Would seeing the sea part make you believe in God?

[Jack the Bodiless]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Hey jack, you got a good site for contradictions in the biblical texts? I'm particularly interested in the gospel resurrection stories.

ta.

How about The Resurrection Maze?

[Lemmy]

Most fossils fill pre defined gapes.
That's not objective, it's wishfull thinking.

but isn't also exactly what creationists are doing?
And the pressure on creationists is a lot bigger than on evolutionists, because creationist are defending their faith, evolutionists are only defending a theory. A theory can easily be changed to fit the facts, faith cannot.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
"The Bible contains thousands of errors and contradictions. It is not possible for everything in it to be true."

The Bible is not wrong. In fact, you will not find any contradictions.

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible lists 311 internal contradictions, many of which involve multiple entries. And that's not counting the contradictions between the Bible and the real world: the age of the Earth, the nonexistent Flood, and all the failed prophecies. Nor does it count the grammatical errors: I've heard it claimed that the Bible contains about 150,000 textual errors, but I can't confirm that. Nor does it count continuity errors, such as the same event needlessly repeated in different books.

It is a mess. As you'd expect from a compilation of books written at different times by different authors with different agendas. Certainly NOT what should be expected for "the Word of God".

[King of Rasslin]

Some of those "errors" like Christ coming in "a short time" depend on how patient you are. Compared to how old you guys think the earth is, 2000 years is nothing.

[Jack the Bodiless]

CyberShy:

Jack, the fossil record doesn't prove anything.
Evolutionists claim it proves evolution, creationists claim it proves a young earth and a flood.

It obviously cannot fit BOTH, because the fossil sequences would be radically different. So somebody must be lying. And I know that creationists lie often.

Scientists, however, have no reason to lie about this. Scientific theories (including evolution) are designed around the evidence, there is no religion to dictate what the evidence "should" look like.

Most fossils fill pre defined gapes.
That's not objective, it's wishfull thinking.

No, most of the fossils that are considered newsworthy are those that fill gaps.

It's an example of the predictive power of evolution. For instance, the discovery of Ambulocetus, the "walking whale" (transitional between land mammals and whales) is an example of an evolutionary prediction being fulfilled.

BTW, virtual particles HAVE been shown to exist. A variation of Young's two-slit lightwave interference experiment, using only single photons, shows interference with ghostly "virtual photons". There is also the Casimir Effect, where two plates very close together (close enough to restrict the wavelength of virtual particles forming between them) are pushed together by the pressure of virtual particles forming more freely outside the gap.

[King of Rasslin]

"It obviously cannot fit BOTH, because the fossil sequences would be radically different. So somebody must be lying. And I know that creationists lie often.

Scientists, however, have no reason to lie about this. Scientific theories (including evolution) are designed around the evidence, there is no religion to dictate what the evidence "should" look like."

We don't lie about stuff either. If Christians wanted to be technologically backwards, you wouldn't have me posting right here. And science DID say what the walking whale should look like, so why not the Bible?

"BTW, virtual particles HAVE been shown to exist. A variation of Young's two-slit lightwave interference experiment, using only single photons, shows interference with ghostly "virtual photons". There is also the Casimir Effect, where two plates very close together (close enough to restrict the wavelength of virtual particles forming between them) are pushed together by the pressure of virtual particles forming more freely outside the gap."

Didn't someone say that has to do with time? And, last I checked, God created time. Don't try to put a silly theory or law of physics above God and what he does.

[GeneralTacticus]

We don't lie about stuff either. If Christians wanted to be technologically backwards, you wouldn't have me posting right here. And science DID say what the walking whale should look like, so why not the Bible?

Oh come on. Check out this site:

http://users2.ev1.net/~origins/

One very blatant lie:

LABOR OF THE SUN - a classic out-of-print book which points up that what's moving in the cosmos & what is not has been misrepresented by scientists who are quite aware there is no empirical proof to warrant telling the world the Church's official geocentric stance is incorrect.

The author of this site is either an absolute ****ing idiot or else he is telling a deliberate lie. Possibly both.

Didn't someone say that has to do with time? And, last I checked, God created time.

Evidence? Science demands evidence. If you don't have any, don't even bother trying to push religion into science.

Don't try to put a silly theory or law of physics above God and what he does.

[Hydey]

Re: Would seeing the sea part make you believe in God?

NO

I'm sure science would provide a plausable explanation.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Some of those "errors" like Christ coming in "a short time" depend on how patient you are. Compared to how old you guys think the earth is, 2000 years is nothing.

Paul thought that he, and many others, would live to see the Rapture:

Thessalonians 4:15-17 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

And he was talking to an audience to whom 2000 years would have meant a lot.

We don't lie about stuff either. If Christians wanted to be technologically backwards, you wouldn't have me posting right here. And science DID say what the walking whale should look like, so why not the Bible?

Scientists didn't decide in advance that whales were mammals: they deduced it from studying them. Nor did they decide to "just believe" in evolution: it came from studying the evidence. Only THEN did scientists realize that there must have been land-dwelling ancestors of whales.

First, the evidence. Then the theory that fits it. Then the test: will all subsequent evidence continue to fit the theory, and does the theory accurately predict what more evidence would look like?

Evolution passes this test: creationism fails.

And creationists certainly DO lie. Though many simply don't know any better. Consider the following, from "Doctor" Kent Hovind (his degree is bogus, BTW):

"Well, now, hold it. If you want to just pick one item and that's supposed to prove relationship, did you know that human Cytochrom [sic] C is closest to a sunflower? So really the sunflowers are our closest relative folks. It depends what you want to compare. If you want to compare the eyes, we are closest to an octopus. Not a chimpanzee. Pick something. What do you want to compare? Human blood specific gravity is closest to a rabbit or a pig. Human milk is closest to a donkey. It depends on what you want to compare. Pick something. If there were not some similarities between us and other animals we could only eat each other. So God designed all animals from the code so we could eat other plants and animals and digest them. Not proof for evolution. It's proof of a common Designer!"

This is complete baloney. Human Cytochrome-C is closest to chimpanzee Cytochrome-C, not that of a sunflower. Human eyes are like chimp eyes, not octopus eyes (octopi have eyeballs, but their retinas are wired differently: human eyes are wired just like those of all other vertebrates, not octopi). And so on. Hovind just makes up all this stuff as he goes along. And other creationists, perhaps less willing to just invent the "evidence" they need, simply regurgitate the claims of a relatively small number of "prime liars" without even knowing it.

Jonathan Safarti, of "Answers in Genesis", doesn't think highly of Hovind, but he also came unstuck when he tried his own version of Hovind's Cytochrome-C claim. He had heard from a genuine scientist that crocodile Cytochrome-C was closer to chicken Cytochrome-C than to lizard Cytochrome-C, and published this as "proof that evolution was wrong". It shows exactly the opposite: according to evolution, this is expected, because birds evolved from dinosaurs, which evolved from archosaurs, the same branch of reptiles as crocs (but not lizards) evolved from.

Creationism consists entirely of religious fundamentalism and scientific ignorance, in varying proportions.

[Lemmy]

Actually, science did come up with an explanation for the sea part, but that would only work if the parting happened at around the same time the last ice age started.
When the ice age starts, the water at the poles become frozen, this causes sea levels to fall dramatically.
Now if at the place where the sea parted, just below the water surface there was some sort of ridge, that ridge would've become exposed by the dropping sea level. Since the sea would still be visible on both sides if the ridge, this could be seen as parting of the sea.

[ranskaldan]

Mmm, lemme ask a question:

King of Rasslin:

Why don't you believe in, say, the Qur'an? There're plenty of Muslims who saw miracles too, so why not that? What makes you think that the Bible is more factual than the Qur'an?

Or how about the Rig Veda? Why can't it be that the Bible and Qur'an are both wrong and only the Rig Veda is true?

Or how about the Iliad? Perhaps that is factual, since thousands of ancient Greeks witnessed its events?

In short, why is the Bible factual if the Qur'an, the Rig Veda and the Iliad aren't?

[ranskaldan]

Oh yeah, if God is omnipotent and above all laws:

Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?

[Robert]

Ah ranskaldan, that last argument really pulled me over

[Bas]

I shouldn't get involved in these debates, but I can't help it. I'll drop the first part of CS's post, Jack already explained that.

Originally posted by CyberShy
Boshko:
quantum mechanics is a THEORY that has not been proven.

Quantum mechanics is one of the best proven theories in existence, actually. The actual interpretation of what is being done mathematically is still somewhat open to debate, but that quantum mechanics works is beyond doubt. I can give numerous examples of predicted quantum effects at work, but here are just a few.
- the excitation energies of electrons in atoms
- the anomalous Zeeman effect
- existence of spin (the conceptually simplest experiment is the Stern-Gerlach one, I think)
- tunnelling

Etcetera. Etcetera. Alternatively, read a book on QM yourself, although you'll need some mathematical background.

I told you that before. In fact it's a technical rephrase of the question "how can something pop out of nothing"

It is impossible to prove the theory, because we can never observe 'nothing'. Vacuum is not nothing. Even complete empty vacuum is not nothing.

And about postive and negative energy summed up together give zero energy..........
That's a nice theory, but even in that case you need an extern source to split zero energy in X positive and X negative energy. Why would it split with no reason?

It only answers the question HOW God created all this out of nothing, by splitting up positive and negative energy.

I was going to reply to this as well, but I'm too lazy to sift through the thread to pick up the previous arguments you and Boshko used.

The quantum mechanics is oftenly used by atheists as a fact, but it is not a fact. It's a ultimate theory that has not been proven. (this aspect of quantum mechanics, the 'something out of nothing theory' there are other aspects of course that are very usefull)

See reply 1. As far as theories go, quantum mechanics is pretty much fact. Hundreds or thousands of experiments have been done that back up predictions made by QM, and it has AFAIK never been directly contradicted. And you can't just cut out parts of quantum mechanics that you don't like, just because it doesn't agree with how you'd like things to be. I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to, but the creation of particles and antiparticles in vacuum is something that has been widely observed. When you make arguments, at least try not to deny facts.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
I'm not elitist. Everyone is welcome to become a Christian.

I'm sorry, but this made me giggle.