Signature in the cell

[lucaspa]

Who is this guy named Science? Does he have a last name? Why are you interested in this fellow anyway? Scientists do have things to say about the bible all the time. Do you deny that?

Science is a discipline of study. It is a set of ideas.

Now, scientists are people. They can make statements as people, or they can make statements about science. Sometimes, individual scientists confuse those roles. For instance, on a personal level, Richard Dawkins is an atheist. That's his personal belief and its fine. However, what Dawkins does sometimes is state his personal belief as a conclusion of science. That he cannot do. Dawkins can say "I don't believe in God." That's fine. Dawkins can also say "Science shows a literal reading of Genesis 1-3 to be erroneous." What Dawkins cannot do is say "Science shows God does not exist." Do you see the differences in those statements?

Sometimes, like Dawkins, scientists deliberately try to portray their faith as a conclusion from science. More often, scientists are just careless about how they use language and accidentally say things that are anti-theist. What you need to do is learn whatthe stance of science is regarding the existence of God, God creating, and why science has this stance.

What you will find is that science is agnostic. Science cannot comment on whether God exists, whether God created the universe, or whether God supervises nature. Stephen Jay Gould stated science's position:
" To say it for all my colleageues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." SJ Gould, Impeaching a self-appointed judge. Scientific American, 267:79-80, July 1992. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/reviews/gould_darwin-on-trial.html

Now that you know that, you can compare statements by individual scientists and know whether they are speaking for themselves as people or speaking about science.

 

[Lighthouse]

Dawkins has nothing to do with this, so let's leave him out as a boogeyman.

Stuu brought him up. Maybe you should read the discourse before you spout off.

 

[lucaspa]

Stuu brought him up. Maybe you should read the discourse before you spout off.

It doesn't matter who brought Dawkins up. He still has no part in the discussion.

 

[lucaspa]

God created (Ge 1:1).

See:

Genesis 1:1 by Henry Morris

But the question is HOW did God create? Did God create by the method proposed by creationism? Or did God create by the processes discovered by science.

Science is reading God's other book -- Creation -- and that books is the one where God tells us how He created. Genesis 1-3 are there for theological messages, not to tell how God created.

What you have done is misread the Bible and fail to listen to God.

 

[lucaspa]

That doesn't stop the majority of the scientific community from making declarative statements regarding what is a fact.



I don't know who this science fellow is, but the philosophy of science states that nothing is ever certain.

That is not quite the case. The situation is that it is impossible, strictly speaking, to "prove" by either inductive or deductive logic. However, it is possible to disprove by deductive logic.

So the certain statements in science are the negative ones:
The earth is not flat.
The earth is not the center of the solar system.
Proteins are not the hereditary material.
Species are not fixed.
The earth is not less than 4 billion years old.
Etc.

What happens in science is that, after repeated attempts to falsify a hypothesis/theory (and in the process gaining supporting evidence), we accept a hypothesis/theory as provisionally true. We then use that hypothesis/theory as the basis of more complex explanations and new hypotheses/theories. Testing those new hypotheses/theories also are continuuing tests of the original hypothesis/theory.

Let's take an example from physics. We have the theory of heliocentrism: the planets (including earth) orbit the sun. We also have Kepler's theories of planetary motion (orbits are ellipses, etc.) and Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravity. We accept all of them as true. With those we plot the trajectories of spacecraft launched from earth to rendevous with other planets. Those trajectories are new hypotheses. When the spacecraft arrive when and where the hypotheses say they will, that becomes new supporting evidence for heliocentrism, Kepler's theories of planetary motion, and the theory of gravity.

Facts are, technically, repeated observations. However, notice that, in the example above, since theories predict repeated observations, those observations also intimately tied with the theory. That is why scientists often speak of some theories as "fact". Lay people do too. Nearly everyone speaks of "the earth is round" as a fact. I bet you do, too. Yet it is a theory.

Niles Eldredge does an excellent job of discussing how hypotheses/theories become "fact" in his book The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism. I urge you to read it.



They place their trust in a doctor, not this fellow called science whose last name you guys never mention. There is no such thing as scripture based treatment, so you are talking about a nonexistent situation.




I've never done such a thing, so you must be talking to a figment of your imagination.



What does have to do with anything being discussed?





Did I say this science fellow was unreliable? Never met him, and still don't know his last name. Statements of fact coming from the mouths of scientists, however, have been wrong before. Does that make them unreliable? For ultimate truth, yes. As a means of getting to ultimate truth. no. I am not using science as an ultimate yardstick to judge scripture. All I am saying is that the pronouncements of scientists in the past regarding scripture have had to be retracted when further scientific knowledge is gained. The point is that pronouncements of scientists regarding the truthfulness of scripture are not final. They show scripture to wrong and then a hundred years later, they show scripture to be right.



And it could be that scripture is completely right about everything. Scientists have no business making truth claims about scripture period.



Serpent dove gave you a quote of adrian rogers. I referred you to her quote. If she or him were mistaken, oh well. I don't research every thing a poster says on this forum and neither do you punk. Go suck on a rotten egg while waiting on your list of 51.[/quote]

 

[lucaspa]

God's statement (Ge 1:1). God said he created. Believe him (Jn 3:12).

Only God can make something ex nihilo (out of nothing). Learn about making wine and suspending the First Law of Thermodynamics.

The First Law does not have to be suspended. The Laws of Thermodynamics only apply within the universe. They don't apply to getting a universe to begin with.

Now, while I personally believe God created the universe, you don't have the data to say that "only God" can make something ex nihilo. In looking for a cause for the universe, there are 2 possible candidates for making the universe ex nihilo: the laws of the universe and quantum fluctuations.

In the first (also called Logical and Mathematical Necessity) the laws that describe the universe have the power to call the universe into being. In the second, quantum fluctuations are uncaused, and the universe is still, technically, nothing. As it turns out, the net energy of the unverse = 0.

Evolution: Nothing + time + chance = everything.

That is NOT evolution. First, "evolution" refers to biological evolution. That is restricted to the origin of the diversity of living things. Second, science in general does not say "nothing + time + chance = everything. The processes in physics and chemistry are not "chance". Gravity is not chance, it is a purely attractive force. So getting stars and planets is not "chance", but the deterministic result of the action of gravity. Getting elements are also not chance, but depend upon the deterministic processes of physics. Life is not chance, but is due to the deterministic processes of chemistry.

What you have done is make a strawman and then say "it's not real". Of course it is not real. It's a strawman!

Why I reject the theory of evolution:

1. For logical reasons

Those would be?

a. Well-trained scientists do not believe

You can always find a few crackpots who reject any idea. There were phlogiston chemists who went to their grave not "believing" in oxygen combustion. There are flat earthers. So this is not a logical reason.

b. Not founded on observation

c. Wholly unsupported by facts

That is just false. I suggest you go to PubMed and do a search on "evolution". Then start reading articles; they have the observations and "facts". Or you could read Origin of Species. Darwin included lots of observations and facts. Here is one set of observations on part of natural selection: more individuals are born than survive to reproduce:
"With plants there is a vast destruction of seeds, but, from some observations which I have made, it appears that the seedlings suffer most from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with other plants. Seedlings, also, are destroyed in vast numbers by various enemies; for instance, on a piece of ground three feet long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and out of 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects." Origin of the Species 6th Edition, pg 54

Do you know what the 9th Commandment is? Or do you regularly engage in such self-deception? If so, it's a wonder God can ever get thru to you.

2. Evolutionists do not have answers for:

a. The origin of life

This isn't part of evolution. Darwin made that clear in Origin:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

It appears that you have confused evolution with atheism.

BTW, there are answers for the origin of life. We have seen life arise from non-living chemicals:
http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html We can discuss it more if you want.

b. Fixity of the species

They aren't fixed. I have only part of the literature, but I have references to over 100 papers showing the evolution of new species from existing ones both in the lab and in the wild.

c. The fossil record

The fossil record absolutely supports evolution and falsifies creationism. In fact, in the fossil record for us -- H. sapiens -- we have transitional individuals linking us back thru 2 intermediate species to an obvious non-human species A. australopithecus. The fossil record is God shouting "I did it by evolution!"

d. The Second Law of Thermodynamics

There is no question to answer. There is only a misrepresentation of the Second Law by deceiving professional creationists (who actually know better).

e. Certain properties that exist which have nothing to do with "survival of the fittest"

Such as human male nipples? Not a problem for evolution. A problem for hyperselectionists like Dawkins used to be, but then hyperselectionism has been falsified.

2. Moral reasons

a. People are an accident

b. The depraved have believed ['quote]
Neither of these have anything to do with the accuracy of evolution, but reflect your own personal theological and moral problems.

So what if a particular species -- H. sapiens -- is not an inevitable product of evolution? There are at least 2 ways to go here:
1. Why would God care what the eventual physical form of a sapient species able to communicate with Him was? God isn't physical anyway! So why would He care about a particular physical form? All God has to do is set natural selection in motion and eventually natural selection is going to produce a sapient species capable of understanding God communicating with it.
2. There are at least 2 ways that God can influence evolution to get a particular species and be undetectable by science. So perhaps God did tinker with His creative process to get H. sapiens. Feel better now?

3. Theological reasons

a. No first parents

b. No paradise

c. No fall

c. Atonement collapses

Ah yes, the old creationist argument "Jesus is not needed". Serpentdove, whose sins did Jesus die for? Wasn't it your sins? Didn't Jesus also die for my sins? We sin. And we sin because we sin. Jesus is still needed.

"When a scientists says he believes the Bible--that doesn't give me anymore more faith in the Bible that gives me more faith in the scientist." ~ Adrian Rogers

Notice what Rogers is concerned with here: the Bible. He doesn't care about whether a scientist believes in God, or whether a scientist believes in Jesus, but whether a scientists believes in the Bible. Just what does Rogers worship and what is most important to him: the Bible or God?

Looks to me like Rogers is another one of those false idol worshippers. And you follow him? Right off the cliff of false idol worship? Step back, Serpentdove, before it is too late.

 

[Stuu]

Actually the only claim you can make that can be substantiated about this is that no one else has given an explanation that you find as equally satisfactory.

I think I can reasonably appeal to the definition of the word explanation.

There is no other explanation in existence.

Stuart

 

[Lighthouse]

I think I can reasonably appeal to the definition of the word explanation.

There is no other explanation in existence.

Stuart

Liar.

 

[Stuu]

Liar.

Thank you for your concession.

Although you have a strange way of saying that you don't have an alternative as an explanation.

I'll take "liar" as a term of endearment, coming from you.

Stuart

 

[Lighthouse]

I'll take "liar" as a term of endearment, coming from you.

You should. If I didn't love you I'd let you live in delusion.

 

[The Barbarian]

I'll take "liar" as a term of endearment, coming from you.

You should. My first memorable experience with Lighthouse was when he faked a quote on me in the shoutbox. Pastor Kevin berated me for it until he realized Lighthouse just made it up.

 

[Stuu]

I fully concede the evidence says the earth is only about 5000 years old.

Stripe used to do that to me too!

Stuart

 

[The Barbarian]

Apparently, their religion doesn't object to lying if it's for a "good cause."