Why the bible does'nt make sense to me (page 4)

Hey REM, sorry for the delay. Let's pick it back up shall we?

>>Irrational people believe in lots of things without evidence, such as UFO's from outer space,

So 80% of people on the earth are irrational becasue they believe in God? You evolution guys are all the same. If someone does not agree with the theory and I say THEORY of evolution, then they are ignorant, irrational, uneducated, etc. I am not surprised you say this REM, it seems to be the norm with the 'pride of science'.

>If god is all-powerful then he knows what evidence I would be willing to accept; and if he were all loving and truly wanted me to know him, then he would provide it.

Your logic here is flawed REM. If God is all powerful, should He come down and appear to you just because you doubt Him? Does that sound like an all powerful God to you? One that runs whenever a skeptic snaps his fingers? The God of the universe does not need to prove himself to you REM. If you reject the evidence of life itself then there is not much else God can do for you. Imagine the creator of the sun, rushing down to meet your request. Seems a bit silly don't you think? And another thing, in a previous email you mentioned that if God moved a mountain you would believe. I was thinking about that and I realized, no you wouldnt. The humanistic/evolutionary community would have a myriad of reasons why the mountain was moved and none of them would involve God and you would probably be convinced.

>>[referring to billions of years] It's difficult to imagine, but you have to step outside your current frame of reference to understand it. In that timescale, things unimaginable to you are capable of happening.

And this is where faith comes in. This is what you are putting your trust in. I am so glad you mentioned this.

>>Life could have come from nonlife by purely naturalistic means, even though we have not found the mechanism yet

No it couldnt have. It is impossible. I am sure you are aware that anything beyond 10 to the 50th power is considered absurd in almost any scientific circle. It goes beyond any form of probability. Non life becoming life is somewhere in the realm of 10 to the 40,000th power. Would you really put your trust in that? Also, enough about saying there is no evidence for God. You cannot put everything in a test tube to prove if it is real. I am sure you love your family but according to the scientific method, it would be impossible to prove, hence it is not true. Complex design and intricate detail always comes from intelligence.Never from disorder.

>>Interesting that you can believe in micro-evolution and hold this thought at the same time. Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Natural Selection doesn't work in a vacuum. It works with mutations - those are the real creators. Natural Selection picks the most fit mutations. Pretty simple, really.

REM, you are commiting the fallcy called equivication. You say that natural selection is blind, yet in the same breath you claim it picks those fit for survival. You may just be using descriptive language, but you do realize that natural selection picks absolutely nothing right? The ones most apt for survival will survive, but only if the mutation can make it better than the other species. Also, since most mutations are not beneficial, then you would have to start the process all over again.I mean I am no mathemetician, but if only 1 out of 100 mutations are beneficial, then 99% of the mutations would actually harm the gene pool and not help it. Follow me? Since we are on the topic of mutations, how about sharing with me some beneficial mutations that we find. How about a list of , oh, let's say 10. Give me 10 examples of mutations that are beneficial. Ones that are not diseases, cancers, etc. (since you believe that mutations are responsible for complex systems such as the visual and auditory, this should be quite a list. Also, if you don't answer any of my post, please answer this part)

>>If there were an intelligent designer with foresight you'd expect to find perfectly capable species that have survived until this day.

That makes little sense.

>This is where it gets really funny. Do you realize that every time someone has tried to say a particular structure is irreducibly complex, we have found that it really was not?

Can you give me an example?

>>The funny thing is that the jokers you get this 'irreducibly complex' information from BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION. The people you are trying to use as ammo against Evolution don't agree with you! I'm talking about Behe, one of the loudest proclaimers of this theory. Also Dimbski, an Evolutionist, has done some work on this. Doesn't it make you feel silly that you are trying to argue against Evolution by supporting the theories of Evolutionists? lol

I am aware of Behe's belief's. Don't you find it strange though, that these men who believe in evolution are basically saying "Hey guys, there's no way this could have come together piece by piece'. There has to be another explanation. Also, I noticed you called them 'jokers'. Do you notice the pride that you exhume? Think about it REM, whenever someone doesnt agree with you, they are fools. And you accuse me of circular reasoning.**sheesh**

>>Many have said that evidence can only take you so far, but if you have faith, you will find god. This is basically saying you have to have faith (belief without evidence) before you can believe. I don’t find that approach intellectually satisfying myself.

The funny thing is that you already prescribe to this. And you cant even see it. All the information you have about evolution you get from men who have 'studied it'. You put your faith in them and also the idea that someday the missing pieces might fall in together. You are a man of faith.

Out of time....... If I missed anything, bring it to my attention and I will go over it later. Have a great one.

Penn

P.S. I spoke with Santa Claus and he said to tell you to quit misspelling his name. :)

UnclePenn,

Hope you had a great weekend,

>>Irrational people believe in lots of things without evidence, such as UFO's from outer space,

So 80% of people on the earth are irrational because they believe in God? You evolution guys are all the same. If someone does not agree with the theory and I say THEORY of evolution, then they are ignorant, irrational, uneducated, etc. I am not surprised you say this REM, it seems to be the norm with the 'pride of science'.

Yes, people who believe in things without evidence are irrational, or at least those beliefs are irrational. I'm not using the term in the sense that the person is foolish, but in the sense that they do not base their beliefs on factual evidence. I do not mean for it to be an insult, I'm just pointing out the difference in belief systems. Like I said at the bottom of my last post, just because a belief is irrational doesn't mean that it is necessarily wrong. :)

>If god is all-powerful then he knows what evidence I would be willing to accept; and if he were all loving and truly wanted me to know him, then he would provide it.

Your logic here is flawed REM. If God is all powerful, should He come down and appear to you just because you doubt Him? Does that sound like an all powerful God to you? One that runs whenever a skeptic snaps his fingers? The God of the universe does not need to prove himself to you REM. If you reject the evidence of life itself then there is not much else God can do for you. Imagine the creator of the sun, rushing down to meet your request. Seems a bit silly don't you think?

Notice that I said if he was BOTH all-powerful AND all-loving. Of course I would not expect an all-powerful deity do anything for me, but I would expect an all-loving deity to treat me as a tender child and really WANT me to believe in him. With the all-loving desire for me to love him and his almighty power, I don't see any reason why this would be an unreasonable request. Even Jesus showed the nail prints to Thomas. Why? Because he had both the love and the power to do so.

And another thing, in a previous email you mentioned that if God moved a mountain you would believe.

I think you may have me confused with someone else. I don't remember saying this. I may have, but I really don't think I did. The statement seems to be a bit out of character for me. (I'm not implying that you're putting words in my mouth).

I was thinking about that and I realized, no you wouldnt. The humanistic/evolutionary community would have a myriad of reasons why the mountain was moved and none of them would involve God and you would probably be convinced.

Like I said before, an all-powerful and all-loving god would know what type of evidence would convince me and would provide it. Perhaps moving mountains would prove it to me, perhaps not. But an all-powerful deity should know what makes me tick. :)

>>[referring to billions of years] It's difficult to imagine, but you have to step outside your current frame of reference to understand it. In that timescale, things unimaginable to you are capable of happening.

And this is where faith comes in. This is what you are putting your trust in. I am so glad you mentioned this.

I suppose if you stretch the word faith to mean faith in mathematics, then you might have a point. It is axiomatic that the longer a time-span is, the more probable a rare event becomes. I'd say that billions of years is a very large time scale - one that you seem to be having trouble grasping. I have to admit that it is difficult for me to contemplate how long a million years is, let alone a billion!

>>Life could have come from nonlife by purely naturalistic means, even though we have not found the mechanism yet

No it couldnt have. It is impossible.

Ah man, even I said that it was possible that a deity could have created life. Cut me some slack, man! :) How do you know it's impossible? What evidence do you have? An argument from incredulity is not evidence. This is the way I look at it - life is here - that is a fact. We know physical life exists. It started somehow. We don't know that deities exists - there is no observable evidence of them. We know that natural laws exist. To me this puts a natural explanation in a higher probability than an unknown deity (or deities). Now, of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I cannot say there is no god. I can only say that there is no evidence of god right now, just like there is no evidence of big foot right now. Thus, it's the probability of the explanation that persuades me toward the naturalistic one.

I am sure you are aware that anything beyond 10 to the 50th power is considered absurd in almost any scientific circle. It goes beyond any form of probability. Non life becoming life is somewhere in the realm of 10 to the 40,000th power. Would you really put your trust in that?

Sure - if everything were done serially, then there would be no chance of life happening, but spread not only over time, but over space, the odds become much better. There are trillions of trillions of events happening every second in the universe. The chances are that one of those events will be conducive to starting life - especially when you throw in billions of years - mean that starting life naturalistically is probably an inevitable consequence of the universe we inhabit.

Also, the numbers you are using are a bit cooked. No one says that life necessarily had to look like this. Life could have taken countless other forms and chemistries. We just ended up with this configuration by chance. Thus the chances for some type of life over the eons is greatly increased. No faith necessary. Well, at least not as much as in an elusive deity or an Invisible Pink Unicorn. :)

Also, enough about saying there is no evidence for God. You cannot put everything in a test tube to prove if it is real. I am sure you love your family but according to the scientific method, it would be impossible to prove, hence it is not true.

You seem to have some confusion over the words "evidence" and "proof". Saying that there is no evidence for god is not proof that god does not exist. I can have a high confidence that my wife loves me because I see evidence of it. I could never prove it, though. Really, there aren't many things that can be proved - usually we have confidence in theories because of the probabilities of those theories being correct in comparison to other theories. Theories have to make accurate predictions and be falsifiable to be useful. So far there is no falsifiable theory of God or Creation.

I can make a proper (though imprecise) theory that my wife loves me: I can have a high confidence that my wife loves me if she smiles when I'm around her, she laughs at my corny jokes, and sticks by me in hard times, etc.. The theory is falsifiable because if she were to leave me, then there would be a high probability that she does not love me.

Complex design and intricate detail always comes from intelligence.Never from disorder.

No it does not. In fact random mutation and natural selection have been shown to create computer programs and analog circuit boards that are so complex that humans cannot understand how they work! How can a human design something they cannot understand? Obviously Natural Selection and random mutation are very powerful at 'designing' complex and intricate things, which most likely also includes living cells.

You say that natural selection is blind, yet in the same breath you claim it picks those fit for survival. You may just be using descriptive language, but you do realize that natural selection picks absolutely nothing right?

It's obvious that the most fit animals have the best chance of reproducing. We tend to anthropomorphise this process and call it "picking" or "selecting", as in Natural Selection, but the overall process is still blind - as in, there is no foresight. There is no "end", no master plan. There is no perfect human being that Natural Selection is trying to create. Only the organisms that are good enough to reproduce leave offspring. The ones that do it the most efficiently leave the most offspring, until after many generations, the genes from the more successful organisms become the most prevalent within the population.

The ones most apt for survival will survive, but only if the mutation can make it better than the other species.

Not necessarily. An organism can be 'better' in many different ways - organisms that thrive in one environment may not do well in a slightly different one. Different individuals within the population will exploit environmental conditions that give them an edge. That doesn't mean that the others die out, it just means that they reproduce less efficiently. They may branch off into separate species in time, or may only be a variation within the defined species.

Also, since most mutations are not beneficial, then you would have to start the process all over again.I mean I am no mathemetician, but if only 1 out of 100 mutations are beneficial, then 99% of the mutations would actually harm the gene pool and not help it. Follow me?

I'll accept that most mutations are not beneficial, but I'm not sure why you think that would negatively effect evolution. Mutations do not happen serially. Many contemporaneous organisms within a population with have mutations (in parallel). Most of them will not be beneficial, but a few will. The ones that aren't beneficial will either have no perceived effect on reproduction or will have a negative effect. The ones with beneficial mutations will reproduce more efficiently. The ones with 'bad' mutation won't necessarily die out, but they will not make up the majority of the population over time because they cannot reproduce as efficiently. The beneficial mutation will cause those organisms to reproduce more efficiently, which means that over the generations this mutation will be more frequent within the population.

Remember that many of these mutations happen at the same time, so there is lots of variation for natural selection to work with. This is basically what you call micro-evolution, but where you see a strong distinction in the word 'species', I do not. Species are quite vague groupings of animals and slightly different environments can cause certain mutations to take advantage of the new niche, thus splitting the population. Over time with genetic drift and Natural Selection the differences between the different organisms within the population will become so great that they will no longer mate (even though it may technically be possible), thus creating what we call a separate species.

The effect is quite powerful and over time can create even larger changes. This is what you might call macro-evolution, but scientists really make no distinction because there really is none. It's just semantics. The only reason there are 'species' is because we define them. Just like small effects in the earth's crust can move and shape continents and grow mountains, small effects in the DNA can be compounded upon over time until major physical traits are changed drastically. Small effects add up over time and become great effects.

Since we are on the topic of mutations, how about sharing with me some beneficial mutations that we find. How about a list of , oh, let's say 10. Give me 10 examples of mutations that are beneficial. Ones that are not diseases, cancers, etc. (since you believe that mutations are responsible for complex systems such as the visual and auditory, this should be quite a list. Also, if you don't answer any of my post, please answer this part)

Well, it's hard to say (I'm really not trying to be vague - only honest) because what is beneficial in one environment may actually be a disadvantage in another. The term 'beneficial' only make sense in a specific context. For example, the mutation that causes sickle cell in black people in Africa may seem to be a bad mutation. But this mutation is actually beneficial to these people because it provides a resistance to malaria. Outside of that environment, though, it is not a beneficial mutation.

Another mutation could be an increased production in pigmentation, either for protection from the sun or for camouflage. Even a slight change in the chemistry of an animal can change it's metabolism, or how fast it can run, or what types of food it can or cannot eat. Maybe an animal will have a mutation causing a distasteful secretion on it's skin, so predators avoid it. Over time, this may evolve into a poison, such as on certain frogs.

Somehow, some people today are immune to AIDS. This could be seen as a mutation, or just as a latent trait that was never exploited before. If AIDS were to decimate the population, then those with the resistance would become more and more frequent in the population. After however many generations, the population will have 'evolved' into an AIDS resistant one.

Microbes have 'good' mutations all of the time. That is how they become resistant to our antibiotics. First year biology students run experiments where bacteria is placed in two petri dishes. The control group is left alone, but the other group is irradiated with UV light. This light affects the DNA and causes mutations. After both samples have had time to reproduce they are doused with antibacterial agent. Guess which petri dish has surviving bacteria? It's observed Natural Selection and Evolution.

>>If there were an intelligent designer with foresight you'd expect to find perfectly capable species that have survived until this day.

That makes little sense.

It makes perfect sense. If god created all of the species well enough to adapt on the earth, then we would expect to see all of the original species existing to this day - because they were well designed. But that is not what we see. In the fossil record we see many examples of poorly designed organisms (at least for the adversity they had to contend with). Eventually these organisms died out - whole species - because they were evolutionary dead ends. They weren't designed with foresight. Now if this only happened to a few species, one could believe that god may have slipped up just a bit here and there. But the fact that almost all species have died out shows that there is no real intelligence. At least the probability of an omnipotent intelligence being responsible for what we see seems to be extremely low.

>This is where it gets really funny. Do you realize that every time someone has tried to say a particular structure is irreducibly complex, we have found that it really was not?

Can you give me an example?

The eye is a very common example. Also, it's been shown that a mousetrap is not irreducibly complex either. What needs to be taken into account is 'scaffolding'. Also, the purpose of a structure may have changed over time. Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins gives some examples.

I am aware of Behe's belief's. Don't you find it strange though, that these men who believe in evolution are basically saying "Hey guys, there's no way this could have come together piece by piece'. There has to be another explanation.

They have every right to say that, and they have been corrected. People can publish whatever theory they would like, but that doesn't mean they are right. People are always challenging scientific theories such as gravity and relativity. It doesn't mean that the current theories are on shakey ground.

Also, I noticed you called them 'jokers'. Do you notice the pride that you exhume? Think about it REM, whenever someone doesnt agree with you, they are fools. And you accuse me of circular reasoning.**sheesh**

I call them jokers because instead of publishing their findings in peer reviewed journals, they write pop books for the ignorant public. Their work is too shoddy to pass peer review, but the anti-evolution public is not so discriminating. I also call them jokers because their theories have been refuted, yet they still hold on. The only reason they keep up the charade is because of their faith in god, not because the evidence is in their favor.

All the information you have about evolution you get from men who have 'studied it'. You put your faith in them and also the idea that someday the missing pieces might fall in together. You are a man of faith.

I've studied both sides, the creationist angle and the scientific angle. I've found that the scientific angle was based on evidence and sound reasoning. The creationist angle was based on dishonest misquoting, pseudoscience, and a too-literal interpretation of the bible. I have trust in the scientific method (to which creationists do not subscribe) because there are tangible benefits that come from it. There are results. Scientific theories make accurate predictions which help us cure diseases and make more food. I don't have to have faith to see the results of the scientific method.

Man relied on god all throughout history. Just in recent times has the scientific method given us a much better life than reliance on god or gods has in the past. I believe in the existence of man. I don't believe in the existence of Thor, or Baal, or YHWH, or Jesus because each of those deities have just as much evidence as the other to back them: none.

Thanks for wading through all of that! :) Tell Santa that I apologize and I hope I didn't offend him. Hopefully that misspelling didn't push me over into the 'naughty' category this year! :D

rem

"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain

Why the bible does'nt make sense to me

gumby

Unclepenn1

Unclepenn1

rem

NameWithheld

Share this