Creationists PWNED

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by trev
There are many things in the fossil record, sedimentary rock record etc which with todays knowledge cannot be adequately explained by EITHER evolution OR creation. However I am a thinking person and therefore I try to make best sense of the facts given in the context of known, proven physical laws. My thinking processes tell me that 'no rainbow prior to flood' means 'no rain prior to flood' as there is a connection by known physical laws between the two. Furthermore my thinking processes tell me that 'no rain means no uplift of air masses' and as mountains usually result in the uplift of air masses and consequent rain, this seems to preclude the presence of mountains.

And it would also preclude the presence of oceans, particularly ones in tropical regions. Ditto large expanses of forest, which given your postulated large underground aquifers would be rather abundant I imagine. For a 'thinking person' you're being rather foolish. My thinking processes tell me that 'no rainbow prior to flood' means 'experimental error, please check again with a larger dataset'.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by trev

True, the bible as a book is designed to lead people to God, not explain science. However as God is truth, every thing that is written in the Bible will not contradict the physical laws of the universe, known or unknown. The bible teaches of a soul and spirit and the fact that at death that soul/spirit leaves the body to travel to heaven/hell/sheol/abode of the dead etc. It also records several instances of out of body experiences (Paul going to third heaven,Ezekials visions,St Johns visions in revelations etc), so I am extrapolating from known biblical events to explain out of body experiences on the operating table, a reasonable process. Also the bible clearly teaches that our spirits can link up with God's spirit and I am extrapolating the possible forces involved in this process to offer plausible explainations for the twin phenonema, migratory bird phenonema etc. A belief in God and a belief in the bible does not prevent us from using rational thinking and thought processes to explain phenonema not directly explained by the bible, but still within the context of biblical teaching.

Now let me make this more simple, prove god. Also another question, what makes your religion so much better then any other one out there?

[trev]

If you are on the point of claiming that the soul can sense without the need for organs, then why hae them in the first place, and wherefore blind people?

There are instances of people in scientific literature who have some measure of sight even when the optic nerve is severed totally, so in very rare instances sight has been obtained by measures apart from eyes. What the bible teaches about the body is that it limits our abilities, death is seen by apostle Paul as a time of liberation, once the spirit is liberated from the body at death, it can do much more. Questions as to why God designed our bodies to limit our spirits ability need to be put to God himself, although I have attempted to answer many other questions I will stay clear of that one.

[BlackCat]

Please give some references to this and don't be shy to give references to physical books if there are no web links.

[trev]

Also another question, what makes your religion so much better then any other one out there?

The bible has been shown to be correct in many of the historical facts presented,it has an perfect record of prophesying future events to this point in time, and therefore there is no reason to suspect that will not continue to be the case with oustanding prophecies, and it presents through the death by crucifixation of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, and his resurrection and the forgiveness of wrongs now offered by Jesus, a perfect way for humans to relate to God and be a part of God's heaven. To my knowledge no other religion comes close in all these points.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by trev
it has an perfect record of prophesying future events to this point in time,

er... name three?

[trev]

I cannot give any scientific reference to claims of sight without eyes, but I often go down to the local library and read mainly 'New Scientist' but also others. Most likely it was read as a brief report in the New Scientist possibly about 2 years ago but that is a best guess of mine only.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by trev

The bible has been shown to be correct in many of the historical facts presented,it has an perfect record of prophesying future events to this point in time, and therefore there is no reason to suspect that will not continue to be the case with oustanding prophecies, and it presents through the death by crucifixation of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, and his resurrection and the forgiveness of wrongs now offered by Jesus, a perfect way for humans to relate to God and be a part of God's heaven. To my knowledge no other religion comes close in all these points.

The bible is inadequate and has been proven to be wrong numerous times including with accounts related to the great flood. You speak of a perfect record of predicting future events? Wrong again. The bible is a stupid book and this son of god stuff, won't get you too far.

[trev]

er... name three?

1: The return of the Hebrew people to the land of Israel after a long exile.
2:Isaiah 53:7-10 Excerpts (NKJV)He was taken from prison and from judgement, For he was cut off from the land of the living; (Jesus arrest, trial, sentence and crucifixation prophesied) He shall see his seed, He shall prolong his days (Jesus resurrection prophesied)
3: Isaiah 7:14 Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Jesus birth prophesied. note Immanuel means God with us, which Jesus being God was God with us.)

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by trev
There are many things in the fossil record, sedimentary rock record etc which with todays knowledge cannot be adequately explained by EITHER evolution OR creation.

What isn't explicable in the fossil record by evolutionary theory? I'm dying to hear. What in the sedimentary rock record isn't explicable by geology (evolution, obviously, wouldn't explain such a thing anyway).

You're long on bald assertions, short on facts given here. I'd like some for a change.

However I am a thinking person and therefore I try to make best sense of the facts given in the context of known, proven physical laws.

A thinking person would more likely realize that the story of the rainbow in Genesis is just a little bit of mythology used to explain the existence of a phenomenon that the ancients could otherwise not explain.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by trev

1: The return of the Hebrew people to the land of Israel after a long exile.
2:Isaiah 53:7-10 Excerpts (NKJV)He was taken from prison and from judgement, For he was cut off from the land of the living; (Jesus arrest, trial, sentence and crucifixation prophesied) He shall see his seed, He shall prolong his days (Jesus resurrection prophesied)
3: Isaiah 7:14 Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Jesus birth prophesied. note Immanuel means God with us, which Jesus being God was God with us.)

And that these have been fulfilled is subjective. Many Jewish scholars reject that the prophecy of the return to the Holy Land has been adequately fulfilled. You can ask the ultraconservatives about that.

Isiah 53 is vague, and there's no evidence that the details given in the NT about Jesus's arrest, trial and execution are even true. What if the gospel authors were fictionalizing an account to make it appear that some OT prophecies had been fulfilled?

and Isiah 7:14:

-The author of Matthew quoted the Septuagint (Greek) version of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint contains a translation error made when the Hebrew of Isaiah 7:14 was converted into Greek. Isaiah used almah to describe a young girl who would give birth. In Hebrew, an almah is a young woman of marriageable age. If he wanted to refer to a virgin, he would have used the word bethulah. The creators of the Greek translation, the Septuagint, mistranslated the Hebrew almah into the Greek parthenos, meaning virgin. The authors of Matthew and Luke were probably unable to read Hebrew; they would have relied on the Septuagint translation. They based part of their writing on the error in the Greek. They were obviously creating a story in order to make the prophecy come true.

-Isaiah's prophecy was that the child Immanuel was to have been born in 742 BCE, the first year of King Ahaz's reign. Ahaz, the king of Judah, faced the combined armies of Syria and Israel. Isaiah explained to Ahaz that he should not form an alliance with Assyria. In support of this advice, God would provide a sign: a young woman would conceive and bear a child who would be named Immanuel. 2 The sign would have only have been effective if it happened almost immediately. It would not have given a lot of support to Isaiah's prophecy if more than seven centuries passed before it was fulfilled, over 700 years after King Ahaz' death.

-Isaiah was clearly not referring to some event that would occur centuries later. When he referred to the far future, as in Chapter 11, he typically used a phrase such as "In that day."

-The translation of the Hebrew name Immanuel, (Greek Emmanouel) as "God with us" in Matthew 1:23 implies that the name-holder is divine. The name really means "God is with us," meaning that God will support us. The name makes perfect sense if the child's name was to indicate to King Ahaz that God is on their side.
Luke 1 states that Mary would call her son Yeshua (Jesus in Greek). He is called Yeshua throughout the Christian Scriptures -- not Immanuel.

This analysis shows that Jesus, born to a virgin, was not prophesized by Isaiah. Rather, Isaiah must have been referring to a young woman who gave birth to a son circa 742 BCE -- a very normal occurrence. He predicted that she would call his name Immanuel. Many births to young women would have probably happened at that time. But, there is no mention either in the Bible or in the historical or archeological record that positively refers to an Immanuel having been born. It may or may not have come true. But the prophecy certainly was unrelated to Jesus' birth.

The Bible doesn't seem to hold up too well on the prophecy front when scrutinized closely:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html

[Immortal Wombat]

Hold on, you can't have the Bible predicting and fulfilling its own prophecies. That's like saying all the prophecies in the Harry Potter saga have come true. Name three externally verifyable prophecies.

[SpencerH]

Again, I dont understand why those who believe in god and creationism feel the need to justify their beliefs either through attacking the merit of scientific theories with religious 'evidence' or by attempting to promote their religious beliefs as being science itself.

IMO there's nothing the matter with religious studies in school proposing alternative explanations to scientific theories so long as all are treated reasonably equally. Just dont pretend it's science.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by trev
True, the bible as a book is designed to lead people to God, not explain science.

So you admit that Creationism is bollocks. I agree.

Originally posted by trev
However as God is truth, every thing that is written in the Bible will not contradict the physical laws of the universe, known or unknown.

That's just too funny

The bible contradicts itself, let alone laws of nature.

Originally posted by trev
The bible teaches of a soul and spirit and the fact that at death that soul/spirit leaves the body to travel to heaven/hell/sheol/abode of the dead etc. It also records several instances of out of body experiences (Paul going to third heaven,Ezekials visions,St Johns visions in revelations etc)

That's nice. How does that different from Middle Earth or the Fogotten Realms?

Originally posted by trev
so I am extrapolating from known biblical events to explain out of body experiences on the operating table, a reasonable process. Also the bible clearly teaches that our spirits can link up with God's spirit

God's spirit? Where in the bible does it say that YHWH has a spirit?

Originally posted by trev
and I am extrapolating the possible forces involved in this process to offer plausible explainations for the twin phenonema, migratory bird phenonema etc

1. There is no "twin phenomenon" - you watched too much television. There is, however, a Twin Paradox.

2. Even if this "migratory bird phenomenon" is real, you don't need a god to explain it. This is just the old "God in the Gaps" argument.

Originally posted by trev
A belief in God and a belief in the bible does not prevent us from using rational thinking and thought processes to explain phenonema not directly explained by the bible, but still within the context of biblical teaching.

Not if you are a fundie.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Hold on, you can't have the Bible predicting and fulfilling its own prophecies. That's like saying all the prophecies in the Harry Potter saga have come true. Name three externally verifyable prophecies.

Precisely.