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Yes, its obvious and the only way one could deny it would be to deny science or to have a belief that the universe is not the same as it is here or that it has not been the same over time.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics describes energy as everlasting; for if energy cannot be created or destroyed then it must have been there forever.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a limiting principle; for as positive energy goes to negative energy in the universe (everything in nature) it will eventually hit the lowest point it can. Trace that back and it shows there must be a beginning. Energy must always go to negative entropy, which means that it had to have a start as well and could not remain stagnant for years; moreover, the universe could not fluctuate from positive to negative to positive entropy because that too would break the 2nd Law.
Therefore, an everlasting source of energy (1st Law) that is outside of nature must have transferred energy into the universe (2nd Law) for us to explain existence. OR the universe has not always been the same as it was in the past, which would then replace uniformitarianism; thus, evolution and geologic evolution would be invalid. OR the universe is not the same in every location, which would mean that theoretically there is no such thing as gravity in other parts of the universe. However, there is a universal gravity constant in physics implying that the universe is clearly gravitationally "constant" and that the universe is limited.
Thus, this everlasting source of energy outside of the universe is called "God."
The laws of thermodynamics only apply to a contained area where no outside energy enters or leaves. The way you describe them being used is in an open area where outside energy is going in (and vice versa) so they cant apply and is invalid. The universe and our world is not a contained area by any means so these laws dont apply. Your argument is invalid.
Everything in nature is one big giant amass of energy. Therefore, the argument still applies because, as I have said, this being must be outside of the field of nature but must still be capable of shaping it. However, regardless of how you look at it, the energy within nature is required to have a limit and is still required to have an end and beginning. Therefore, it does not apply.
Space is a vaccum devoid of energy. Every planet and star is it's own contained cell of energy in which the laws apply. But they do not apply to the whole universe. Also, the assertion of this god outside of time and space and whatever is rediculous. What reason do we have to believe it and how do we test this? We dont and we can't.
The way he is stating it, the laws of Thermodynamics are used upon the universe as a whole. And, seeing as there is no energy entering or leaving the universe as a whole, the argument is still valid because it is technically being used on a closed system
In that sense what does it prove? Nothing. The only thing that the the laws of thermodynamics would be usefull in "disproving" would be evolution on earth IF they applied which they dont because the earth in relation to the universe is not a closed system.
I'm not sure about the rest of your argument, but I think most believers in god would say god is more than just "everlasting source of energy outside of the universe". And if god is more than "everlasting source of energy outside of the universe" I think your argument fails to prove god (as defined by most dictionaries and believers) exists.
How does one define God then? What type of "god" can be attributed to "God" status? Regardless, it proves that there has to be something outside of nature that is required to be eternally powerful.
Take Catholicism. Catholics think god is intelligent. Lets say your thermodynamics example is correct (I don't think it is), all it proves is that there is a energy outside of the universe, not that Catholics definition of god exists. I think you can take any other theology and argue the same thing. I think your being too liberal in your use of the word god since most would say god is not just "energy" or "power".
Look up the definition of god. You will see that god, by common definition, is more than just a force. So while vague, god does have some intrinsic characteristics.
There is a good article here about your thermo dynamics argument. http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/secondlaw.html I will readily admit that I don't have a good enough understanding of cosmology, relativity, etc. to make good scientific arguments on the subject. But as the author points out a gap in scientific understanding of nature does not mean god exists. In early history, god was used to explain "everything". As science advanced, we were able to prove that most things have an explanation that does not involve god. Because of this I think that it is disingenuous to simply place god as the explanation for anything that science can't prove at the moment. You can't say god did that, have it proved that he did not, then say oh, god did that, have it disproven, etc. At some point you need to concede that the more likely explanation is that science just has not solved that yet.
Going back to my original point, why call a force that "kicked" off the universe god? Why not just call it "first force" or "Gravity"? It's just a force, not an omnipresent intelligent creator. In other words why does the force that started the univers (if there is even such a thing) need to be intelligent?
Going back to my original point, why call a force that "kicked" off the universe god? Why not just call it "first force" or "Gravity"? It's just a force, not an omnipresent intelligent creator. In other words why does the force that started the univers (if there is even such a thing) need to be intelligent?
By nature, something that is limitless energy has limitless capability, which means limitless knowledge and limitless ability to be anywhere; for He would be the very thing that transferred His energy to the universe.
I think your tendency to anthropomorphize the "force" may be interfering with your reasoning. We want "god" to be like us (intelligent, creative, moral) even through there is no reason for this to be the case.
Please explain how limitless energy=limitless capability= limitless knowledge? Knowledge does not increase with energy?
I think your tendency to anthropomorphize the "force" may be interfering with your reasoning. We want "god" to be like us (intelligent, creative, moral) even through there is no reason for this to be the case.
Talk to Plato about that one ;) Realm of Forms to an extent. And who said anything about it being human like? I simply said that it is limitless in power and knowledge. You have jumped to the conclusion (if I remember that this debate is about correctly) that I am attributing human characteristics to it. You were the one, if I am not mistaken, to say that God has intrinsic human like characteristics.
Please explain how limitless energy=limitless capability= limitless knowledge? Knowledge does not increase with energy?
If something has limitless energy, then it has limitless power. If it has limitless power, then it can do anything. If something can do anything, then it can know anything. If it can know anything, then it can know everything. Thus, limitless energy, capability, and knowledge.
Knowledge is a very human quality and definitely not something you can associate with a simple force.
I think your mixing you terms. Lets say limitless energy does imply limitless power. Power in this equation power is "the rate of doing work" http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/work.html power is not the "power" that a president or dictator has. Your mixing the two definitions of power to transform it in to something else.
1) You said it right there, "the rate of doing work." If something can do anything, then it can do anything, which includes knowing.
2) And even if you find this argument as dumb, it still does not deny the fact that an eternal power source is required to answer my first argument. And because this being would be outside of nature, then it will never be able to be answered via science. Therefore, one must use rationality to determine what it is. What is it? And if this being did create everything, it still does not answer the "why?" Thus, the only logical answer is that it a God that plays a role in the universe it created.
Well right away your saying "If something can do anything..", that's a leap. We have yet to establish that a force that "kicked off" the universe "can do anything". All your theory said is that there was some energy outside the universe. It did not prove that force can do "anything"; in fact the force only did one thing: "kick off the universe".
To be clear, I don't find any of your arguments dumb. They are very interesting to me. In fact, I really hope that one day someone can convince me that god exists because I think god makes life and living much easier in many ways.
So back to the theory... The origin of the universe is one place where science does not have all the answers, but there are theories about how the universe "started" that don't require god or the breaking of the laws of thermodynamics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model. If there is any theory besides the god theory, then we can't say the god theory is "right", all we can say is "it's in the running". As I said before, just because science can't prove it today, does not mean or even imply it's god.
Maybe another way to look at this would be from my view. In a nutshell, science does a very good job at answering the questions of the universe. Assuming there are a finite number of questions, I don't see why (given enough time) science can't answer them all. Over the history of man, we have gone from "everything seems supernatural" (the sun, lightning, volcano, the moon, clouds, etc) to now "nothing seems supernatural". This is a very impressive feat over a short period of time. So to me it's hard to understand how anyone in modern times, given this amazing track record of science, can have faith in the idea of god, over a scientific explanation of things. I do understand the desire for there to be a god (dying and going to heaven is much better than the alternative), but that desire does not make it true.
Well in all fairness, I must say that the 'energy being' must be conscious for it to be capable of building the universe with all its laws and regulations.
Must be? I mean our understanding of the universe thus far points to a very small and simple set or particles/forces. All the complexity has evolved (at the molecular and chemical level, then later Darwinian evolution for animals) from these few simple things. If you think everything just "snapped" in to existence, then yes, it would seem too amazing and complex to be "natural". But, if you imaging things slowly growing an changing over billions of years, it makes much more sense that it could happen without intelligence.
On the flip side if you did think everything just appeared, how did that work exactly? How did god get all those tiny pieces in the right place? There must be trillions and trillions of details that need to be "managed" when building the universe "intelligently"?
--All the complexity has evolved (at the molecular and chemical level, then later Darwinian evolution for animals) from these few simple things. If you think everything just "snapped" in to existence, then yes, it would seem too amazing and complex to be "natural". But, if you imaging things slowly growing an changing over billions of years, it makes much more sense that it could happen without intelligence.--
Firstly I don't believe everything just snapped into existence. There was a certain order in which things came, each thing depending on each other in the creation story. First, there was light, then sky, then dry ground etc. So I dont think everything just popped into existence. Furthermore the God I speak of is one with infinite understanding and also infinite capabilities. there is nothing too hard for him to understand( he made it all from scratch) or too small for him to see there is no trillions of details he needs to go through.
I mean given the complexity and intricacy of the universe even 7 days seems like the blink of an eye in "building" terms.
I'm trying to see it from your point of view. Lets say your right and god is intelligent and created the universe in a few days. How did it work exactly? Did he know where everything went ahead of time (I'm thinking of that tiny hair on the right front leg of a dust mite)? How did he physically go from the plan to the physical structures being there and assembled properly?
I mean it would be one thing to say the universe magically appeared. I get that. But to say that god was intelligent and purposely built the universe brings up issues in my mind of how that intelligence was transformed in to the physical structures that are here.
--I mean given the complexity and intricacy of the universe even 7 days seems like the blink of an eye in "building" terms.--
To be fair I don't believe we can say God literally built the worlld in a few days like how we understand it. Remember that for the first three days there was nothing to mark the difference between day and night. So in all fairness I can argue that if there was nothing to mark the day with for the first few days then GOd wouldn't simply switch to days on the fourth day. He must have been speaking of day in another sense.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Secondly the Bible also says ( I assume your talking about the Bible) that God sees a day differently from us.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8
The writer wasn't stupid to make two statements that are completely paradoxical. He is trying to make a simple statement that God experiences time from a different perspective in heaven. So I'm suspecting a rolex would be worthless up there.
--I'm trying to see it from your point of view. Lets say your right and god is intelligent and created the universe in a few days. How did it work exactly? Did he know where everything went ahead of time (I'm thinking of that tiny hair on the right front leg of a dust mite)? How did he physically go from the plan to the physical structures being there and assembled properly?
Luke 12:7 says "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
Its to show that God is intimate with what he makes. It is exceedingly difficult for us to know how many hairs are on our head but he knows. HE could have counted them but I doubt he needed to. I just think He 'knows'. Its called omniscience.
Secondly God obviously had a plan in my opinion. Whenever I read the creation story you would notice that he had an order in which he made things and each thing is dependent on each other.
Yeah. This debate almost always comes down to the same point of faith. You have it and can use it to support your belief in god, the bible, etc. I don't have it, so I can't believe in those things (in the literal sense). Maybe you have a different view?
The thing that was initially interesting about this debate was the thermodynamics idea since it tries to prove god without using faith. Like many non believers, I would love for there to be proof of god because the idea of god (especially the afterlife) is so attractive.
I don't then science has really attempted to explore the possibilities of whether God exists. They use 'beat around the bush' tests and theories to disprove his existence and never use one theory to tackle it straightforward. I am trying to learn the tricks and the trade of Thermodynamics and these other scientific principles so I can employ them in my debates but until then........ Another problem I have is with these theories( whether they have been proven or not) is that I do not want to use a theory to support my arguments of God and a few years from now they are dis-proven. I believe my belief should stand side by side with my evidence and for the same time period. Which means I cant be using thermodynamics to disprove my theory today, then use evolution tomorrow because the former has been dis-proven . I want to use something that is a standstill and I've come to realise that scientists keep echoing the same thing over and over again "Where only 99% sure". That really annoys me. Good debate though
Hmm. I have never really seen any credible scientific theories that try and disprove god. There must be people trying but I don't see how you can? When your at the boundaries of understood science (how did the universe start, etc) it's pretty easy to insert god especially if its just a force or energy. But to me, as you start giving god human attributes (intelligent, sentient, creative, creator, etc) it's harder for me to believe.
There are four forces in nature Electromagnetism, Gravity, Weak force and Strong force. These four forces rarely occur on a plant the odds of them occurring on a planet like ours is 1 in 1,000,000 or more. It does happen just anywhere. Add it would occur after the Big Bang which was 13.7 Billion years ago. But our sun was formed 4.6 Billion years ago. That is a 9.1 billion year distance between the big bang and our suns formation. Which means it is either a miracle or a doing by some being very advance with incredible technology. THe type of technology to create planets.
I believe that we are ever closer to finding clues of us and our planet being create by being from another galaxy. I do believe in God and that he did in fact create our Planet.
I question all of your arguments... As far as I know the four forces of nature exist on every planet. If you can reference material that says otherwise, I would love to see it. As already stated the universe and the number of planets is huge so your odds are off I think. Why is the time between the Big Bang and the formation of our sun an issue? Suns are being created and destroyed all the time and by no means points to incredible technology? Of course you are free to believe in god but your arguments are by no means proving that belief is correct.
WOW !!!! You can't seriously take this line of science based argument and then say because it's billions of years between the Big Bang and the creation of Earth a miracle must have happened. THIS IS JUST PLAIN IGNORANT !!!! The stars evolved over many generations. It's why starting from a universe of Helium we have heavy metals today. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT JUST DON'T SAY ANYTHING !!!! I rarely get this rude but this mistaken psuedo science is evil.
I'm gonna ask a serious question here, which is not intended as ad hom or anything.
Do you actually take anything away from debates on this site?
I've seen you mention the second law since you joined the site, and I've seen several people (myself included) rebut your use of it successfully. Yet you still continue to use it as an argument.
Funnily enough, in our little debate on it, you still haven't responded to me. Seeing as you have nothing further to say on that debate, would that not count as a successful rebuttal?
1) I don't know what you are talking about. I responded to all of them.
2) Clearly since I didn't see it and you are telling me now that I never responded, it shows that simply because one does not respond that he or she is not "defeated."
3) Measuring a debate one who wins based on who leaves first is a horrible measuring tool.
4) If I said that I'm not responding to you anymore, then I felt that the argument was going no where and you were going in circles, making useless arguments, etc. Thus there was no point in responding.
The notion of a victor in debate is silly to me anyway. However, say this were face to face, and I made a rebuttal, and you just walked off, regardless of whether you thought the argument was going nowhere, would make you look like your point had been defeated, no?
Anyway, in case you didn't see it, the argument you haven't responded to is here.
So the quote " What I will say however, is that plugging God in is lazy, especially seeing as we are in the most exciting time for physics since Einstein." is not something you'd respond to? You agree that God in science is lazy?
See my rebuttal to your 2nd law of thermodynamics argument. Your're right on the Newtonian level, but wrong at the quantum level. Virtual particles can be observed to pop in and out of existence. CAN BE OBSERVED is the key phrase here. Can you show me a documented observed creating something from nothing.
You said: "the universe could not fluctuate from positive to negative to positive entropy because that too would break the 2nd Law". This only applies to newtonian physics. At the quantum level there is a thing called a virtual particle which literally pops into existence and then disappears.
The point is that the Newtonian laws do not apply at the scale of the singularity that began the Big Bang. No miracles necessary. You are REALLY on to something when you talk about everlasting energy though.
Actually, no. Because the particles that appear are in space, while the Big Bang was before space, which would mean that there would be something from nothing. Virtual particles are saying that in space they appear, which means that something was there before. I understand how it can seem as if the 2nd Law is violated. However, the second law only applies to closed systems. This is not a closed system; for it can take from other energies. My argument is in the larger scope of everything; as in the effective nothingness that exploded/expanded could not fluctuate through time from negative eternity to positive eternity. Thus, the argument still stands.
By bringing up quantum physics, an unproven science, you are simply offering possibilities, not hard evidence. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe they have found even one of their theories to be proven about quantum mechanics. In short, all it is is speculation. Please don't bring speculation into a debate about facts
There are a few key concepts we must cover before explaining this argument. The first is the concept of entropy. Entropy (S), in its technical definition, is the measure of the amount of disorder in a system. It is measured in the units energy per temperature, traditionally Joules/Kelvin. A system in which we measure S=10JK-1 has more disorder than a system in which we measure S=5. We say that the system in which S=5 is “ordered” and the system in which S=10 is “chaos”.
Thermodynamics is the physics behind macroscopic systems based on the statistics of their particle (micro and nanoscopic) compositions. For example, temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of each of the particles that makes up a macroscopic object—and thus is part of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics has 3 laws (or 4 laws, depending on your definitions). The second law of thermodynamics states that the change in entropy is greater than 0. In math language:
dS > 0
This means that starting at point A and moving to point B, the overall trend of S will be increasing, and have a positive slope. Now, as for the heart of the matter, and what this argument is all about.
The Big Bang is a state of a extremely low entropy. Since the Big Bang, entropy has of course continually increased. But the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not only apply on the positive direction of the time axis within the block universe. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applies along any axis within the block universe. As such it is, statistically speaking, more probable that your half-melted ice cube came from a glass of warm water, rather than a fully formed ice cube. (Of course, we know that half-melted ice generally starts as fully formed ice, but this is due to the Big Bang—the initial state of low entropy.)
The reasoning behind this is simple to see. Imagine 2 H2O molecules bumping around. There is a pretty good chance that these 2 molecules will at one point come in close proximity, and form a half-melted (albeit microscopic) ice cube. In fact, this will happen every couple of seconds (the actual time varies depending on the substance). If we add more H2O molecules, the probability will drop, of course, but it still happens every so often for small numbers of molecules at a time. In any glass of water, there are always tiny pockets or duos of slow-moving (ice) molecules, and pockets of fast-moving (gaseous) molecules. There are many ways in which H2O molecules can combine to become a partial ice cube, but there are VERY few ways in which H2O molecules can combine to form a complete block of ice. Thus, given enough repetitions, H2O molecules will at some point form half-melted ice, and at another point (with a vastly increased number of repetitions) become a fully formed block of ice.
The same argument applies to the Big Bang, but with greater implications.
1 First, however, we must briefly consider the god-concept. The god-concept, as it is usually defined, is an orderly entity (or system). If the god-concept is not orderly, then it is chaotic. But if god is chaotic, then he can not directly cause things to happen at his will. To even have a will means that god is ordered, and to willfully cause the Big Bang would mean that he has a lower entropy than the universe after the Big Bang. (Remember, dS > 0!) For more on a chaotic god-concept, read the Argument From Non-Cognitivism. If you’ve made it this far, and you are a believer, then you agree that your god-concept is orderly. Now we can get to the root of the problem:
Statistically speaking, as said before, pockets of low entropy within a high-entropy system are inevitable. They may be either offset by an increase in entropy elsewhere, or a statistical fluke that while improbable is certainly not impossible. As long as dS > 0 and entropy tends to be higher, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has not been broken. But, again, statistically speaking, these pockets of low entropy are most likely the result of simple probability. Consider that these low entropy systems were directly (or willfully) caused by another system with even lower entropy. Surely, we get into an impossible infinite regress (not to mention that a system with 0 entropy cannot exist!).
Thus, the Big Bang is, statistically, the result of an inevitable improbability that exists solely due to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and is relevant throughout the block universe. We may picture it mathematically as such:
The Big Bang has entropy S.
A hypothetical god is either orderly or chaotic.
Hypothetical gods have a personhood.
Personhood implies orderliness.
A hypothetical god is orderly, and thus has low entropy. (See note1 for more detail.)
In order for god to directly cause the Big Bang, he must have a lower entropy (S-a, where a is positive, real number).
The probability of the Big Bang coming from a higher state of entropy (S+b, where b is a positive, real number) approaches P=1, normalizing over the condition of many opportunities for the Big Bang to happen.
The probability of the Big Bang coming from an even lower state of entropy (god) approaches Q=0 (since Q=1-P).
The difference in probability is thus the limit of 1 divided by the limit of 0, which of course approaches infinity.
There is an infinitely greater chance that the Big Bang is the result of randomness than the result of even more order.
Your reasoning is good until the end. I skimmed over it so I'm not sure if there are any other non sequiturs in there.
It doesn't follow that God being lesser in entropy than the Big Bang results in the denial of God. It also doesn't follow that the Big Bang came from a state of higher entropy. Therefore, the argument is a non sequitur.
In fact, I actually think you advocated my theory.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't the laws of physics break down at the big bang singularity? I mean, at some point if you trace it back far enough you have to divide energy by zero area to calculate the density of the early universe. this is impossible mathematically. How can we hold to the laws of thermodynamics when math doesn't even work?
Additionally, this is obvious psuedo-science and not real science. The goal is to prove what is already held to be true aka that there is a god, and I'm pretty sure science doesn't work by assuming the conclusion and working backwards.
Well based on that logic then uniformitarianism is not true. Uniformitarianism is the basis for the evidence for evolution. Therefore, the basis for the evidence for evolution has no backing.
You're correct. Uniformitarianism may not be true AT THE MOMENT of the big bang. I do not dispute that. Evolution occurred many billions of years AFTER the big bang.
I could be wrong about the laws of physics or whatever breaking down. The math just doesn't make sense. You simply cannot divide by zero. So, trying to trace your logic back, I get to a point where I have to do something completely impossible like divide by zero, and at that point I have to throw up my hands and say... 'listen, I really don't have a clue what is going on here' If i can't trust math anymore, I'm certainly not going to trust any of the laws of thermodynamics.
And if you can make an exception to uniformitarianism then it is no longer uniformitarianism. This means that the entire basis for all of science is now gone and it is no way trustworthy. Therefore, the basis of my argument, the basis for evolution, the basis for thermodynamics, the basis for quantum mechanics, and the basis for astronomy are all unknown for we have no ability to understand it.
[i]And if you can make an exception to uniformitarianism then it is no longer uniformitarianism.[/i]
Why can't it be uniform for 15 billion years and simply non-existent for everything before that? Even saying "before" in this case doesn't make sense if space-time does not exist. Our laws of physics are about how energy behaves in space-time. If there is no space-time, there are no laws of physics.
Don't take my word on it though. This is a quote from a lecture delivered by Stephen Hawking in 1996.
"At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang. "
Anyone seen the documentary "A Case for the Creator?" Doesn't necessarily explain that God exists but it grabs all elements in science and new discoveries and theories, puts them all together to show that in every new discovery there is a link that we were created by someone, I personally believe that God exists just by looking outside and knowing that elements in nature cannot form themselves together like that, researching into evolution they find major flaws in that there is no link to an original ancestor that has been proven, in every attempt know to show that the bible contradicts itself, or to show that certain events stated in the bible are false, every attempt has failed, God exists, that's for certain
This is an interesting question. Here is one of the problems I have with god existing:
To believe in god requires faith. For many people this faith is "blind" in that they don't inquire in to the deeper meaning/consequences of god and abandon rational thought. Not everyone, some people. So now I have to live (on the planet) with fellow men who would believe in something on faith alone and abandon rational thought. This fine IF that man is "kind". But, what if that man is not "kind"? What if that man feels perfectly justified walking up to a your girl and shooting her because she wants education for herself and other your girls (the Taliban, Muslim fundamentalists, have done this recently). This is very very scary that "blind faith" allows a person to feel justified to do this.
Now of course this is not to say that because you believe in god you are going to do bad things, not at all. There are many good and wonderful faithful people in this word (most faithful are good), but for the minority with "unkind" beliefs, faith is very dangerous and scary. Lets take a less extreme example. Let says a person has "faith" that god exists and insists that school children are taught that god does exists (I'm not saying most faithful want this, but some do). Lets say that person becomes president of the united states and is able to force all school children to be taught that god is real. Now this persons "faith" has become my reality (my children are forced to "learn" another person "faith"). While not the same as shooting someone, it's still scary to me. What it that persons "faith" told them that the Aryan race was the "proper" race and all other should be eradicated. Scary.
Lets say that person becomes president of the united states and is able to force all school children to be taught that god is real. Now this persons "faith" has become my reality (my children are forced to "learn" another person "faith"). While not the same as shooting someone, it's still scary to me. What it that persons "faith" told them that the Aryan race was the "proper" race and all other should be eradicated. Scary.
Just as Hitler had faith in the philosophy of eugenics, which is founded in Social Darwinism, which is founded in evolution, which is founded in supposed evidence for evolution, which is founded in people's interpretation of different variables in the world, which is founded in people's perceptions, which is founded in faith.
What you are really saying here is that you do not want your child to be taught anything because if something is founded in faith then it could turn out bad. However, everything is founded in faith, which means that you do not want your child taught anything. OR you simply want your opinion taught and no others because you have faith that yours are correct, which is founded in the ideology of infallibility.
There is a difference between having faith god exists vs faith that the earth revolves around the sun. I can't prove either is true but the basis of the relation between the earth and the sun is based on experiments, measurements, observations, willingness of the scientist to admit that they could be wrong (this is an important one). I would have no trouble having faith that god exists if that idea could pass all the same scrutiny as other "theories" that I do have faith in.
Well, it depends on the source. We have transcripts, audio, video of recent history, so yes I believe that with a high degree of certainty. But the further you go back the less I believe it 100%. It comes back to evidence. Archeological evidence, is good. Hearsay, myths, etc. is not history that I believe with a high degree of confidence. Also, historians, like scientists, are willing to change their views as new evidence is presented. it's not blind unwavering faith. They can be persuaded to change their view with the correct evidence. You can't persuade a religious fundamentalists no matter what evidence you give them.
I think it's very possible a man named Jesus lived and did many great things. I don't believe he is the son of god, performed miracles, etc. Jesus as a historical figure in no way supports the existence of god. Like the rest of the bible, stories about Jesus and his miracles are "fables" and metaphors.
I haven't read it all because when I was younger the only real reading I did was for debating, which meant researching a certain topic for a certain time and then applying it. However, when I got older I realized that I needed to sit down and read it so from a bare reading along with analyzing, I have gotten through a bit of the Old Testament but mainly the New.
Bits and pieces, like most of the Old Testament. If you are going to bring up Jeremiah 17:9 the yes, I agree. This is why I try to be careful as to whether I believe or not.
This verse is talking about scribes who are not of the Lord. Remember how Jesus said that the scribes and Pharisees were not of the God? Its talking of the same. It can also be talking of scribes who know the law and simply do not translate the truth. There are multiple ways to answer this. I prefer the 1st one.
Maybe. Maybe not. Neither of us were there to know exactly what they meant. I just know what was written in the Bible.
How about in Genesis 1:26...
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.”
Theologians say that the Old Testament is like a room that has no light in it; the New Testament is the newly illuminated room. Everything was in it all along; however, not until Jesus came could anyone truly see.
Regardless, it clearly shows it here. It doesn't matter if it was not mentioned until the New. However, the Bible uses the number 3 multiple times. One such example is "Holy, Holy, Holy" in Isaiah 6:3
I do believe in Noah's ark; however, not of every species. It says that every kind was put onto the ark, which denies species. There is 1st level speciation and 2nd level speciation and the Bible only affirms the 2nd one, which is fluctuations of like kinds. One like kind encompasses many species.
No. If you want to tell me that I have 'faith' in my keyboard, and that I can't prove it exists, then you have no place on a debate site.
Perceptions have nothing to do with faith. Faith is the quantum leap to belief in something that we cannot see, smell, touch or taste. Perception then opposes that. Perhaps a dictionary would do you some good?
No. If you want to tell me that I have 'faith' in my keyboard, and that I can't prove it exists, then you have no place on a debate site.
1) How do you know it exists? Can your eyes be deceiving you?
2) That is to claim infallibility of yourself. Are you infallible?
Perceptions have nothing to do with faith. Faith is the quantum leap to belief in something that we cannot see, smell, touch or taste. Perception then opposes that. Perhaps a dictionary would do you some good?
1) Perceptions have everything to do with faith. You have no evidence to advocate you ability to perceive things correctly. Do you see things correctly all the time? Are you infallible?
2) Faith is trust.
3) Don't insult people when you disagree with them.
You have destroyed any credibility you have by jumping on my keyboard analogy. Because I am a rational person, I can say to myself that it definitely exists, yes. To say "Well, I could be imagining it" is the kind of argument that seems to make you appear to be very deep and intelligent, but in fact it's a rather childish and petty way of scoring points, it is of no real matter.
You seem to love the word "infallible", and let's remind ourselves that who is infallible? The Pope, and not me, to answer your question. The evidence I have to advocate my ability to see things correctly is the conjunction of;
Hearing what sounds like a keyboard - when -
I type on what looks like my keyboard - at the same time as -
I physically feel my fingers work that very same keyboard that I can see and hear. If you want to say that this is not enough, then you must assume that no human can know or assume anything whatsoever. It fails me then how you could tolerate the notion of a God, but try and convince me that me keyboard might not be real. That's a new one.
Perceptions are what give evidence. If we cannot perceive evidence, how do we know evidence exists?
Faith =/= trust. This is quite simply not correct. I trust people on the basis of past experience, I do not have faith wherever I can help it (though sometimes, you have to have faith that McDonald's really served you beef and not something else, etc). The definitions of the two words are absolutely not the same thing, in this point I do implore you to seek a dictionary for clarification.
Your style of argument is one I have encountered before. You use absolutes, which forces people to concede, and distracts from the fact that they are not really conceding anything. Telling me that the 99.999% surety with which I state that my keyboard exists; "IS NOT 100% THEREFORE YOU ARE WRONG" is utterly inefficacious in a reasonable debate.
To end, I will concede that it was most infantile to insult you. I apologise, and I sincerely state that nothing typed above in this reply is meant to be insulting, my dear Sir, and I do not lie when saying this. Maybe it'll get your blood boiling, but it is not meant as an insult.
You have destroyed any credibility you have by jumping on my keyboard analogy. Because I am a rational person, I can say to myself that it definitely exists, yes. To say "Well, I could be imagining it" is the kind of argument that seems to make you appear to be very deep and intelligent, but in fact it's a rather childish and petty way of scoring points, it is of no real matter.
You are claiming infallibility. Are you infallible? How do you know that the very thing that you are seeing is not really there? There are people who see things that aren't real. So I repeat: are you infallible?
You seem to love the word "infallible", and let's remind ourselves that who is infallible? The Pope, and not me, to answer your question. The evidence I have to advocate my ability to see things correctly is the conjunction of;
You are claiming yourself to be infallible? That is truly arrogant.
Hearing what sounds like a keyboard - when -
I type on what looks like my keyboard - at the same time as -
I physically feel my fingers work that very same keyboard that I can see and hear. If you want to say that this is not enough, then you must assume that no human can know or assume anything whatsoever. It fails me then how you could tolerate the notion of a God, but try and convince me that me keyboard might not be real. That's a new one.
No human can know anything with any true certainty. And you apparently have never truly talked to a Christian then. Christians claim that because we are so infallible the only being that can bring forth understanding is God. Do I know that the Bible was written by a man 200 years ago? No. Do I know that the Holocaust actually happened? No. But I go on faith that the Bible was written over successive generations many hundreds and thousands of years ago and that the Holocaust did happen. For one to claim that they know these two events to happen with 100% uncertainty, they are arrogant.
Perceptions are what give evidence. If we cannot perceive evidence, how do we know evidence exists?
Thats the point; I'm not sure you even understand what you just said. Can I perceive that someone threw a red ball? Yes. Can this perception be incorrect? Yes. To claim that I know it is a red ball is to claim that I am infallible and am incapable of interpreting it incorrectly. Same applies with evidence; for we can all perceive and interpret data differently. So no to the first part but yes to the second.
Faith =/= trust. This is quite simply not correct. I trust people on the basis of past experience, I do not have faith wherever I can help it (though sometimes, you have to have faith that McDonald's really served you beef and not something else, etc). The definitions of the two words are absolutely not the same thing, in this point I do implore you to seek a dictionary for clarification.
You have faith that the people you are around are not serial killers. Do you not? Do you know where their hearts are at? How do you know that they are not intentionally keeping you close so that they can hurt you? Many people have done that because the world is not a trusting place. You have to find faith in people. Therefore, faith does equal trust.
Your style of argument is one I have encountered before. You use absolutes, which forces people to concede, and distracts from the fact that they are not really conceding anything. Telling me that the 99.999% surety with which I state that my keyboard exists; "IS NOT 100% THEREFORE YOU ARE WRONG" is utterly inefficacious in a reasonable debate.
I have done no such thing. You on the other hand have done the very same that you are arguing against. You are claiming that you know with 100% certainty that the keyboards are there; that is an absolute. I am saying that we don't know, which is a claim of non absolutism because we do not know.
To end, I will concede that it was most infantile to insult you. I apologise, and I sincerely state that nothing typed above in this reply is meant to be insulting, my dear Sir, and I do not lie when saying this. Maybe it'll get your blood boiling, but it is not meant as an insult.
I do not get offended easily because I do not know whether or not what they meant was truly what they meant. I cannot judge their heart.
You are claiming yourself to be infallible? That is truly arrogant.
Read the part where I said; "Who is infallible? The Pope, and (pay close attention here, please) not me"
You directly quoted me saying I'm not infallible... and then stated that I had claimed infallibility.
Also, even if I were claiming to be infallible, arrogant is not at all an appropriate word. Disillusioned, egotistical or conceited would have served. I really, really want to buy you a dictionary for Christmas by this point.
I think this bit needs a stand-alone line so that you definitely see it:
I am not claiming anything to be 100% certain.
But Jesus, what in the world is your point? Every sensible human being knows that we can only ever get to 99.99% and the rest is called "being a grown up" and taking the scary, scary leap into saying "My keyboard definitely exists." In the most pedantic of all arguments a human could concoct, you really do manage to say an awful lot without really saying anything. I hate to break it to you but the rest of us chalk it up to 100% for things like keyboards. I concede what you've said but what did you say it for? Where are you going with that, anyway?
Do you seriously doubt that when you see a red car - it's red? And that your keyboard might not actually exist? Do you really, really doubt these most basic and pointless of observations? Yours must be a troubled existence, wracked with such self-doubt. I'm pretty certain my keyboard exists (and I am sick of using that absurd example, I assumed you were too intelligent to actually run with it).
I have at no point claimed with 100% certainty anything at all. Stop going around in circles with that sentence, please.
To finish, you have no need to judge my heart. My heart pumps blood, if I must stoop to your level of pedanticism, my meaningful speech is composed in the left hemisphere of my brain.
Now, do you have anything to say that is relevant to the debate on which we are posting? Point out flaws in what I've said that aren't existent by all means but do please mention something worth replying to.
Now, do you have anything to say that is relevant to the debate on which we are posting? Point out flaws in what I've said that aren't existent by all means but do please mention something worth replying to.
Oh I have a lot to say. However, you are being rude and disrespectful so I will bid you adieu.
Even as a Catholic, i reconize the importance of the seperation of Church and State. People should not be able to force their beliefs on unwilling people in a decent soceity.
Scary. It's more or less being cautious of "the-conditioning-of-mankind"; in X, Y, Z societies and cultures.
Religion, or rather, this "faith" we speak of a range from "extreme individuals" to "not so extreme individuals" (including various societies/religions/faiths); people do "bad and good things", it's not the persons fault for having faith in anything; it's the peoples "fault" for having free-will and being to choose this or that; resulting in the various "acts of mankind."
"Hate the player, not the game."
Whereas, the game is life (faith, religion, science), and the players are obviously us, humans and, how we deal with the pieces granted to us from "the game."
God exists look around you, creation points to a creator. I have faith there is a God, I also think having faith there is a God is way more simpler, then having faith that we all just boomed into existence, or whatever else desperate scientists try to prove these days.
How is constantly searching and trying to prove there is no God simpler than acknowledging his existence? Many people try to convince themselves there is no God because they want no accountability for their actions.
Many people try to convince themselves there is no God because they want no accountability for their actions.
No, it's called being honest with yourself. I lack belief in god because there is no evidence a god exists. If there were evidence for him, I'd believe in him. There isn't, so I lack belief. It's that simple, it's not because I'm evil and I hate god and I want to sin or any other fundamentalist nonsense you can come up with.
How is constantly searching and trying to prove there is no God simpler than acknowledging his existence?
You can't prove the non existence of God. So I don't think any rational person is trying to figure out ways to prove god's non existence. What people are doing though is taking an honest approach with the evidence, and concluding that the evidence for God is lacking.
Mark I never said anyone was evil, I respect and try to love everyone, because that is right and Jesus calls me to do so. When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible says that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God. On the other hand, for those who want to know God if he is there, he says, "You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you." Before you look at the facts surrounding God's existence, ask yourself, If God does exist, would I want to know him?
Mark I never said anyone was evil, I respect and try to love everyone, because that is right and Jesus calls me to do so.
I didn't say that you thought that everyone was evil, but you said that people don't want to believe in god because they want to be free of accountability. But this is complete nonsense, for even if god does not exist we are still accountable to other people. Namely, the police would be the ones to enforce justice here.
When it comes to the possibility of God's existence, the Bible says that there are people who have seen sufficient evidence, but they have suppressed the truth about God
You have no way to know that the bible is in fact true though. I can assure you that I have not seen any evidence for God's existence. I was formerly Catholic, and I looked, and I found no evidence for God so I ceased to believe in him. So I am certainly not suppressing any truth about God, my entire goal here has been a pursuit of truth. I want to have beliefs that, to the best of my ability, are true. The lack of belief in God is what I have found to be the most truthful and reasonable position.
On the other hand, for those who want to know God if he is there, he says, "You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you."
I have done exactly this, I engaged in a genuine pursuit of the evidence for God, and none was to be found.
Before you look at the facts surrounding God's existence, ask yourself, If God does exist, would I want to know him?
No, this is not how you are supposed to go about God's existence. You look at the facts, and determine a conclusion. You do not determine a conclusion, and then look for facts to support it, this would merely be confirmation bias. To reject or ignore all opposing evidence as "lies" or "nonsense" and embrace all evidence that supports your position as proof that your original conclusion was true.
Mark if you truly seek God with all your heart and show your faithfulness in your patience then I assure you God will identify himself to you, and you will never want to turn back. This happened to me, please everyone let in happen to you. God is real, and he has changed my life.
Mark if you truly seek God with all your heart and show your faithfulness in your patience then I assure you God will identify himself to you, and you will never want to turn back.
This seems like a variation of the "no true scottsman" fallacy. If you truly seek god with your heart, then he will show himself to you. Oh, God didn't show himself to you? You just didn't truly seek God then.
Hey Jawkins20, you never said everyone was evil, but your God does. I'm pretty sure you're a christian, and one of the core foundations of christianity is original sin correct ?
Yes it is simpler to turn off one's rational mind and believe in something, for example creationism vs evolution. It's MUCH harder to do the hard work and try to reconcile the facts with our beliefs. After years of study and reflection I see strong evidence for evolution and little evidence for God. In fact I think it's harder to reconcile the God of the Bible with the world as we see it. Of course evolution could have been devinely inspired, that may be unknowable.
God is only "way simpler" if you choose to ignore most of science. Most people find this very hard to do. When humans first evolved (or appeared), they thought almost everything was supernatural (the sun, the clouds, fire, volcanoes, etc). Today everyone thinks most (not all) things are NOT supernatural (even theists) because science has shown us that they have a natural explanation. Given this amazing track record of science to time and time again show that the super natural is actually natural (it has been done this literally millions of times throughout history) it seems unreasonable to still say god is the more likely answer to anything.
Finally, I think your making a mistake saying "..whatever else desperate scientists try to prove these days.". Your letting your feelings get in the way of whats actually going on. Scientists are not trying to prove god does not exist. 99.9% of scientists could care less about other peoples belief in god. Scientists are trying to find the truth and the best explanation for how the world works. It just so happens that time and time again the truth they find tends to support the idea that the world is natural not super natural (thus no god). Scientists have no motivation to prove god does not exist, so they don't try.
When you ask does God exist which one are you referring to most people so far have gone with the Christian one but you have not been specific in the debate title.
Whilst I dont believe in God as this all seeing guy that runs the world I do believe that there is more than just this life and that there is some form of higher power.
I believe God exists for those who believe he exists in their faith. We cannot automatically claim Science fact though, because most 'truth' in science is simply a theory not a proven fact just some options that can potentially support the idea of such. I remain neutral.
I see your logic and reason but quite simply what we think we are of knowing now can be looked at as stupid 2,000 years from now from a different group of individuals. So you really have to ask yourself. Do we truly know beyond our capability?
You cannot provide any scientific evidence whatsoever for your beliefs. You have been on here just spewing out what you think, despite no proof whatsoever to your claims. You are one of the many people who cannot accept the truth, and instead, you dwell in your outdated thoughts. There is no God, there is no Jesus. There is no Allah, there is no Muhammed. People need to wake up and abandon this outdated, inaccurate bullshit so we can move on from this. I hope you never have kids so they don't have to grow up believing these lies you have been fed to believe.
Yes I can prove scientific evidence for my belief. You have been spewing out what you think is true like evolution which has been proven false. I am one of the people who has already accepted the truth and I don't need to follow what everyone's else follows I choose to be different and everyone is different.
There is God, there is a Jesus. People need to wake up and abandon evolution and come into the light where Jesus will take you in as a child to Him if you accept and believe and not doubt.
I hope you never have kids so they don't have to grow up believing these lies you have been fed to believe.
That is very rude and disrespectful comment what you just said and I don't think I deserve that comment on what you just said because I have done nothing to you and its not my fault your angry at what I believe in but sometimes the truth hurts now doesn't it because your angry for what I believe because your spewing swear words and you sound like your angry.
I am sorry if what I believe in offends you but that's the way I am and I choose to be. Your not going to force me to believe something that I don't have enough faith to believe. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist but other atheists do have a lot of faith to believe in evolution and natural selection where it involves random chance and that the world was created by no one and world some how came into existence of nowhere at that is why I don't have enough faith to believe it but you of course you do have enough faith to believe that.
Yes I can prove scientific evidence for my belief.
Please share, we all would like to see some real, hard evidence.
evolution which has been proven false
Again, how can you come to this assumption? We have witnessed evolution happen. We know for a fact, it's been scientifically proven, unlike that the world was created in seven days by a God in the sky who has never revealed himself to anyone since the events of the Bible.
There is God, there is a Jesus.
As a former Christian, this was the main reason for losing my faith. There is no proof whatsoever that links to any God or Jesus existing. Also, my initial statement was "There is no God. There is no Jesus. There is no Allah. There is no Muhammad". What happened to Allah and Muhammad, are/were they real? If not, what makes you think that you weren't put here because of them? Why do you know that God put you here and not Allah, or the thousands of other Gods?
People need to wake up and abandon evolution
Like abandoning religion at this current state, the likelihood of this happening is slim. Many religious people believe in evolution as well.
its not my fault your angry at what I believe in but sometimes the truth hurts now doesn't it because your angry for what I believe because your spewing swear words and you sound like your angry
I used a single cuss word. That is all. It also does hurt, you are correct. It hurts me that the large majority of our population believe in this. I am sorry if I have offended you, however your religion offends me.
Please share, we all would like to see some real, hard evidence
I will share with you but I need to gather it first so it might take a week or two for me to give you the hard evidence.
Again, how can you come to this assumption? We have witnessed evolution happen. We know for a fact, it's been scientifically proven, unlike that the world was created in seven days by a God in the sky who has never revealed himself to anyone since the events of the Bible.
Is there anything wrong with God creating the world in 6 days? Actually you are mistaken because Jesus did reveal himself to His disciples when He was on this earth, He appeared before Moses and various other people in the Bible.
As a former Christian, this was the main reason for losing my faith. There is no proof whatsoever that links to any God or Jesus existing. Also, my initial statement was "There is no God. There is no Jesus. There is no Allah. There is no Muhammad". What happened to Allah and Muhammad, are/were they real? If not, what makes you think that you weren't put here because of them? Why do you know that God put you here and not Allah, or the thousands of other Gods?
Yes there is proof that links to God once I give it to you in 1 to 2 weeks. Muhammad was a real person that claimed to be a prophet of "allah' but the reason I know that God put us here is because He created us in His image but evolution of course says that we are cell that was washed ashore on the beach and later on slowly we start evolving. Which one is better a cell or created in the image of God? Image of God of course because it means we are special and we aren't worthless according to evolution.
I used a single cuss word. That is all. It also does hurt, you are correct. It hurts me that the large majority of our population believe in this. I am sorry if I have offended you, however your religion offends me.
No you didn't use 1 cuss word you used multiple cuss words if you don't believe me go back to what you first disputed my argument. Also I am not offended for what you say about my beliefs because people are going to get offended for my beliefs because they can't handle what I believe so then they start arguments like theses that I don't feel like disputing but yet I have to because if I don't then some people around here will think I am coward for not responding.
I will share with you but I need to gather it first so it might take a week or two for me to give you the hard evidence.
Understandable, I will be willing to wait as long as you wish.
Is there anything wrong with God creating the world in 6 days?
I don't have a problem with it, but I don't really believe it's possible, especially with all the fossils, tools, bones, amber and other items found that link back to before 4000 years ago.
Jesus did reveal himself to His disciples when He was on this earth, He appeared before Moses and various other people in the Bible
My only complaint with this is that I said God has never revealed himself to anyone since the events of the Bible, and what you have described comes directly from the Bible, although countless individuals have claimed to witness him.
Muhammad was a real person that claimed to be a prophet of "allah' but the reason I know that God put us here is because He created us in His image but evolution of course says that we are cell that was washed ashore on the beach and later on slowly we start evolving. Which one is better a cell or created in the image of God? Image of God of course because it means we are special and we aren't worthless according to evolution
Muhammad was among many people who were said to be prophets, including Joseph Smith of the Mormon church. According to the Bible, God did place us here in his own image, although I'm positive at least one other religion would claim the same from their deity. I would be in support of evolution in that case for various reasons, but I don't think it's a matter of being better. I think it's moreso based on which can be backed up, which I will wait for you to gather evidence before completely dismissing.
[q]I don't have a problem with it, but I don't really believe it's possible, especially with all the fossils, tools, bones, amber and other items found that link back to before 4000 years ago.[/q]
Not to mention being able to see light from distant galaxies that is just now reaching earth after traveling for billions of years. Or is that a trick of satan? Or God testing my faith?
Which one is better a cell or created in the image of God?
We're not looking for what makes you feel good; we're looking for truth. And, quite frankly, I'd rather not be made in the image of the world's most popular imaginary friend (as if I had a choice).
[quote]people are going to get offended for my beliefs because they can't handle what I believe [/quote]
Yep. You're right. I simply can't handle your belief. Its truly terrifying to me that I am created in the image of God and that there is a paradise waiting for me after death. I'm frightened of these ideas, so instead I have turned to the lies of atheism which comfort me with the facts that my consciousness will end with the death of my brain and that I am evolved from dirty filthy monkeys.
I see you and others like to butt in when I am talking to someone so I am not going to dispute your two other things because I wasn't talking to you in the first place and you shouldn't be able to butt in and start debating with me while I am dealing with someone.
I only deal with 1 person at a time not 2 or 3, etc because I don't want to have to respond to 5+ people just because I made one argument to 1 person everyone rages on me at gets on my butt.
Also if your going to dispute my argument dispute the whole thing and not certain little parts.
No when I dispute arguments I am never angry or frustrated with people I am calm and know how to deal with what I am arguing about. But that other person I could tell he was angry because of what he said that was rude and disrespectful and also he was swearing which also told me that he was angry.
Look who decides to butt in eh? This doesn't concern you so get out. Mackindale is gone so it doesn't matter anymore and also that was that 1 time when I got really angry because he didn't get it.
Its no wonder you go to argument waterfall to see what other people posted but you don't know what I am talking about and who I am arguing with and then you decide to butt in. I never do that because I don't like doing it or getting involved with other people's business and you should do the same.
Mackindale is no more type his name up on the people search and it says user doesn't exist and therefore he doesn't come here anymore.
I am not lying I am telling the truth that I already knew that because I think it was feelingtruth who made the debate about what happened to mackindale and you said he got his name changed to Emperor.
I already knew that Mackindale was Emperor because I saw that one debate this person made about how Mackindale was gone but I didn't say anything. I just wanted to see the reactions of people when I said Mackindale is no more.
I am not going to make a challenge debate or a private debate and from now on if people butt in to whoever I am talking to I am just going to ignore them and not say a word to them because I warned everyone but you don't listen.
honestly who made everything, how were we made how did the human race start. its no as if we just popped in mid air and magically appeared there has to be someone behind it. He is called God/Jesus/HolySpiret
I believe a lost soul has reached the stage of doubt in creating this debate. I pray for you that you shall see the truth and not be blinded by these liberals. Remember our heritage and pride. Only you can escape the self delusion!
Don't believe in something that gave you flight and space travel.
Instead believe in a particular book of fairy tales among many such books of fairy tales. A book that brings you such enlightening knowledge as the fact that psychosis is the product of demons infesting the soul and not mental disorder. Also, deaf and dumbness, caused by demons. Get real people.
well thats matter of opinion but it depends what you belive in i mean im a christian and yes, i do think he exists but you can never prove that he does exist but you can prove that he doesnt but i belive he does <3 xxxx
God clearly exists because what created our world? There has to be something bigger than science, something immortal that created something as big as this. Besides, we are clearly here for a reason right?
I'm pretty sure i didn't evolve from a primate, or anything else except for God. I can't really tell you how to the universe was created, but i believe it was created by a divine being. Henceforth i give all my faith to God, for the Heavens i seek.
I suppose I'd have to be thorough and ask what exactly you mean by 'God' and 'exists'. By capitalizing I will assume you mean the abrahamic and christian God, Jehovah. I believe he exists, as I have seen no evidence to disprove Him, and it makes sense to me that there is a Creator of the Creation. I don't have to see the Painter to know that the Painting exists, and that someone painted it. Neither should I have to see God to know he exists, since I and all of Creation are a testament to Him.
As for the 'exists' part, I will assume you mean exists in actuality, not inside the minds of mankind. It would help to know your position on this whole thing but, eh, I'll answer what I can, really.
I believe God exists, yes. I believe He has saved my life on several occasions, some the result of stupidity on my part. Can I offer proof that God was watching out for me? Not really. But I don't really need to. He exists despite my failings to explain or prove or otherwise debate his existence.
If god doesn't exist, you don't as well. Haven't you felt secure at times when the world goes crashing down on you ? That is god. You've got my answer.
their are many types of gods some people believe in some types of gods but god help us when we really need help and from real and true heart if we pray god we truly help us i dont know why some people dont believe in gods ............. but i was muslim i am muslim and i will be a muslim ....thts 100% sure........
YOUR WORTHLESS NOTHING god and jesus CAN GO TO HELL god damni it AND YOU CAN TAKE THAT MEANINGLESS bible AND RECYCLE IT INTO SOMETHING WORTH READING WHILE I SIT HERE IN MY JUDGES CHAIR LOVING MY MACHINE GOD .
Jesus is God on earth, Jesus was born out of a virgin, clearly a miracle, and he lived a perfect life for Jesus was God in human form, he had the power of God for he was God
Jesus was not just a Jew he performed miracles among men, he healed the sick and blind, he was Jew because of where he was from, he was more than a regular man, he was God, besides you have no proof saying he wasn't the son of God, yet all historical information and the bible prove otherwise
So him making the blind man see wasn't a miracle? So Jesus healing the people with leprosy wasn't a miracle? So healing the disabled man wasn't a miracle? Read the bible sir
To believe in God you first must acknowledge Jesus is the son of God. No man comes to the father but by Jesus. If you deny Jesus then his Father, God, will deny you.
There are things which are unexplained by science, things which do not show any logical explanation. Ironically, it has been science which has said there is a rational explanation for everything and, according to it, god doesn't exist. However, according to science in the 1600's, there was no such thing as evolution. In the same way, we all know that God exists, but what the atheists are waiting for is rational explanation. Hell, do you think God is some person which would fight to prove it's existence? It is like a parent, watching over it's children, leaving it up to them to believe in him or not.
Cosmologists and physicists are revealing that our universe embodies a finely tuned set of values which are conducive to the emergence of life. These include the gravitational constant, the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, the strong and weak nuclear forces etc. IF any of these values were altered even slightly it would produce a universe, that would not be hospitable to the emergence of like. These are referred to as Anthropic coincidences.
Science can reveal these amazing knife-edge balances in the natural order, but science cannot explain why these specific values are realised. Some have hypothesised that we inhabit a multiverse of minutely differing worlds and that we are simply lucky enough to have hit upon one that is hospitable to life.
However this is a very cumbersome and worldview with weak explanatory power. It posits an explanation which is far more complex than the datum to be explained and it leaves open the even bigger questions how why there would be such a thing as a multiverse. These speculations also seem to exceed the experimentally testable bounds of science.
The anthropic coincidences seem to make more sense within a theistic framework, which sees God as the intelligent and powerful origin of the universe. Clearly Dawkins et al might want to raise the hoary chestnut about who created God, however a few minutes of serious theological and philosophical reflection would expose this question to be meaningless.
Anthony Flew, a lifelong atheist and public opponent of theism, came eventually to accept that certain wonders of the universe and of life (e.g. DNA) pointed more surely in the direction of God's existence than rival theories.
God exists. Human brains are hard-wired for religious experience. This is hard to explain away on a merely evolutionary view. It is difficult to see how religious belief has any survival value in natural selection terms. However it is a pervasive feature of human experience, culture and expression. Dawkins' attempt to dismiss religion as a 'meme' does not completely cover his embarrassment that in a supposedly naturalistic evolutionary world, religion is such a persistent feature.
The cumulative weight of religious experience lends weight to the belief that God exists. Caroline Franks Davies wrote a useful book about this called 'The evidential force of Religious Experience'
I haven´t practiced how to write a good argument, but I hardly believe that god exists, a Mexican person fall from a high building, floor 24 and when his body reached the pavement his skull did not break apart, engineers hit a car with the same velocity and the car become trash, in the falling from the skies he saw an image, specifically a virgin. I asked myself what saved this man from sure dead. I believe it was god, not an alien nor a ghost, doctors cannot explain what happened, search Google and make contact with this man its true.
It is impossible to know 100% that there is no god because we cannot prove entirely that it is true, simply because it is unobservable and therefore, untestable. Science cant say for sure, so i cant and wont. Now, it is also true that we can never know that there is a god for the same reasons. This question may never have an answer for sure.
What we can do is make a decent hypothesis based on what we can observe or know already. Based on the evidence, it is FAR, and i mean FAR more likely that there isnt a god. Nearly everything that ANY religion asserts for proof of their god is either blatantly false or subject to question. On the other hand, science has given us many explainations for many of the same questions that religions fail to answer. Ex: the big bang, evolution, ect. And constantly uses a foolproof method to continue to move towards answering more and more of them.
OUTSTANDING. One of the better arguments I've seen on this matter. A key point is that like evolution the existence of God is essentially impossible to prove. On the other hand I can give you demonstrable TESTABLE evidence regarding evolution.
Well yeah of course there is and I know that. I wasn't saying anything about never knowing if evolution is true or not, I was just saying to the question of "is there a god" we will never know. I do accept evolution silly :)
On the other hand, science has given us many explainations for many of the same questions that religions fail to answer. Ex: the big bang, evolution, ect. And constantly uses a foolproof method to continue to move towards answering more and more of them.
Science is not infallible because humans are not infallible.
Nearly everything that ANY religion asserts for proof of their god is either blatantly false or subject to question.
Would you like for me to prove to you right now that the Bible is divinely ordained?
If memory serves and put simply Noah built a big boat put two of each animal on board, God flooded the world which was then repopulated with the animals from the Ark once the floodwaters subsided.
Goliath was the hero of the Philistines he challenged the Israalites to single combat but no one was willing. David was visiting his brother and heard what was happening and accepted the challenge he faced the armoured Goliath with just his sling, he hit Goliath in the head with a stone killing him and the Philistines ran. David went on to be King.
I didn't say anything about Jesus, yet you recognized that it was talking about Him. Did you know that the Book of Isaiah was written hundreds of years before Jesus?
Like I said because of the mention of suffering and being pierced for our iniquities it's also common knowledge that the Old Testament predicts the coming of Christ
Not neccesarily, it's a good theory but the Bible we have now is not neccesarily the same book that was originally written. There have been mistakes made when the New Testament was translated from Greek and there is always the possiblity that through history the people running the Church might have altered parts to suit thir own agenda (as we know the Church is not immune to corruption).
Many Science Fiction writers have also predicted things that have come true, William Gibson predicted portable Computers and the Internet and Anthony Burgess predicted teenage hooliganism and joy riding etc these guys books were not divinely ordained but still predicted things that happened in the future.
I like your theory, it is a good argument and helps when people ask you to prove the existance of God but unfortunately it does'nt hold up on it's own because of the reasons I stated eg: corruption in the Church etc. Nice try though.
Not neccesarily, it's a good theory but the Bible we have now is not neccesarily the same book that was originally written. There have been mistakes made when the New Testament was translated from Greek and there is always the possiblity that through history the people running the Church might have altered parts to suit thir own agenda (as we know the Church is not immune to corruption).
Well as we have already displayed the Christ was fulfilled in Jesus. Therefore, what He claims to be true is true and He used Scripture as inherent fact. Also, 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God breathed. Finally, claiming the mistakes in the bible is claiming that God does not have power over sin, which is completely against the Bible and completely unChristian.
Moreover (after the side of being a Christian talking to Christian, we move to Christian talking to non Christian), multiple prophecies have been made throughout it. I have shown you one and it always gives nonbelievers problems in answering back. http://dgreenruf.org/index.php?option=com_content&view;=article&id;=15:how-can-we- trust-the-bible-as-true&catid;=2:article&Itemid;=12 "Did you know that the text of the OT was preserved by a radically strict set of rules (which you would expect if God had spoken!) For example a scribe could only use certain types of animal skins, had to speak every word out loud when copying, had to get a child to read it to make sure his copying was clear, and if he made too many mistakes (even if he corrected them) he had to burn the whole scroll! The scribes were also fanatical counters of everything to make sure that their copies were perfect. For instance they knew that there were 97,856 words in the first five books of the OT, and that Leviticus 11:42 had the middle letter of the first five books. Until 1929, we used a Hebrew manuscript from the 1500s for our basic text, then we switched to one that was 500 years older. Do you know how many letters were different between these two texts? Only four! The Jews were fanatical about the accuracy of the text and thus we have the OT as it was written. The Dead Sea Scrolls only served to increase our confidence of the accuracy of the OT text because they contain a scroll of Isaiah that is over 800 years older than any other copy of Isaiah, and yet it has no different words that the later texts of Isaiah! / The NT text is preserved in literally thousands (over 5,000 at last counting) of ancient manuscripts. We even have a piece of the Gospel of John written 20 years after the book was originally composed! Even liberal scholars agree that the text we have is true to what was originally written (only 1 out of 100 words is in any doubt and none of these affect any doctrines and their meaning can be determined from the context.) In addition to scripture texts we also have tons of scripture quotations in the Church Fathers, old lectionaries, and other early translations. (F. F. Bruce’s The NT Documents: Are They Reliable? is an excellent book on this topic.)" So no, the Bible is not mistaken. It is the original. I understand that the translation from Greek to English might mess up people, but we do still have multiple Greek copies of the originals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUQMJR2BP1w I know that it is a Youtube video, but this is a conversation between a liberal historian who is a non Christian advocating the proof of Christ (4:00) and the the texts of Paul being originally from Paul (5:00).
Many Science Fiction writers have also predicted things that have come true, William Gibson predicted portable Computers and the Internet and Anthony Burgess predicted teenage hooliganism and joy riding etc these guys books were not divinely ordained but still predicted things that happened in the future.
Why would a non Christian advocate the Bible? Of course the majority of the sources that advocate the Bible are going to be Christians... thats why they are Christians, because they have researched and found to the best of their knowledge that the Bible is true!
Just look up any other Biblical prophecy. Then research history and come to the conclusions that you think are best. I can't convince you, since I am a Christian, I am biased; thus, any logical evidence I say is not fully trustworthy. But please, go research it!
That will always be the problem when debating something like Religion that cannot be proven 100% there will always be bias but then for me that is part of the fun.
It says that in less than 1700 years God went from "Let us make man in our image" to "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
It says that a 600 year old man built a 32,000 sq ft, 4 story high wooden boat
In Gen 6:19-20, it says that Noah should bring 2 of every animal on the ark, but only 4 verses later in Gen 7:2, it says that Noah should bring 7 pairs of all the clean animals and 2 of all the unclean animals
It says that, for a second time, all of mankind is the product of incest amongst one family
It says that all land animals were killed except those on the ark which came to rest on Mount Ararat; yet somehow land animals came to exist on islands and continents that those animals could not reach on their own.
It says that, according to the Usher dating, this all happened just 4362 years ago, even though there is no evidence of a worldwide flood and there is evidence of contemporaneous civilizations that were unaffected.
But thankfully, it also says that god creates rainbows so he will remember not to kill us all again...
-- From Genesis 6:5 - Genesis 9:19: (though people should definitely read the verses right before and right after for even more weirdness...)
It says that in less than 1700 years God went from "Let us make man in our image" to "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."
God said that actually, in a sense, right after the fall in the Garden of Eden. But what about it?
It says that a 600 year old man built a 32,000 sq ft, 4 story high wooden boat
What about it?
In Gen 6:19-20, it says that Noah should bring 2 of every animal on the ark, but only 4 verses later in Gen 7:2, it says that Noah should bring 7 pairs of all the clean animals and 2 of all the unclean animals
What about it?
It says that, for a second time, all of mankind is the product of incest amongst one family
What about it?
It says that all land animals were killed except those on the ark which came to rest on Mount Ararat; yet somehow land animals came to exist on islands and continents that those animals could not reach on their own.
After the flood there would be intense and dramatic geologic change. It is not improbable that Pangea was in existence before hand and after the flood it was separated or in the process of separating. Thus, animals would have every opportunity to go to distant islands.
It says that, according to the Usher dating, this all happened just 4362 years ago, even though there is no evidence of a worldwide flood and there is evidence of contemporaneous civilizations that were unaffected.
For one, I would have to disagree with some of the Biblical dating. I do, however, do think it was within a few thousand years, though. But I digress, there is tons evidence for a gigantic flood. For one, dinosaurs is evidence. "Dinosaur" in Ancient Greek means terrible lizard. Now, every lizard grows its entire life: lizards never stop. Now, assuming that beings lived longer than normal life spans, such as Noah and Adam and other pre-flood people, which we have evidence for as well, then it follows inductively that so too would animals. If a lizard were able to live 10x its normal life span, or possibly even longer than that, or have an exaggerated growth process, then it follows that there would be terrible lizards. Furthermore, 90% of dinosaurs found are under 2 feet tall. Therefore, it seems more probable that all these beings were were actually giant lizards that grew their entire lives and were wiped out by a great flood, which is why when you go to a dinosaur museum it says that they were buried by mud and sediment flow. This is why geologists have thought two things: (1) that the dinosaurs were all wiped out in one huge cataclysmic event that encompassed the whole earth and (2) that this event involved water, which is why a meteor hitting the ocean is the theory. Moreover, dinosaurs are found in contradicting strata. There is strata all over the earth that does not factor in evolutionary time spans. For example, there is a trilobite with a human footprint. The trilobite was supposed to be from the cambrian explosion. However, it was found by an evolutionary scientist, who later turned creationist from this discovery, which is historical significant to show it was not a fake, with a human footprint. Continued, there is found all over the world petrified trees through multiple layers of strata. This signifies that these trees were buried with intense sediment deposition. There is more, but I'll leave it at that.
But thankfully, it also says that god creates rainbows so he will remember not to kill us all again...
God's covenants are wonderful!
-- From Genesis 6:5 - Genesis 9:19: (though people should definitely read the verses right before and right after for even more weirdness...)
You said you were going to prove that "the Bible is divinely ordained". I gave evidence that it not only contradicts basically every branch of science, but it also contradicts itself; if "what about it" is your best retort, I'll consider the debate concluded.
"Weirdness does not deny factuality"
Weirdness does not make factuality either... e.g.: dinosaurs aren't just overgrown lizards link
"There is tons of evidence for a gigantic flood"..."dinosaurs is[sic] evidence"
Notice that you are now saying "gigantic" rather than "worldwide" because there is no evidence of a worldwide flood. You went on to talk about how old lizards might be dinosaurs not how old lizards being dinosaurs is somehow evidence for a flood.
"assuming that beings lived longer than normal life spans"... "which we have evidence for as well"
And your evidence for that is? And I don't mean suggestions of how humans might possibly have been able to live longer in a magical pre-flood environment, I mean evidence that humans did live extremely long lives. Are there fossils of 1000 year old humans that you would like to share with us?
"they were buried by mud and sediment flow. This is why geologists have thought two things: (1) that the dinosaurs were all wiped out in one huge cataclysmic event that encompassed the whole earth and (2) that this event involved water, which is why a meteor hitting the ocean is the theory."
The reason they think the event involved a meteor is because of high iridium and shocked quartz at the K-T boundary, part of the geologic column which you apparently do not believe in, not "mud and sediment flow". The theory that Chicxulub and/or other impact craters are associated with the event is the similarity in dating based on methods that you must also deem false to believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. Do you now wish to rely on those same dating methods and the geologic column if you (wrongly) think they agree with you?
"trilobyte with human footprint"
for anyone interested in facts - the trilobyte/footprint has been debunked for more than 30 years.
"petrified trees through multiple layers of strata"
upright fossils are a well-known and well-explained occurrence which in no way refutes the totality of the geologic column.
"I would have to disagree with some of the biblical dating."
Don't worry - the bible disagrees with the biblical dating too. The Masoretic text says there were 1656 years before the flood, the Samaritan text says 1307 years and the Septuagint says 2262 years - take your pick. Or just make one up since that's easier.
I do, however, do think it was within a few thousand years, though. If you think the bible is wrong and science is wrong, what do you base your aging on exactly?
To cite the things that you have shows a vast amount of willful ignorance and inability to think through the implications of what you (or more precisely the people you are choosing to listen to) are claiming. For instance, dinosaurs being just overgrown lizards would mean that dinosaurs would give birth to lizards and there would be no such thing as dinosaur eggs or baby dinosaurs, do you believe that to be the case? Do you know the ramifications of trying to fit all of the fossils that exist into a few thousand years? all of the volcanic activity? of having the plates move at speeds of up to 45 miles per hour? Do you understand how hundreds of thousands or millions of layers don't happen in just one year (varves, snow layers, rock layers, etc.)? Any thoughts on how bone histology that scientists use to determine the age of those dinosaur (and other) fossils is so completely wrong? Why there is no radiation of fossils from Arrarat after the flood? How all of the animals (herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores) ate after they left the ark? How everything in science is so wrong, but in ways that corroborate each other (more than a dozen radiometric dating methods align with each other, the geologic column lines up with plate tectonics, varve layers show thickness variations consistent with sunspot rhythms, etc.)? Do you give any weight to the decades that actual scientists invest in their research or astronauts who risk their life based on real science before saying something like dinosaur means terrible lizard, so maybe dinosaurs are just old lizards - take that science!...?
In order to believe in a recent creation, you have to show not only how every line of dating is false, but also how it is wrong enough to support the age you believe.
For example, Hovind and others discount ice layer dating by saying that multiple layers can occur in a given year. Not only does this show their ignorance about how ice cores are dated, but they never address the fact that for the flood to have happened 4361 years ago, an ice layer would have to form more than once every 2 days. (Even 21,900 years since the flood would require more than one snow layer every 10 days.)
Biblical literalism will never pass scientific muster. In just the few short chapters before the flood myth the bible says:
that there was an earth with water on it before there was a sun
that plants and trees existed before there was a sun
that there was night and day before there was a sun
that the moon is a source of light rather than just reflective
that birds existed before reptiles
that the sons of God came down and married the daughters of man and had children
Care to take on the challenge of finding evidence that there was a night and day here on earth before the sun existed?
In science, if you disagree with a current theory, you generally familiarize yourself with the related phenomenon and the related evidence. You learn about the hypotheses, forces, measurements involved. You posit that if you are right x will happen and you make observations. If you seem to be right, you forward your findings and methods on to others to review your work and if you still seem right, you publish. If you disagree with an entire field of science, the amount of work required is greatly compounded. If you disagree with every area of science - then breathe a sigh of relief, you are religious and no rigor is necessary because you can just say god did it.
Smarter people than you have put forward these kinds of theories for decades and people smarter than I have long since debunked them. Why is it that you feel no obligation to research whether what you are going to say will make you look foolish before you post it?
You gave one good source, which was in further reading. Your argument is thus unsubstantiated and unreliable. Also, you are misunderstanding my arguments. Try again later; at that point, then you might be able to actually rebut me.
How have I conceded? You haven't presented any good arguments yet. i'm simply telling you that if you don't bring forth better argument, then I'm not even going to discuss them with you. Its like me trying to explain 2+2=4 to someone, when I'm talking about Alexander the Great.
Concession = dismissing a thousand word reply out of hand in 5 minutes leaving all calls for evidence unanswered, refusing to rebut the thorough destruction of your prior ludicrous statements like dinosaurs being lizards that lived hundres of years. Your own reliance on evidence that you otherwise discount, inability to research arguments that have been invalidated for decades and general lack of scientific knowledge in any area that you are attacking.
I never set out to convince the poster, only the agnostic future reader actually trying to decide where the preponderance of evidence lies and in that regard your complete lack of response lays bare the utter derth of substance for your claims.
Concession = dismissing a thousand word reply out of hand in 5 minutes leaving all calls for evidence unanswered, refusing to rebut the thorough destruction of your prior ludicrous statements like dinosaurs being lizards that lived hundres of years.
You didn't give any good arguments. The evidence you gave for dinosaurs not being lizards was really bad and uncredible. Even if it were correct, and the bones structure and stuff is different from modern lizards, it does not reject them being overgrown lizards. If it is a lizard, then it grows its entire life. Dinosaurs are extinct forms of lizards. Hence, dinosaurs grow their entire lives. The citation you gave rebutted neither of these points.
Your own reliance on evidence that you otherwise discount,
What?
inability to research arguments that have been invalidated for decades and general lack of scientific knowledge in any area that you are attacking.
This is a big assumption. Whop says that I haven't researched it and have determined that the invalidation was incorrect or unsubstantiated? Who says I have no scientific knowledge. You are committing a lot of ad hominems.
I never set out to convince the poster, only the agnostic future reader actually trying to decide where the preponderance of evidence lies and in that regard your complete lack of response lays bare the utter derth of substance for your claims.
Well, you haven't done a very good job. Simply because I didn't want to respond does not mean that I can't rebut them easily. I can rebut them easily. I just don't want to spend my time discussing ignorant controversies that have little to no cogency?
If you want to actually debate intellectually, then try doing some research first and do not commit so many logical fallacies.
I only mentioned the contradiction relating to how many animals were supposed to be brought onto the ark (Genesis 6 vs Genesis 7) and that the Masoretic text says there were 1656 years before the flood, the Samaritan text says 1307 years and the Septuagint says 2262 years, but there are, of course, a ton more. refref
The Bible contradicts science:
- science that contradicts a young earth: (abstracted from the "line of dating" link in prior post)
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Distant starlight
When you look at an object a mile away, the light has been traveling for five microseconds. When you look at the Sun, you are seeing light that has been in transit for 8.3 minutes. When astronomers look at the closest star to Earth (Alpha Centauri), which is roughly four light years away, they are seeing the star as it was four years ago from our perspective. When astronomers look at objects in the region of space known as the "Hubble ultra deep field", they are seeing the stars there as they were over ten billion years ago. Light we are receiving from these fields has been traveling for ten billion years, and the universe must have, therefore, existed long enough for that transit time to take place.
Helioseismology
The composition of the Sun changes as it ages. The differing composition changes the way sound waves behave inside the Sun. Using helioseismic methods (models of pressure waves in the sun), the age of the Sun can be inferred. Using this method, an Italian team came up with an age of 4.57 +/- 0.11 billion years.
Lunar retreat
South African rocks studied by geologist Ken Eriksson contain ancient tidal deposits indicating that at some point in the past, the Moon orbited "25-percent closer to Earth than it does today." The distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,403 kilometers, so for Ken Eriksson's work to fit with a YEC timescale the Earth would have to have been receding at a speed greater than 15 kilometers per year. However, the Moon is currently receding from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.
Radioactive decay
Radioactive decay is the constant predictable decay of unstable atoms into more stable isotopes or elements. Measurements of atomic decay are generally considered one of the most accurate ways of measuring the age of an object, and these measurements form the basis for the scientifically accepted age of the Earth. There are many different variations of the radiometric dating technique such as radiocarbon, argon-argon, iodine-xenon, lanthanum-barium, lead-lead, lutetium-hafnium, neon-neon, potassium-argon, rhenium-osmium, rubidium-strontium, samarium-neodymium, uranium-lead, uranium-lead-helium, uranium-thorium, and uranium-uranium, of which every single one will date objects far older than 10,000 years.
Because radiometric dating is one of the most commonly used methods of determining age, these techniques are under constant attack from young earth supporters. A few creationists, armed with only a cursory knowledge and a desire to think that they're better than scientific "experts", may misunderstand radiometric dating and just not believe it works. This is often accompanied by ignoring the high concordance of radiometric methods.
Length of the prehistoric day
Work by John W. Wells of Cornell University, New York has shown that certain pieces of extremely old coral show evidence of a growth rate which reflects a time when a year had 400 days of 22 hours each. Because the rate of change of the rotation of the Earth is relatively predictable—about 0.005 seconds per year—one can calculate the last time a year had 400 days, which was about 370 million years ago (which is also about the same as radiometric dating of the coral).
Naica megacrystals
The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico is the home of some of the largest gypsum crystals on earth. Specimens in the area have been found to exceed 11 meters in length and 1 meter in width. Based on classical crystal growth theory, these crystals are older than one million years.
Nitrogen impurities in natural diamonds
Nitrogen is the most common impurity in natural diamonds, sometimes by as much as 1% by mass. Recently formed diamonds, however, have very little nitrogen content. A major way synthetic diamonds are distinguished from natural ones is on the basis of nitrogen permeation. It takes long periods and high pressures for the nitrogen atoms to be squeezed into the diamond lattice. Research on the kinetics of the nitrogen aggregation at the University of Reading have suggested that a certain type of diamond, Ia diamonds, spend 200-2000 million years in the upper mantle.
Petrified wood
The process in which wood is preserved by permineralization, commonly known as petrification, takes extensive amounts of time. Gerald E. Teachout from the South Dakota Department of Game has written that "the mineral replacement process is very slow, probably taking millions of years".
It is true that in the laboratory petrification can be achieved in a matter of months, but petrification is far slower in natural conditions.
Relativistic jets
A relativistic jet is a jet of plasma that is ejected from some quasars and galaxy centers that have powerful magnetic fields. It is conjectured that the jets are driven by the twisting of magnetic fields in an accretion disk (the plate-like cloud of matter) found encircling many celestial objects. In super-massive bodies, immensely strong magnetic fields force plasma from the accretion disk into a jet that shoots away perpendicular to the face of the disk. In some cases, these columns of plasma have been found to extend far enough to refute the idea of a young universe.
For example, the quasar PKS 1127-145 has a relativistic jet exceeding one million light years in length. Because the speed of light cannot be exceeded, this column must be over one million years old. Moreover, these jets are generally billions of light years from Earth, meaning they were at least a million years old several billion years ago due, again, to the speed of light.
Seabed plankton layering
Fossils of dead plankton that layer on the ocean floor is used to gauge temperatures from the past, based on the chemical changes of Crenarchaeota, a primitive phylum of microbe. Much like ice layering and dendrochronology, researchers drill through the ocean floor to extract samples which indicate annual temperature fluctuations in the plankton fossils, or "chemical rings" as it were. A 2004 pioneering expedition to the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole collected samples dating back to over 56 million years of temperature dating.
Sedimentary varves
Varves are laminated layers of sedimentary rock that are most commonly laid down in glacial lakes. In the summer, light colored coarse sediment is laid down, while in the winter, as the water freezes and calms, fine dark silt is laid down. This cycle produces alternating bands of dark and light which are clearly discernible and represent, as a pair, one full year. As is consistent with the old earth view, many millions of varves have been found in some places. The Green River formation in eastern Utah is home to an estimated twenty million years worth of sedimentary layers.
The creationist response is that, instead of once per year, these varves formed many hundreds of times per year. There is, however, much evidence against accelerated formation of varves.
Pollen in varves is much more concentrated in the upper part of the dark layer, which is thought to represent spring. This is what would be expected if varves formed only once per year because pollen is much more common at this time.
In Lake Suigetsu, Japan, there is a seasonal die-off of diatoms (calcareous algae) that will form layers in the bottom of the lake along with the sedimentary varves. If the 29 thousand varves in the lake formed more than once per year, there should be several sediment layers for every layer of deceased algae. However, for every one white layer of algae in Lake Suigetsu, there is only one varve.
The varve thickness in the Green River formation correlates with both the 11 year sunspot cycle and the 21 thousand year orbital cycle of the earth.
Amino acid racemization
[N]aturally occurring amino acid molecules usually possess a carbon centre with four different groups joining it; a hydrogen atom, the amino group, the acid group (hence the name of the class of molecule) and a side chain, which is what distinguishes amino acids. In three dimensional space, such a molecular topology can occupy one of two configurations. Convention labels these as D or L, which are referred to as stereoisomers and are essentially mirror images of each other. The ratio of these two isomers is initially unequal. With only one exception [glycine], naturally occurring amino acids used in polypeptide synthesis are in the L form. Over time this will decay to a more balanced state in a process called racemization, where the ratio between L and D stereoisomers will be equal (a racemic mixture).
Measuring the degree of racemization and other known quantities can show an estimated age of the sample. This is measured fairly unambiguously by the fact that different stereoisomers rotate plane polarised light in opposite directions (it is this interaction that determines the D and L labels) and so a ratio can be determined by contrasting an unknown sample with a pure D or L sample and a racemic mixture. By measuring the racemization of the amino acid isoleucine, for example, objects can be dated up to several million years old.
While it is true that there can be great variability on the rate at which amino acids undergo racemization, the changes in humidity, temperature, and acidity required to make the oldest known samples conform to a young earth (under 6000 years) view are completely unreasonable. Such conditions would destroy all traces of the amino acids rather than just leave a racemic mixture of the molecules behind.
Continental drift
Based on the continuity of fossil deposits and other geological formations between the South American and African tectonic plates, there is much evidence that at some point in history the two continents were part of the same landmass. Because tectonic drift is an incredibly slow process, the separation of the two landmasses would have taken millions of years. With modern technology, this can be accurately quantified. Satellite data has shown that the two continents are moving at a rate of roughly 2 cm per year (roughly the speed of fingernail growth), which means that for these diverging continents to have been together at some point in history, as all the evidence shows, the drift must have been going on for at least 200 million years.
Cosmogenic nuclide dating
The influx of cosmic rays onto the earth continually produces a stream of cosmogenic nuclides in the atmosphere that will fall to the ground. By measuring the build-up of these nuclides on terrestrial surfaces, the length of time for which the surface has been exposed can be inferred. This technique can be used to date objects over millions of years old.
Erosion
Many places on Earth show evidence of erosion taking place over very long time periods. The Grand Canyon, for instance, would have taken millions of years to form using the normal rate of erosion seen in water. Nevertheless, Young Earthers insist it was cut in a few years following the Great Flood - but in order for this to happen the rocks of the Kaibab Plateau would have needed to have the solubility of granulated sugar, rather than the more solid stone that it's made of.
In the case of the Yakima River in Washington State between Ellensburg and Yakima, the river meanders with many oxbows typical of a slow-moving river on a plain, yet it is set within a deep canyon with visible layers of erosion. The only possible explanation is that the pre-existing river maintained its original bed as slow tectonic forces caused the surrounding land to rise underneath and around it.
Geomagnetic reversals
A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field. The frequency at which these reversals occur varies greatly, but they usually happen once every 50,000 to 800,000 years, and generally take thousands of years. This fact is obviously inconsistent with the notion of a young Earth; around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the Earth at least 8.5 million years old.
(If the earth was only 10,000 years old, that would mean a magnetic reversal would have occurred every 58.5 years on average.)
Iron-manganese nodule growth
Beryllium-10 (10Be) produced by cosmic rays shows that iron-manganese nodule growth is one of the slowest geological phenomena. It takes several million years to form one centimeter (and some are the size of potatoes). Cosmic ray produced 10Be is produced by the interactions of protons and neutrons with nitrogen and oxygen. It then reaches the earth via snow or rain. Since it is reactive, it gets absorbed by detritus material, within a timespan of about 300 years- very short compared to its half-life. Thusly, 10Be is excellent for use in dating marine sediment.
Coral
Corals are marine organisms that slowly deposit and grow upon the residues of their calcareous remains. These corals and residues gradually become structures known as coral reefs. This process of growth and deposition is extremely slow, and some of the larger reefs have been "growing" for hundreds of thousands of years. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority estimates that corals have been growing on the Great Barrier Reef for 25 million years, and that coral reef structures have existed on the Great Barrier Reef for at least 600,000 years.
Fission track dating
Fission track dating is a radiometric dating technique that can be used to determine the age of crystalline materials that contain uranium. As uranium decays, it sends out atomic fragments, which leave scars or "fission tracks" in crystalline structures. Because decaying uranium emits fragments at a constant rate, the number of fission tracks correlates to the age of the object. This method is generally held to be accurate, as it shows a high degree of concordance with other methods such as potassium-argon dating.
Ice layering
Ice layering is a phenomenon that is almost universally observed in ice sheets and glaciers where the average temperature does not rise above freezing.
Annual differences in temperature and irradiation cause ice to form differently from year to year, and this generates alternating layers of light and dark ice, much like tree rings. This method is considered a relatively accurate way to measure the age of an ice sheet, as only one layer will form per year. While there have been a few cases where several layers have formed per year, these incidents do not challenge the ability of ice layering to provide a minimum age, as these false layers can be discerned from the real thing upon close inspection.
Currently, the greatest number of layers found in a single ice sheet is over 700,000, which clearly contradicts the idea of an Earth less than 10,000 years old. Even if one were to assume an absurdly high average of ten layers per year, the age demonstrated by this method would still be far greater than that suggested by young Earth creationists.
Lack of DNA in fossils
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the universal carrier of genetic information, is present in all organisms while they are alive. When they die, their DNA begins to decay under the influence of hydrolysis and oxidation. The speed of this decay varies on a number of factors. Sometimes, the DNA will be gone within one century, and in other conditions, it will persist for as many as one million years. The average amount of time detectable DNA will persist though is somewhere in the middle; given physiological salt concentrations, neutral pH, and a temperature of 15 °C, it would take around 100,000 years for all the DNA in a sample to decay to undetectable levels.
Permafrost
The formation of permafrost (frozen ground) is a slow process. To be consistent with the young earth creationist model, which states that all sediment was deposited by the global flood, there would have to be absolutely no permafrost present at the end of the flood, because any permafrost that was present at the moment of creation would have been melted during the flood.
Because earth is a good insulator and permafrost forms downward from the surface, it would have taken much more than the few thousand years allotted by creation theory to produce some of the deepest permafrost. In the Prudhoe Bay oil fields of Alaska, the permafrost which extends over 600 meters into the ground is believed to have taken over 225,000 years to reach present depth.
Weathering rinds
Weathering rinds are layers of weathered material that develop on glacial rocks. The weathering is caused by the oxidation of magnesium and iron rich minerals, and the thickness of this layer correlates with the age of a sample. Certain weathering rinds on basalt and andesite rocks in the eastern United States are believed to have taken over 300,000 years to form.
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology is a method of scientific dating which is based on annual tree growth patterns called tree rings. The rings are the result of changes in the tree's growth speed over the year (since trees grow faster in the summer and slower in the winter). The age of a tree can be found by counting the rings and is the only method on this list that can date events precisely to a single year.
Now, any date derived from one individual tree is not in itself contradictory to the recent creation doctrine, since even the longest lived types of tree do not live longer than 5,000 years or so. However, it is possible to extend the chronology back over many different trees. This is done by taking the matching up living tree rings with dead tree rings, which go on longer than the living rings. Because the thickness of tree rings varies with the climate, a sequence of thick ring, thin ring, thin ring, thick ring, thick ring, thick ring, thin ring, thick ring is strong evidence that the corresponding rings formed at the same time. By observing and analyzing the rings of many different trees from the same area, including fossil trees, the tree ring chronology has been pushed back in some areas as far as 11,000 years.
Human Y-chromosomal ancestry
The Y-chromosome, unlike most DNA, is inherited only from the father, which means that all DNA on the human Y chromosome comes from a single person. This does not mean that there was only one person alive at that time, but that a single man's Y-chromosomal DNA has out-competed the other strains and is now - not taking into account smaller and less drastic mutations - the only one left. Because the only factor affecting the makeup of the DNA on the chromosome is mutation, measuring mutation rates and extrapolating them backwards can tell you when this man lived. The most recent calculations put this common ancestor as having lived 340,000 years ago.
Oxidizable carbon ratio dating
Oxidizable carbon ratio dating is a method for determining the absolute age of charcoal samples with relative accuracy. This dating method works by measuring the ratio of oxidizable carbon to organic carbon. When the sample is freshly burned, there will be no oxidizable carbon because it has been removed by the combustion process. Over time this will change and the amount of organic carbon will decrease to be replaced by oxidizable carbon at a linear rate. By measuring the ratio of these two allotropes, one can determine ages of over 20,000 years ago with a standard error under 3%.
Rock varnish
Rock varnish is a coating that will form on exposed surface rocks. The varnish is formed as airborne dust accumulates on rock surfaces. This process is extremely slow; between 4 µm and 40 µm of material forms on the rock every thousand years, and instances of 40 µm of accumulation are very rare. Because the rate of accumulation is generally constant, measuring the depth of the varnish can provide dates for objects up to 250,000 years old.
Thermoluminescence dating
Thermoluminescence dating is a method for determining the age of objects containing crystalline minerals, such as ceramics or lava. These materials contain electrons that have been released from their atoms by ambient radiation, but have become trapped by imperfections in the mineral's structure. When one of these minerals is heated, the trapped electrons are discharged and produce light, and that light can be measured and compared with the level of surrounding radiation to establish the amount of time that has passed since the material was last heated (and its trapped electrons were last released).
Although this technique can date objects up to approximately 230,000 years ago, is only accurate on objects 300 to 10,000 years in age. This is, however, still over 4,000 years older than the creationist figure for the age of the earth.
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Max argument length is 25,000 charachters - continued in part 2
"[T]he global-Flood model contradicts a vast body of geological and geophysical data. Scientists find no evidence of recent tectonics, volcanism or erosion on a scale nearly as great as the global Flood model requires. There are also too many organisms in the fossil record to assert they came from a single generation of living creatures that were killed by the Flood-the earth simply could not support that many organisms."
"In fact, if the Flood was as catastrophic as young-earth creationists maintain, it is doubtful anything would have survived. The young-earth model would require vertical land erosion of more than 700 feet per day and tectonic uplift of more than 200 vertical feet per day. Anything more than just one foot of erosion or tectonic uplift is sufficient to destroy most modern cities."
"The opossum, for example, shows little change over millions of years. The Cretaceous opossum of 70 million years ago-which most young-earth creationists would classify as pre-Flood because the fossils are found in strata they classify as Flood deposits-is very much like the opossum of today. Such continuous series of similar fossils tells us no divergence has occurred. This indicates the opossum and other species experienced fairly uniform conditions before and after the Flood."
"They assume the aquatic creatures, being aquatic, would not be endangered by global floodwaters. They reason some organisms were able to adjust to the change in salinity caused by the mixing of fresh and salt water, while others survived in pockets or layers of fresh and saltwater. However, if the Flood was a global event, the floodwaters would have been brackish, which would have killed most of the amphibians, freshwater fish and many of the ocean species because each type is adapted to live within a particular salinity range. Organisms on the ocean floor would not have been able to survive the tremendous increase in water pressure. It is also doubtful pockets of fresh and saltwater would have persisted for eleven months given the violent geological processes they say accompanied the Flood."
"Most plants would have been buried by hundreds of feet of sediment. Few of the plants and seeds that floated on the surface would have survived submergence in water, particularly salt water, for many months. Those that did survive would be unlikely to grow since most plants require very particular soil conditions-conditions unlikely to exist based on the catastrophic global-Flood model."
"[W]e would expect to find evidence of a major radiation from Ararat. However, there is no fossil evidence to support such a mass migration. In fact, many animals, such as the Australian endemic families, have no fossil record outside of their current realm."
"Another problem for the young-earth model is explaining what animals ate on this long journey. Some herbivores have specialized diets. Were these plants flourishing all along their migratory routes? And, with only a breeding pair of each species available, how would there have been enough new deaths to meet the food requirements of the carnivores?"
"If God endowed the ark animals with special qualities so they would survive, why did so many species go extinct? And, if only certain animals were endow these special qualities, why did God have Noah take the other animals aboard the ark?"
"[T]he Bible does not state the Flood changed the earth. Nowhere does the Bible speak of the volcanism, mountain uplift and continent formation embedded in the young-earth model. Nor is there any indication the post-Flood world was unstable. If that were the case, surely Noah would have expressed concern about the post-Flood conditions and God would have given Noah special instructions on how he was to survive. Instead, the Bible tells us Noah and his family immediately began farming and planted a vineyard-impossible if the conditions were as harsh as young-earth creationists suggest."
"[N]owhere does Bible state the animals on the ark were different or endowed with special qualities. Nor is there a single example from field research that supports this claim."
"Flood geology bears all the signs of an idea that has not been carefully thought through."
Greg Moore creationist that believes in an old earth.
(further references within article)
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Additionally, I gave the first few I thught of which occur before the biblical flood myth and make extremely laughable assertions:
- that there was an earth with water on it before there was a sun (Genesis 1)
- that plants and trees existed before there was a sun (Genesis 1)
- that there was night and day before there was a sun (Genesis 1)
- that the moon is a source of light rather than just reflective (Genesis 1)
- that birds existed before reptiles (Genesis 1)
- that the sons of God came down and married the daughters of man and had children (Genesis 6 just before the flood myth begins)
There are certainly more.
the trilobyte/footprint has been debunked for more than 30 years
"The overall shape is seen to consist of a spall pattern in a concretion-like slab, similar to many others in the area. There is no evidence that it was ever part of a striding sequence, nor that it was ever on an exposed bedding plane, as real prints would be. The "print" is very shallow and shows no sign of pressure deformation or foot movement at its margin. However, on one side of the print, extending to the side of the supposed toe end is a rim or lip that is typical of similar concretions from the area, but which is incompatible in position and form to be a pressure ridge. Also, of the two halves of rock, the side that has the heel indented shows raised relief at the toe end, and vice versa, whereas in a real print one should show impression or raised relief throughout each half.
"The supposed "heel" demarcation is actually a crack that runs beyond the boundary of the supposed print. It is best seen on the far left side as one views the print in the photograph herein. The slight relief difference at this point is due to slight movement along the crack line" (emphasis added - people can see the photos for themselves by following the link above)
"I unhesitatingly assert that this is not a footprint. I have observed and collected a number of types of footprints that meet all the critical requirements, and I have had no qualms about describing these in print even though some were totally new. The Meister specimen is the result of a natural break, which happens to resemble a footprint. This type of fracture is called spalling and the part which breaks out or is detached is called a spall.
The specimen was in no sense faked, and I am sure it was found exactly as reported. But I, along with my geologist friends, are equally sincere in my belief that it is an accidental natural product and not a footprint.
One might think a difference of opinion such as this could be solved by appeal to impartial judges or by a more thorough investigation of the field of evidence. But from the time of discovery, the specimen has taken on a religious significance that makes a friendly solution almost impossible."
Dr. William Stokes - Bachelors and Masters from BYU, Ph.D in geology from Princeton University in 1941 and Professor at the University of Utah for more than 32 years (headed of Department of Geology for 13 years). Additionally, a Mormon who tried to convince other Mormons that evolution was compatible with scripture.
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The evidence you gave for dinosaurs not being lizards was really bad
"It is a fact that many reptiles may continue to grow throughout their lives, so some creationists have simplistically postulated that a dinosaur (“terrible lizard”) is merely the result of having a lizard live much longer than today in the favorable environment of the early earth." (emphasis added)
"What would a lizard that lived for centuries look like? The answer is that it would still be a lizard, not a dinosaur."
"lizards and dinosaurs belong to different subclasses within the class Reptilia."
"The most striking characteristic of the Archosauria is the triradiate pelvis. In the Lepidosauria (including lizards) the ilium extends dorsally, articulating with two, unfused, sacral vertebrae. The ischium and pubis are parallel to the ground surface, and fused in the midline (Romer, A. S., Osteology of the Reptiles, 1956, p. 320.). In the archosaurs (including dinosaurs), the ilium is expanded along its dorsal margin, and articulates with three or four fused vertebrae. The ischium extends posteroventrally and the pubis anteroventrally. The pubes and ischii are fused laterally for most of their length."
"The teeth in lepidosaurs are pleurordont. That is, they are set in a long groove in the jaws with a high outer and low inner wall. The individual teeth are fused to the outer wall of the groove without roots. In the archosaurs the teeth are thecodont. They are set in deep individual sockets which enclose the long, cylindrical root of the tooth. There are also lower jaw distinctions with the lepidosaurs having a more developed coronoid process, which forms the upper margin of the mandible behind the dentary bone."
"In the lepidosaur skull (See Romer, fig 62, p. 114.) the maxilla is firmly joined with the lachrimal and jugal bones, and there is no anteorbital fenestra (opening in the skull in front of the eye). In the archosaurians the maxilla forms the anterior border, and the lachrimal and jugal the posterior border of a large anteorbital fenestra. In the archosauria both the quadrate and quadratojugal bones form the jaw articulation, while in the lepidosaurs the quadrate forms the articulation."
"Another key distinctive is the single headed ribs of a large monitor lizard (Varanus) compared with the double-headed ribs of a superficially similar dinosaur, like Thecodontosaurus. There are also substantial differences in terms of locomotion/posture. From their skeletons, we believe dinosaurs had an upright stride (with legs typically falling straight down like a dogs), while a lizard’s limbs are sprawled out to the side."
"The dinosaurs appear to have had a much more “hot blooded” metabolism than do lizards. Lizards are unqualified ectotherms (without a way to make their own body heat), growing slowly and taking years to reach sexual maturity. They do not deposit fibrolamellar bone, a dense, interwoven tissue indicative of fast growth and high basal metabolism. Lizards also do not form large amounts of Haversian canals (channels running through a bone in which blood vessels and nerves are located); which are another indicator, though not unambiguous, of higher metabolism and growth rates. Dinosaurs display them (especially evident in juvenile dinosaur bones)."
"There is good evidence for differences in physiology as well. The dinosaurs appear to have had a much more “hot blooded” metabolism than do lizards. Lizards are unqualified ectotherms (without a way to make their own body heat), growing slowly and taking years to reach sexual maturity. They do not deposit fibrolamellar bone, a dense, interwoven tissue indicative of fast growth and high basal metabolism. Lizards also do not form large amounts of Haversian canals (channels running through a bone in which blood vessels and nerves are located); which are another indicator, though not unambiguous, of higher metabolism and growth rates. Dinosaurs display them (especially evident in juvenile dinosaur bones)."
"There are very distinctive differences in the skeletons. These differences, not size, are the distinguishing characteristics of dinosaurs."
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Additionally, I mentioned bone histology (analysis of lines of arrested growth, etc.) and the fact that the overgrown lizard hypothesis would rule out young dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs, of which there are many fossils. Just because something is named lizard doesn't actually make it a lizard. I have a friend named Lizy and her ears will grow her entire life - how old will she have to live until she (or just her ears) will become a dinosaur?
"... and uncredible."
Dr. Don Batten got his Ph.D. from the University of Sydney and worked for 20 years as a research horticulturalist. Moreover, Dr. Batten is a creationist! and rotating editor of Creation magazine so his motivation is not to bash other creationists, just ignorant ones.
Though your profile does say you are in college, so you at least (presumably) have your high school diploma...
it does not reject them being overgrown lizards.
Not sure if you have a reading comprehesion issue or just one of cognitive dissonance, but it very plainly rejects exactly that. Different skulls, jaws, teeth, pelvis, vertebrae, ribs, posture, locomotion, bone tissue and structure, growth rate, and metabolism = pretty different.
reliance on evidence that you otherwise discount-What?
You (wrongly) assert that geologists believe that the cataclysmic event that wiped out the dinosaurs involved water and buried dinosaurs in mud and sediment flow as support for the flood. In reality, they believe that a meteor struck the earth because of high iridium and shocked quart in a layer of the geologic column. If you reject the geologic column, you would also have to reject this layer as coinciding with the event. Additionally, the reason impact craters are thought to be related is based on the same dating methods that are used to show the earth is over 4 billion years old and must be discounted in order to believe the earth is a few thousand years old.
Whop[sic] says that I haven't researched it and have determined that the invalidation was incorrect or unsubstantiated?
Can you name one credible scientist that still believes the Meister find was an actual human footprint?
Who says I have no scientific knowledge.
You do. Your arguments that lizards turned into dinosaurs through aging, that there was a worldwide flood that magically left no physical evidence, that the world is a few thousand years old are only possible if one remains completely ignorant of actual science.
You gave one good source, which was in further reading. Your argument is thus unsubstantiated and unreliable.
I cited several believers and non-believers with relevant doctorates and decades of field research and you gave how many sources again?
Simply because I didn't want to respond does not mean that I can't rebut them easily. I can rebut them easily.
Every single piece of evidence that you gave is rooted in two philosophies: (1) naturalism and (2) uniformitarianism. 2 Peter 3 clearly prophesies that these philosophies will come about in the last days and is distanced from truth. To prove any of your arguments you have to prove these two philosophies first. I don't disagree that the evidence for evolution is strong, according to these two philosophies. However, when you don't assume for these two philosophies, then the Bible is the obvious one. Stop making assumptions. You have yet to make any good arguments.
Every single piece of evidence that you gave is rooted in two philosophies: (1) naturalism and (2) uniformitarianism... To prove any of your arguments you have to prove these two philosophies first
naturalism - If by that you mean I don't presuppose my chosen brand of supernaturalism and then try to make the world fit that model, then you would be, at least in part, correct.
uniformitarianism – I generally consider the word to be a bit of a misnomer; scientists believe in several extinction events, magnetic poll reversals, floods (even great big regional ones), volcanoes, temporarily sped up tectonic activity due to magma plumes, etc. etc., far from the idea that conditions have been uniform. What they believe, until there is evidence to the contrary (and you have provided none), is that the laws of physics appear to have been consistent.
Many of the things I mentioned are good evidence for consistency of the laws of physics (like distant starlight - there is no function for the speed of light that works with a young universe). Alternatively, YECs can resort to omphalism, which relies on a deceitful god making the universe appear to be old when it is really young compounded by the notion that a person should not believe the evidence before their very eyes which god put there.
If all of recorded history and research in scores of scientific fields correlate with the current laws of nature with amazing consilience, and we can use that information to go to Mars and create microwaves, cell phones and the internet, why would we throw all of that out and say that maybe there was a worldwide flood and night and day before the sun existed and that nothing, including gravity or the speed of light, will be the same tomorrow so just stay home, read the bible and wait a couple thousand more years for the apocalypse?
2 Peter 3 clearly prophesies that these philosophies will come about in the last days and is distanced from truth.
If your only support is "the bible tells me so", then there is no use in pretending that your claims are scientific.
Moreover, while you can pretend goddidit is a get out of jail free card for all of the scientific arguments I gave (showing your own lack of ability in defending your claims), it does not provide any reconciliation for the the bible contradicting itself (contradictions betwixt multiple versions of text and intratextual).
Stop making assumptions
I have given tons of evidence. You are the one starting with the assumptions of supernaturalism and biblical inerrancy (if that is even possible with a bible that contradicts itself) without any substantiation whatsoever (except such highbrow insights as saur = lizard, therefore dinosaurs are lizards.)
You have yet to give any evidence that is not assuming for a controversial philosophy
Hello, Pot. This is Kettle. You're black! (have a tu quoque and a smile)
Is acceptance of biblical literalism uncontroversial? Do you expect only completely uncontroversial positions on a debate site? The uncontroversial evidence you gave was what again?
then we can talk
and I'm sure you'll still be about as obtuse as ever...
can you read? I am saying that you are a complete hypocrit for arguing about the evidence I gave since you have given none that would meet the test of logic much less be uncontroversial.
You really can look stuff up before sticking your foot in your mouth any further.
I'm starting to think that your account is just a bot that throws out random craziness then just picks words from rebuttal arguments and says nuh uh in random ways mixed with god did it. Turing test failed.
maybe it is someone who says not to use an argument founded on uniformitarianism without first proving uniformitarianism, yet their very first post in the debate does exactly that:
"Yes, its obvious and the only way one could deny it would be to deny science or to have a belief that the universe is not the same as it is here or that it has not been the same over time."
maybe it is someone that says giving only one good source makes an argument unsubstantiated and unreliable while providing zero sources (and not rebutting that source and not showing why the other information is not 'good'.)
And, if it's about the spelling, I'll commit another tu quoque, but phrase it in a way that even you may understand: remove the beam from thine own eye, and then go back and read your own posts....
Science works to become infallible. It draws educated conclusions based on observations of REALITY. Therfore it is reliable, if not dependable. Religion on the otherhand bases HUGE assertions of god's outside of time and space on NOTHING but a whim with NO support and therefore NO reason to accept any of it. Sure, science isn't perfect, but I'll take scientific experimental data based conclusions of theory over any religions idea any day.
And one more thing, your own argument works against you because yes, humans are not infalliable. Even more 2000 years ago than today. Therefore why should we accept anything from Christianity?
And yes, I would love an attempt at proving beyond any shred of doubt what scientists and/or historians have debunked entirely. Go for it
The Big Bang theory is just a theory nothing more. It is more likely that God made the world than believing that this very complex earth was made from an explosion. Science also says that all living things come from existing living things which makes the Big Bang impossible
The Big Bang theory is just a theory nothing more.
Wrong.
A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.
It is more likely that God made the world than believing that this very complex earth was made from an explosion.
Not really. Oh, and the Big Bang wasn't an explosion, it was an expansion.
According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly.
Science also says that all living things come from existing living things which makes the Big Bang impossible.
First off we have no proof that the Big Bang theory could be true and if it was true it would be called a law or fact not a theory. And their is plenty of evidence of there being a God. How can you explain all of the miracles that have taken place like a man who doctors told him that he would never walk again and he looked at a picture of Jesus and stood up and could walk. Or the woman who hate late stages of cancer and doctors told her that she only had months to live but she prayed to God for months and at her next checkup, all of the cancer was gone, the doctors had no explaination for it. How do you explain that. It was obviously God showing us that he really is real
let me just understand something here. Where do you and everyone else whose saying God doesnt exisit think we came from? Monkeys? Because I know I didnt come from no monkey. hmm and what do you figure we will evolve into next?
clearly there are lots of different views and beliefs on the topic, and i did take evolution in school thankyou. Im not going into detail, just skimming.
If you took Evolution in school you would know that we did not evolve from Monkeys but share a common ancestor with them, humans and Apes evolved from the same original creature, maybe God created that creature maybe not who knows.
If you dont want to believe the evidence on your own body (the Cocyx at tbe base of your spine) go to the Zoo and spend some time watching the Chimps, the similarities between them and Humans is frightening and makes Evolution hard to deny.
You are so ignorant. 1) we didn't come from monkeys. We evolved from a common ancestor with I believe orangutans but I'm not sure. Then that ancestor branched into gorillas and another ancetor, the. That ancestor split into chimps and us (prehistoric neanderthals). Educate yourself on human evolution please. 2) how do you know you didn't evolve?
We fit our niche in life perfectly so nothing drastic will change. However you can see how natural selection has played a part in human history very recently. From the 40s to now humans have gotten taller in general because that trait is attractive and has been passed on. In the future people may be even taller. Were not going to evolve into entirely new species like a fish or bird...
How can any crocodile, salamander, get metamorphose, and evolve? even if these animal are so old. Is that not possible? only a butterfly can do it.
As we might have the same dna then porc, it does not mean that we use to be one, either as we look like gorillas or monkeys it doesn't mean we use to be,
how do you know you didn't evolve?
we dont Metamorphose by this i mean, or cell are not giving us new members, or wings, simply our cells cant do it.So you can wait 50000years or more inside the water but your cell wont change and give you Gills and respiratory system of a fish.
Because that's not how evolution works. Natural selection based off random genetic mutation creating desirable traits for a specific environment and niche.
You should take my word when I say God is not real, if there is nothing to test, then there is nothing to prove he's real, he's as real as Katy prices breasts!
That is to claim infallibility of your own self. Do you have proof of your infallibility to distinguish whether you exist or not to count as proof that you do in fact exist?
I will repeat: do you have proof of anything?
This is yet another reason as to why Christians say atheism is a prideful belief.
Who said I denied that question? I don't deny that question but I also see the question in a universal sense. I challenge you to do the same: don't pick and choose.
Are you saying that the mind that is pondering this doesn't exist? And that the fact that we are perceiving this (illusion or not) isn't self evident that it does exist?
I'm not saying that the things we think to be reality are not reality. I'm saying that we have no proof of anything. Do you have proof that you do have a mind? How do you know that it is? Realize this and you will realize true skepticism, not a phony one sided skeptic ideology.
How is Atheism a phony when we have logical proof? If someone dies, we need proof that they were murdered. Finding the murderer with the knife is proof, therefore making your argument invalid.
Yes there are killers because they believe in Satan, if you do believe in Jesus or if all mankind believed in Jesus, nothing wrong would happen. I tell this, Jesus sacrificed for our sins. Jesus is not a sinner, but when He sacrificed for our sins, we were cleansed. And He became a sinner. Believe in Jesus, trust Him!
Yes there are killers because they believe in Satan, if you do believe in Jesus or if all mankind believed in Jesus, nothing wrong would happen. I tell this, Jesus sacrificed for our sins. Jesus is not a sinner, but when He sacrificed for our sins, we were cleansed. And He became a sinner. Believe in Jesus, trust Him!
Practically 70% of Americans believe in Jesus. In here there's crimes and all this crap.
70% of Norwegians, Swedes, Danish, are Atheist, and guess what? Their countries are the safest, wealthiest and most liveable in the world.
there's killers? lol yess there's murderers, there always have been there always will be. There's Good and Evil. Heaven and hell. So if there was a God there would be no murderers? than we wouldnt even be having this discussion right now, bc we would all be gods puppets? God gave people freedom of choice. You make your own decisions, and you deal with the consequences. And personally I think the world in its self, or just being here is a miracle.
Proof in its strict sense, refers to a very small set of mathematical or logical demonstrations which work within their own terms of reference. Most things that we believe implicitly are not proveable e.g. the existence of other minds, the reliability of sense data, the reliability of past memory. If proof is the bar for what we can believe, as Descartes demonstrated, there is not much of what we do believe that we can believe.
I don't know. I'm an agnostic. Short of direct observation and irrefutable evidence I don't think the question can be proved. I actually think that Both atheists and theists are very arrogant. Atheists for believing they can "Know" there is no God. And Theists for believing they have all the answers. But in my personal experience I have seen little evidence of the Judeo Christian God.
The term Atheist means the lack of belief I a god or deity. Simple. It in itself does not assert there is no god. Being an atheist just means you don't believe in any god's. Atheists can and sometimes do go as far to assert that they know there is no god but in truth they don't and then it would be true they are arrogant. However in my case I don't assert there is no god, but I do reject the existence of all deities preposed to me thusfar based on a lack of supporting evidence. I accept the reality that a god existing is possible, I just dont see it.
I do not believe it is possible to, “prove,” whether or not God exists, whether to the atheist, or to anyone else for that matter. We can present factual evidence for the unbeliever to weigh and consider as a part of the process necessary to develop his or her individual faith, but we simply cannot, “prove,” there is a God because we are not God. What I mean is this: God will prove Himself to each and every person that takes his or her first step of faith; God tailors the inner, ‘spiritual witness’ that He feels is best suited and unique to each individual, and therefore HE is the ultimate, “proof,” of Himself and His existence. Seek and ye shall find.
THERE IS NO SO CALLED god THAT EXISTS OR HAS DONE ANYTHING OR ME . I WILL JUST SIT IN MY CHAIR MAKING LOVE TO MY MACHINE WHICH I LOVE AND ADORE MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD , GIVES ME WHAT I WANT AND CRAVE AND WOW DOES IT FEEL BETTER THAN ANYTHING .
(The minimum length for an argument is 50 characters. The purpose of this restriction is to cut down on the amount of dumb jokes, so we can keep the quality of debate and discourse as high as possible)
I don't believe an intelligent creator is required for "something" to emerge from "nothing". At the quantum level particles constantly pop into existence then disappear. No God required for the singularity that could have been the core of the Big Bang.
The idea of a theistic, Christian or Islamic or Jewish interventionist, supernatural 'God' is frankly ridiculous. There is not evidence for any kind of miracle, divine intervention or prayer being answered. It is a bizarre idea to claim that the Bible has any kind of supernatural or divine hand behind it seeing as it is frequently contradictory, written over hundreds of years and was edited and put together in the 5th Century AD- some early Christians believed in many Gods! Many denied Christ's divinity! This does not sound like the one true faith, does it? Seeing as Christ's own followers and early Christians in the 1st Century could not even agree on who he was, what he was like or even if he was married or not!
Quite frankly, this directly contradicts the term "Christian" which means "follower of Christ." This is a ridiculous argument because, contrary to what many believe, christians were not persecuted for their faith in Christ, but rather for their belief that Christ was the embodiment of the ONE true God. This is what caused the Romans, a polytheistic society, to turn on them and, ultimately, target them. Not only that, but, as we have seen in the gospels, Jesus directly stated, "I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life." And we have no reason to refute the plausibility of the gospels because they have passed every authenticity test placed before them.
MANY DENIED CHRIST'S DIVINITY
Once again, I return the argument that this would directly conflict with their title. They could not call themselves christians without "confessing with the mouth and the heart that Jesus is the Son of God."
SEEING AS HOW CHRIST'S OWN FOLLOWERS AND EARLY CHRISTIANS IN THE 1ST CENTURY COULD NOT EVEN AGREE ON WHO HE WAS, WHAT HE WAS LIKE OR EVEN IF HE WAS MARRIED OR NOT
Firstly, the first century church was founded solely by people who had either A) seen Jesus personally and learned directly from him and began to teach to others, or B) People who believed the message preached by the people who fell into the category of group A.
Secondly, James, one of Jesus' disciples, was Jesus' own half-brother! There is no plausible evidence to give to say that no one knew who Jesus was when not only his brother was involved, but so were John and Peter, the disciples with whom Jesus talked most and divulged many of his great teachings. That, coupled with the fact that Jesus spent three years with his twelve disciples, is more than enough to dispel any evidence that people did not know who he was when all they had to do was ask one of the people with whom he had spent time.
Lastly, the theory that Jesus was married, though old, has never been verified or disproved, according to my knowledge, though i personally
think it is false. But the simple fact of the matter is, Jesus was not revered for his celibacy. He was revered because of who he was and what he stood for. He was revered because he was willing to die a horribly agonizing death out of love for all mankind. Even if he had been married, this would not have changed the meaning of his teachings, his life, his death, or his resurrection in any way, shape, or form.
Just because you don't consider early Christian sects such as the gnostics and aryians as true Christians does not mean that they did not play an important role in early christian history. I believe the poster you are responding to was trying to draw attention to the diversity of beliefs held in the first few centuries about Christ by people who claimed to be Christians. Whether or not you believe their claim or not is beside the point. What is important to note, is that their was wide spread disagreement about who Jesus was and what his life was like.
The truth is, there is not sufficient historical evidence to tell us one way or the other. The 4 accepted books of the gospels (there were many more http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html), ,) were written at least 70 AD, in a language that Jesus did not speak (Greek). They are also full of contradiction and parts clearly invented to make it appear as if the man's life fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament (that is if you read them as an observer of human nature and not through the lens of blind faith).
Regardless, For me at least there are 3 verses from those books that clearly dispute the validity of the gospels:
Mark 9:1
And he said to them, "Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power."
This quote is repeated although with slightly different verbiage in Mathew chapter 16 and Luke chapter 9.
These are the alleged words of Christ. If he was right. The Kingdom of God should have come within the life time of Jesus's apostles. This clearly did not happen because anyone he was actually talking to has been dead for nearly 2000 years. No Kingdom of God has come. Jesus was wrong and the gospels are clearly wrong. Just like the stories of the Egyptian Gods. Just like the stories of the Greek Gods. Just like the stories of the Hindu Gods.
But you can have faith if you like. Faith's done a lot for people: religious wars, cult group suicides, the dark ages, the belief in witches (common. really?). Meanwhile, science cured polio and put men on the moon. Religion is a waste of time and damned dangerous (such is all dogmatism). And there's nothing special about Christianity. It just happened to win a large following and happens to be the belief with which many children are indoctrinated. Children tend to belief all sorts of things if they are indoctrinated properly, like that the leader of North Korea is a good man who cares about the people. Eventually, though, it's in the best interest of children to grow up. Wasn't it Paul who said it is time to put away childish things? Well, to any impartial observer the bible is a book of fairy tales, and fairy tales are indeed, childish things.
FYI: Jesus is referring to the transfiguration in Mark 9, which is repeated in Matthew 16 and Luke 9 (as you said). The transfiguration occurs in Matthew 17 and Luke 9; they are both immediately after what Jesus said.
Yep! you're absolutely right. I got the wrong verse. Sorry, been a while since I've read this stuff.
I refer you instead to Mark chapter 13:
Jesus describes the end of the world in detail and says that this will occur before the end of the current generation.
Mark 13:30
"30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened."
I believe this same strain is picked up in the other books of the gospels as well, but perhaps a better biblical scholar than myself, could enlighten us.
2. The events Jesus describes go far beyond the destruction of a temple
A natural reading would suggest that Jesus is referring precisely to what it would appear he is referring.. the generation of which his audience is a part. It would appear from this link your provided, http://expositorythoughts.wordpress.com/ 2008/03/28/this-generation-in-matthew-2434/ , that this is in fact the case anyway.
They couldn't have just began to take place in that time period for a couple of reasons.
1. because he says the event will take place in a single season. mark 18.
2. because he says when you see the first signs the event is "near, right at the door" (so, the end of times was near 2000 years ago) that's a very long time especially when people of the era believed the world was only several thousand years old.
And, just a general question: how many 1000s of years are going to have to pass before people realize that this shit simply isn't going to happen?
Just because obvious inaccuracies can be explained if you try really, really hard does not mean the explanations are good ones.
If you take what Jesus said at face value, then quite frankly, Jesus was wrong.
Of course many people are willing to believe any load of bullshit so long as it supports the preconceived truth they have already decided on. The hard truth is it's a fiction. A nice fiction that tells us we're special and panders to the unfaltering ego of man, no different from a thousand similar fictions cultures around the globe fixated on before we discovered science and reason. These fictions are simply relics of a stupider age (age... not generation. When I speak, I intend for MY meaning to be clear).
Of course, my friend, it would make no sense if you took it at face value! He spoke in parables and He spoke of things that people could not comprehend (the things of Heaven). However, when you examine it and allow scripture to interpret Scripture then you find yourself holding all of the answers.
Except in this particular passage, he is not speaking in parables. He is being very direct about what will happen at the end of days and when this will happen. Plain truth. He was wrong.
IN the face of such obvious factual inaccuracies, to continuing insisting that the bible is infallible requires throwing logic and reason away and instead indulging ourselves in a fantasy reality. Such fantasies are rightly considered psychological disorders and should be treated as such.
And what does let 'scripture interpret scripture' mean. To me that seems to equate to let's let the truth be what we want it to be. Of course I'll have all the answers if I allow myself to make them up willy nilly. Unfortunately, objective truth could care less about how much you delude yourself.
IF YOU APPLY the rules of reason and evidence to the bible, the stories are foolish on their face. If you say you have done this and found another conclusion other than the bible is plain old fashioned superstition, you are either ignorant of how human reason works, willfully blinding yourself to the obvious truth, or an idiot.
He said that the birth pangs will begin during the generation that was hearing Him. The Greek uses an aorist form of the word, which signifies the beginning of something.
Scripture interpreting Scripture is using Bible references from one point to determine what another point is saying.
It is interesting that you assume that the Kingdom of God coming with power did not come about during the lifetime of the apostles. If we think that this phrase means something like the end of this age or the new creation or the general resurrection, then clearly this hasn't happened yet, and as you say, Jesus' statement would hve been clearly falsified.
However there are a number of statements in the Gospels that theologians refer to as 'Realised Eschatology', which regard the Kingdom of God as a present reality, expressed in the person and ministry of Jesus. In Luke's Gospel, for example, Jesus says explicitly that the 'Kingdom of God is within you' - i.e. as a present reality.
I personally think that the context of Jesus promising that some disciples would not taste death until they saw the kingdom coming with power, points most comfortably to the Transfiguration narrative which follows.
If the early church really interpreted Jesus comments as literally as you imply, it seems bizarre that these comments were not redacted out of the Gospels. The fact that they were retained indicates to me that Jesus was not talking straightforwardly about the second coming.
Logically speaking, no he does not. I keep reading people comments, and I keep seeing the same thing. "look around you, its obvious" blah blah blah. The truth is that there is no creative design. The earth is just the most habitable location for life to thrive. Think about the number of non-habitable planet that exist in our universe. There are alot. This planet is one of few that can support life. So the earth wasn't created so we can live on it, we were created because we can live on the earth.
No that isn't what that means. Not in any way sir. Read my entire answer not just the part you can use to dispute. Besides "WE WERE CREATED BECAUSE WE CAN LIVE ON THE EARTH" does not mean "there is God who created us to live on this earth". It means that the earth has the perfect temperature, available food and water sources and atmosphere to support life. That is why we are here.
Well no one sent us here. We are here because the earth environment supports our human life. More specifically, human life is able to survive the earths environment. We are here because the earths conditions were ideal enough to allow life to evolve into the beings we are today.
I did answer your question. But if you need me to further explain it I will. The earth environment created us. We didn't "come here". We evolved into the beings we are today.
When refering to God, it's like you only imagine it to be the Judeo-Christian God.
That I feel, is illogical . It's like the brutal arrogancy and hypocritical sense is coming out of Christians like a powerful stinch.
What about all of the other religions that have monotheistic beliefs?!? What happened to them? What about all the other laws in their books? Don't think that just because something is recorded on a book, means it's true.
Might as well call, Harry Potter the son of the God of Wizardry and how his friends are his followers. That might as well brainwash you into following me.
Anyway, this God "mumbo-jumbo" is a bunch of trash.
All the other religions have contradicting beliefs... so how would you know which one was true?
And don't give me some dumb garbage like faith or something like that...
No, the only true gods are the Omnessiah, and Khorne. The Omnessiah is the all powerful machine god, and Khorne is the blood god. Worship them you foolish mortals. =3
For god to exist we must have a clear definition of god. It/He/She must be scientifically testable not an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Till now we never had any proof that god exists. Every suggested proof has a natural explaination. Therefore it is highly improbable that god exists.
MY GOD THAT I LOVE WORSHIP AND ADORE IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND AWESOME LOVING NOTHING BUT MONEY AND POWER AND YOUR SO CALLED god MAKES ME SICK AND NOT WORTHY OF ANYTHING .
lol money and power makes you worthy? its funny because i doubt if there is a God that he needs money, and as for power? hes clearly already got that. I actually hope your kidding because thats kind of disgusting that you think like that, and what a sad sad life you must have.
Its funny cause I dont read the bible and Im not very religious at all. And regardless of whether you believe in God or not, doesnt make a difference to me. you just sound really silly thats all.