Harsh Truth: If Intelligent Design is Untestable . . .

[philbo]

I read scriptures like this and understand why you cannot see what is plainly obvious to us.

I read posts like yours and wonder how you can find it so incredible, the idea that simple life arose from organic molecules + energy from a nice big external source; yet are happy to believe that something capable of creating it all just happened to be there all along (or itself sprang from nothingness).

It's a bit like spouting the fallacious argument about a tornado randomly leaving behind a jumbo jet, while believing that the factory that made the jet and the whole smelting operation & supply chain magically appeared from nowhere. However big your argument from incredulity is, we're infinitely more incredulous of your proposed "solution"

 

[SkepticThinker]

Abiogenesis is about how life began. Science would have us believe that "life" came magically out of nowhere. Yet no scientist has ever produced life from non living matter. Can science really define what "life" is? They can fiddle with life and alter things genetically, but they cannot produce "life" itself. Only the Creator can do that.

.

Science doesn't claim that. You do.

 

[Curious George]

Now here is the classic..."you don't understand science" man revealing that he knows nothing about creation. If you are going to debunk creation, at least have some idea about what the Bible teaches regarding it.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".....Big Bang? The "heavens" would include all the universe and he specifically talks about the earth, because this is where he was first going to create life.

2 Now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep, and God’s active force was moving about over the surface of the waters. 3 And God said: “Let there be light.” Then there was light. 4 After that God saw that the light was good, and God began to divide the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day." (Gen 1:1-5)

Read the words.....the earth was formless and waste and no light penetrated to the earth's surface from any existing light source. When God said "let there be light" he was merely indicating that light now penetrated the darkness, perhaps by removing a thick cloud layer, and was now visible on earth's surface.



Your assumptive deductions might work for evolution, but the Bible speaks for itself.
Light, perhaps in a diffused form was now visible, where it had not been visible before. There was no imaginary deity making light magically appear. The Creator was preparing the earth for habitation. Light is required for life. God is spoken of as "the source of life" as Kolibri has mentioned.



The creative "days" we're not 24 literal hours in length. The term "day" in the Bible means more than a 24 hour period.
Evening and morning simply means the beginning and ending of the creative period. We ourselves use the term "dawn of a new era" or "in my grandfather's day"....we are not talking about literal days there.



The sun was there along with all the other "stars" as part of the heavens, so was the moon. They were just not clearly visible.
We have mornings without sun when it is raining. We can't see the sun, but we see the light.



The elements of the earth are what we are made of...even science knows this.



This is not what the Bible says at all. Adam was not formed with knowledge installed as if he was somehow programmed like a computer. For a very long time, God educated Adam and he was assigned to name the creatures he shared life with on this planet. As family head, it was Adam's job to educate his wife, just as his Creator had educated him. The first humans were created to reproduce their "kind", like all other life forms on earth.



He is only imaginary to those who are unbelievers. He will not reveal himself to those who are certain that they have no need of him. The truth is...he has no need of them. He will not force you to believe in him. He gives you the choice to learn the truth or to reject it.



But this is what evolution teaches.....that life sprang out of nowhere and magically became all the forms of life we see on this planet through blind undirected chance. There is not one shred of solid evidence that this is what happened. It is assumed by those who wish to promote their theory.



By the time living things appeared, grass and other vegetation was already provided in abundance. The Creator knows how to plant and grow the things he created.



I believe that the "book" contains more answers about the origin of life than any man-made, unsubstantiated theory.
You can reject it if you like.



I understand enough to know that the science books and journals are all the same. They all use the same terminology which betrays the fact that they have no evidence apart from what they deduce from that evidence. There are no "facts"...but lots of supposition. Please produce some evidence to the contrary. Show proof that one creature evolved into another completely different creature. It is assumed..."believed" that this took place.



You yourself are spreading misinformation about creation. All I have ever asked is that evolutionists admit that their theory is just that...an unprovable theory. They promote and teach evolution as "fact" to children, when it is actually dishonest to do that.
Teaching both creation and evolution in schools will allow kids to make up their own minds without making those with spiritual values out to be morons. We are not unintelligent nor are we uneducated.....we are believers, with as much right to hold our views as you do.

given that the processes, genetic drift, natural selection, hybridization, genetic mutation, and migration are true, given that we see most species go extinct, given the fossil record, given the similarities in DNA, given similarities of previous now extinct species and the existence of different similar species and different time periods, and given the superfluous parts of animals that resemble previous useful parts of other now extinct species, what other conclusion is possible besides evolution? A theory with a creator must exist with evolution or with the claim that this creator is tarrying about slowly adding species to the world. What process is involved if this is what the creator is doing? Does something just spontaneous generate? Does something just poof into the air?

 

[Curious George]

Abiogenesis is about how life began. Science would have us believe that "life" came magically out of nowhere. Yet no scientist has ever produced life from non living matter. Can science really define what "life" is? They can fiddle with life and alter things genetically, but they cannot produce "life" itself. Only the Creator can do that.

Since abiogenesis is a relatively open subject that does not entirely discount the existence of an intelligent progenitor of all life, then what would happen to evolution if a Creator actually made his existence apparent? What difference would it make to those who roundly deny the possibility of the existence of such a being? I have never been able to do that. Everything points to purposeful design, not things that result from blind random chance.

Evolution is based on assumption by interpreting "evidence" found in the fossil record and the study of genetics.

Why is it that no one can admit that they are not scientific "facts"? These are science "assumptions". Using the same criteria applied to us....wanting to believe something, doesn't make it true.

It depends on what your definition of life is.

I can certainly admit that evolutionary theory is based upon interpretation of data we colllect. The problem is that it is the only logical conclusion. Just like gravity is the only logical conclusion to explain the force we now term gravity.

If a creator made itself apparent this would do nothing to evolution. We would be able to further narrow down certain events. We could arguably suggest that some of what was considered random was in fact guided.

But evolution would still be fact.

Regarding the production of life: what do we consider life?

some interesting reading:

The creation of organics

An Origin-of-Life Reactor to Simulate Alkaline Hydrothermal Vents - Springer

The creation of rna

Artificial molecule evolves in the lab - life - 08 January 2009 - New Scientist

The creation of DNA
Evolution seen in 'synthetic DNA' - BBC News


the creation of "protocells"

Synthetic primordial cell copies RNA for the first time - life - 28 November 2013 - New Scientist

And finally the creation of vesicles which respond spontaneously to their environment
Science | From AAAS

Seems to me if you don't think we haven't developed life yet, you still have to admit we are getting darn close.

 

[Salvador]

Now here is the classic..."you don't understand science" man revealing that he knows nothing about creation. If you are going to debunk creation, at least have some idea about what the Bible teaches regarding it.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".....Big Bang? The "heavens" would include all the universe and he specifically talks about the earth, because this is where he was first going to create life.

2 Now the earth was formless and desolate, and there was darkness upon the surface of the watery deep, and God’s active force was moving about over the surface of the waters. 3 And God said: “Let there be light.” Then there was light. 4 After that God saw that the light was good, and God began to divide the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day." (Gen 1:1-5)

Read the words.....the earth was formless and waste and no light penetrated to the earth's surface from any existing light source. When God said "let there be light" he was merely indicating that light now penetrated the darkness, perhaps by removing a thick cloud layer, and was now visible on earth's surface.



Your assumptive deductions might work for evolution, but the Bible speaks for itself.
Light, perhaps in a diffused form was now visible, where it had not been visible before. There was no imaginary deity making light magically appear. The Creator was preparing the earth for habitation. Light is required for life. God is spoken of as "the source of life" as Kolibri has mentioned.



The creative "days" we're not 24 literal hours in length. The term "day" in the Bible means more than a 24 hour period.


Evening and morning simply means the beginning and ending of the creative period. We ourselves use the term "dawn of a new era" or "in my grandfather's day"....we are not talking about literal days there.



The sun was there along with all the other "stars" as part of the heavens, so was the moon. They were just not clearly visible.
We have mornings without sun when it is raining. We can't see the sun, but we see the light.



The elements of the earth are what we are made of...even science knows this.



This is not what the Bible says at all. Adam was not formed with knowledge installed as if he was somehow programmed like a computer. For a very long time, God educated Adam and he was assigned to name the creatures he shared life with on this planet. As family head, it was Adam's job to educate his wife, just as his Creator had educated him. The first humans were created to reproduce their "kind", like all other life forms on earth.



He is only imaginary to those who are unbelievers. He will not reveal himself to those who are certain that they have no need of him. The truth is...he has no need of them. He will not force you to believe in him. He gives you the choice to learn the truth or to reject it.



But this is what evolution teaches.....that life sprang out of nowhere and magically became all the forms of life we see on this planet through blind undirected chance. There is not one shred of solid evidence that this is what happened. It is assumed by those who wish to promote their theory.



By the time living things appeared, grass and other vegetation was already provided in abundance. The Creator knows how to plant and grow the things he created.



I believe that the "book" contains more answers about the origin of life than any man-made, unsubstantiated theory.
You can reject it if you like.



I understand enough to know that the science books and journals are all the same. They all use the same terminology which betrays the fact that they have no evidence apart from what they deduce from that evidence. There are no "facts"...but lots of supposition. Please produce some evidence to the contrary. Show proof that one creature evolved into another completely different creature. It is assumed..."believed" that this took place.



You yourself are spreading misinformation about creation. All I have ever asked is that evolutionists admit that their theory is just that...an unprovable theory. They promote and teach evolution as "fact" to children, when it is actually dishonest to do that.
Teaching both creation and evolution in schools will allow kids to make up their own minds without making those with spiritual values out to be morons. We are not unintelligent nor are we uneducated.....we are believers, with as much right to hold our views as you do.

I'll submit to you some overwhelming empirical and mathematical evidence for evolution.

There is overwhelming proof of evolution. There are millions of fossils to show transitions and millions of animals to compare DNA. Chromosome 2 proves that humans share a common ancestor with Great Apes who have 24 pairs of chromosomes, while we have 23 pairs. Where did our 24th pair go? Evolutionary scientists have found evidence that human chromosome 2 is the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. Chromosomes have a telomere on each end and a centromere in the middle. So if a chromosome had been fused, it would have three telomeres (one on each end and one in the middle) and two centromeres. Guess what...scientists found it. Chromosome 2 has three telomeres and two centromeres (unlike any other chromosome). Somewhere along the line, we broke off and took our own evolutionary route, although we humans still belong in the family of Great Apes. Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs) also prove Evolution. ERVs are the relics of ancient viral infections preserved in our DNA. The odd thing is many ERVs are located in exactly the same position on our genome and the chimpanzee genome! There are two explanations for the perfectly matched ERV locations. Either it is an unbelievable coincidence that viruses just by chance were inserted in exactly the same location in our genomes, or humans and chimps share a common ancestor. The chances that a virus was inserted at the exact same location is 1 in 3,000,000,000. Humans and chimps share 16 pairs of viruses inserted at perfectly matched location. It was our common ancestor that was infected, and we both inherited the ERVs. ERVs provide the closest thing to a mathematical proof for evolution.

 

[Skwim]

Now here is the classic..."you don't understand science" man revealing that he knows nothing about creation. If you are going to debunk creation, at least have some idea about what the Bible teaches regarding it.

Actually, creation (creationism) doesn't need debunking. All one has to realize is that it's merely a statement whose truth rests entirely on faith. And because faith is no more than "trust in belief" it lacks the power to convince through reason, logic, evidence, and all the other bases that underlie fact.
If faith is all you need to accept creationism then perhaps you can buy into it; HOWEVER, if you require anything more, then the honest response must be rejection.


The one overriding truth about the creationism v. evolution debate is:

Creationism is faith based

Evolution is evidence based
​

And this is why one will seldom, if ever, see a creationist trying to prove the validity of creation (creationism) by referencing his source: faith in the Bible. Instead, he is driven to attack evolution. Sad thing is, even if evolution was shown to be wrong it still wouldn't prove his faith is right. It's a no-win situation. One that the creationist assiduously ignores for obvious reasons.

 

[McBell]

Now here is the classic..."you don't understand science" man revealing that he knows nothing about creation. If you are going to debunk creation, at least have some idea about what the Bible teaches regarding it.

Just as soon as all you Christians can agree on what the Bible says....

Good luck with that.

 

[McBell]

But this is what evolution teaches.....that life sprang out of nowhere and magically became all the forms of life we see on this planet through blind undirected chance. There is not one shred of solid evidence that this is what happened. It is assumed by those who wish to promote their theory.

Sad that your faith requires so many lies and dishonesty.

 

[shawn001]

JW.org’s identity crisis: Jehovah’s Witnesses “do not agree with creationism”

JW.org’s identity crisis: Jehovah’s Witnesses “do not agree with creationism” | JWsurvey

 

[Skwim]

JW.org’s identity crisis: Jehovah’s Witnesses “do not agree with creationism”

JW.org’s identity crisis: Jehovah’s Witnesses “do not agree with creationism” | JWsurvey

Yeah, it helps to distant one's self from an onerous doctrine if one redefines that doctrine so as to exclude your position.

 

[shawn001]

Yeah, it helps to distant one's self from an onerous doctrine if one redefines that doctrine so as to exclude your position.

They basically gave up arguing evolution back in the late 80's, they just haven't admitted and come to terms with it yet. Personally, it boggles my mind people can know so little about there home planet and the universe.

 

[McBell]

They basically gave up arguing evolution back in the late 80's, they just haven't admitted and come to terms with it yet. Personally, it boggles my mind people can know so little about there home planet and the universe.

The part that boggles my mind is the complete refusal to learn what evolution actually states.

 

[shawn001]

For that they would have to evolve.

 

[JayJayDee]

Despite all the protests and claims of 'overwhelming evidence', I can categorically say that JW's do not accept creationism. We do not subscribe to the whole shebang being created in 7/24 hour days. We have a somewhat different take on things.
We accept adaptation within "kinds" but not that all life came from a single organism by the workings of undirected chance mutations. How many times must I say it?

We believe that it is entirely possible that the way the evidence is interpreted by those looking for the conclusions they have already reached, it may be completely skewed. A case of conclusions forcing facts rather than the other way around. No one seems to take that into consideration. This is what I see and hear when I watch documentaries or read material promoting evolution. So much is taken as a "given", accepted without question, when there is no "given" to begin with. Nothing is proved beyond doubt and that has been my position from the beginning.

You have no more actual "proof" than I do.

given that the processes, genetic drift, natural selection, hybridization, genetic mutation, and migration are true, given that we see most species go extinct, given the fossil record, given the similarities in DNA, given similarities of previous now extinct species and the existence of different similar species and different time periods, and given the superfluous parts of animals that resemble previous useful parts of other now extinct species, what other conclusion is possible besides evolution?

Do you know how many random mutations would be necessary in the supposed evolution of just one creature? Now multiply that by the billions of creatures we see in the world today and it becomes a little far fetched to believe that random chance could be so beneficial to so many kinds of creatures. Mutations are almost always detrimental and contribute to the loss of that line rather than to its perpetuation. Small adaptations in various species facilitate changes that may have occurred in food supply or in the environment, but they do not result in any species becoming something else entirely. Micro-evolution does not prove macro-evolution
The speciation experiments did not result in flies becoming anything but flies....the fish remained fish. No matter how much time elapses, this will not alter.

A theory with a creator must exist with evolution or with the claim that this creator is tarrying about slowly adding species to the world. What process is involved if this is what the creator is doing?

The Bible indicates that God did take his time with creation. The creative days were probably many thousands of years in length. No problem for an almighty Creator to fashion what he wanted to make out of the materials he brought into existence with the "Big Bang". We are all made from the same stuff....the same raw materials are in all of us.

Does something just spontaneous generate? Does something just poof into the air?

No, there is no "poof" any more than life coming into existence in the first place was a "poof" either. Yet isn't this what evolution maintains. Somewhere...somehow....life was just "happened" and mutated itself into all we see over millions of years. Evolutionists are quick to tell you that they don't know what caused life to come into existence in the first place, but they just know it had to be a "natural" occurrence....with no Intelligent Designer required.

You can all believe that if you like.....I can't.

 

[Bunyip]

Despite all the protests and claims of 'overwhelming evidence', I can categorically say that JW's do not accept creationism. We do not subscribe to the whole shebang being created in 7/24 hour days. We have a somewhat different take on things.
We accept adaptation within "kinds" but not that all life came from a single organism by the workings of undirected chance mutations. How many times must I say it?

We believe that it is entirely possible that the way the evidence is interpreted by those looking for the conclusions they have already reached, it may be completely skewed. A case of conclusions forcing facts rRher than the other way around. No one seems to take that into consideration. This is what I see and hear when I watch documentaries or read material promoting evolution. So much is taken as a "given", accepted without question, when there is no "given" to begin with. Nothing is proved beyond doubt and that has been my position from the beginning.

You have no more actual "proof" than I do.



Do you know how many random mutations would be necessary in the supposed evolution of just one creature? Now multiply that by the billions of creatures we see in the world today and it becomes a little far fetched to believe that random chance could be so beneficial to so many kinds of creatures. Mutations are almost always detrimental and contribute to the loss of that line rather than to its perpetuation. Small adaptations in various species facilitate changes that may have occurred in food supply or in the environment, but they do not result in any species becoming something else entirely. Micro-evolution does not prove macro-evolution
The speciation experiments did not result in flies becoming anything but flies....the fish remained fish. No matter how much time elapses, this will not alter.



The Bible indicates that God did take his time with creation. The creative days were probably many thousands of years in length. No problem for an almighty Creator to fashion what he wanted to make out of the materials he brought into existence with the "Big Bang". We are all made from the same stuff....the same raw materials are in all of us.



No, there is no "poof" any more than life coming into existence in the first place was a "poof" either. Yet isn't this what evolution maintains. Somewhere...somehow....life was just "happened" and mutated itself into all we see over millions of years. Evolutionists are quick to tell you that they don't know what caused life to come into existence in the first place, but they just know it had to be a "natural" occurrence....with no Intelligent Designer required.

You can all believe that if you like.....I can't.

Sure. Your religion forces you to deny the truth. We can all see that. But that is neither a debate nor an argument. You are unresponsive to evidence for religious reasons.

 

[philbo]

We believe that it is entirely possible that the way the evidence is interpreted by those looking for the conclusions they have already reached, it may be completely skewed. A case of conclusions forcing facts rather than the other way around. No one seems to take that into consideration. This is what I see and hear when I watch documentaries or read material promoting evolution. So much is taken as a "given", accepted without question, when there is no "given" to begin with. Nothing is proved beyond doubt and that has been my position from the beginning.

How do you think the theory of evolution came about in the first place? It wasn't because people were looking for evidence of it, and twisted what they saw - how could it possibly have been?

I guess believing others think this way may come naturally to you, as that's exactly how you've been trying to twist things.

You keep reasserting "nothing has been proven beyond doubt", and I think most scientists would agree with you - but that doesn't mean all possible options are therefore equally likely. There is one overwhelmingly likely solution, which may not have been "proven beyond doubt" but is still infintely more likely and a better explanation - as I said many posts back, all you need to do is come up with something that explains everything we can see better than evolution and I (& the whole scientific world) will change my/our opinion.

Thouigh there currently is no other evidenced explanation on the table, so treating evolution by natural selection as a de facto "fact" is a useful shorthand.

 

[Curious George]

Despite all the protests and claims of 'overwhelming evidence', I can categorically say that JW's do not accept creationism. We do not subscribe to the whole shebang being created in 7/24 hour days. We have a somewhat different take on things.
We accept adaptation within "kinds" but not that all life came from a single organism by the workings of undirected chance mutations. How many times must I say it?

We believe that it is entirely possible that the way the evidence is interpreted by those looking for the conclusions they have already reached, it may be completely skewed. A case of conclusions forcing facts rather than the other way around. No one seems to take that into consideration. This is what I see and hear when I watch documentaries or read material promoting evolution. So much is taken as a "given", accepted without question, when there is no "given" to begin with. Nothing is proved beyond doubt and that has been my position from the beginning.

You have no more actual "proof" than I do.



Do you know how many random mutations would be necessary in the supposed evolution of just one creature? Now multiply that by the billions of creatures we see in the world today and it becomes a little far fetched to believe that random chance could be so beneficial to so many kinds of creatures. Mutations are almost always detrimental and contribute to the loss of that line rather than to its perpetuation. Small adaptations in various species facilitate changes that may have occurred in food supply or in the environment, but they do not result in any species becoming something else entirely. Micro-evolution does not prove macro-evolution
The speciation experiments did not result in flies becoming anything but flies....the fish remained fish. No matter how much time elapses, this will not alter.



The Bible indicates that God did take his time with creation. The creative days were probably many thousands of years in length. No problem for an almighty Creator to fashion what he wanted to make out of the materials he brought into existence with the "Big Bang". We are all made from the same stuff....the same raw materials are in all of us.



No, there is no "poof" any more than life coming into existence in the first place was a "poof" either. Yet isn't this what evolution maintains. Somewhere...somehow....life was just "happened" and mutated itself into all we see over millions of years. Evolutionists are quick to tell you that they don't know what caused life to come into existence in the first place, but they just know it had to be a "natural" occurrence....with no Intelligent Designer required.

You can all believe that if you like.....I can't.

Nope no poof in evolution or in abiogenesis...But we can explain the random appearance of different species.

What are you claiming would require a "poof" moment? The taken as a given were aspects of "adaptation" that I assume you agree to because you have said as much, fossils because I assume you are not denying those exist, and time because you have said as much. But more importantly what I took as a given were facts. If you take exception to any one please specify. I did not take "macro evolution" as a given. My question is what alternative can you reasonably draw. Explain these givens with ID. When did "creation" stop? How is there no poof, with ID. What does creation look like if you are so confident that it does not look like evolution?

 

[JayJayDee]

You are unresponsive to evidence for religious reasons.

What evidence? I have seen no credible evidence to date. Do you have some? Anything that does not rely on the interpretation of evolutionary scientists as "proof" of their very biased beliefs? Anything that does not rely on illustrations or computer graphics to demonstrate all that evolutionary change? Please show us. Show us where they state categorically that something happened, without the need to qualify their statements with "might have" or "could have" or "this leads us to conclude"...? They have "beliefs" about their evidence, that they call "facts".....but that is all they have.

It appears that many contributors to this thread are as unresponsive to reason and logic for "scientific" reasons, as they accuse us of being for religious reasons....never the twain shall meet.

Neither side is prepared to yield and that is fine. The readers here will make up their own minds.

 

[philbo]

I have seen no credible evidence to date.

There are none so blind as those who will not see

 

[Bunyip]

What evidence? I have seen no credible evidence to date. Do you have some? Anything that does not rely on the interpretation of evolutionary scientists as "proof" of their very biased beliefs? Anything that does not rely on illustrations or computer graphics to demonstrate all that evolutionary change? Please show us. Show us where they state categorically that something happened, without the need to qualify their statements with "might have" or "could have" or "this leads us to conclude"...? They have "beliefs" about their evidence, that they call "facts".....but that is all they have.

It appears that many contributors to this thread are as unresponsive to reason and logic for "scientific" reasons, as they accuse us of being for religious reasons....never the twain shall meet.

Neither side is prepared to yield and that is fine. The readers here will make up their own minds.

Just like Nelson "I see no ships', but that doesn't make em' go away.
One side has yielded to the evidence, your side pretend the evidence does not exist. What possible point there could be to doing so eludes me.