Questions for creationists

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Gospels were written from 70 CE onwards.

So who's saying otherwise, and on what is that based?

Here, check this one:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb1.htm#matthew

It says some people say 45 CE or earlier.
And don't forget that the reason for the 70 CE date is because whoever believes it was written earlier, accepts the prophecy of the destrution of the temple by the romans. So it had to be written later, because there is no such thing as prophecies. Everybody who believes in such thing in not being logical, but dogmatic!


And my official standing about the year Mathews' gospel was written is now 41 CE.



Have a nice troll!

[Big Dave]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
They are not comparable.

Evolution is entirely devoid of the problems creationism has: problems such as the existence of the fossil record, the overwhelming evidence for an ancient Earth, and all the rest.

Creation has no issues with the existance of the fossile record. They were created in the Flood.

There is no genuine evidence that contradicts evolution:...

There is ample evidence for a young earth. I would prefer to get into that later in this thread since I haven't finished adressing the issues from some earlier posts yet.

... there is plenty that contradicts creationism. Science operates primarily by falsification. A theory is provisionally accepted as true if it fits the data, but must be discarded if it does not.

We are agreed on the fact that the vast body of scientific knowledge is in the negative form. We know a ton of stuff that does not work and did not happen.

Creationism was discarded about two centuries ago.

And evolution was was discarded about 5,000 years ago, then again about 2,000 years ago but has been making a come back in the last couple hundred years. What's your point?

David

[Dauphin]

And evolution was was discarded about 5,000 years ago, then again about 2,000 years ago

How can a theory that didn't exist be discarded?

Your statement doesn't make sense.

[lightblue]

Ah yes the Flood. IMHO believing in the Flood is even more dubious than believing in creationism.

I have a few questions regarding the flood:

How come large areas do not show any sign of being submerged in the last 4000 (?) years? If everything had flooded, and the flood subsided (where did the water go?) you would see the effects of the erosion on the landscape.

Fossils were laid down during the flood, you (big dave) say. So how come fossils are in completely different strata? If they all died at the same time when the floods happened, why aren't they in the same strata? How do you explain fossils of fish and shells, wouldn't you think they might survive a flood?

Was the Flood salt water or sweet water? If it was salt, why isn't there an obvious layer of salt at some point in the strata all across the world? If it was sweet how did salt water fish survive?

etc. etc. etc.

[Big Dave]

Originally posted by lightblue
Ah yes the Flood. IMHO believing in the Flood is even more dubious than believing in creationism.

I have a few questions regarding the flood:

How come large areas do not show any sign of being submerged in the last 4000 (?) years? If everything had flooded, and the flood subsided (where did the water go?) you would see the effects of the erosion on the landscape.

Fossils were laid down during the flood, you (big dave) say. So how come fossils are in completely different strata? If they all died at the same time when the floods happened, why aren't they in the same strata? How do you explain fossils of fish and shells, wouldn't you think they might survive a flood?

Was the Flood salt water or sweet water? If it was salt, why isn't there an obvious layer of salt at some point in the strata all across the world? If it was sweet how did salt water fish survive?

etc. etc. etc.

You think you've got questions, you outta see my list.

However there is alot of evidence in favor of the Flood, too. Every race, tribe, people, whatever you want to call them, has a legend of a universal flood. And there's more, but I don't want to get off track from the other stuff I'm supposed to be researching.

David

[Big Dave]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

And evolution was was discarded about 5,000 years ago, then again about 2,000 years ago

How can a theory that didn't exist be discarded?

Your statement doesn't make sense.

Confucius said "All reality unfolded gradually from a single entity."

Bhuddist teachers believed all living things evolved from a prior unitary nature

Anaximander and Anaximenes (6th Century B.C.) held that the sun's warmth generated all living forms by acting on some moist primeval element, and that plants, animals, and humans were generated in that order.

They all sound like evolution to me.

Evolution became popular again as a philosophy during the early 19th century, well before Origin of Species was written.

David

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Big Dave


You think you've got questions, you outta see my list.

However there is alot of evidence in favor of the Flood, too. Every race, tribe, people, whatever you want to call them, has a legend of a universal flood. And there's more, but I don't want to get off track from the other stuff I'm supposed to be researching.

David

Oh yes.

Floods are very cataclysmic events. I'd be pretty surprised if there were one single race which didn't fill its mythology with accounts of various cataclysms. That would certainly make very boring storytelling sessions after a day of hunting and foraging.

Besides, your use of the phrase "every race, tribe, people" sounds pretty suspicious to me. Maybe a lot, but not *every*.

Also, are you going to take the mythological traditions of the world as evidence? If so, then the majority of races in the world originally had pantheistic or polytheistic beliefs. So is that what you're planning to believe?

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Big Dave


Confucius said "All reality unfolded gradually from a single entity."

Bhuddist teachers believed all living things evolved from a prior unitary nature

Anaximander and Anaximenes (6th Century B.C.) held that the sun's warmth generated all living forms by acting on some moist primeval element, and that plants, animals, and humans were generated in that order.

They all sound like evolution to me.

Evolution became popular again as a philosophy during the early 19th century, well before Origin of Species was written.

David

So?
Some philosophers have had theories similar to Evolution.
Point being?

[Jack the Bodiless]

However there is alot of evidence in favor of the Flood, too. Every race, tribe, people, whatever you want to call them, has a legend of a universal flood. And there's more, but I don't want to get off track from the other stuff I'm supposed to be researching.

Yes, the legends of various peoples could (if viewed in isolation) indicate that there might have been a Great Flood.

However, there clearly WAS NOT a Great Flood. It is not possible for such an event to have occurred: such an event would leave very obvious traces that simply do not exist. No worldwide flood deposits, no sign of any disturbance in the fossil record, no interruption of ice layers in Greenland, too much genetic variation for all species to be recently descended from pairs in the Ark, etc etc etc...

A scientific theory MUST fit the facts. Evolution does, creationism does not. Therefore it doesn't matter how much other stuff is compatible with creationism: creationism cannot be true.

That's how science progresses.

...Incidentally, those Flood legends mostly contradictthe Bible anyhow. The Ark story (apparently invented by the Sumerians and Babylonians) is common in the Middle East, but Flood stories from other parts of the world involve survivors clinging to floating trees and suchlike. According to the Bible, only Noah's family were supposed to survive. So God was careless?

[-=Vagrant=-]

Some one made the right question! Big Dave seems to be looking for answers. Hope he finds them.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Big Dave
Confucius said "All reality unfolded gradually from a single entity."

He did? Where?

Originally posted by Big Dave
Bhuddist teachers believed all living things evolved from a prior unitary nature

IIRC Buddhism is not concerned with how things were evolved but how people can escape from suffering.

Originally posted by Big Dave
Anaximander and Anaximenes (6th Century B.C.) held that the sun's warmth generated all living forms by acting on some moist primeval element, and that plants, animals, and humans were generated in that order.

That might sound vaguely like evolution, but it is too general and (again) vague to make a comparison.

Originally posted by Big Dave
Evolution became popular again as a philosophy during the early 19th century, well before Origin of Species was written.

Any references to that?

[loinburger]

UR:

Are you having fun yet?

[Logical Realist]

I noticed that the creationists on this board were unable to answer a single one of my questions. Not suprising.


Anyways in regards to evolution being popular prior to Origin of Species....it was in some circles. Mainly among biologists but among other materialists. However it was a pseudoscience, and not established until Origin of Speicies. After which the evidence for evolution was found to be so strong that it went from pseudoscientific to one of the strongest theories ever known to science. Likewise atomic theory prior to Dalton was a sort of pseudoscience, having its origins in Greece. Leucippus
was the first philosopher to advance the theory that all things around us are made out of tiny partcles called atoms, most of this was of course pure speculation that didn't become a strong scientific theory until John Dalton proved the existence of atoms via experimentation. Hence evolutionary theory, like atomic theory, may have started as pure speculation but like atomic theory was proven to be correct later on. Today evolutionary theory is so strong, in regards to evidence, that it is on par with atomic theory and denial of evolution is thus equal to the denial of atomic theory and the holocaust. (In fact evolution deniers and holocaust deniers are said to use very similar debate tactics by a historian who has argued with both.)

[Logical Realist]

Now on to Big Dave's pretend answers to a couple of my questions regarding the Noachian Flood: Note his scientific methods never suprise me.

You think you've got questions, you outta see my list.

Well that's a red herring if ever I saw one.

However there is alot of evidence in favor of the Flood, too. Every race, tribe, people, whatever you want to call them, has a legend of a universal flood. And there's more, but I don't want to get off track from the other stuff I'm supposed to be researching.

Not Dave is asked that you

Please answer these questions with something more then speculation. Use hard empirical evidence. Thanks.

Tribal myths don't count as hard empirical evidence.

Scientists at SETI don't advance theories on alien abduction, people who theorize that dinosaurs died from diseases don't bring up the Lockness Monster. That's because those are myths....we are talking about science. And that demands some hard empirical evidence, not some superstitions that would rightly be laughed out of any scientific conference.

But to expose your hypocrisy for what it is keep in mind that when confronted with the fact of common descent you asked for:

Reference a book, point me to a link. Show me some reputable scientific evidence, please.

Implying that your opponent gave you none. However from your answers you seem to think that "flood myths" count as "reputable scientific evidence"

In that case we could just point to those Greek tales of Anaximander as "reputable scientific evidence" if we were to go by your standards. Your standards are not scientific though, and hardly worth any respectable biologist's time.

[Lung]

One thing intrigues me about evolutionists -

Why do they feel they need the blessing of creationists? Trying to convince them is a waste of time as no amount of evidence or even proof can convince them more than something which they were brought up with as total fact

After all, the point of science is to accurately predict events based on experimentation. Evolutionary theory already achieves this, so now we're only sorting out the fine details. We need not waste our time with people who are happiest in their own delusions