Prove(or provide overwhelming evidence) to me the existance, or non existance of God

[ckweb]

Originally posted by loinburger
Of course not, only the important/interesting ones, like novae and supernovae (which generally look like exceptionally bright stars). They kept far better records than the Hebrews of such events, so their records are far more reliable in this matter than the records of the Hebrews.

And your point is . . . even here: did they report every "important/interesting" celestial event. Let's get real . . .

Don't be ridiculous, he can no more prove that the records of the Chinese were infallible than you can prove that the records of the Hebrews were infallible. The evidence can be analyzed, though, and the Chinese in particular had a better track record of recording celestial events than the Hebrews, therefore the evidence derived from Chinese records carries more weight than the evidence derived from Hebrew records.

Of course, he can't prove it and of course, I don't expect him to even try. You didn't notice the sarcasm in my post, loinburger? My point is that his argument is one of silence. Simply because the Chinese never reported a celestial event involving a star over the city of Bethlehem does not mean there was never a bright star over the city of Bethlehem.

BTW, I have never claimed nor will I claim that the records of the Hebrews were infallible.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by ckweb
BTW, I have never claimed nor will I claim that the records of the Hebrews were infallible.

Okay, my mistake. I thought that you were arguing in favor of fundamentalism, like Cybershy and/or Lars. If you agree that the bible is open to interpretation, then it doesn't really matter whether or not there was a celestial event as described in the bible.

[ckweb]

Originally posted by loinburger


Okay, my mistake. I thought that you were arguing in favor of fundamentalism, like Cybershy and/or Lars. If you agree that the bible is open to interpretation, then it doesn't really matter whether or not there was a celestial event as described in the bible.

I don't think CyberShy is a fundamentalist either. If I recall, he actually stated that he didn't think the Bible was inerrant.

I agree that the Bible is open to interpretation but I also believe that it can be correctly and incorrectly interpreted.

You are right that I don't think it really matters whether or not there was a celestial event. This should have been clear from my previous post about midrash. Even so, I don't think anybody has shown convincingly that there couldn't have been a bright star over Bethlehem as described in the Bible.

[Adalbertus]

There is one interpretation of the star of Bethlehem: In (I think) 6BC or so, two planets (Mars and Jupiter?) were in conjunction, i. e. they moved very closely to each other. The movement of the outer planets against the starred sky is such that they sometimes appear to move backwards, opposite to their normal moving direction. This also happened to both, which may indicate "stood over the stable". -- One possible interpretation, and I don't have the means to check that, ATM. (Maybe a good astronomy program already would allow that).

[Robert]

loinburger, either read my post, or don't post your opinion about my posts.

no matter what my opinion is, it's for sure absurd that everybody who has another opinion about the bible than you is a fundamentalist in your standarts.......

only fundamentalists say that

[ckweb]

Unrelated

What are those dates beside our handles for? I can't figure out what they relate to.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
loinburger, either read my post, or don't post your opinion about my posts.

I said "Cybershy and/or Lars," because while Lars is arguing from a fundamentalist's perspective by accepting the biblical flood account as truth, I couldn't really tell from your posts whether you were taking the fundamentalist's perspective or not. You kept arguing over (what I would consider) insignificant points about questionable biblical prophecies and whatnot with Jack, but I couldn't tell whether you were doing so out a genuine desire/need/whatever to show that the bible was reliable or whether you were doing so in order to play devil's advocate.

[loinburger]

Re: Unrelated

Originally posted by ckweb
What are those dates beside our handles for? I can't figure out what they relate to.

The date is the registration date for the poster, the time is (IIRC) the local time of the poster.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by ckweb
Really--damn good records, huh?! . . . so they reported every celestial event without fail. If you would, prove it.

Suppose there was such a star, it could be only what we call a nova. A nova is a very significant astronomical event that couldn't escape the notice of royal Egyptian astronomers.

Originally posted by ckweb
Oh, while you are at it, could you also show me the diskette or hard drive on which these events were recorded for posterity?

And where's that photograph of yours showing your star?

Originally posted by ckweb
There can't be any missing records . . . papyrus doesn't have the longevity of modern storage techniques. C'mon, a little common sense, please!! One unreported star is no big deal (actually, it was reported in Matthew but, no wait, that doesn't count of course because it is the Bible and everybody knows the Bible is wrong.)

Question: why is this Star of Bethlehem only recorded in Mattew and not any other Gospels?

Consider that the fact that the gospels are widely held that were written somewhere between 60CE - 120CE. The magi would have been long dead by then. Where would the author of Mattew got that information?

[Lars-E]

The flood and dating

Jack the Bodiless has already agreed that the flood would mess up carbon dating (c14). I briefly mentioned "other techniques" as well on which he didn't agree.

Radiometric dating methods is used to date the age of the earth among other "things". One would expect more helium in the athomsphere if these methods are to taken as true. The problem of helium has been addressed by evolutionists, but not in a satisfactory manner.

The flood may have impacted the helium concentration as well as the collapse of the "waters above and below the firmament" which was the cause of the flood.

UP, UP AND AWAY! THE HELIUM ESCAPE PROBLEM
Can Radioisotope Dating Be Trusted?
RATE GROUP CONFIRMS FAST DIFFUSION OF HELIUM IN ROCKS

The dating gap is another problem faced by evoultionists and shows the shortcomings of their dating techniques:

"This gap is from about 40,000 ya (years ago) to about 200,000 ya on the evolutionist's time scale. It covers roughly the period known as the Middle Stone Age (MSA). This coverage gap lies beyond what is considered the effective range for radiocarbon and prior to what is considered the effective range for potassium-argon."

See the full article at THE DATING GAP

[Ethelred]

Re: The flood and dating

Originally posted by Lars-E
Jack the Bodiless has already agreed that the flood would mess up carbon dating (c14). I briefly mentioned "other techniques" as well on which he didn't agree.

Jack was wrong on that. On top which there is no evidence for a flood. Without some evidence for a World Wide Flood there is no reason at all to suppose that one might have messed C14 dating even if it could do so.

The city of Jericho is over 8000 years old and has NEVER been flooded. Nor have the Bristlecone Pines that used to calibrate C14 dating for a period that covers 8000 years. Again greatly predating any Creationist claims for when the Flood occured. Predating Adam for that matter.

Radiometric dating methods is used to date the age of the earth among other "things". One would expect more helium in the athomsphere if these methods are to taken as true. The problem of helium has been addressed by evolutionists, but not in a satisfactory manner.

Not satisfactory to you because science has shown this claim to be completely bogus. Helium leaves the atmosphere quite quickly and that is more than enough reason to account for the amount of helium being lower than Creationists like to pretend it should be.

The flood may have impacted the helium concentration as well as the collapse of the "waters above and below the firmament" which was the cause of the flood.

Except that there is not need for a Flood to account the levels of helium nor is there any sign of a world wide flood.

The dating gap is another problem faced by evoultionists and shows the shortcomings of their dating techniques:

"This gap is from about 40,000 ya (years ago) to about 200,000 ya on the evolutionist's time scale. It covers roughly the period known as the Middle Stone Age (MSA). This coverage gap lies beyond what is considered the effective range for radiocarbon and prior to what is considered the effective range for potassium-argon."

Of course both you and all other creationists carefully ignore the fact that 40,000 years(actually up to 70,000 years) is far more than enough to show that things are older than you think they are. Jericho itself is not only older than the Flood it is older than the world should be according to Creationist claims.

On top of which, the fact that there is a gap in no shows that there is anything wrong with the dating before or after the gap. There are in fact dating techniques now that are usefull within that gap. They aren't as accurate and are limited but they do help date some sites.

It really does you no good to claim there is a gap when the gap ends long before you think the Earth existed. It just shows the desperate lengths that Creationists will go to deny reality.

[ckweb]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Suppose there was such a star, it could be only what we call a nova. A nova is a very significant astronomical event that couldn't escape the notice of royal Egyptian astronomers.

(1) "Suppose there was such a star, it could be only what we call": Bright Star = Nova. This is a must? There is no other possible astronomical/meteorological explanation for a bright star? And, if there is no astronomical/meteorological explanation . . . how about a unique sign of God appearing as a star to the magi? Of course, that's a supernatural suggestion that will carry no weight with someone such as yourself.

(2) "A nova is a very significant astronomical event that couldn't escape the notice of royal Egyptian astronomers": Really? So every nova since the dawn of the Egyptian empire until at least the Roman period was documented, without fail, by the royal Egyptian courts. Prove it.

And where's that photograph of yours showing your star?

I don't have to show a photograph because it doesn't matter to me whether or not there actually was a star. If you had read my initial post you'd know this . . . the only thing I am pointing out is that if it were historical, nobody has proved a bright star (seemingly) above Bethlehem could not have been present. The absence of a reference in Egyptian, Chinese or any other civilization's records is an argument from silence, which means and proves absolutely nothing. Particularly when one takes into account that there could have been such a record but it has been long since lost. Do you think we have all the court records of that time period? Get serious.

Question: why is this Star of Bethlehem only recorded in Mattew and not any other Gospels?

Consider that the fact that the gospels are widely held that were written somewhere between 60CE - 120CE. The magi would have been long dead by then. Where would the author of Mattew got that information?

(1) As I stated previously, I believe the infancy narratives, particularly that of Matthew, is midrash. There wasn't necessarily a star in the first place. It is used as a symbol to denote the importance of this birth.

(2) As for why Matthew would be the only one to record it . . . there are only two infancy narratives in the canonical gospels. That means 50% of the canonical infancy narratives report the star; that's not bad. Also, less sarcastically, have you compared witness statements to identical events . . . they are always, always different. Now, remove them from the event by 60-100 years or so and have them rely on second-hand information . . . I would imagine that depending on your sources (persons and/or documents) you are bound to come up with diverging accounts. What I think is more remarkable is that Christians permitted their NT to contain four gospels in the first place, particularly when they diverge on a great many details! They could have chosen one gospel or chosen the Diatesseron (a Gospels harmonization). They didn't. Generally, I've found in my own experience that if I'm trying to mislead someone, I make sure the stories are straight and share the same, or at least non-contradictory, elements. However, if I'm doing a history paper and comparing 4-5 equally reliable sources, I try to preserve the divergent accounts because not having been present, I am unable to make a judgment as to which one most represents the perspective I'd have on the events.

(3) Assuming the events are historical, the information might have come from Mary, mother of Jesus; from any one of Jesus' brothers (who although not present would have access to a family tradition); an astronomical tradition; a now-since-lost court record (assuming Matthew would have had access to that sort of thing); who knows . . .

I'd like to get back to my main assertion about the infancy narratives, however, . . . they are not necessarily historical in nature as they reveal the techniques, form, and style of midrash (as well as typological interpretation).

[ckweb]

Originally posted by loinburger


I said "Cybershy and/or Lars," because while Lars is arguing from a fundamentalist's perspective by accepting the biblical flood account as truth, I couldn't really tell from your posts whether you were taking the fundamentalist's perspective or not. You kept arguing over (what I would consider) insignificant points about questionable biblical prophecies and whatnot with Jack, but I couldn't tell whether you were doing so out a genuine desire/need/whatever to show that the bible was reliable or whether you were doing so in order to play devil's advocate.

Loinburger: Just because someone is not a fundamentalist does not mean that they don't believe that the Bible is reliable. I believe the Bible is reliable; in fact, it is one of the best and most important sources for our knowledge of the ANE. That does not make me fundamentalist nor does it mean that I think the Bible is infallible; it only means what I wrote, "the Bible is a reliable source." Of course, like any literary source, it needs to be interpreted contextually, within its cultural encoding, and in light of contemporaneous sources. Anyways, I think you only made CyberShy's point; namely, anybody who doesn't share your skeptical perspective on the Bible must be a fundamentalist.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by ckweb
Anyways, I think you only made CyberShy's point; namely, anybody who doesn't share your skeptical perspective on the Bible must be a fundamentalist.

Oh, come off it. It might help your worldview to believe that everybody who is skeptical is also narrow-minded, but unfortunately for you, it just isn't true.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by CyberShy


it happens in a vacuum, the big bang theory postulates no preexisting space or vacuum. Hence there would have been no place for virtual particles to fluctuate.

A vacuum is not needed. Its called vacuum fluctuations because we can't measure the effect except in a vacuum because its overwhelmed by gas effects.

anyway, even *if*, you still need a vacuum (space, room) to have these particles to exist.

Not necessarily. Without a no-space no-time condition to test in we can't know the answer on that. Couldn't even then because there is no 'then' without time.

Second, virtual particles, if real, form as matter and antimatter in equal amounts. However our universe appears to consist almost entirely of ordinary matter. Antimatter is distinctly rare.

This is one of the not yet fully understood things in physics. It is presently assumed that there is some asymmetry involved that caused there to be a SLIGHT amount more of matter than anti-matter. Most of both kinds of matter would have been annihilated releasing enormous amounts of energy. What we see today is the tiny fraction of matter that was left over. What the asymmetry might be (if any) is still unknown. Maybe Rogan knows of a candidate.

But I agree, if the mutations will occur in the right order in the right place, and natural selection will not take them away (which MIGHT happen as well)

You are still thinking that humans have to be an inevitable consequence of evolution for us to exist at all. That is not true. Nor do we have to exist except to ask the questions. Without us or some other intelligent species there would be no questions asked.

if it would work like this, the diversity should be much bigger than the diversity there is right now on earth.

There are only so many ways to live. Millions of ways but still only so many. After the millions are filled that is all there will be until conditions change. In which case many of the millions of species will fail to adapt to the changes.

There are not enough between forms. There are some 'example' forms, but there's not the ammount of between forms one would expect in this case. Neither is there the expectable ammount of detail differences between human races.

There are plenty of between forms. You have simply demanded that there be more so you claim there aren't enough. Between forms are out competed in most cases by forms that are fully adapted. That’s why they are in-between.

There is plenty of difference between human races. We have ALL interbred for tens of thousands of years. The most different group there is has interbred the least and that is the Australian Aborigine, who have been largely isolated for upwards of 60,000 years. It seems likely though that there has been at least one major infusion of genes from the rest of the world since that time and it is possible there have been some others as well.

If we take other mammals, there is so much diversity among them. There are many types of monkeys, fishes, wales..... etc. Why are all humans so close related?

Because the only one that was distantly related, Homo Neanderthalensis, has become extinct. We travel a lot so the rest of genus Homo has been interbreeding. We are after all only about 100,000 years old as a species.

The racial difference is so tiny compared to other animal families......
The difference between an human and a monkey is huge compared to the difference between a german and a chinese.

Yes. So what? We are after all different species. We interbreed with other humans not monkeys.

The racial differences could have happened during a fair little ammount of time. Our skin differences might have occured in the past 10,000 years..... And even most scientists talk about degeneration on that topic, since the african black-skin was about for sure the oldest type of humanity, and the white race have a skin-type that's for sure not better compared to the african type.

Wrong. Its NOT degeneration. Light skin is an adaptation to lower amounts of light. We produce vitamin D in our skins and light is needed for that production. With less light much of the year, humans living away from the equator must have lighter skin to produce enough vitamin D. This can even be seen in South Africa where the T*kung (African Bushman) have lighter skin than other Africans. The darker Zulu have not been in South Africa all that long and their ancestors came from Central Africa.

If we compare our capabilities with apes, since they appear to come from the same ancestors, in fact apes have evoluved much further than humans.

Not really. The Gorillas have gotten larger, that’s one of the biggest difference between the other African great apes and what we think their ancestors may have been like.

In fact, your claim is based entirely on nothing. There are no fossils for chimps or gorillas so we don't know what they were like. Jungles are hard on bones. The acidic soil dissolves them.

Indeed, humans evolved inteligence. But apart from that apes have a better sight, better ears, they control their body better, their capacities to survive in the jungle are better.

False. Our eyes are as good, at least in general. They MAY have better ears but not much better. They have less control of their hands. Much less. They are nearing extinction so they sure aren't better at survival in the jungles either.

I see no signs of better body control either unless you are talking about gibbons and they separated from us long before the chimps and gorillas did. They are smaller and they die a lot from falls so body control is a major driving force in gibbon evolution.


Where did you get those ideas from anyway? They don't match anything I can see.

How comes that we, humans, survived, how did we escape natural selection? If we got brains first, I wonder why we are not apes with brains right now? Since the degenerated humans could never survive the earlier inteligent humans........

We didn't escape natural selection. We are still changing as can be seen in the deaths of most of the Amerinds from diseases that Europeans had adapted to.

We are apes with brains, with an upright stature as well.

What degenerated humans? Never heard of such a thing except maybe on an individual basis and those poor people don't normally reproduce.

But still there is no inteligent life among any other species.

Intelligence appears to be a life niche. There is room for only species in any niche for any length of time. That is likely the reason that the Neanderthals died out.

Chimps are pretty intelligent. They seem sentient, as do some dolphin species. Not as smart as us maybe but still sentient. They know they exist. Personally I put Siamese Cats in there as well but maybe I am imagining things in that case.

but all the species we have right now are (temporary) end products.

Not all. Not any really. There are only species that are in transition and species that are in a stable relationship with the environment. There is no end except extinction. All must adapt when the environment changes or become extinct. Even us but we can adapt through culture much faster than any species can genetically.

It's not like we have species with step-1 eyes, step-2 eyes, step-3 eyes etc. etc.

It is EXACTLY we have that. We have species with eyes of all kinds and all levels of sophistication. Step one is a chemical the responds to light. That is enough for a bacteria that needs to know when to rise and when to fall in the water column.

I think we have gone over the eyes with you before, Cybershy. Maybe it was someone else. For a thorough examination of eyes in regards to evolution see:

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.

Pherhaps there is on example (which again must prove the entire theory) but if the step-10 eyes survived natural selection, step-9 and step-8 eyes must still exist in broad forms. But they do not.

But they do exist. All kinds of eyes exist. Even eyes with everything but a lens. The chambered nautilus fits that one.

We have humans with bad eyes, but again, that's not the former step in evolution, but morely degeneration.

More of a result of the way eyes develop. Our eyes did not evolve for reading and that is the main cause of near sightedness. In my family it sure works that way. The bigger the reader the worse the eyes. I have the worst eyes of any in my family. My brother and mother are nearly as bad and my sister, who reads little in comparison, can drive without glasses in daylight.

In fact there are more proofs for degeneration than for evolution. Can degeneration and evolution happen at the same time? Or do you deny the existance of degeneration?

I deny it. I know of no signs of long-term degeneration in any species that is not on the verge of extinction. Such species don't have enough members to avoid excessive interbreeding.

This is another area of your post where I must ask. Where did you get these ideas? They don't fit reality.

If I compare the human achivements with the achivements of monkeys I would say...... nah 10:13 really makes no sence. 10:10000 would be more close to it.

Monkeys are bright in comparison to a human with an IQ of 50 or 60. Chimps do much better than that of course. They can even learn sign language something the severely retarded cannot.

but there's a bigger change of degeneration. let's say 1:999.999 (mutation in fact is a good form of degeneration, one gen doesn't transit the right way into the new organism, but while this usually results in a broken gen, it results by accident in a new type of gen)

Lets say a REAL number instead of pulling one out a Creationist's posterior. More like one in thirty. As usual a creationist is making up ridiculous numbers with no basis for them. Many mutations simply result in a failed birth in the case of mammals. There is no degeneration for the species in those cases and those are the majority of bad mutations.

Than that new organism should not die by a natural cause, (in nature, most of the newborn babies are killed. and if the difference is that little, the new type still has a big change to not survive!)

Which is true. That is why a small improvement can mean a lot and a small loss leads to no degeneration for the species as a whole.

after that, when this specy reproduces, the new gen should not be lost again, because the gen of the mating partner replaces the newly found gen.

You don't know anything at all about genetics I see. We have TWO copies of each gene. One of two from each parent. There is a 50% chance of the new gene being passed on with EACH offspring but only if the gene is not lowering the chance of reproduction in the first place.

Anyway, since there's a big change for degeneration, what if the 10,5 monkey by accident mates with a 0,5 monkey? ooops.

Then you get from a pairing of 10-5 with a pairing of 0-5, calling 10 the new version of a gene and you already have two other versions, the 0 and the 5.

10-5
10-0
5-5
5-0

Those are the four possible results. One half of the offspring would have new gene labeled as 10 in this case. If that gene is better than the other two than there would be an enhanced chance of survival. With a mere improvement of one per cent that gene would take over from the other two in nearly every individual in 100 generations. This has been tested with computer simulations.

The problem is that natural selection would do a good job if we did indeed talk about big-steps. If I evolve into a 4-arms human, the change that my kind will survive your stupid 2-arms type is big. Natural selection will most certainly do that job.

It does a much better job with small steps. If you had four arms you might have a hard time getting laid. Especially since they wouldn't work right in a single mutation.

Extra toes seem to work to some extent but I don’t see any indication of it improving chances of survival. Most likely it decreases chances of reproduction to some extent as it sure isn’t becoming a frequent human variation.

But now, you guys talk about little step by little step.....
Remember that in that case natural selection will hardly work, for sure if you take the effects of degeneration into it.

It works extremely well. Both in the real world and in simulations.

If there are 100 mutations in one generation,
and one of them is good, and 99 is bad.
Pherhaps indeed much of the bad ones will die because of natural selection, but the change that more of them will survive than the 1 good mutation is large.

There are far more mutations than that in any generation of humans. We each and every one of us have some mutation or another. The estimate is three or four each. Its unlikely that 99 out of a hundred are bad or we wouldn't survive to be born. Most simply have little effect. Some have a small effect. A few are useful and those are generally going to be conserved.

4-5 billion years is not that much if you consider how much must be done by pure luck.

That’s many billions of generations at the start and even with humans its one generation for every two decades.

I predict that within the next 10 years, scientists will suddenly claim that the world is not 5 billion years old, but 50 billion years. That's not because of new insight. It's because they need more time.

I predict that no such thing will happen. We don't need more time. You just need to pretend that science is vastly more mutable than it is. All Creationists engage in this fiction.

and that's the big flaw, in theory, everything can happen, if you give it enough time. That's why scientists give those huge ammounts of time to everything. It's the easy to give, hard to check, factor that will heal everything.

CyberShy

We have those huge amounts of time for the simple reason that we DO HAVE those huge amounts of time. No one is claiming the Earth is 4.6 billion years old because it’s needed by evolution. We can measure the age of rocks. The oldest rocks that can be dated are over 3.5 billion years old. We have even older dates for moon rocks and especially asteroids. The moon is a bit younger than the Earth but it’s not subject to erosion except for meteor impacts so the oldest rocks on the surface don't get eroded away like they do on Earth.