The Anti-theist Thread

[Earniel]

Sheesh what an article, patronizing, arrogant and completely confused.

I must say that dinosaurs on the Ark seems like a very original idea. It's been a while since I heard one of that calibre. The mere effort of Crickhollow stating that makes this article ready for the wastebin in a second. Well done!

[Andúril]

Also:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

Now someone needs to answer my question. Did God say "Let there be light" before or after the creation of light, or is he always saying it (as a changeless being)?

How can God be changeless? God said "Let there be light", and straight after he saw the light and it was good. Clearly God would not have seen the light before he had created it. Also, there is a sequence of events here. Look at the wants of God: He wanted to create light. He created light. Now does he still want to create light? No, he has already created light - it is nonsensical to claim that God wanted to create light after he had already created it. Thus the want to create light exists no longer - it is now clear that Gods mind has changed its state, from wanting (x) to not wanting (x) - this is a basic example of God changing, but more importantly, it shows God as part of time.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Anduril
Also:

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

Now someone needs to answer my question. Did God say "Let there be light" before or after the creation of light, or is he always saying it (as a changeless being)?

How can God be changeless? God said "Let there be light", and straight after he saw the light and it was good. Clearly God would not have seen the light before he had created it. Also, there is a sequence of events here. Look at the wants of God: He wanted to create light. He created light. Now does he still want to create light? No, he has already created light - it is nonsensical to claim that God wanted to create light after he had already created it. Thus the want to create light exists no longer - it is now clear that Gods mind has changed its state, from wanting (x) to not wanting (x) - this is a basic example of God changing, but more importantly, it shows God as part of time.

Yes, and to re-iterate an earlier point, what about the light sources? It takes 60 million light years for a stars light to get to earth, how did he manage that?

[Andúril]

Oh well, if some people want to believe that the effect came before the cause, let them. Oh, wait a minute, God was the cause of the light - so cause and effect remains intact.

A question: Can we, as theists (), really be sure that stars exist? I mean, God could have just created the light emitted and not the emitter itself...

[markedel]

God is outside and in time, so he said it. But "light" deosn't have to mean "light" as in photons etc.

[Andúril]

Then what does "light" have to mean, if it doesn't have to mean photons?

[crickhollow]

Originally posted by Eärniel
Sheesh what an article, patronizing, arrogant and completely confused.

I must say that dinosaurs on the Ark seems like a very original idea. It's been a while since I heard one of that calibre. The mere effort of Crickhollow stating that makes this article ready for the wastebin in a second. Well done!

Well now I must shamefully admit that I dropped that last bombshell purely to get a rise out of you folks. Glad to see you've had fun with it. Perhaps I should have added "april fools" at the bottom.
(tho' truly i know peoplel who believe this. I'm not as original as you credit me to be)

[markedel]

Light could be symbolic of God lniking is infiniteness to the finite. Light is by its very nature ephemereal but emphatically there-like God.

[afro-elf]

the reason i don't believe the any sacred text is the same reason i don't believe mother goose

i think the only difference is that myths are just religions that no\one believes in any longer

[Wayfarer]

Yawns and stretches...

I missed you guys!

April Fools. ]: )

Er. Anyway. I'm back. Although I have a feeling that this post is going to be painfully long...

Beginning with the last unread post:

small chromosomal changes that have a massive effect on the physiology of the anatomy.

Eyes, Feathers, Lungs, Gills, Scales, Teeth.

Those are the kind of thing I meant by 'traits'. Bat word choice. Shame on me.

I do accept that mutations occur. Through Inversion, Deletion, or um... was it Transmission? But the massive amounts of new information (as opposed to shuffling around old stuff) that it would take to produce even one of the traits I mentioned above makes me think it ludicrist.

Christianity does teach that I'm afraid: Man in God's image, as separated from the other species.

Ok. If you leave out the parts about how much humans suck, and how everybody is in serious trouble. Whatever people have tried to make of it over the years, christianity is not a comfort religion.

But seriously, do you really deny that it is individual and group efforts to formalize and institutionalize prayer? No one has ever suggested that prayer should not be allowed. That would be unconstitiutional. When a teacher leads the class in a christian prayer, they violate then concept and the laws governing the separation issue.

Formalize and institutionalize prayer? God forbid! ]: )
I'd never want to see teacher-led prayer in schools. NEver said I did. But I have a bigger problem with students being told they can't pray at lunch or during class. And I have an even bigger problem when some schools have different standards for different religions.

Hey, what Science is taught in Private Christian schools? I'm just curious because it seems to me that most of the Christians in this discussion seem to be ignoring science and evolution and the evidence there of. All the Science Text books that I've ever had and seen teach Evolution, etc. Do Christians believe in the very plausible Big bang theory and other Universe theories? Anyways, if Private schools don't teach evolution, etc, then what do they teach in science??? Do they teach science?

HOBBIT, no offense, but I think your age is showing.

First, anyone who equates science with evolution is making a huge error.
Second, christians on this discussion haven't ignored any evidence of evolution. We just don't find it good enough. Big difference.

Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Oceanography, Meteorology, Genetics, and Medicine all transition without a hitch between naturalistic and christian science.
Botany, Zoology, and Paleontology are only slightly different. A Christian can function as well as an Athiest in these branches. He just doesn't have to look at everything in terms of 'this is closely related to this'
And finally, I would venture to say that Geology is better taught by christians than by athiests. They don't have to pretend that everything is the result of gradualistic processes. You might remember I hate gradualism. ]: )

The Big Bang theory, while plausable to a degree, is not sufficient for philosophy or nescessary for science. Philosophically, special creation makes more sense. And science should not be occupied with predicting phenomenonae in the present.

Phenomenae. What a neat word.

Anyway. Science in itself is neither Theist nor Antitheist. But, like every other aspect of life, the way you look at it is contingent on what beliefs you subscribe to. Evolution is the belief that's most widely taught.

You believe in God just because you read it in a book?

But do I? I've already stated in this thread that God is more logical than Athiestic Naturalism. Furthermore, I have experiences that lead me to support that idea. The Bible simply happens to make more sense than any other statements regarding his character.

Ooh, scary.... read this, it makes absolutely no sense

I agree. Even though I agree with him, that was some terrible writing.

Does that mean that Wayfarer is a figment of my imagination...

You are a sick, SICK woman. ]: )

However, you would be wrong to categorize me as a theistic evolutionist. That is 'everything evolved from a common ancestor, but god helped us along'.

What I believe is that god created us with the ability to adapt to our environment within the parameters of our creation.

Emplynx, should we take your continued presence as evidence against God?

Either that or you could assume that the people who make this statement are just hoping.

'The Rapture' may happen within our lifetimes. But I hardly think it will be what popular christian thinking believes it to be.

Yes, that makes tonnes of sense. I can now see, where you are coming from, and why theistic evolution IS such a problem. Still, there have been species that existed before hominids, specifically dinosaurs, who, as far as I know it, experienced death.

At least that's the assumption that gradualistic/naturalistic people make, based on the limited information available.

Going with my patent dislike of gradualism, I can easily look at it in one of several other ways.

I can say that humans didn't start dying (en mass) for almost a thousand years, and so huge numbers of other animals were dying in the meantime.

I could say that the overwhelming majority of fossilized remains were the result of sedimentation from a global flood. And so they were roughly sorted by density and ability to avoid drowning (so humans are way up top).

And so on.

That's strange since hominids and dinosaurs didn't co-exist at all....

At least, not as far as you know. But it's only evolutionary thinking that precludes this. There is, as far as I know, no real reson why they could not have...

And just HOW big was this ark? I mean, dinosaurs are pretty big you know....

Pretty huge. I want to say Super-Supertanker size...

In any case, going with what I believe, it neen't have been one of each specefic animal.
I.E. Just as it would have had likely been two dogs, it would have been two 'raptors' and two T-Rex types and two sauropods. And not nescessarily one of the larger types.

Or, more likely, what he is claimed to be.

The Bible never, to my knowledge, claims that God is like man. I rather remember several statements to the contrary...

Join me in a thought. If God exists outside of time, outside of space, is self-existent, he should exist as an eternal cause. You claim it was God who created the universe - if so, then god must still be creating the universe - God is changeless, you know.

You put that more succinctly than most christians would have. Yes. That's basically it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that God created the universe all at once. That is, he made the entirity of time, from beginning to end, from the same (timeless) vantage point.

The best analogy I can come up with is still that of an MPEG movie. One frame follows another in sequence, but the creator makes them all seperately.

Every instance in the Bible where God is shown performing some action, he has taken time to do it.

Say, rather, that he caused the action to occur for a limited time. Going with my animation metaphor, any figure can exist in multiple frames. But even though that figure seems to exist for a specefied time when watching the movie, it was drawn seperately in each frame. Now imaigine that the artist somehow draws all the frames at once, and you can vaguely understand it.

Now someone needs to answer my question. Did God say "Let there be light" before or after the creation of light, or is he always saying it (as a changeless being)?

How can God be changeless? God said "Let there be light", and straight after he saw the light and it was good. Clearly God would not have seen the light before he had created it. Also, there is a sequence of events here. Look at the wants of God: He wanted to create light. He created light. Now does he still want to create light? No, he has already created light - it is nonsensical to claim that God wanted to create light after he had already created it. Thus the want to create light exists no longer - it is now clear that Gods mind has changed its state, from wanting (x) to not wanting (x) - this is a basic example of God changing, but more importantly, it shows God as part of time

Now that is a more difficult question. I can think of two possible answers:

First, you could take the easy way out and say that this is a use of temporal language to describe something outside of time.

The second, which I hold to be the better of the two, would be to say that God did not create light and let it go, but rather created light for a specefied duration. I can program my computer to turn the lights on at 700 and off at 2000, and get as god an illustration as is possible. I want the lights to behave that way, and I do not conflict with myself when the lights turn on and off.

In effect, God said 'let there be light (for XY duration of time)' and 'it is good (to have light for this duration of time)'

Using once more what seems to be a recurring theme... if I say 'let there be light for frames 6 through 30 of my rendered animation' that is my will through all 30+ frames, whether there is light or not.

So just as I, the artist, want to make X happen in certain frames of the animation, God wants light to occur from the first day to whenever.

Yes, and to re-iterate an earlier point, what about the light sources?

we discussed that earlier.

[HOBBIT]

HOBBIT, no offense, but I think your age is showing.

Yeah, I know i'm pretty darn old
You know your come back to that thing about you believing stuff in a book wasn't all that great.
And dude, i just said that Evolution was a science. Its a major part of science. Yes, I know there are dozens of different categories of scientists and sciences. Gee thanks for listing a bunch. I'm no fool you know. And the point I was making and I think you know it is that most Science Text books (as in what they teach in school) majorly include evolution of diff species, the development of man, etc. And I think my question was quite plausible Wayfarer. Duh I knew that Christian Private schools were teaching science, but what I asked was what they were teaching in it! I mean most of the Christians in these debate don't believe in evolution, despite evidence and proof, and I'm ok with that. I mean do they teach that the earth was created in 7 days? How the heck am I supposed to know! Thats why I asked. Its not that 'obvious' or 'silly' a question to non Christians.

And you expect me not to take offense? Geez Wayfarer, if anything you are only a couple years older. Heh. Whatever. :P

[crickhollow]

bravo! bravo! *claps hands wildly*

"And just HOW big was this ark? I mean, dinosaurs are pretty big you know...."
"Pretty huge. I want to say Super-Supertanker size... "

ooh!ooh! a question I can answer! *whips out super-sized attack bible, flips to Genesis 6* 450ft long, 75 ft. wide, and 45 ft. high.

find a big field sometime and pace it out--it wasn't some ramshackle, slap-together dingy. This boat was monster sized.
As an aside, I've also heard something about the ratio used for the ark is the same ratio (length to width) used by shipbuilders today...
HOBBIT: My geog. prof teaches from evolutionary perspective, b/c he knows anyone going into that field (unless employed by CRI *note: see much lauged about article* will need come from that base in order to get hired.

Thanks for bringing up these points, peoples. I'm a very literary minded person (translation: math and science are the bane of my existence), so while I don't contribute much to the discussion, I really enjoy reading your posts...they give me questions to work through that I normally wouldn't think about.
*laughs at the irony* who would have thought you bunch of skeptics would actually encourage me in my faith?

[Wayfarer]

Yeah, I know i'm pretty darn old

Heheh. Mmmm hmmm... ]: )

You know your come back to that thing about you believing stuff in a book wasn't all that great.

There's a difference between a comeback and a sensible answer. I'm forgoing cruel witticisms for a good reason.

And dude, i just said that Evolution was a science. Its a major part of science.

But it's not. Science has worked fine for most of history without evolution. What it is is a major part of the modern philosophy that is popular among scientists. Honest science has little to do with it.

And the point I was making and I think you know it is that most Science Text books (as in what they teach in school) majorly include evolution of diff species, the development of man, etc. And I think my question was quite plausible Wayfarer.

You're right. Most text books do include evolution. But not as a major part. Even my last biology class didn't make a big deal out of it. And, even if they did, that wouldn't make it true, or even reasonable. I spent most of my sophmore year poring over a few sections on evolution in my biology class. I discovered that the so called 'evidence of evolution' is less than convincing.

Anyone know the rule of 46?

I knew that Christian Private schools were teaching science, but what I asked was what they were teaching in it!

Basically the same stuff. There's a few major differences, but for the most part it's just a different way of looking at things.

I mean most of the Christians in these debate don't believe in evolution, despite evidence and proof, and I'm ok with that. I mean do they teach that the earth was created in 7 days?

Most of us believe in 'micro'-evolution. It's 'macro'-Evolution that we have problems with.

I've never encountered christians who think the creatio of the world is a subject for science class. I'm of the opinion that only observable, demonstratable, and repeatable things should be taught in science classes. Neither popular evolution nor Creation are in this catagory.

[crickhollow]

Anyone know the rule of 46?

no, do tell.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Wayfarer

Eyes, Feathers, Lungs, Gills, Scales, Teeth.

Those are the kind of thing I meant by 'traits'. Bat word choice. Shame on me.

I do accept that mutations occur. Through Inversion, Deletion, or um... was it Transmission? But the massive amounts of new information (as opposed to shuffling around old stuff) that it would take to produce even one of the traits I mentioned above makes me think it ludicrist.

How do you explain the difference between, say a bat wing, and a bird wing? Heterogeneitic traits, as opposed to homologous?

Ok. If you leave out the parts about how much humans suck, and how everybody is in serious trouble. Whatever people have tried to make of it over the years, christianity is not a comfort religion.

At which point, I'd just like to reiterate my earlier point that: Evolution is about organism interaction with it's environment; taxonomy is the mapping of it's genome, and how it is related to other organisms. It is not about how to elevate hominids above other organisms.

Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Oceanography, Meteorology, Genetics, and Medicine all transition without a hitch between naturalistic and christian science.
Botany, Zoology, and Paleontology are only slightly different. A Christian can function as well as an Athiest in these branches. He just doesn't have to look at everything in terms of 'this is closely related to this'
And finally, I would venture to say that Geology is better taught by christians than by athiests. They don't have to pretend that everything is the result of gradualistic processes. You might remember I hate gradualism. ]: )

Firstly, naturalistic science is a problem, as I mentioned earlier in the debate. Where do you draw the line between what is natural, and what is 'artificical', or cultural? This is problematic, because parts of physics et al, can be considered natural sciences, and other parts not. Put another way, you either have science (out side of causal effect), or manifest (in side causal effect). Straight away you can see the problems in trying to divide the different fields into these two groups.

Secondly, I understand your problems with gradualism. Why should anything be constrained to any one path? You're right there, but you have to remember, that not everything is black and white, and not everything can be explained away by gradualism. There are other mechanisms acting upon an organism within it's environment, not just gradualism. As it currently stands, evolutionary processes seem to be governed by punctuated equilibrium, or something very similar: stops and starts, depending on factors such as environment, access to resources, etc.

You are a sick, SICK woman. ]: )

However, you would be wrong to categorize me as a theistic evolutionist. That is 'everything evolved from a common ancestor, but god helped us along'.

What I believe is that god created us with the ability to adapt to our environment within the parameters of our creation.

Yeah, I know. And that was a joke, I realise that you are not a theistic-evolutionist. 'Nuff said.

I can say that humans didn't start dying (en mass) for almost a thousand years, and so huge numbers of other animals were dying in the meantime.

I could say that the overwhelming majority of fossilized remains were the result of sedimentation from a global flood. And so they were roughly sorted by density and ability to avoid drowning (so humans are way up top).

Yes, you could say that. But it doesn't explain the mass extinctions that occured over several million years, through the jurassic, triassic and cretacious (sp?) periods. Plus, there are earlier periods preceding those three by millions of years. So, Adam and Eve must have lived for a bloody long time!

The majority of fossil records caused by sedimentation? Don't make me laugh! Fossilisation is not caused by the ability to avoid drowning. It takes thousands, sometimes millions of years to fossilise something, and it takes unique conditions, to ensure the fossils survival from taphonomic factors. The record does document a flood, in fact, it documents many floods. However, floods are in no way helpful to the process of fossilisation. Firstly, they tend to scatter the faunal assemblages, secondly, the sheer force of the flood would damage the remains, sometimes beyond recognition. Fossilisation requires lots of time, and no disturbance (optimally).

And finally, hominids have been found - varying species - only in the last 4 (at a conservative guess) million years. Whereas, dinosaur remains have been dated to at least 60 million years.

At least, not as far as you know. But it's only evolutionary thinking that precludes this. There is, as far as I know, no real reson why they could not have...

See above point. They are separated by a pretty big time barrier.

In any case, going with what I believe, it neen't have been one of each specefic animal.
I.E. Just as it would have had likely been two dogs, it would have been two 'raptors' and two T-Rex types and two sauropods. And not nescessarily one of the larger types.

If it was so super big, then why haven't we found it yet? Something that big would stick out like a sore thumb. Also, wet conditions are pretty good at preserving wood....

And T-Rexes are pretty bloody big! (Bigger than the arks measurements, last time I checked) And carnivorous....

Finally, discuss the light sources again. I, and I'm sure some other people here, are unhappy with the given explanations. Some of those stars lights are 60 million light years old. How do you explain that?


Oh, and we missed you too, wayfarer....

[crickhollow]

ummm, how do we know they're 60 million light years away? I even went through a course in astronomy and never figured it out. Please help the illogical english major...(well technically education major, but english will be one of my teachables)

[emplynx]

Originally posted by Rána Eressëa
You believe in God just because you read it in a book? How... gullible of you

I believe in God because I talk to him and he talks to me and helps me through life. And his miracles are shown all over the place! Did you ever hear the story of George Muller?!

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by emplynx

I believe in God because I talk to him and he talks to me and helps me through life. And his miracles are shown all over the place! Did you ever hear the story of George Muller?!

That sounds like schizophrenia to me...

[Wayfarer]

Crickhollow:

The rule of 46, simply stated, says that all scientists are blind.. ]: )

You see, a while back some scientist declared that the human race had 46 chromosomes, and everybody believed him.

the lesson we can learn from this is that it's not true just beause scientists say it is.

How do you explain the difference between, say a bat wing, and a bird wing? Heterogeneitic traits, as opposed to homologous?

Erm... no.

I explain the difference, simply, by saying that bats and birds were created seperately.

They're actually quite different, and likewise different from other wings or flying devices.

Superficially, the bat's wing is closest to the webbed feet of gliding frogs, while the bird's wing is closest to a pteradon.

I'd just like to reiterate my earlier point that: Evolution is about organism interaction with it's environment; taxonomy is the mapping of it's genome, and how it is related to other organisms. It is not about how to elevate hominids above other organisms.

Yes. You're right there.

If you say evolution is merely adaption to the environment, I agree with you. I suppose we can call this practical evolution, and we see it all the time in a number of species.

What I disagree with is what I guess we can call philosophical evolution. The unsubstantiated idea that every living thing has a common ancestor.

I say that no matter how much an organism changes to suit it's envoronment, it will always be fundamentally the same. Birds are Birds, Dogs are dogs, etc.

Anyway... I just wanted to get that straight once and for all.

Firstly, naturalistic science is a problem, as I mentioned earlier in the debate. Where do you draw the line between what is natural, and what is 'artificical', or cultural? This is problematic, because parts of physics et al, can be considered natural sciences, and other parts not. Put another way, you either have science (out side of causal effect), or manifest (in side causal effect). Straight away you can see the problems in trying to divide the different fields into these two groups.

Yes. I see your point. But that's not strict naturalism.

The naturalism I was referring to says that everything is the result of nature, and hence we may be conditioned by 'culture', but 'culture' is conditioned by the beliefs of previous humans, which in turn are dictade by other facturs, and ultimately by nature as a whole.

We are agreed that this doesn't make sense. However, I have yet to understand what you believe in if it's not God or Nature.

Yes, you could say that. But it doesn't explain the mass extinctions that occured over several million years, through the jurassic, triassic and cretacious (sp?) periods. Plus, there are earlier periods preceding those three by millions of years. So, Adam and Eve must have lived for a bloody long time!

I, for once, am without an immidiate answer. I think it is likely that there are alternate ways to explain this, but I do not have any at hand. I hope to return to this subject in the future.

The majority of fossil records caused by sedimentation? Don't make me laugh!

The best resource on fossilization I could find in short order is this. Notice that a)flooding is one of the most feasible methods of fossilization, and b) that the more likely methods of fossilization are catastrophic (as opposed to gradualistic)

In actuality, fossilization is usually caused by a buildup of material over a carcass. i.e. sedimentation. The faster this occurs, the higher the liklihood of fossilization.

To be continued...

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Wayfarer
The best resource on fossilization I could find in short order is this. Notice that a)flooding is one of the most feasible methods of fossilization, and b) that the more likely methods of fossilization are catastrophic (as opposed to gradualistic)

In actuality, fossilization is usually caused by a buildup of material over a carcass. i.e. sedimentation. The faster this occurs, the higher the liklihood of fossilization.

To be continued... [/B]

Actually, the main problem with this site, is that is supposes that fossils are complete. This is not the case. In the majority of fossilations, they are far from complete. Thus, surface, or more gradual forms of fossilisation are still possible. It is, as I said earlier, there is no one thing that can be attributed to the process of entering the archaeological record. It could have entered in any one the ways that site mentions. It can be both gradual, or catastrophic.... so my argument still stands. However, flooding, and sedimentation are not the likely causes for all hominids being "on top".