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Forums - General Discussion - Ben Stein to take on Darwinism on April 18

I was going to post here. But then I thought better of it!

Never argue with Creationists and Traffic Wardens, that's my motto (one of them anyway).

Anyway, we're probably all in the Matrix, although its the inferior one without the Kung Fu and spoons and Trinity but it does have Traffic Wardens and Fanatics as recompense...



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

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Sqrl said:
timmah said:

DNA: When scientists look for proof of intelligent life in outer space, they point their radio telescopes at the sky and search for ANY repeating, logical 'code' in the radio waves. It could even be a simple code, but science says even that would be solid evidence for intelligent life, as nature cannot produce such codes on it's own. DNA, on the other hand is the most complex code known to man, how then, is that not concidered to indicate the possiblity of intelligence behind the code?


 There is a big difference between a chain of polypeptides which have a proven method for selecting beneficial combinations and a radio signal that can both naturally reach across the galaxy and naturally contains a repeating pattern.  But you of course completely overstate the scientific position as a straw man.  Scientists would not simply take a repeating radio signal as proof of other life by itself, there would have to be something more because quite simply we don't know if there are things capable of producing such a signal.  Although if such natural signal producers existed it would be quite odd that we hadn't picked them up yet considering all of the natural signals we do pick up already and none of them have a pattern.

In short, the DNA code isn't considered ID because we can show basic simple rules that are fundamental to the laws of physics that produces that evolution and increasing complexity.  The radio signal would be widely considered as proof because we don't know of a way it can be done...although any scientist worth his salt would tell you that alone is not proof. 

Wrong, YOU don't concider DNS as proof of ID, I and many others see it as evidence (not proof, evidence). If it's so 'natural' for physics to produce evolution of increasing complexity eventually leading to life, why can intelligent scientists not even create life ON PURPOSE in a perfectly prepared and controlled test environment. The 'primordial ooze' that supposedly begat life would have had countless minerals in it that would work against and destroy the fragile peptide chains needed to create life. If we (intelligence) can't even do it in a controlled environment, how did it happen in a chaotic, destructive environment?

For both of these points you're proving quite ignorant on the topic and I mean that in the strictest sense. I don't believe you've even made a good faith attempt to understand what the current (or even former) big bang theories truly state.  The piece you are so clearly missing is that the big bang's biggest weakness according even to the scientist who aspouse it is that they cannot explain what causes it...they don't say it has no causal event..only that they cannot explain it. Although it is fair to say that there are two theories for a causal event which are being tested.  Neither of those theories break Newton's third or first law. So really the issue here was that you hadn't done enough research but were playing the critic anyways. 

Why the insults of my comprehension? And when you don't even truly get what I'm saying. You said that the biggest weakness is that the big bang can't be explained. That's exactly what I said in so many words. Where's the disagreement?? I understand what the big bang theory states, and I also understand that they cannot explain why it happened. The fact is that physics states that it shouldn't have happened without a huge amount of unexplained energy coming from an unknown source. You are willing to accept that you can't explain that, I simply believe that unexplained force was God. I don't deny the big bang at all, on the contrary, I believe it happened. I just believe God caused it.


I'm not entirely sure that you have a good grasp on what entropy truly is.  Generally speaking the principle of entropy is usually applied to thermodynamics.  I see the direction you are trying to take however and I have to ask how did you go from "without the introduction of an outside force" to the requirement that that outside force be something alive in the first place? 

Um... I understand that it relates to thermodynamics generally, and I have a good grasp of it. Also, I never said that the outside force 'had' to be alive, I just said "Such as life" as an EXAMPLE. It was clearly an example that was not exclusive to nonliving things. I was simply stating that the universe tends to go from varying energy (hot stars, cold outer space) and order (solar systems), to evenly distributed energy and lack of order (stars burnt out and solar systems destroyed). It is accepted that the universe will eventually 'burn out' as energy is equalized. This will be MANY billions of years in the future, but it is accepted that it will happen. My contention is simply that an outside force would be required to force a ball of mass in an equalized state to explode. You say this is unexplained, I believe that God did it. I have never said this is 'proof' of god, just evidence. It's also subjective as evidence always is.

As for your big bang require an outside energy source I think if you read up on the current theories I mentioned above you'll find that a multiversal approach is precisely the one scientists have taken.  As for timing being considered infinite I think you need to check your facts, to my knowledge there have never been experiments done that prove time is infinte and no scientists relies on this information because it is unproven.  But that portion is a secondary topic in this discussion since the outside force is precisely what  the top scientists from around the world are attempting to prove.  Again I would urge you to read up on these things before you make statements you are woefully uninformed about.

I have read up on these things. I don't disagree with the outside energy theory, in fact that is my point. I simply believe that God was the source for outside energy, the scientists don't have an answer as to what that energy was.


 None of these arguments are crediable, and while you're correct that there will never be enough proof for the diehards on either side you are actually incorrect if you think that only a "God" could have documented the events.  In fact with our recent replacement of the hubble telescope with the JWST we are recieving information and data about periods of time only a few hundred million years after the big bang, a period of time before even our sun was formed.  With better equipment it is not only possible, but likely, that in the future we will be getting similar data from only a few million years after and potentially even within a few years with good enough equipment.

My arguments are credible as EVIDENCE, but as I said, evidence is subjective to a large degree. I have never tried to disprove the big bang!! Please understand that. I fully believe that the big bang happened. We just differ on what caused it, and I don't think we can reconcile that with evidence.

And please, there's no need to insult my comprehension of these subjects. I'm not trying to use them to say a 'big bang' never happened, just that it could not have happened on it's own and required an ouside force. This is accepted by scientists. I'm merely suggesting that an unexplainable outside force with near infinite or infinite power sounds a whole lot like God.

Stay tuned, things will get exciting! 

They already have.

 


 


 


I appreciate you actually debating ideas (unlike some others) and not fully coming out and calling me an idiot, though you almost did . I just think people tend to think of all creationists as narrow minded fools and that could not be further from the truth, at least in my case.



The problem GatchayeA is that the science community continues to cling to an evolution theory that has no evidence to back it up. Even if they were trying to leave it open to God having a hand in it, they are still proposing theories that have no way of testing them, and have no evidence to even suggest them. The fossil record alone proves that evolution is a farce, but that is totally ignored in the name of science. They hold onto an unproven belief in hopes that we will one day find something that proves it. That is not science and never has been.



My Tag: 2 Timothy 3:1

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven! (John14:6)

Every second 2 people die . . . What if this is your second? 

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Kaza, that's not precisely true. Evolutionary theory makes many predictions that we can test, and we do test them. Now, most of what evolutionary theory can interestingly explain happened a long time ago, and it's true that it's difficult to find clear-cut evidence of what happened back then (though it's always seemed to me that the fossil record pretty strongly backed up theories of natural selection and slow change over time).

However, we assume (and all of us do this) that natural laws don't change over time (with the possible exception of the very beginning). Evolution makes a great many predictions about what we'll find now and in the future, and we repeatedly are able to confirm these predictions.

Similarly, it's hard to show definitively that gravity was the mechanism by which things fell down in the age of the dinosaurs. We don't have solid proof that the force things experienced was a function of their masses, etc.  However, because we have so much evidence for gravity in recent history, we believe that it makes sense to assume that things that fell in the distant past were probably under the influence of gravity.



Cryoakira said:
timmah said:
 

HEY! *knock knock*! Anybody there?? Did you read my earlier post?? We don't just bring 'our own faith', and where's the evidence you're bringing? All I've heard so far from you people is attacks on the intelligence of creationists and bigoted notions of what 'all of us' are like. That's your fatal flaw. You don't want to debate anybody on the merits of their arguments or positions, just to group us all into one big group of blind morons and write us off without so much as using one bit of intelligent debate to do so.

I'm done with this thread, as I see there is nobody here who is willing to actually debate (not insult and demean).

Edit: @dabaus513, don't expect too much actual debate on this issue. You're right, most of the self-proclaimed 'open minded' ones are the quickest to lump people into a group and insult them in order to avoid real debate when they don't agree. Notice godf basically said we aren't even worth talking to and should be ignored. You just can't debate people like that, they have nothing of any substance to say at all. Notice that nobody has actually countered a point, but just regurgitated biased insults on the 'stupid creationists'.


I read you. And I wonder what you do about those millions of scientific proofs about

- the age of our planet and the formation processus (a slow one) that are observe across univers.

- the dinosaurs bones spread all across the planet. Are they all fake ?

- the human bones that spead over a 2,4 millions years era, showing various shapes and form of our body across time. Are they all fake ?

- The physical changes of humanity during a period as small as 1 century.

 

If being a creationist is about ignoring all these FACTS to choose some obscur theories made by a religion that is barely 2k years old, then don't expect me to call it "sane" or "intelligent". 

 It's not.


Great points, humans changed over time, yet they stayed humans and did not change into something else.  How the heck does anything that you say here prove anything other than we have always been humans and merely have changed within our own species.  No creationist would deny that.  Show me proof that we came from another species, and if we did, why is that species still here?  Adaptation does not equal evolution. 



My Tag: 2 Timothy 3:1

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven! (John14:6)

Every second 2 people die . . . What if this is your second? 

www.goodpersontest.com

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Cryoakira said:
timmah said:
 

HEY! *knock knock*! Anybody there?? Did you read my earlier post?? We don't just bring 'our own faith', and where's the evidence you're bringing? All I've heard so far from you people is attacks on the intelligence of creationists and bigoted notions of what 'all of us' are like. That's your fatal flaw. You don't want to debate anybody on the merits of their arguments or positions, just to group us all into one big group of blind morons and write us off without so much as using one bit of intelligent debate to do so.

I'm done with this thread, as I see there is nobody here who is willing to actually debate (not insult and demean).

Edit: @dabaus513, don't expect too much actual debate on this issue. You're right, most of the self-proclaimed 'open minded' ones are the quickest to lump people into a group and insult them in order to avoid real debate when they don't agree. Notice godf basically said we aren't even worth talking to and should be ignored. You just can't debate people like that, they have nothing of any substance to say at all. Notice that nobody has actually countered a point, but just regurgitated biased insults on the 'stupid creationists'.


I read you. And I wonder what you do about those millions of scientific proofs about

- the age of our planet and the formation processus (a slow one) that are observe across univers.

- the dinosaurs bones spread all across the planet. Are they all fake ?

- the human bones that spead over a 2,4 millions years era, showing various shapes and form of our body across time. Are they all fake ?

- The physical changes of humanity during a period as small as 1 century.

 

If being a creationist is about ignoring all these FACTS to choose some obscur theories made by a religion that is barely 2k years old, then don't expect me to call it "sane" or "intelligent". 

 It's not.


Um... when did I deny any of this?? I didn't even discuss this. For one, if there is a god and he is of infinite power and ability, he could create the universe with the appearance of age. Second, we don't know for a fact that all these formations you talk about HAVE to take such a long period of time. Large geophysical events (such as Mt St Helens) can create large formations in a very short period of time. Third, carbon dating is the general way dates are decided upon, but carbon dating is notoriously unreliable. The same substance can return results that are wildly different during different tests, the most likely dates are kept, and the unlikely ones are disregarded. Problem is, the scientists preconcieved ideas of how old an item should be make this method flawed.

How in the world do dinosaur bones disprove creation? That makes no sense at all. The book of Job in the Bible describes what appears to be a dinosaur, and medieval drawings of dragons, chinese drawings of dragons, etc give the possibility that some dinosaurs were around at the same time as humans. Why could God not have created dinosaurs?

The 'missing link' fossils are in no way conclusive. Most are very incomplete (a skull, a few bones, etc) and are recreated by anthropoligists' best guesses. A long extinct ape could easily be mistaken for a humanoid animal. Without DNA testing, it's not possible to tell for sure whether or not they are really 'missing links'. As far as the 2.4 million year thing, refer back to carbon dating. I'm not claiming that these fossils don't exist, just that they're not conclusive.

When did I ever deny physical changes to the human species, and why is it assumed that a created species could not undergo physical changes? I think the ability for a species to adapt shows the absolute brilliance of the creator and how he designed an adaptive genetic code for changes in living conditions.

What?? A religion that's only 2k years old? The creation story goes back to the Jewish religion (WAAY older than 2k years) and even back to one of the first known civilizations in the fertile crescent. They had 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' as their creation story. Check your facts.

 



kazadoom said:
The problem GatchayeA is that the science community continues to cling to an evolution theory that has no evidence to back it up. Even if they were trying to leave it open to God having a hand in it, they are still proposing theories that have no way of testing them, and have no evidence to even suggest them. The fossil record alone proves that evolution is a farce, but that is totally ignored in the name of science. They hold onto an unproven believe in hopes that we will one day find something that proves it. That is not science and never has been.
 Wait, what....WHAT?!? No evidence huh? Like none, like all that stuff that I've been studying all these years doesn't exist? Strange arguement considering the source, very strange indeed, almost as if you took ones sides arguement and applied to the opposite side of the overall arguement.  Ironicly you are the head crab zombie, as that's about as good of an arguement as youre's.

 



If macroevolution is true, why did all the 'intermediary' species die, leaving definite divides between species?? Why are there no intermediaries still alive? If macroevolution is constantly happening, there would HAVE to be species that are still evolving into other species, and thus there should be living intermediary species.

I'm not arguing that changes don't happen on the microevolutionary scale, but the clear divide between species is a tough hurdle for the die hard MACROevolutionists to overcome.



But what would distinguish these intermediary species? They'd simply appear to be yet another subspecies. And, in fact, it's my understanding that we have found groups of animals that could breed with another group, which could breed with another group, which could not breed with the first group.

If your question is why we don't see a clear continuum of living species, then the answer is, again, natural selection. There isn't a continuum of environments, and the specialized species on either end are going to be more suitable for one sort of environment or another than the species in the middle. Evolution is supposed to be a very slow process - there's plenty of time for intermediary species to be reabsorbed.

Edit: To clarify the above, most biologists believe that most speciation occurs when two groups of the same species are separated and stop interbreeding.  One remains in something like its old environment, and doesn't change much.  The other slowly adapts to a new environment.  If a group is constantly interbreeding, you're never going to see two distinct species emerge - the 'intermediary' species are just the ancestors of the 'fully'-evolved species.



Escherichia said:
kazadoom said:
The problem GatchayeA is that the science community continues to cling to an evolution theory that has no evidence to back it up. Even if they were trying to leave it open to God having a hand in it, they are still proposing theories that have no way of testing them, and have no evidence to even suggest them. The fossil record alone proves that evolution is a farce, but that is totally ignored in the name of science. They hold onto an unproven believe in hopes that we will one day find something that proves it. That is not science and never has been.
 Wait, what....WHAT?!? No evidence huh? Like none, like all that stuff that I've been studying all these years doesn't exist? Strange arguement considering the source, very strange indeed, almost as if you took ones sides arguement and applied to the opposite side of the overall arguement.  Ironicly you are the head crab zombie, as that's about as good of an arguement as youre's.

 

Ok, keep drinking your koolaid that is fine by me.  You will know the truth one day, I just hope that it is not too late. 

 



My Tag: 2 Timothy 3:1

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven! (John14:6)

Every second 2 people die . . . What if this is your second? 

www.goodpersontest.com