http://youtu.be/GYNmFQkHBaE

http://youtu.be/Hr2jRxLdJ2A

http://youtu.be/QJPPXujssLY

http://youtu.be/RiL8_iVNYR0

Y U NO AT LEAST DO SOME RESEARCH ??????

You are asking a very dumb question here to be honest. ''How did belief in God started?'' I mean seriously? People believed in higher power ever since their mind was developed enough to ask questions. Belief in Christian God was started by son of God himself, and its religion puts a lot more emphasis on ''correct faith'' than any other religion out there. A person is free to start having faith in God any time he/she wants. If your asking how human kind as whole started believing in  in higher power in th first place, thats another topic and this thread is probably most derailed one on the site, so no need to go there.

As for the book, the writer didnt actually speak to God in literal meaning of the word, you can say he had a spiritual enlightment, and all the stuff he says about God in the books makes perfect sense and doesnt go agianst any other religion or science. The world conversation is only used to atract customers and readers

To be honest guys I haven't been following this segment of the thread much because I don't agree with much of Player1x3's view on his faith (though I liked your posting the zeightgeish refutation vids which I hope to check soon), but I just wanted to say that the bolded is not true. Oral tradition =/= telephone tag. There are significant differences.

1) In telephone tag, the listener is not allowed to ask the speaker to repeat.

2) The speaker can only whisper into the ear of the listener, making it a 1-way communication with little sound quality.

In other words, telephone tag is made to be funny and fun. Oral tradition is basically the opposite:

1) Those assigned to oral tradition are trained and train to remember large parts of a story.

2) They constantly check for confirmation as to whether or not they got the message right.

3) When they tell part of a story, they leave out a certain percentage of the story at random which another teller should in all probability share at his turn.

4) It is a community practice so it's a n-way communication practice.

Don't take my word for it I learnt this while reading the Case for Christ and those are the words of a leading theologian (who is now probably dead 5 years ago maybe). Most main textbooks he wrote and he has made significant contributions to official bible commentaries and was a contributor to the RSV bible. His name:

Bruce Metzger, Professor of New Testament, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary;

Scientists do the same exact thing in theology (a science also), where they say things like "would this person write this or that, if he did what would that mean" and such and such and they contradict each other constantly at what is a historical game of detective. It's pretty fascinating once you actually get into it. As I said I'm reading the book the case for Christ you'll find examples of what I mean there. I've also taken a course in theology (in a secular university) where, for instance, the authorship of the Pauline letters were put into question and they do statistical analysis of lexical style and grammar and structure and what-have-you and they come up to certain very interesting conclusions.

Here's another example for instance. Remember your editing-in comment? Well, there is a jewish historian by the name of Josephus. In the link I provided to Runa, one of his passages mentions Jesus. However, it is almost certain that the text was later edited due to the nature of the writer and the nature of the content, in that both don't match (he was a jew, and clearly not Christian, so certain statements there are too Christian sounding). Take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Josephus

(that's really just to give you an example of the detective  game being played)

I understand what you're saying, but historical deciphering doesn't require a journal per se. It could be what they call a hostile witness (someone who would have no stake in claiming the advancings of their enemies/nuisances). An example is found here (from the same wiki article): 

Celsus wrote, about 180, a book against the Christians, which is now only known through Origen's refutation of it. Celsus apparently accused Jesus of being a magician and a sorcerer^[130] and is quoted as saying that Jesus was a "mere man".^[131] F. F. Bruce noted that Celsus, in seeking to discredit Jesus, sought to explain his miracles rather than claim they never occurred.^[132]

In the post I provided to Runa, I took what I learnt from that link and filtered a few pieces of the bible that were historical, as shown from an extra-biblical source. Those were:

• that Jesus existed (Josephus AD 93, Mara bar Sarapion sometime btw 73 AD and the 3rd century, the Talmud 70–200 CE, Lucian 2nd Century AD, Celsus around 180 AD, Tacitus 116 AD, Pliny the younger c. 112, Suetonius c. 69–140)
• that he was a Jew (the Talmud 70–200 CE)
• that he was a Nazarene (from Galilee) (the Talmud 70–200 CE)
• that he was crucified (Tacitus 116AD,  the Talmud 70–200 CE says he was hung)
• that he rose from the dead (This I took from an oblique source I grant, plus subsequent logical deduction, I can provide both if interested)
• that he performed miracles. (the Talmud 70–200 CE, Celsus 180)
• A great darkness in the land - mentioned in the gospels  (Thallus 109 AD)
• That he was a King. (Mara bar Sarapion sometime btw 73 AD and the 3rd century)
• That he was wise. (Mara bar Sarapion sometime btw 73 AD and the 3rd century)

It's already quite alot. Now add to that everything the bible says. How is it reliable? Well again I encourage you to read the book the case for Christ. If you want, I can bring out some points from the book in my own words for you to read sans buying the book.

I appreciate the question. The outcome of the experiment (behavioral change) is a fact, I concede. However the explanation varies from one observer to the next. The same change in behavior can be due to a loss in genetic information. For instance, if Bacteria_0 had the gene telling it not to eat citrate, upon losing said gene, Bacteria_1 would then love to eat it. I'll offer you a more human-scale example.

There are some dogs with short hair and some with long hair. Those with short hair have the gene to tell the hair to stop growing up to a certain point. Someone will say "Well, dog_0 is the less evolved dog, since it has less fur". But, little do they know, there is rather more information required to tell the hair to stop growing than to not. Those with longer hair may lack that gene for instance, or have a variation of that gene. By losing said gene or losing some complexity in said gene, the dog with longer hair may have actually devolved, though it may have greater chances of survival in colder climates.

Well, devolution is not part of intelligent design. It's just basically stating a known fact of genetic defects which are caused by the breeding of specimens of a same species that have a similar gene pool. That's a reason why humans don't inbreed, because it causes blindness, deformities and things like that. So devolution is not something that needs to be proven, it's a fact we see happen around us. That's why fruit flies mutate negatively in a closed environment. The gene pool is so similar that inbreeding causes massive defects (some flies lose wings, some have their eyes blind and things like that, and given their design is not condusive to survival. They will most likely get sifted by natural selections and the pressures of nature). What we see rather in nature is not evolution but devolution. Given the rate of devolution being much faster than that of evolution (genetically speaking), which one do you think will overtake on the long run?

You can call it bullshit, but I will attemp to find secular, scientific evidence to my claim. Possibly an expert in the field could help us, but sadly we're newbs.

I want to give you props for actually looking into what I wrote (not that you didn't normally, you always do, but I'm looking at others on the secular side). I'd like it to serve as an example.

Now I agree that evolution plays the same detective game (archaology, geology, history, etc.) and has more evidence to work with (here I'll slide in "as much as creationism does", since they work off the same data). However, the nature of the game is the same. That's why bolded, though true, is double-edged.

Also, though the study of origins has more data to work with as you mentioned, there are parts of the theological study that goes beyond simple he-said she-said (history). This theological exercise takes into account lexical analysis, grammatical analysis, dates, times, places and people, and statistics (the ones I can recount). So thought it falls under one category "history" for all suits and purposes, you can also gather from there linguistics, mathematics and forensics. The two italicized are also largely used in the study of origins. I hope I didn't bore you with this, I just want to show you how over-rated and under-rated some things are so as to give us a better grasp on the scientific values of the various fields (in this case Theology versus Study of Origins). Without going too deeply into the debate I hope you see where I'm coming from.

So, I just want to keep things separate. The hostile witness is a tool in history to give more value to one source than another given a certain topic. Given their hostile view to the topic at hand, they would be less prone to sugar-coating, claiming proponents of the topic, or giving a positive view of the topic. However, they could also be prone to giving a negative view of the topic which doesn't correspond with the reality of things and they could falsify other parts of the topic to their ends.

As for my point, which makes use of the hostile witness argument, it goes beyond them believing that the stuff happened. It goes far beyond believing and the time is much tighter than 2 centures. To recall, here are the records and their dates:

Josephus AD 93

Mara bar Sarapion sometime btw 73 AD and the 3rd century

the Talmud 70–200 CE

Lucian 2nd Century AD

Celsus around 180 AD

Tacitus 116 AD

Pliny the younger c. 112

Suetonius c. 69–140

Now remember, Jesus alledgedly died 33AD. That means that, for instance, suetonius is at best only 36 years later and at worst 100 years later. Pliny the younger is only 80 years later. Josepus, only 60 years later. For that period, these are staggeringly close records. Next, you have the fact that these historians are from very different backgrounds and regions, of different levels of faith and superstition.

From Wikipedia:

Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (ca. 69/75 – after 130), was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the earlyImperial era.

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 AD – ca. 112 AD), better known as Pliny the Younger, was alawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educated him.

Mara bar ("son of ") Serapion, sometimes spelled Mara bar Sarapion was a Stoic philosopher from the Roman province of Syria. He wrote a letter in Syriac to his son, who was also named Serapion.^[1] This writing is said to be one of the earliest non-Jewish, non-Christian references to a historical Jesus.

Titus Flavius Josephus (37 – c. A.D. 100),^[2] also called Joseph ben Matityahu (Biblical Hebrew: יוסף בן מתתיהו, Yosef ben Matityahu),^[3] was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War which resulted in the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd "instruction, learning", from a root lmd "teach, study") is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record ofrabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history.

I think final-fan, as honest as you are, here is a case where you logic blocks due to your a priori (your predisposition to disbelieve what I'm trying to tell you). To counter-point, I'll simply restate what you told me earlier hopefully you'll see where I'm getting at.

Keep in mind that to understand my point above that I'm trying to demonstrate (that the lacking of the gene to eat citrate not be a cause for non-sustainability), you need to understand that devolution does not only imply loss of information, but also a shuffling around of things without increased complexity, a modification of something maybe with minor loss of complexity but not necessarily a full loss of function. In other words, it's somewhat the mirror image in that evolution is the same, only that when there is a change it is upward rather than downward. It's like seeing yourself in the mirror. Where a scar was on the left before, it is now on the right, but everything else in the image is virtually the same. Lateral and upward becomes lateral and downward. You have the same theory, to understand devolution just flip it upside down. Or, if you also see devolution as fact, to understand my view simply erase the upward arrow (which I don't believe as fact). With that, the below can be revised (italics):

Also note that, as evolution, devolution accepts that the parent species survive in parallel.

@italics. Good, I'm glad to hear it. That is a phenomenon I am certain to be factual. With the whole sentence I can agree. I'd just like to look into the whole fusion of chromosomes thing. I don't see that as a devolution but as a design reuse, but that's just my view.

That's why the logic is a little circular. To break out, you need to consider the alternative that the universe may not be as old as it appears to be, given other pieces of evidence. Also, how would you define inbreeding after the evolution of a species into a new one? Also note that devolution, the way I understand it, does not lead to a new species, but to a different form within a species. For intance, different breeds of dogs fall into devolutions of a more complex and gene-rich parent dog. They are different breeds, but all within the same species. How would evolution account for inbreeding phenomena after a new evolution of one species into a new one? How does evolution account for the phenomenon that hybrids just as mules or ligers can't procreate? How does evolution handles the impossible inter-species breeding? How are those boundaries defined in evolution? This for me is one major hole in the theory.

I think devolution mostly works with inbreeding. To recall, imbreeding:

Inbreeding is the reproduction from the mating of two genetically related parents. Inbreeding results in increased homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is called inbreeding depression. Deleterious alleles causing inbreeding depression can subsequently be removed throughculling, which is also known as genetic purging.

I'm not sure of this, but I believe inbreeding even leads to sterility after a certain degree of inbreeding. In other words, I don't believe devolution works to a point where babies would be born with no heart. If we were at that point in history all remaining humans would probably be sterile. :)

In the creationist scenario, the gene pool would have been much larger in the past to support inbreeding to a certain degree, but nowadays it is completely unsustainable. As a matter of theology, incest was only forbidden as of Moses, never prior. So yes, Adam's offspring did inbreed. Gross? Yes to us now, but then it was natural. Obviously in terms of genetics the matter has changed, and socioligically it follows. Again, theologically speaking, God forbade it as of Moses (which in turn affects society's view of it today by indirection, along with other things such as the generation of genetic monsters literally speaking).

All in all a great post, but I believe there may be some misconceptions on devolution, inbreeding and the surrounding topics. In the mean time, I'll be reading this:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucbhdjm/courses/b242/InbrDrift/InbrDrift.html

To elaborate, certain processes in study for the topic of origins are things of the past. Examples of these are fossilisation, global catastrophies, dating, rates of change (as an example the development of chalk beds used as a challenge to creationists), plate tectonics, astronomical movements, other variables in the universe and the variable versus constant debate. All these examples, though they don't embody all the processes required by a naturalistic worldview on origins, all these example have in common that to understand them we need to extrapolate what we see today to events in the past. Already that is a source of doubt. Add to that cases where we need to use from the past (fossils, strata, ...) to understand the past itself. That is clearly the same work as the history and theology exercise I was refering to, so in that case it is 1:1 double-edged. Whatever you claim for history applies to those studies, be it positive or negative. That's how it's double-edged.

You're not a malicious poster in any way, but I want you to know that here you twisted my words, even if not voluntarily. My definition of "working off the same data" is just basically saying that they have a pool of data they can pull from, irrespective of how they pull said data and construct their understanding of it. Your belittlement of creationst study of said data does little to further the debate. I can understand you see it that way, but you're wrong. For example, I know there are challenges to the Flood theory, it doesn't make me hide the facts, rather it makes me want to look into them even more. No shoehorning involved.

I don't get what this has to do with anything. Creationists don't study the historicity of Jesus for origins, but only for their personal faith and the relevance of their beliefs (such as this topic).

Is it that much to ask, after I watch 10-minute videos of guys bashing creationist arguments? Who's being non-commital here? And then they blame Christians for not being thorough in their approach to science... Anyway the thing about the Sarapion letter is that it is written to his son so no pretense there. The writer is also a stoic, which shares in certain Christian values  but also contrasts in other areas : Stoicism (Greek Στοά) is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics believed that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.^[1]

I find it hard to tell whether Stoics were all stiff upper-lipped or if some had a more sober way to approach their lifestyle, but it's certainly difficult to reconcile "turn the other cheek" with their "beyond pain" mentality. That's apart from the theological differences with Christianity (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Stoicism_and_Christianity)

So what about it especially didn't impress you, do you not see Jesus in his account of the wise king? I'll repost it here for debate:

Mara was a Syrian Stoic.^[120] While imprisoned by the Romans, Mara wrote a letter to his son that includes the following text:

For what benefit did the Athenians obtain by putting Socrates to death, seeing that they received as retribution for it famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, seeing that in one hour the whole of their country was covered with sand? Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them? For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into every land. Nay, Socrates did “not” die, because of Plato; nor yet Pythagoras, because of the statue of Hera; nor yet the Wise King, because of the new laws which he enacted.^[121]

Composed sometime between 73 AD and the 3rd century, some scholars believe this describes the fall of Jerusalem as the gods' punishment for the Jews having killed Jesus because they infer that Jesus must be "the wise king" referred to by Mara.^[120]

I provided the timelines for you and the backgrounds of the writers. Assuming they are lucid and take their statements as truth, then there are two options: either they believe what they wrote, or they know what they wrote. Some being professional historians, others being philosophers, some even being senators, others rabbis, all writing between at best 36 years after his death (Suetonius) to 100 years on average, at worst 170 years after his death. Most of these writers alive in the generation of those alongside christ, or the 2 to 3 generations following. Beyond reasonable doubt these writers knew they were talking about a quite recent event that was fact.

Just one example:

Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. 

The guy was probably 60 when he was done writing his account, being familiar with word of events that happened only 23 years before he was born. That's like some kid 60 years from now talking about a NES that came out in the 1980s. Would you consider it a fact, especially when he's a video game historian and other historians of different background his age or some even older mentioned the system in one shape or another shortly before or after he did? Yeah, I know I would. And that's today, back then it was even more credible because you don't get such close records of events in those times. We're even lucky to have this material concerning Jesus.

Define it as you like, a new species or a new race, the fact is that one is descendant of another. Did it involve an increase or a decrease in genetic complexity, I would argue a decrease given what we've OBSERVED in science to date (eg observed genetic mutations). @italics. And when did I say the change was sudden? Again, my understanding of devolution is like the mirror image of your understanding of evolution, I don't see how my prior description was unclear... whether the change is useful or not, natural selection will sort that out.

"it seems to have been a series of mutations" It seems doesn't it. I bet. That's obviously how they want it to seem. Ask them to give me the data, not their apriori-affected interpretation of it. Anyways whether that's true or not is completely irrelevant, as again natural selection will do what needs to be done to filter only the fittest. It gives the illusion of evolution but that's not how nature works. Nature just causes mutations, whether it's progressive or not is not part of the process. It's just mutations, some may be more drastic than others. Then, natural selection does its job.

@bolded -> precisely.  @no format -> you're correct, I don't stipulate the same time scale in the past that science is "aware" of. @italics -> dating in the creationist framework is not the same as that of the long-age framework. What you might consider prehistoric, the creationist may consider very young. As a matter of fact, most creationists only consider the universe to be 6000 years old. They use history, archaeology, theology (genealogies in the bible), astronomy, geology and other fields to come to that reasoned conclusion. I won't get into that but you understand my view on the prehistoric bacteria, though you might not agree with it. Also, a genetic parent may coexist with its child.  Another thing you need to remember is that at the flood, only individuals of the original gene pool were taken into the ark (2 of each kind for animals, 8 humans, and other numbers I can't remember). If you took all the humans on earth and made a genetic mix of all of them, you would get a little less than what noah would have been like (I say les due to ethnic cleansing and  genetic mutations, and other reasons for loss of genetic density in the human gene pool). Then realise that Noah was 1 out of a huge population of humans (the bible mentions that humans live up to 900 years, some almost a thousand, and that they had many children, like in the 30s). The gene pool was severely restricted at the flood. That's why the genetic breakdown happened at the flood, after Noah, since he only held a part of the original gene pool.

But even then let's take the case where that bacteria was 6000 years old. I don't see bacteria following the same pattern as that of humans and mammals genetically speaking. I mean what would inbreeding mean for bacteria, just as a preliminary question. I think for bacteria it's not as much about breeding but about duplication. In other words their mutation comes from duplication. I believe it's a different process altogether and the rules of inbreeding don't apply to bacteria, but I may be wrong. Anyway all that to say that the genetic density argument was more pertaining to dogs, cats, humans, birds, apes, etc.

What do you mean by their offspring will be "wrong"? @bolded -> I didn't say they can't interbreed. I said that if they did produce offspring, that offspring would be sterile. I get the sense that you're not reading my replies or paying attention to them. @italics -> you're referring to the incompatibility of their reproductive organs? That's how I would see it at least.

Yep, that makes alot of sense. I don't know how much of that takes into account the article I provided to you though, here for ref: 

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucbhdjm/courses/b242/InbrDrift/InbrDrift.html

So here you mean the fact that Noah is a restriction of the original gene pool and that only his 3 sons and their wives were the genetic constituants of today's human race, as I mentioned earlier right. To be honest, and fair, I agree I need to look into it further. I'm not a geneticist nor a biologist, but it is my understanding that still at that time the mutations were less likely and that they may not have caused defects at the time but rather morphological differences such as those we see between brothers and sisters. That's my understanding of it at least and leads me to embrace the Babel account as well, where all the races of the earth broke off from one original race (that of the children of Noah). The mutations leading to morphological differences would account for the possibly rapid raciation that happened at Babel. It's just an explanation. Whether it fits the data or the realm of possibilities is not my forte, but it is my basic understanding of the past and I'm quite convinced that's how it happened. I do concede though that my depth of knowledge in Genetics and microbiology is very limited. I will look into it more if you have links do post them.

You might want to look at this: http://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos

... makes me wonder which story was based off of which... oh wait...

Thanks for your reply. Yeah lots of misunderstandings in general :).

I just wanted to mention that AiG and CMI are two very different groups and have very different scientific focus. I go with CMI because it has the stronger focus on science, all their staff are academics. I mean, you could see their rigor in the link I sent you, at least if it could change your mind on their claims being unfounded, at least for CMI.

I'll check out the link thanks! It looks pretty honest from what I've read so far.

For the Wise King account by Mara bar Sarapion, I don't understand how it appears garbled. The text is a translation granted, and being a philosopher he is speaking somewhat in metaphors (Socrates is not dead), but it's up to the reader to understand what he's trying to say. Take the time to understand it, that's what the passage was meant for. You're not supposed to understand it upon first glance. Hopefully that'll encourage you to look back at it and then consider all the others. In terms of his "new laws", given that non-believers didn't really get a proper grasp of what Christ was teaching, he was probably referring to this: http://bible.cc/john/13-34.htm . Keep in mind, the 10 commandments are called the "Law of Moses". This supports it: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%202:12-13&version=NIV

It's quite fascinating what people had to say about Christ back then. It's a little discouraging when you think there's only 1 person on this forum actually listening to what you have to say, especially after all the labelling and having to be called "irrational" by some, that even the only one listening didn't take the time to read some of my best evidence. As for which biblical prophecies these texts support, take a look at my prior post @ http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4219267. I linked to the one where Runa brushes it off just to show you how things are like sometimes and having some of your strongest points simply brushed off lazily by the back of the hand. Also, why did you sift through, you should have just asked me? The links ere here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Greco-Roman_Pagan_sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Jewish_sources

The rest wasn't needed. Go back to them, even if just out of curiosity I promise it won't be wasted. You get to hear what Romans think of this quite important historical character (Jesus). He affected the Roman empire to a certain extent, and largely affected the Jewish nation (no Jews in Judea just 40 some years after his crucifiction, a razed temple, as prophecized)

For the genetics and genomic loss trend, I'll look into it more. I read the whole link I gave you but it's even hard for me to understand. Did you have a chance to read it? It should at least show you a certain level of commitment to working with current-day data and creating models that fit a time-frame and event-frame.

As for Ligers and other hybrids, I was just trying to make a point that evolution in my eyes has a serious challenge when it comes to speciation and the sexual compatibilities of two specimens of varying species. In our world, two specimens of varying species cannot sustainably reproduce. In other words, evolution would have to produce a pair of specimens in a new species so as to ensure offspring. However, in the creationist models, the devolutions don't speciate the specimens, they simply raciate them (e.g. drosophiles with yellow eyes instead of black).