannot be discovered by studying language alone.

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Ed: See my post to LP. Rim: See him dismatle it piece by piece with logic.

Well he has yet to do it.

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Ed: <Snip his definition of life> Rim: I'd like to know where you sourced that list. I don't recall a standard definition of what life is being issued by any conference of biologists. Further, this definition seems rather vague. Life must "develop," but that's not the same thing as "change?" That's a new one on me! (That is, that "development" is not "change") This seems to mark bacteria as non-living. After all, once a bacteria is spawned by mitosis, it doesn't "develop." It just goes around eating until it splits as well. Perhaps a concrete definition of "development" is in order, but I won't hold my breath. I know how hard it is for you to actually define something

.

The list came from my old college Biology 101 textbook. Development is change but change is not always development. Yes, bacteria do not really develop, but I am not saying that some living things do not have every single characteristic, just most of them and nonliving things do not have most of them.

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Ed: In other words he disproved abiogenesis. Rim: I suggest you carefully study the actual work of Louis Pasteur before twisting around his actual experimental results.

Well maybe disprove is too strong a word but it is just one piece of the evidence against abiogenesis.

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Ed: No, theoretically anything is possible, but some theories are more logical than others and claiming that somehow the impersonal can produce the personal is illogical. Rim: Here we see Ed nitpicking to avoid the issue. I know full well about the open nature of "possibility," and I think Ed knows I know this. But by deliberately ignoring the eliptical nature of my statement, he can misrepresent my position with a needless nitpick and make me look the fool. I wonder why Ed feels the need to engage in such dishonest tactics... maybe it's because he knows how much his argument is failing.

Huh? How am I being dishonest? Some atheists erroneously believe that christians think that there is absolutely no possibility at all that God may not exist, I was just trying to correct that misperception.

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Rim: Just to make sure you have no wiggle room, Ed, let me restate my counter-argument: Ed: "It may be theoretically possible for persons to come from the impersonal but such a theory is irrational that is my point." My respose: It is not irrational at all, as it is logically possible for something (i.e., the "impersonal," or a woman) to cause or produce something which is its opposite (i.e., the "personal," or a boy). Therefore, since it is both logically and theoretically possible for the impersonal to produce the personal, and since you have yet to actually define those things and show why there is a causal/developemtnal barrier between them, you have absolutely no argument whatsoever. So stop being a g__d__ pussy and pony up to my actual arguments.

No, your personhood is more fundamental than your gender. And since a woman with the help of a man's sperm is quite sufficient to produce a boy.
Your analogy fails. You need to provide an example where something is produced from something else that does not contain what is sufficient to produce that effect. Such an event would disprove the Law of Sufficient Cause thereby disproving my point. But of course, disproving the Law of Sufficient Cause would destroy science.

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Ed: Persons have a mind, will, and conscience, non-persons don't. Rim: Please define these things, specifically, "will" and "conscience." The first is vague, the second's existance is in question.

Will is the power by which the mind decides upon and directs its energies to carry out an action, even actions that go against physical needs and desires. Your conscience is what helps you to determine right and wrong and makes you feel guilty when you violate it.

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Ed: See above about Mr. Pasteur. Rim:See above about mirepresenting the actual findings of science through willful ignorance.

See above the softening of my words.

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Ed: I am referring to the ultimate cause not the process by which the effect was achieved. God may have guided or intervened at times in evolution to produce persons and part of that guidance may have resulted in animals that have aspects of personhood. Rim: This is irrelevant. The fact that we don't have a sharp, fast-and-clear distinction between "personal" and "impersonal," but rather, we have varying levels or "shades" between them, and the fact that the more "primative," in an evolutionary sense, an animal is, the less "personality" it has, seems to suggest that "personality" is highly evolvable, and requires no divine assistance.

No, because more personality requires more genetic information, but natural selection by mutation is inadequate to increase information given that all studies so far show that mutation either maintains the status quo or results in a loss of information.

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Rim: I also wonder about your views on evolution, specifically, why you seem to be comfortable invocing theistic evolution when convienient, day-age creationism when that's useful for you, and YEC literalism when put into a corner. Why don't you stick to one belief and stop arbitrarily adopting one or the other when it suits your fancy? How about some consistancy?

Because my post is primarily about the existence of the Christian God and the rationality of believing in him, not HOW he created the universe and life. Such a discussion belongs on another thread and I dont consider it of extreme importance.

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Ed: Nothing can be proven with absolute certainty except your own existence and that only to yourself. Rim: More of Ed's classic nitpicking and misdirection. I wonder how much longer he can keep this up? I wonder if he knows, deep down in inside, that I meant "proof" beyond a reasonable doubt, that is, scientific proof, something with evidence to support it. Maybe he knows that he can't do this, and is stalling for time... Well, Ed, consider yourself smoked out. Put up or shut up.

No, I was assuming that you like many atheists erroneously think Christians are claiming that they can prove God with absolute certainty.

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Ed: Just saying it is false doesn't mean that it is. Rim: Of course not, you silly little jackass. But why it's so obvious to me that if you can't prove something irrational, it really isn't, and why this simple fact is not obvious to you baffles me. Oh, wait. The stupidity. Never mind.

I think I have shown it irrational or at the very least not as rational.

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Ed: Who said God is amoral? I said God has a moral character. In fact the foundation of morality is God's character. That is the point of my moral arguement. Rim: No, it's lame-brained obfuscationism. Tell me: is God beyond the jurisdiction of his own morality?

I am not sure what you mean, please clarify.

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Rim: Up next is an example one of the saddest spectacles in the world: theists trying to justify the barbarous, immoral actions of their monstrous, evil god. It's like the child of an alcoholic father making excuses for why his dad beats his mom and won't get a job. Except, whereas the child's situation is merely pitiable and tragic because an actual father exists to be rationalized, the theist's situation is also laughable, becuase their Middle-Eastern mythological sky-warrior Father God is a fiction. How truly sad, and funny, it is to see adults trying to justify the actions of a mythological villain as if he were a real being!

How do you determine what is immoral, barbarous and evil? Atheism does not provide a rational basis for making such judgements.

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Ed: All human beings have an innate desire to rebel against the true God. Rim: Prove it, and then prove its relevance. And yes, just so you don't pussy out of this one again, that's "prove beyond a reasonable doubt, with evidence."

The evidence is the ignoring and rebelling against his moral law throughout all of human history.

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Ed: God probably was rescuing the babies from going to hell before their later more serious behavior kicked in as adults raised in a barbarous society. Rim: This is one of the worst cases of cognitive dissonence I've ever seen. Only someone so blinded by their idiotic faith could see having a fetus ripped from it's mother's womb as "rescue." I'll bet Ed considers himself "pro-life." Hey, doofus, why doesn't this omnipotent, all-merciful god try to, I don't know, reform the "barbarous" society they were living in, instead of annihilating it? Frankly, the idea of having your soldiers rip open the wombs of pregnant women is as barbarous as anything I can think of.

God NEVER commanded his people to rip babies from the wombs of pregnant women. This was done by the Assyrians.

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Ed: The destruction of animals was an unfortunate side effect of man's rebellion against God. Rim: Ed seems to be unaware that "side-effects" are the result of fallible, limited beings trying to achive one goal, and mistakenly enacting another. I wonder if Ed really has such low esteem for his God's intellect as to presume that he didn't know before hand that innundating the entire Earth was going to kill an awful lot of animals, some with partial personalities.

No, he probably allowed it to show the extreme seriousness of man's rebellion against God's moral law so that man would never consider doing it again.

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Ed: God was demonstrating the extreme seriousness of man's rebellion. Rim: ...which he surely would have know was going to happen anyway, and could have prevented entirely, right? I mean, you don't have to be omniscient to know that when you make something both mysterious and forbidden, kids (Adam and Eve) are going to want to play with it...

Adam and Eve were not kids, they had fully developed moral consciences, they knew what they were doing was wrong.
This is the end of part I of my response.

Jack the Bodiless

Ed, how many times must I point out that this claim is a LIE?

It is not true.

It is false.

It is bogus.

It is a creationist invention.

It is bullshit.

It is a fairytale.

It is factually incorrect.

It just ain't so.

Geddit?

Jack the Bodiless

It is inevitable, given the fact of common descent, that we will all have a shared female ancestor at some point (and, indeed, a shared male ancestor). Family trees converge as you go back in time. But neither of these individuals are the first woman or man, simply the most recent common ancestor of all in the group.

But the scriptures DO tell us when humans were created. The genealogies clearly indicate 4000 BC or thereabouts (the only uncertainty being the date of Solomon's temple, known to within 50 years or thereabouts). It's amusing to watch the mental gymnastics of apologists trying to wriggle out of what the Bible clearly states.
The weight of the water is the same whether it's in liquid or vapor form. You're talking about a surface atmospheric pressure of many tons per square inch in the pre-Flood world, and searing heat generated when it falls. Noah and his family would be crushed, then poached. I suggest you learn some physics.
The diversification of languages was a gradual branching process similar to biological evolution: there was no "Tower of Babel incident".
No, it isn't. Abiogenesis cannot possibly occur under the conditions in Pasteur's experiment. This is like claiming that the non-flammability of concrete is evidence against the existence of fire.
Many Christians DO insist that there is absolutely no possibility at all that God may not exist. They're a minority, perhaps, but they exist.
Given that we believe hydrogen, helium and various natural interactions ARE sufficient to produce "personal beings", why should we "provide an example where something is produced from something else that does not contain what is sufficient to produce that effect"? This makes no sense.
Neither does aSantaism, aleprechaunism or adragonism. These are the rules of human societies. Their "rational basis" is that societies need such rules in order to function.
The gratuitous slaughter of innocent bystanders during assassinations was known as "termination with extreme prejudice" by the Mafia. Maybe they got the idea from the Bible.