If man evolved? (page 30)

jgnat

Darling. You found a reason to hang on to your confirmation bias.

"It's hocus pocus. People who live off tax payers dollars in the education system trying to confuse the masses with their mumbo jumbo." To me this is a key thought in one of your posts. One that I was hitting on as well. That is, in regards to knowledge and expertise to there is a question of who to trust. And, it does relate to motivation. Maybe what is going on is most in the scientific community know their dating methods are bogus, that the theory of evolution is nonsense, but are trapped in a system wherein they need to promote a sort of orthodoxy in order to get paid. In fact we make a point very much like this in regards to the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses. They are trapped, they simply cannot say things they might otherwise know is true.

So... how can we sort this out? How can we tell if the data we are being handed is not tainted by bias?

Cheers,

-Randy

The thing that comes to mind regarding your question, Randy is Philipians 2:12 says each one of us has

to work out our own salvation.

Ist Theselonians 5:21 says "Test everything that is said, hold on to what is good"

Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed once for man to die. And then judgement.

We are all going to die. Some people believe in something, God and some people believe in nothing.

If you believe in God read his word the bible. You dont need to read the bible and something else.

Just the bible and you will know what God wants.

If you don't believe in God you can read or not read what ever you want.

So... how can we sort this out? How can we tell if the data we are being handed is not tainted by bias?

Another non scriptural, biblical way to sort things out is to follow the money, who has vested

interest, look at both sides of the coin, read pros and cons on the issues. I have and have read every book

Richard Dawkins has written. Plus works by Hawkins, Sagin, Hitchens, Sam Harris.

Truth is where you find it. Hopefully along the way you develop a good ability to spot bull crap.

GoodGuyGreg

Regarding the "lost squadron":

The planes landed near the coast, where snow accumulation is fast - about 2 m (>6 ft) per year. Allow for compacting due to its own weight, and the depth at which they were found is pretty much accounted for. Add to this that the planes where found in a moving glacier and were found about 2 km (1.25 miles) from where they actually landed.

Also, due to the low altitude and the proximity to the Atlantic, ice melt happens regularly, several times per year, in the area, creating "layers" which have little to do with the annual layers found in ice cores such as GISP2, which was drilled much further from the coast, where melting (contrary to what has been claimed earlier in this thread) is an extremely rare event - it happens a couple of times per century, and looks completely different from the actual annual layers in the cores.

So again, you have a case of with people using a "clock" in the wrong way and claiming it doesn't work. And again, I say that this is fraudulent on their part, since the right way to use it is thoroughly documented and can be checked and double-checked by independent teams of experts (who'd each, by the way, love to prove the other teams wrong).

Satanus

I remember reading about this, yrs ago. Ice isn't actually a solid. Its a very viscous liquid, like glass is, although less solid. So, real solid objects could sink. The various science stations on antarctica have problems w their installations slowly sinking.

As well, dull metal objects absorb heat from the sun, so w the resultant melting of surrounding ice, sinking would be accelerated.

S

cantleave

James Brown...

rawe

Hi James,

Ist Theselonians 5:21 says "Test everything that is said, hold on to what is good". To be up front, I am an atheist. While I don't believe it is possible to prove God does not exist, I see no reason to believe he does. Nonetheless I see many parts of the Bible as writers explaining their philosophy, as was so often the case with the writings of Paul. Or in other ways indicating a quest for truth.

I highlighted your 1 Thess 5:21 quote, since we just read this in our family Bible reading. As a family we read 2 pages of the Bible three or four weekdays per week. Since leaving the faith in 2007 I saw no reason to stop that. Although I have now added reading another book of interest to my children to the mix. Right now we're on the second book of the Harry Potter series. Anyway...

Paul is often wrote out lists. Things that were good, things that were bad, etc. In this case he is concluding his later with a list of good things to do...

Always be rejoicing.

Pray incessantly.

In connection with everything give thanks. For this is the will of God in union with Christ Jesus respecting ? YOU .

Do not put out the fire of the spirit.

Do not treat prophesyings with contempt.

Make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine.

Abstain from every form of wickedness

I see all that as pretty good advice, although now, I wouldn't use the word "pray" but insead "think-upon" or "self-reflect", etc. You'll notice several folks here provided suggestions about judging what is trustworthy vs not and why. I actually don't feel there are simple answer. I think there are techniques. Reading books from authors you're sure you'll disagree with is a good technique and I agree with you on that. A Christian friend gave me a David Bentley Hart's book Atheist Delusions, that countered Richard Dawkins God Delusion. The Book did not substantially change my views, but I would say it expanded my views on the subject. For example, some atheists are fond of asking Christians, "Why don't you believe in Zues?" Hart's book made my appreciate more deeply the Christian answer, namely that Christianity with its focus on Jesus as the Christ, is a triumph over competing ideas.

Getting back to the Bible, when God pronounced sentence on Adam he said...

In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:19).

From just these few words we can reach some interesting conclusions, for example that the writer was familiar with the process of baking bread, which relates to farming. But the idea of "dust to dust", which you sometimes hear at funerals is intriguing. I now see modern science taking us beyond what such ancient people could observe. They could see dead bodies decayed and went back to the ground. Coming to the conclusion we come from the ground is a pretty insightful too. Now that we have data from science we can now speak to how right that is. The atoms that make up the 60 trillion cells of our body literally come from material on earth. In fact consevation of energy gives us confidence some of the atoms in our body trace back in time to the very start of the universe. Thus when Carl Sagan talked about us being "star dust" he and writer of Genesis are hitting upon the same idea.

Cheers,

-Randy

cofty

when Carl Sagan talked about us being "star dust" he and writer of Genesis are hitting upon the same idea.

Hardly.

Genesis says god made Adam as a special creation from the dust and then breathed magic breath into him.

Nothing could be further from dthe truth.

It would have been very easy for the writer of Genesis to describe the evolution of man from non-human ancestors in very simple pre-scientific terms. The fact that he described the very opposite proves Genesis is a work of mythology with no foundation in reality.

James Brown

Hello Randy: I think it is good spending time reading to your children.

When they are grown they will remember the time and attention you gave them

and you will be rewarded for it.

An attitude of gratitude of giving thanks for what one has goes along way.

They say your attitude determines your altitude.

Praying and thinking upon is pretty synonymous in my brain.

I can see the idea that we are made of stardust. I don't believe they have ever found

anything in space that is not here on earth.

At the same time they haven't done much exploration of space.

James Brown

Cofty: If I was not a Christian at all. There are other evidences that would give Genesis validity.

There are evidences that earth was visited by aliens and the aliens were as Gods

and the aliens combined their genes with the genes of the living creatures on earth

and made Adam and Eve.

The evidence is compiled in the 10 or so books of Zechariah Sitchin. Also Michael Tillingers

Slave Species of God and Von Danikens "Chariots of the Gods"

Heaven

James, do you believe the Garden of Eden was located in Africa?

If man evolved?

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