What Do We Really Know About Our Beliefs?

[RiverJordan]

No, River, it’s not because you’re not a YEC and geocentrist that you exclude God from Creation. It’s because you embrace naturalistic theories that you therefore exclude God from His own Creation.

Except I don't exclude God from creation. You can say it all you want, but that doesn't make it so.

As for b&w, you tell me: how did God see the world when He decided to destroy it with a global flood? And how will God see the world again - very soon?

God didn't destroy the world with a global flood. Christian geologists realized that 200+ years ago. You should read their writings. It's fascinating.

You don’t need to relate to my way of thinking. Just make sure you relate to God’s way of thinking.

And "God's way of thinking" just happens to be your way of thinking, doesn't it? Huh....funny that.

Actually, no. I wasn’t referring to science, I was talking about naturalistic “science”. That’s an entirely different thing.

So can you give me an example of supernaturalistic science, and show where it's contributed anything to our understanding?

No, you didn’t. You didn’t mention a single Hindu prediction, and you didn’t mention a single Muslim prediction. Try again.

I provided you a link that took you to several Islamic claims of prophetic accuracy. I don't agree with them, so I'm not going to advocate and defend them here. The point is, claiming that Christianity is the only religion where its believers claim prophetic accuracy is incredibly ignorant.

I’m so tired of repeating myself, so I’ll address this in a different way:

Yeah....um...thanks.

1. By simply claiming that you cannot prove evolution to be wrong, evolution becomes non-scientific. Are you even aware of that?

You can't "prove evolution wrong" any more than you can "prove erosion wrong". Since we see both happen, they are facts. However, you can prove universal common descent, human/primate common ancestry, and a host of other aspects of evolutionary biology wrong.

You really think that mainstream “science” has anything to do with finding out the truth?

Yes, it's the reason you and I are able to have this conversation over the internet. It's the reason most of us are alive (rather than having died at birth or from some childhood disease).

And do you really believe they will ever publish anything that runs against their views?

Of course. How do you think neutral theory, punctuated equilibrium, and a host of other paradigm-shifting concepts made their way in? Things like plate tectonics and the Missoula Floods were initially rejected but eventually became widely accepted. In all those cases, the scientists did the work, sent their results in, and eventually convinced their peers. Creationists OTOH skip all that and go right to the classrooms and courts.

If you do, can you please show me anti-evolution articles in mainstream publications? If evolutionists would indeed be scientific, their publications should be full of articles criticizing evolution, don’t you think? So show me those articles and papers, please. Not only in core publications or sites, but even in popularizing magazines such as National Geographic.

You're confusing "evolutionary theory hasn't been disproved" with "evolutionary theory can't be disproved". The two are not the same.

Do you even know what happened to people such as Robert Gentry, or Stephen Meyers?

As I said, I'm veeeeeeeeeeery familiar with creationism....so yeah, I know all about those guys. You sure you want to go down this road?

No, you wouldn’t. You’d be just what Gentry is for mainstream: already dead.

Just like Einstein when he overturned Newtonian physics....oh, oops.

Evolution, since it doesn’t relate in any way with anything practical, belongs in the latter.

So if I showed you how evolutionary theory and common descent are producing practical outcomes, how would you react? Wave 'em away and say they're fake?

 

[no_one]

River:


About the flood:

you recommend me to read people’s work, to find out that God’s Word is wrong.

I instead prefer to read God’s Word, to find out that people’s work is wrong.

And by claiming that the Flood wasn’t global, you call God a liar. Because local floods still happen, you know…

So tell me again how you believe in God…

You also show no logic. Because if the Flood would have been local, there was no need for an ark. God could have simply told Noah to move, instead of building an ark. Noah wouldn’t even need to run. Because you tell me: how much would you have been capable of walking in 120 years? Is it safe enough from a local flood?


As for your link, no you didn’t give me a link to any Islamic prophecy. You only gave me a link for a search for […]. In other words, it rested upon me to read tens of links to eventually find out what you are claiming.


So your renewed claim, this one:
“The point is, claiming that Christianity is the only religion where its believers claim prophetic accuracy is incredibly ignorant.”


is utterly ironic…

As for your continued forced parallel of evolution with erosion, that’s poor too (to be polite). Try again. Or rather not.


“However, you can prove universal common descent, human/primate common ancestry, and a host of other aspects of evolutionary biology wrong. “

Then go ahead and do all that. Let’s see you running against evolution, for a change. I even promise I won’t interrupt…


“Yes, it's the reason you and I are able to have this conversation over the internet. It's the reason most of us are alive (rather than having died at birth or from some childhood disease).”

I don’t think I ever heard something more not only wrong, but so truly naive…


“Of course. How do you think neutral theory, punctuated equilibrium, and a host of other paradigm-shifting concepts made their way in?”

So you claim that publishing yet another theory of evolution, p. eq., is evidence for mainstream’s fairness? Oh boy…


As for:
“As I said, I'm veeeeeeeeeeery familiar with creationism....so yeah, I know all about those guys. You sure you want to go down this road?”

that’s again funny, since Meyer is not a Creationist. This speaks loudly how familiar you are with them. So put as many “e” you want in “very”, that wouldn’t make your claim any true…


“Just like Einstein when he overturned Newtonian physics....oh, oops.”

In fact, Einstein was met with ovations by those who understood a particular thing of what Einstein said. Ironically, Einstein’s claim was thoroughly disproved nowadays. So much so that in fact even the formal cosmology wouldn’t work without claiming it. Only that they use a different name…

But that’s the fate of all evolutionary claims, isn’t it? Whether they’re in cosmology or biology or geology or chemistry, they’re all to fail sooner or later…


“So if I showed you how evolutionary theory and common descent are producing practical outcomes, how would you react? Wave 'em away and say they're fake?”

Once again you see what you want to see, not what I actually write. Because that was my very point: that there is no practical outcome from the theory of evolution… Dream on, if you think otherwise.

 

[RiverJordan]

you recommend me to read people’s work, to find out that God’s Word is wrong.

I instead prefer to read God’s Word, to find out that people’s work is wrong.

And it never even occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, you're reading and interpreting scripture wrong.

And by claiming that the Flood wasn’t global, you call God a liar. Because local floods still happen, you know…

Not at all, but I understand that to someone like you, it seems that way and there are no other possibilities.

So tell me again how you believe in God…

Again you resort to questioning my faith. You're a pretty angry person, aren't you?

You also show no logic. Because if the Flood would have been local, there was no need for an ark. God could have simply told Noah to move, instead of building an ark. Noah wouldn’t even need to run. Because you tell me: how much would you have been capable of walking in 120 years? Is it safe enough from a local flood?

Have you ever read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which pre-dates the Genesis story?

As for your link, no you didn’t give me a link to any Islamic prophecy. You only gave me a link for a search for […]. In other words, it rested upon me to read tens of links to eventually find out what you are claiming.

Ok, so you never bothered to look at any of them. That's ok, I understand why you are afraid to look.

As for your continued forced parallel of evolution with erosion, that’s poor too (to be polite). Try again. Or rather not.

Right....just because you say so.

Then go ahead and do all that. Let’s see you running against evolution, for a change. I even promise I won’t interrupt…

If I could, I would.

“Yes, it's the reason you and I are able to have this conversation over the internet. It's the reason most of us are alive (rather than having died at birth or from some childhood disease).”

I don’t think I ever heard something more not only wrong, but so truly naive…

??????????? So mainstream science has nothing to do with computers, the internet, or medicine? Wow. o_O

So you claim that publishing yet another theory of evolution, p. eq., is evidence for mainstream’s fairness? Oh boy…

I gave you all sorts of examples of paradigm-shifting ideas making their way into the mainstream. So you're simply wrong when you claim that can't happen.

that’s again funny, since Meyer is not a Creationist. This speaks loudly how familiar you are with them. So put as many “e” you want in “very”, that wouldn’t make your claim any true…

You mean THIS STEPHEN MEYER? Yeah, he's a creationist working at a creationist organization, the Discovery Institute.

In fact, Einstein was met with ovations by those who understood a particular thing of what Einstein said.

But you claimed mainstream science refuses to even consider new ideas. Which is it?

Once again you see what you want to see, not what I actually write. Because that was my very point: that there is no practical outcome from the theory of evolution… Dream on, if you think otherwise.

Well there we have it. There's no point in bothering showing you anything, because you've already declared it can't exist. Thanks for saving me the trouble!

 

[no_one]

River:

In all our dialogues, further more in pretty much anything you said on this forum, not only addressed to me, there is no clear statement that you make (except one). All that you say is at best vague (not to say self-contradictory and not to say in severe contradiction to the Bible).

The only exception is obviously evolution – you indeed made your faith in evolution clear. Orders of magnitude more than in case of your faith in God. And you even patronize me for believing in God, while you believe in other people just like you and you call yourself smart and educated, while I’m obviously a fool and uneducated for not being able to see evolution with my own eyes, happening right in front of me…

As I showed you repeatedly, the Bible must be wrong so that evolution must be true. And you really showed that you have no problems with Bible being wrong only so that evolution to be true.

You always claim we must keep interpreting the Bible to make human theories right, instead of actually reading the Bible to find out that human theories are wrong. Because, once again, the Bible tells us clearly that the world’s wisdom is foolish in God’s eyes. And you don’t want that, do you? No, you’ll never drop evolution.

And I find that extremely strange, because you simply claim that God, who can never be wrong, is wrong, and men, who can never be entirely right, are right.

But what can be the philosophical framework that allows you make statements such as the God is wrong (despite the fact that God cannot be wrong), for example in case of the global flood, simply because other people just like you say it’s wrong?

Can’t you really see that you put God down to man’s status (fallible), and elevated men to God’s status (infallible)?

When you contradict yourself so severely from the very start: the basic conception of your philosophical framework (or worldview), from which all the rest follows (including how you see the universe: young or old), how could you possibly conclude that your conclusions are right?

The Bible recommends us to start from God in our quest for knowledge:
Proverbs 3:5-6 (KJV):
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

You instead claim we must start from men to see how things are. Moreover, atheistic men, men that purposefully exclude God from His own Creation. How about that…

So why exactly don’t Christian evolutionists trust God in their quest for understanding? Why do they look instead to other people just like them (even worse: atheists) for knowledge? And how can that be actual knowledge if it isn’t the atheists who created the universe and all in it, but, as the Christian evolutionists themselves admit, it was God?

You accused me of not knowing what “uniformitarianism means in science”. Well you have to claim that, don’t you? I mean, you’ll never consider the possibility that evolution is wrong? It must be that those who criticize it don’t understand it, right?

But if so, do you realize that instead of “science”, as you claim, your evolution turned into a god? But why would you need another god, don’t you already have one?

And it never even occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, you're reading and interpreting scripture wrong.

So I’m reading Scripture wrong simply because other people just like me tell me that I’m reading it wrong. I’m reading Scripture wrong only to accommodate human theories. I must claim God to be wrong, only to be able that men are right. How about that…

If you really can’t see how utterly absurd your claim is, then I really can’t do anything for you.

If you keep ignoring the extreme contradictions between evolution and the Bible, and you always claim that the Bible is wrong, and not once that evolution is wrong, then your situation couldn’t be clearer.

I’m so sorry for you.

And evolution not only runs against the Bible, against God, in an extreme degree, but also again common sense. And what we see around us. Because contrary to your claim, we don’t see evolution. Instead, we see the opposite of evolution: decay. And we have to work hard to actually make something. Nothing gets made by itself.

A painter would never let the paint produce somehow a painting by itself. Instead, he will paint the painting himself. A carpenter would never let some pieces of wood to sit around and eventually assemble themselves into a chair. Instead, he would make the chair himself. And so on.

So if we both find the idea of letting some pieces of wood to self-assemble into a chair as absurd, as plain craziness, why exactly would you would you instead think that that’s how God makes things? If it’s not even the way people do things, why exactly would you believe that’s the way God do things? You’re only moving that craziness upon God. How can you possibly not see that?

And no matter how much time you spend in labs with bacteria, no matter what you do to them, they always stay bacteria. Surely you’d call them a different species, but that’s precisely because there is no evolution, not because there is evolution. Had it been evolution, bacteria would have long ago turned into something that isn’t bacteria anymore. Hours in bacteria world mean at least thousands of years (even millions) in the macro world.

Moreover, the same type of bacteria stays the same type of bacteria. E.coli stays E.coli. And it does that even after tens of thousands of generations.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38325/title/Ever-Evolving-E--coli/

Can you take that number, “58,000 generations”, and apply it to the humans? If you take a generation of 75 years (I think that’s a fair average between what the Bible says and what mainstream claims; in fact it’s co immensely closer to mainstream claims, than to Biblical claims) you arrive to almost 4 and a half million years. Now you tell me how much what you call “homo sapiens” changed in about 4.5 mn years. So, do you understand the order of change that you must see, and you don’t, in those bacteria? Or are you about to drop uniformitarianism?

And isn’t it interesting that even those “scientists” that you believe in don’t speak about actual evolution, but instead they speak about “fitness”? Indeed, if E.coli stays E.coli for 58,000 generations, then there’s no evolution. None. So they must talk about something else…

Oh, and to my amusement, I found that you’re not the only evolutionist in the world that claims to be able to see evolution: read rhollis’ comment on that page - I laughed so much !!

“The theory of evolution ACTUALLY predicts speciation: that a cat will give rise to differing species of cats, a bird will give rise to differing species of birds, and a bacterium will give rise to differing species of bacteria. And that is exactly what this study demonstrates - twelve now-vastly different strains of bacteria all originating from one strain. This is evolution observed in action.”

He’s so actually wrong! What he says is what we expect if Creation is true (only need to replace ‘species’ with ‘varieties’), not if evolution is true !!

Indeed, people see what they want to see - evolution, in this case. How delusional…

And let’s see another clear example of delusion. Read Europe’s comment: “Don't get me wrong, I'm also a christian like you. But I take the bible as what it is: A book. Written by humans. And screw the first perverted half of it, Christ is in the second part.”

Now you tell me, how exactly is this severely deluded fellow a Christian in any way?

He further says:
“So forget the stupid Genesis, it was just a story! Welcome to the 21st century: Evolution is a fact (since early 18th century btw).”

Again, you tell me how could he possibly be a Christian? And in there you also have the very reason that he’s not actually a Christian: evolution…

And indeed, that fellow didn’t understand anything from the Bible, because he calls Jesus a philosopher:
“And he did a real good job spreading his philosophy of peace and love.“

Also read ‘Max wyght’s comment:
“there is no need to evolve I nb to a multi cellular organism, because such an organism has no evolutionary benefits in such an enviornment. Ergo, there are no selective pressures to turn the colony into a multi cellular structure.”

In other words, although those ‘scientists’ purposefully developed that experiment in the lab as evidence for evolution in nature, since they observed no evolution in the lab, that user is forced to yet again claim evolution in nature so that he could “explain” no evolution in the lab !!

Well, I’m familiar with the circular arguments of evolutionists, but this one is one of the funniest ever!! I laughed so much!

Indeed, to believe in evolution is to defy not only observations, but also logic - and to such a high degree…

Similarly, no matter what you do to them, fruit flies stay fruit flies – despite your willingness to call the result a different species…

And how can evolution be true, if not only they (you) change definition of species as you see fit (and then obviously claim that Creationists don’t understand it…), but in fact even the formal definitions of “evolution” are obviously wrong?

For example, the generic definition: “evolution is change”. That must be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Because change goes both ways: improvement and decay. And how can decay be evolution, when in fact it’s exactly the very opposite of evolution?

And the more technical definition is also wrong: descent with modification. Because evolution actually requires a particular type of modification, not modification in general. Modification can also be opposed to improvement: decay - and that’s no evolution.

Not at all, but I understand that to someone like you, it seems that way and there are no other possibilities.

“Not at all”? Really? So God promised that he wouldn’t again destroy the world by a flood, and He even put a sign of that promise, while you claim it was only a local flood. Well, yet again I’m forced to tell you that local floods still happen. And if they happen, then your god is a liar. There’s no way around that.

And not only your god is a liar, but he’s also exactly zero. Because if the mainstream theories work without God, you adding god but keeping those theories intact makes your god a non-existent entity. Either that, or you must claim that those theories don’t work - because they require God. But you’d never claim that those theories are wrong, would you? Thus you’re only left with a zero god: no god at all. Sorry, but that's how it is.

Have you ever read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which pre-dates the Genesis story?

There are you are again, running against the Bible in such a high degree and not even noticing. Because if Genesis is true, Gilgamesh couldn’t pre-date the Genesis account…

That's ok, I understand why you are afraid to look.

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. So I’m at fault for you not being able to provide links in support of your claim? Truly pathetic.

If I could, I would.

Thanks for admitting that evolution is not science. Simply because it’s unfalsifiable…

??????????? So mainstream science has nothing to do with computers, the internet, or medicine?

Evolution doesn’t have anything to do with those things. If you really can’t see the difference, then I can’t help you.

I gave you all sorts of examples of paradigm-shifting ideas making their way into the mainstream. So you're simply wrong when you claim that can't happen.

You only dream that those are “paradigm-shifting ideas”. A paradigm shifting would be for mainstream to drop evolution. Not to change their socks from green to pink and still claim evolution.

You meanTHIS STEPHEN MEYER? Yeah, he's a creationist working at a creationist organization, the Discovery Institute.

Yes, I meant that Stephen Meyer.

So thank you for proving my point: that you don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about.

Because Creationism and ID are light years apart…

And that’s truly ironic, since you claimed repeatedly, and in so many threads, how “familiar” you are with all that….

But you claimed mainstream science refuses to even consider new ideas. Which is it?

What I already said. It’s funny how evolutionists only claim context when it fits them, and entirely disregard it when it doesn’t. When Einstein published his SR paper, mainstream was in trouble because of a particular experiment. And Einstein helped them out from a very troubling perspective. In other words, Einstein allowed them to keep their philosophical view, not changed it.

 

[Panda]

*sigh*

This topic is definitely heading south. I beg that those involved will exercise some maturity and not allow the topic to continue down the very negative path it is going, but I suspect I'll have to intervene sooner or later. I'll leave it be for now against my better judgement so you guys can maybe get this out of your system. Just take the warning as intended. Be kind.

 

[no_one]

Are you a Catholic, River? I’ll go with Lysander’s intuition and what appears to be your half-way admission. So if you are a Catholic, this is one of the things you need to think about:
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/catholicteaching/privaterevelation/lasalet.html
or here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1846sallette.asp
or here:
http://www.heaven-speaks.com/la_salette.html


"Bad books will abound over the earth, and the spirits of darkness will everywhere spread universal relaxation in everything concerning God's service: they will have very great power over nature”


“the true faith has been extinguished and false light illumines the world”





I’ll leave you to read the rest by your own, because I’m sure you wouldn’t believe me if I’d say it.






But could you tell me what exactly does the devil do in the world, in your view?

For example, does he let the world to be godly? To pray to God? To come closer to God? Or on the contrary, he wouldn’t stop from keeping the world far away from God? And if the latter, why exactly wouldn’t evolution theory be one of his means to separate mankind from God? Why it is that evolution must always be true, even at the expense of God and the Bible?

Do you think that the devil tells the truth (the Bible) or tells lies? If the latter, why exactly couldn’t evolution be such a lie? Doesn’t it set Christians further apart from the Bible? Christians like you for example, who would never ever admit that the Flood was a global flood? Doesn’t evolution theory also produce atheists in the billions?

So how can evolution theory come from God?

 

[no_one]

I will spare you, Ban, from making a decision, and leave.

Look at how many heresies were presented in this very forum in just a few weeks: that the Bible isn’t inerrant; that Satan isn’t mentioned in the Bible; that demons do not exist; that Heaven is not God's kingdom, that there are many Bibles (instead of one), etcetera.

And no, I don’t mean to say that those claims were made by atheists. With atheists, everything is clear. They really don’t want God, so God won’t want them either.

Instead, I mean people that claim to be Christians and yet they postulate that the Bible isn’t inerrant. Or things like that.

Because all those claims that I mentioned were not made by atheists, but by self-proclaimed Christians. How about that…

Well, I noticed that despite how much effort and maths and history I put into my efforts to straighten the ways of so many here, it was all for nothing. In the end, people will always believe what they want to believe.

And I have no more will and time to invest in nothingness.

So, farewell to all.

 

[ixoye_8]

am not sure if it is a theory? it is used in measuring distance?

followerofchrist72 is correct ..
sure it is a theory, and like like the the Causality Principle has been proven incorrect ..
it has been proven that light can travel faster then 186,000 miles per sec ..

since scientist are GUESSING deep space is a simple vacuum (since no space vehicle has ever penetrated the Heliosphere) .. and if it is NOT a simple vacuum, that means ALL their star distance calculations are incorrect ..

TOKYO July 19th, 2000- Scientists at NEC Corporation's (NEC) (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) basic research unit in the United States, NEC Research Institute (NEC-I), have proven light can travel faster than its acknowledged speed in vacuum*1 in a successful experiment in superluminal light propagation. Despite exceeding the vacuum speed of light, the experiment is not at odds with Einstein's theory of relativity and is explainable by existing physical theory. The research work, which may result in significantly faster information transfer speeds across networks and in computers, is to be published in the July 20th issue of Nature in a paper by NEC research scientists Dr. Lijun Wang, Dr. Alexander Kuzmich and Dr. Arthur Dogariu.

In the experiment, NEC scientists measured the time taken by a pulse of light to pass through a 6cm-long specially prepared chamber containing cesium gas*2. The 3-microsecond long pulse of light would normally take only 0.2 nanoseconds to pass through the chamber in a vacuum. But when passed through the specially prepared chamber, light emerged 62 nanoseconds earlier than it would have had it passed through the chamber in a vacuum. This unusual phenomenon is the result of "anomalous dispersion", an effect not seen in nature in transparent materials and is created by the non-natural thermal state of the cesium gas used in the chamber.

A pulse of light consists of many components, each at a different wavelength as can be seen when sunlight passes through a prism in "normal dispersion" and is broken down into its constituent colors. The effect of anomalous dispersion on the wavelengths of the components of light, however, is to modify them. Anomalous dispersion causes components with a shorter wavelength in a vacuum to have a longer wavelength in the chamber and conversely, components with a longer wavelength in a vacuum have a shorter wavelength in the chamber. Unlike with normal dispersion, anomalous dispersion has the extraordinary effect of enabling a light pulse to appear again at a distant point along its direction of propagation and produce the exact shape of the light pulse that entered the chamber. A light pulse can thus traverse the distance between two points faster than its vacuum speed.

"Our experiment shows that the generally held misconception that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, is wrong.
-------
Lijun Wang, one of the scientists from the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., says their findings are not at odds with Einstein. She says their experiment only disproves the general misconception that nothing can move faster than the speed of light.
The scientific statement "nothing with mass can travel faster than the speed of light" is an entirely different belief, one that has yet to be proven wrong. The NEC experiment caused a pulse of light, a group of waves with no mass, to go faster than light.

For the experiment, the researchers manipulated a vapor of laser-irradiated atoms that boost the speed of light waves causing a pulse that shoots through the vapor about 300 times faster than it would take the pulse to go the same distance in a vacuum.

Light travels slower in any medium more dense than a vacuum, which has no density at all. For example, light traveling through glass slows to two-thirds its speed compared to when light is traveling in a vacuum. If the glass is altered, the light can be slowed even further.

The NEC team produced the opposite effect. Inside a chamber, they changed the state of a vapor in a way that light traveling through it would travel faster than normal. When the pulse of light traveled through the vapor, the pulse reconfigured as some component waves stretched and others compressed. As the waves approached the end of the chamber, they recombined, forming the original pulse.

The key to the experiment was that the pulse reformed before it could have gotten there by simply traveling through empty space. This means that, when the waves of the light distorted, the pulse traveled forward in time.

 

[ixoye_8]

Look at how many heresies were presented in this very forum in just a few weeks: that the Bible isn’t inerrant; that Satan isn’t mentioned in the Bible; that demons do not exist; that Heaven is not God's kingdom, that there are many Bibles (instead of one), etcetera.
And I have no more will and time to invest in nothingness.

So, farewell to all.

I'm sorry to did not had the chance to discuss things with you ..
the bible is not the inerrant word of God .. it is a translation of scripture, which is the inerrant word of God .. some bibles contain less translational loss then others ..

satan is mentioned in scripture .. it is a Hebrew word meaning "adversary & accusor" ..
שָׂטָן h7854 satan .. example Job 1:6

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and fnSatan also came among them.

like Jesus has many names and titles (like "the word") satan is one for the devil .. between Job and Peter they make the connection for us ..

1Pe 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

of course demons exist .. there are examples of Jesus casting them out in the NT ..

and of course "the Kingdom of God" is heaven ..

 

[RiverJordan]

No one,

I'm going to skip over the personal things in your post and try to keep this on a higher level.

As I showed you repeatedly, the Bible must be wrong so that evolution must be true. And you really showed that you have no problems with Bible being wrong only so that evolution to be true.

I understand that to someone who approaches this subject in a black/white manner, it must be that way. However, not everyone approaches this subject like that. In fact, if you look at the worldwide survey data, most Christians have no trouble with evolution. Anti-science in the name of Christianity is primarily an American Protestant phenomenon.

You always claim we must keep interpreting the Bible to make human theories right, instead of actually reading the Bible to find out that human theories are wrong.

I never once said anything like that.

And I find that extremely strange, because you simply claim that God, who can never be wrong, is wrong, and men, who can never be entirely right, are right.

I've never said that God is wrong either.

You instead claim we must start from men to see how things are. Moreover, atheistic men, men that purposefully exclude God from His own Creation. How about that…

I never said that either. You're attributing a lot of things to me that I've never said. Why?

So why exactly don’t Christian evolutionists trust God in their quest for understanding? Why do they look instead to other people just like them (even worse: atheists) for knowledge? And how can that be actual knowledge if it isn’t the atheists who created the universe and all in it, but, as the Christian evolutionists themselves admit, it was God?

It seems to me to be a matter of human behavior and fundamental psychological differences. Some people require absolute, simple rules and answers, and once they've adopted them they apply them strictly and universally. Others are more comfortable working in shades of gray and nuance, and can handle uncertainty. These differences manifest themselves in all sorts of ways, such as how you and I just don't get each other.

You accused me of not knowing what “uniformitarianism means in science”. Well you have to claim that, don’t you? I mean, you’ll never consider the possibility that evolution is wrong? It must be that those who criticize it don’t understand it, right?

As I said, I would love to be the person who proves evolution wrong. So not only would I consider it, I would be excited about it.

So I’m reading Scripture wrong simply because other people just like me tell me that I’m reading it wrong. I’m reading Scripture wrong only to accommodate human theories. I must claim God to be wrong, only to be able that men are right. How about that…

I didn't say you were reading scripture wrong. I said you should consider that maybe you're reading it wrong. Those aren't the same.

A painter would never let the paint produce somehow a painting by itself. Instead, he will paint the painting himself. A carpenter would never let some pieces of wood to sit around and eventually assemble themselves into a chair. Instead, he would make the chair himself. And so on.

But look at what Genesis 1:3 says: And God said "Let there be light". God let light be. Genesis 1:11: God said "Let the land produce vegetation". Genesis 1:12: The land produced vegetation.

So which one of us is going against scripture? You're implying that God would never just let things be, yet scripture clearly says God let things be.

So if we both find the idea of letting some pieces of wood to self-assemble into a chair as absurd, as plain craziness, why exactly would you would you instead think that that’s how God makes things?

Because that's what scripture says.

As far as the portions of your post about lab science and evolutionary biology in general, I don't see anything to be gained by trying to explain the science to you. You've made it very clear that you're not at all open to anything anyone has to say from that perspective.

There are you are again, running against the Bible in such a high degree and not even noticing. Because if Genesis is true, Gilgamesh couldn’t pre-date the Genesis account…

I include this because it's a good demonstration of the psychological differences between us. Your approach to this question is to have your answer absolutely decided beforehand and never consider any other possibility. My approach is to objectively examine as much as I can and reach a defensible, logical conclusion that is consistent with all the information.

Yes, I meant that Stephen Meyer.

So thank you for proving my point: that you don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about.

Because Creationism and ID are light years apart…

And that’s truly ironic, since you claimed repeatedly, and in so many threads, how “familiar” you are with all that….

There are many types of creationism. Young-earth creationism, old-earth creationism, day-age creationism, progressive creationism, intelligent design creationism, Hindu creationism, and a host of others. The people at the Discovery Institute even refer to themselves as creationists!

Finally, I see that you're leaving. That's too bad, because although we disagree on many things and even get a bit heated about it, it's still engaging and thought-provoking. But if you insist on leaving, I'll leave you with the main point I've been trying to get across here.

We are given a great commission to bring the lost to Christ. We are saved through God's grace and by the blood of Christ are our sins forgiven. That is what Christianity is about. All this stuff about creationism, the age of the earth, geocentrism, and such are ancillary. You aren't saved by believing the universe is 6,000 years old and that it all orbits a stationary earth. Likewise, recognizing the validity of scientific findings about those things doesn't exclude you from the grace of God.

But tying this extreme anti-science agenda to Christianity and telling people that it's all or none...you either have to reject science or reject Christianity...drives a lot of people away from the faith, especially young people. I see it almost every day in my youth ministry work. Kids today are pretty sharp. But they're also abandoning Christianity by the millions. And one of the main reasons they cite for doing so is their perception that Christianity is "anti-science". That doesn't have to be. Being anti-science has nothing to do with salvation. IOW, kids are being pushed out our church doors and it's entirely preventable!

Anyways, I've gone on long enough. Take care.

 

[ixoye_8]

1Cr 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS”;

not one alleged "fact" which contradicts the bible can be proven ..
not creation of the world and universe, not creation of Adam, nor any other ..
science is nothing more then man seeking to understand what God has done ..
and continues to change it's understanding ..
those who put science at odds with God, dishonors science ..

 

[ixoye_8]

if you believe in evolution, then you say God is a liar ..
if you believe mankind is more then 6,075 years old, then you say God is a liar ..

evolution has NEVER been demonstrated to happen within a species ..
mankind has NEVER been demonstrated to be older then biblical genealogy ..
and your claim a global flood never happened, also is NOT a proven fact ..

if anyone wishes to challenge the bible with incomplete scientific data, and in many cases unscientific methods being used, I would be more then happy to discuss them .. BUT .. one issue at a time

 

[RiverJordan]

science is nothing more then man seeking to understand what God has done

I agree.

if you believe in evolution, then you say God is a liar

I, and most Christians around the world, disagree.

if you believe mankind is more then 6,075 years old, then you say God is a liar

Same thing. Yours is a minority opinion.

evolution has NEVER been demonstrated to happen within a species

Yes it has. We've even seen the evolution of new species, both in the lab and in the wild.

mankind has NEVER been demonstrated to be older then biblical genealogy

If you're talking about young-earth creationism, then yes it has.

and your claim a global flood never happened, also is NOT a proven fact

Then please explain why crabs and lobster fossils are not found mixed in with trilobite fossils. They all live on the sea floor and from a young-earth creationist perspective should have all perished together in the global flood, yet they're never, ever, ever found mixed in with each other. Likewise eagles and pterodactyls, or elephants and T-rex....

if anyone wishes to challenge the bible with incomplete scientific data, and in many cases unscientific methods being used, I would be more then happy to discuss them .. BUT .. one issue at a time

Has it ever occurred to you that this isn't about "challenging the Bible"?

 

[ixoye_8]

RiverJordan
I, and most Christians around the world, disagree.

God said he created man and he had speech ..
Paul confirms Adam was the first man ..
then you are in fact calling God a liar ..

Same thing. Yours is a minority opinion.

and you think consensus thinking means anything ???
Galileo said the world was round, and EVERYONE disagreed
so majority thinking means nothing ..BTW: those who are saved (many called few chosen) are a minority .. all new discoveries are done by the minority ..



Yes it has. We've even seen the evolution of new species, both in the lab and in the wild.

wrong .. bacteria is the closest you can come to evolution ..
cite it if you can ..

If you're talking about young-earth creationism, then yes it has.

wrong .. when you use arbitrary methods that there is no way to confirm non leaching, then you are falsifying science ..

Then please explain why crabs and lobster fossils are not found mixed in with trilobite fossils. They all live on the sea floor and from a young-earth creationist perspective should have all perished together in the global flood, yet they're never, ever, ever found mixed in with each other. Likewise eagles and pterodactyls, or elephants and T-rex....

first of all, WHY would sea creatures perish ??? .. that is illogical ..
all these things you bring up are pure fantasy .. because no connection has ever been made ..

Has it ever occurred to you that this isn't about "challenging the Bible"?

has it ever occurred to you that is exactly what you are doing ???

 

[RiverJordan]

God said he created man and he had speech ..
Paul confirms Adam was the first man ..

And I agree with those things.

then you are in fact calling God a liar ..

Where?

and you think consensus thinking means anything ???
Galileo said the world was round, and EVERYONE disagreed

No, only those like you who insisted on a hyper-literal reading of scripture disagreed. After all, it wasn't scientists who put Galileo under house arrest, it was religious authorities.

wrong .. bacteria is the closest you can come to evolution ..
cite it if you can ..

Sure, but before I do, do you agree that if we have two populations that are physically unable to reproduce with each other, they are different species?

wrong .. when you use arbitrary methods that there is no way to confirm non leaching, then you are falsifying science ..

Sorry, I don't know what you're referring to here.

first of all, WHY would sea creatures perish ??? .. that is illogical ..

So you believe the flood didn't destroy all life on earth?

all these things you bring up are pure fantasy .. because no connection has ever been made ..

????? How is it "pure fantasy" to ask why elephant and dinosaur fossils haven't been found together? In fact, we never find dinosaur fossils mixed in with any modern organisms. Never. Isn't that sort of mixing exactly what we would expect from a global flood?

has it ever occurred to you that is exactly what you are doing ???

What does the phrase "let the earth bring forth" mean to you?

 

[ixoye_8]

Tigers and lions can reproduce (liger) BUT the offspring males cannot ..
(the same with mules)
therefore this offspring is NOT a new species because it cannot sustain itself as a species ..

 

[ixoye_8]

Tigers and lions can reproduce (liger) BUT the offspring males cannot ..
(the same with mules)
therefore this offspring is NOT a new species because it cannot sustain itself as a species ..

 

[RiverJordan]

Right....so if the offspring can sustain itself as a species, then it is a species, correct? Also...

Where have I called God a liar?

Do you believe the flood destroyed all life on earth?

How is it "pure fantasy" to ask why elephant and dinosaur fossils haven't been found together? Isn't that sort of mixing exactly what we would expect from a global flood?

What does the phrase "let the earth bring forth" mean to you?

 

[ixoye_8]

RiverJordan
No, only those like you who insisted on a hyper-literal reading of scripture disagreed. After all, it wasn't scientists who put Galileo under house arrest, it was religious authorities.

no .. only those like you who insist on a hyper-allegoric reading of scripture agree ..
what does who arrested him matter ???

Sure, but before I do, do you agree that if we have two populations that are physically unable to reproduce with each other, they are different species?

different species can reproduce, but the new specie cannot sustain itself ..

Sorry, I don't know what you're referring to here.


So you believe the flood didn't destroy all life on earth?

on earth .. yes (earth means land)
in the water .. no
why, do you think the water would drown a fish ???


????? How is it "pure fantasy" to ask why elephant and dinosaur fossils haven't been found together? In fact, we never find dinosaur fossils mixed in with any modern organisms. Never. Isn't that sort of mixing exactly what we would expect from a global flood?

your NEVER is incorrect ..
Ongoing excavations in the Gobi Desert tell of one such sight that has become an embarrassment to evolutionists. Twenty-five theropod dinosaurs have been discovered along with 200 skulls of mammals. There is no evidence of the several million year evolutionary gap or of the iridium boundary that is thought to delineate when the dinosaurs became extinct.

What does the phrase "let the earth bring forth" mean to you?

Gen 1:11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
Gen 1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

 

[ixoye_8]

RiverJordan
No, only those like you who insisted on a hyper-literal reading of scripture disagreed. After all, it wasn't scientists who put Galileo under house arrest, it was religious authorities.

no .. only those like you who insist on a hyper-allegoric reading of scripture agree ..
what does who arrested him matter ???

Sure, but before I do, do you agree that if we have two populations that are physically unable to reproduce with each other, they are different species?

different species can reproduce, but the new specie cannot sustain itself ..

Sorry, I don't know what you're referring to here.


So you believe the flood didn't destroy all life on earth?

on earth .. yes (earth means land)
in the water .. no
why, do you think the water would drown a fish ???


????? How is it "pure fantasy" to ask why elephant and dinosaur fossils haven't been found together? In fact, we never find dinosaur fossils mixed in with any modern organisms. Never. Isn't that sort of mixing exactly what we would expect from a global flood?

your NEVER is incorrect ..
Ongoing excavations in the Gobi Desert tell of one such sight that has become an embarrassment to evolutionists. Twenty-five theropod dinosaurs have been discovered along with 200 skulls of mammals. There is no evidence of the several million year evolutionary gap or of the iridium boundary that is thought to delineate when the dinosaurs became extinct.

What does the phrase "let the earth bring forth" mean to you?

Gen 1:11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
Gen 1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.