INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

I thought you said that you did not want to discuss macroevolution anymore.

I said that since you claim that no laymen can possibly know enough to make an informed decision one way or the other there is no point in debating it WITH YOU.

Consider the following:
How much do you know about paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy?

7. Exactly what form would an answer to that question come in? My opinion, a numerical value, a percentage, proof of my competence, my publications? I spent at least 10 years watching every formal debate by scholars who do know these things banging away at each other constantly. Exactly how much of the important stuff can be gained by ten years of hours of study with experts every day, reading dozens of books from each side, and listening to scholars in relevant areas like philosophy and history? I don't have any idea how to put that into a figure but it is easily enough to have a working knowledge of the subject. I would never dream of teaching the subject to even tenth graders but do believe that I have more than enough experience to make a justifiable informed estimate.

Please note:

"Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level (i.e. speciation) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature."

By all means please supply this documentation. Anyone who would state something so controversial but not supply the evidence is suspicious. It is such a well known fact that species changes can not be observed that the understandable and well known defense that species changes occur of such a vast time that it will never be observable is a given and is acceptable. Please provide a video or picture of these million year cycles or even the case of a fruit fly a few thousand year cycle at best.

Also, please note:

"While details of macroevolution are continuously studied by the scientific community, the overall theory behind macroevolution (i.e. common descent) has been overwhelmingly consistent with empirical data. Predictions of empirical data from the theory of common descent have been so consistent that biologists often refer to it as the 'fact of evolution.'"

I can agree with this to a certain level. Most evidence and the theory line up. So far that is just not enough to convince me.

Michael Behe, who you once used as a source in this thread, said:


According to most experts, the evidence for macro evolution is overwhelming. Why should anyone question it? On what basis should anyone question it?

No mater what he was trying to state you are missing a lot of context. There are many statement that can not be altered by context but this is one that makes no sense and could mean anything depending on context. Where is it? Behe is famous for questioning it for the love.

 

[1robin]

It depends upon the issue, but regarding macro evolution, as I have told you, I would still be an agnostic even if most experts said that creationism is true. That is similar to your claim that you would still be a Christian even if macro evolution is true.

You are far too intelligent not to understand that posting between 3 and 7 posts in a row in each thread on average will wear out whoever your talking to and not make for a lively discussion. I keep putting of your posts because of the time they take to address and the repeats they contain. I must put them off and then hurriedly get through 10 or 12 in a row. IN the days before paper the driving force was space. Whenever a speech was given or a paper written people were always trying it minimize language and increase the meaning per word. I would suggest you try it out. Always think "can I half this".

I have never made any argument the creation being true makes the biblical God true. I have only said that creation is consistent with the biblical God. Your straw-manning this all up.

I never disagree with a large consensus of experts unless I believe that I know a lot about an issue. Millions of Christian creationists in the world know very little about biology, and they still reject macro evolution. Do you object to that?

Do I object to what? Them doing this? No, not because they have cause but because there is no profit in adopting macro-evolution until proven. It is a useless theory even if true. It may be they arrived at the right position by the wrong method. Let my compare this too something. I would argue (and find it easy) that Christian moral foundations should be accepted regardless of the existence of God, over evolution's lack of moral foundations. IOW we should agree God does not exist (if that can be shown) but still retain a theistic moral framework. BTW you do disagree with what you say you do not, above.

Which subjects do you bow to popular opinion on and why?

Almost every one except for the ones I use here. I debate politics, theology, evolution, textual criticism, history, science, and philosophy. I have made it a point to study them enough to make informed decisions and comments. I can't paint, draw, sing, play anything, dance, spell, lay out electric schematics for digital devices, nor box, comment too much on literature, business, economics, and even though my degree is in math I am not very good at it. A list of what I am incompetent in is endless. I never weight majority opinion as zero on any subject. The greatest argument for macro-evolution is the amount of scholars that in-spite of the problems have adopted it. I always take majority opinion into consideration but macro-evolution is one of those areas in which that opinion means the least. Opinions about theoretical issues separated from us by millions of years are not as weighty as those about recorded history or things that have objective tests.

Stating something that is true differently does not change the fact that it is true.

Agreed. The issue is that what your saying is not known to be true.

Just the Gods that people make up, not all possible Gods.

Of all the God's ever believed in the Biblical God is by far the least likely to have been the product of man's imagination. You might want to choose am easier target.

You have debated many issues at these forums that your faith is not based on.

I rarely debate anything not relevant to faith.

I do not base being an agnostic on accepting macro evolution.

I did not say anything about that.

Whether or not creationism is true is very important to millions of Christian creationists, and so are many other issues.

Your talking to me not them.

As I have told you, my only reason for mentioning macro evolution is that millions of conservative Christians reject it. I assume that your main reason for mentioning macro evolution is that naturalists accept it, but I am an agnostic, not a naturalist.

The rejection or non-allowance for a "theos" makes naturalism almost a default necessity.

Personal experience, and how many people have personal religious experiences, is very poor evidence that any God exists. How are your personal religious experiences more valid that the personal religious experiences of the followers of all other religions, including deism?

In what universe are miracles poor evidence for a God? There is no comparison possible between those in Christianity that claim personal experience with the supernatural and any other faith. Not even if you tallied them all together.

The Bible implies that far fewer people will be saved than the current number of professing Christians in the world, which means that even if a God inspired the Bible, it would be impossible for anyone to know who is actually saved, and approximately how many people are saved, which means that many professing Christians who claim that they have personal religious experiences are not Christians.

No it does not. It never ever even hints at the number that will be saved. It only indicates that over time there will be less that are born again than not born again. At it's greatest there have been maybe 1/3rd of us that even claim to be Christians and judging by statistics at most 1/6th of us that are. Perfectly consistent with remnant passages.

Feeling wonderful does not necessarily have anything to do with the truth. Are you implying that the supposed large number of Christians who have had wonderful personal experiences reasonably proves that the God of the Bible exists?

Nor did I claim it did. No, I am claiming that personal experiences with components that have no natural explanation if experienced by large enough a percentage of a population and attributed to both the same source and that are described in detail by the text that applies to that source then you have a factor that cannot be dismissed. Properly understood instead of mischaracterized in order to justify dismissal these types of claims are very good evidence. I would take the word over a hundred idiots who traveled back to the Cambrian and experienced it over ten thousand scientists speculating about it.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

There are of course not any required knowledge tests for participating in discussion forums, but anyone who has followed your posts about macroevolution in this forum knows that you do not personally know enough about it to question it, and that most experts have no problems accepting it. An easy way for you to prove that you know a lot about biology would be to defeat some experts in debates, but you refused to do that.

Whatever you say about my points would also have to be said about the scholars in the field. Every single point I made about any problem came from discussions between scholars in the field.

As I have told you before, even if you had a Ph.D. in biology, most experts would still disagree with you, and most people would still not be able to adequately judge debates between experts. You said that some aspects of evolution can be understood by high school students, but few high school students know enough about biology to have informed opinions about macro evolution.

Then my education level is irrelevant and should no longer be brought up. Do you need a degree in metallurgy and aerodynamics to believe that rocks make bad fixed wing aircraft? How many degrees does it take to know that even in a lab and with scientists help and fudging that no life has ever been produced by non-life? There is not an experiment that proves it happened that I can't understand, it has never been observed or even created. I don't even need anything I learned in my mathematics degree to know that life is made up of only left handed amino acids and so far no naturalistic left handed biased mechanisms have been found and that an unintentional nature should not be creating Fibonacci sequences in shells and branches. How old does anyone have to be to know that information requires mind and yet nature is full of information when no natural minds existed to create it. Just ask anyone who does anything professional if anyone has ever seen an exception to that. Even Hollywood knew that one when hey made contact.

At the Dover trial, the judge was John E. Jones III. He is a Christian, and a Republican, and was appointed by a Republican president. In part of his ruling, he said:

Please note:

"while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science."

This is what happens when lab rats get out of the lab, theorists must make things that work, and judges decide what science is. However I could accept this ruling if his criteria were also applied to Dawkins or Hawking's musings. Creation may ultimately be a mater of faith but so is M theory and even evolution in totality.

In other words, even if intelligent design is true, science is not able to reasonably prove that it is true.

If you worked in application science you would know what a poor arbiter of truth science was. Even for the Phd I work for intuition and the seat of the pants is relied on when inevitably the calculations and theory fail, and this is on established technology and proven fields which we have aces to in real time and not about what happened a billions years ago.

At Internet discussion forums, after a while, it often becomes apparent who personally knows a lot about a topic. It has become apparent that you do not personally know enough about macroevolution to question it.

The for the love....... stop bringing it up in posts to me. Have the courage of your convictions, or get some life from non-life, find a naturalistic explanation for amino acid preference, find a Fibonacci sequence explanation that is based on testing and observation, give me pictures of a species that became another species. You can talk and complain all you want yet dogs will produce dogs, cats produce cats, life will only come from life, information will come from mind regardless. Polls will never produce what you must to have a reliable theory, nor will they make up my mind, show I don't know what I am talking about, or produce a reason I should adopt an unproven (probably un-provable) theory of absolutely no value even if true to me.

 

[1robin]

Regarding the thread on homosexuality, by far the most important issue is what should be done about it. You said on several occasions that it was not up to you to provide solutions for homosexuality, but yet on a number of occasions, you said that all homosexuals should practice abstinence. Following is your first post in that thread:

http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...7-why-cant-we-have-relationship-other-30.html, you said:

That is not true. The most important thing to do is to resolve it's nature. The punishment or pardon of theft cannot even begin to be discussed until the nature of theft is determined. Thinking like this is what produces the messes we have or at least exacerbates them. This post seems to be an attempt to get me to do what I said I would not do at least a half dozen times. It will ignored.

 

[1robin]

Message to 1robin: You withdrew from the thread on homosexuality primarily because you know that your claim that all homosexuals should practice abstinence is not valid, and because you got into trouble when I mentioned which other groups of people should practice abstinence in order for you to be fair. I showed that black Americans, black Africans, and people who live in poverty, also have high risks. You said that those groups of people should not practice abstinence. I asked you why not, but you conveniently refused to answer the question. You said that heterosexuals need to have sex in order to maintain the population. I said that women over 40 years of age do not need to have sex in order to maintain the populations of many countries. You conveniently refused to discuss that issue when you got into trouble.

In that thread, you said:



That is false. I can provide a number of examples from that thread that prove that you refused to reply to my arguments, and that even when you did reply to them, you did not reply to my replies to your arguments. You never replied to my arguments about identical twin, and fraternal twin studies even though I posted them at least several times. Even when you did reply to my arguments, your arguments were not valid.



I believe that the opposite is probably true since evasiveness is very typical of the majority of people when they get into trouble in debates. You like to debate far too much to give up when you believe that you have the advantage. You often use numerous arguments to try to gain even a small advantage, and when your attempts fail, you claim that those issues were not important. The truth is that your arguments are important to you if you believe that your opponents did not adequately refute them.

Of course, your claim is false since you would never withdraw from unchallenging debates if non-Christians were becoming Christians because they read your arguments, or if people who are already Christians benefitted from your arguments. Surely you are far more interested in results than a challenge. In addition, you surely are not interested in challenges since you have refused to debate experts on a number of occasions.

Regarding the thread on the Tyre prophecy, if necessary, I can provide some examples of where you were boastful, such as when you said that debating me is like herding cats. You said that before my arguments got better, and you realized that you were in trouble. It is amazing that it does not bother you that some of the experts that you quoted disagree with you about part of the prophecy. You still have not replied to many of my most recent posts in that thread. I provided lots of reasonable evidence in that thread that the Tyre prophecy is a very poor example of a divinely inspired prophecy.

You easily lost the debates in the thread on homosexuality at http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...2807-why-cant-we-have-relationship-other.html. You realized that you were in trouble, and refused to reply to some of my posts. So, in order to not have to reply to some of my arguments, you stated your major arguments as follows:



I replied to those arguments in my post 2101 at http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...-why-cant-we-have-relationship-other-211.html, but I will also briefly reply to them here.

Your claims are quite odd since the greatest health threats to heterosexuals by far are themselves, certainly not homosexuals, as proven by, for example, heart disease, and obesity, both of which are frequently preventable, and which cause far more suffering, and medical costs than homosexuality does.

Regarding item 1, it only applies to homosexuals who cause massive increases in suffering, death, and cost.

Regarding item 2, homosexuality is justified for any homosexuals who do not cause massive increases in suffering, death, and cost.

Your recommended solution to homosexuality was that all homosexuals should practice abstinence, but surely all major medical organizations disagree with that utterly absurd claim, including the CDC. Any reasonable person knows that people's actions should be judged on an individual basis, not on a collective basis.



I discussed homosexuality and genetics extensively in the primary thread on homosexuality, and in a thread at http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/150708-homosexuality-genetics.html that is titled "Homosexuality and genetics." In the opening post, I quoted where you said "I believe that genetics are not significantly influential concerning homosexuality," but I did not mention your name.

You did not make any posts in the latter thread, and you ignored many of my posts about homosexuality and genetics in the primary thread on homosexuality. I posted lots of evidence in both threads that reasonably proves that genetics is an important part of homosexuality, including research about identical twins, and fraternal twins. You said that you would provide evidence regarding the causes of homosexuality if you were asked to. I asked you on several occasions to provide the evidence, but you refused to provide any.

Even if environment is an important factor, so is genetics. People cannot control their genetics, and young people often have little control over their environment when they are young.

Regardless of what causes homosexuality, it is very difficult to change sexual orientation. In another thread, you claimed that there are successful reparative clinics all over the world, but you refused to provide any evidence that that is true. I told you that the past president, and founder of the recently disbanded Exodus International, which was the largest ex-gay organization of its kind in the world, admitted that he lied about changing his sexual identity, and apologized to gay people.

You gave up debating homosexuality because you knew that I made many arguments that you could not adequately refute. You claimed that you were tired of repeating your arguments, but I proved that I made many arguments that you never replied to. You used the same approach in part of the debates on the Tyre prophecy. You debated some issues at length, got into trouble, and then claimed that the issues are not important. If they are not important, why did you mention them? You are very misinformed about homosexuality, and about the Tyre prophecy.



What do you mean by "we are the only species that exclusively engage in it?" Over 1500 species of animals and birds practice homosexuality. All bonobo monkeys are bi-sexual. Humans do a lot of things that other animals do not do, but only because humans are more intelligent than other animals are.

Please reply to my four previous posts.

Not going to be drug back into the bottomless pit of rationalizing what has no rational. BTW your inability to drag me back into what I said I would not be, is evidence that your personal commentaries concerning me are just as flawed and non-productive as your efforts here.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

They themselves admit of the problem areas I mentioned. Or at least most of them acknowledge most of the areas I mentioned. The list I gave was only the tiniest fraction of the problems that are out there. You can literally find them faster than you can type them. A post or even several would only contain a representative smattering of the problems that exist. There are not any answers to any of them. There are some theories that have never been demonstrated and which contain additional problems but no actual solutions. For whatever reason you suggest the opposite is the case. Let's reduce this down to one simple problem that is easily debated. Abiogenesis. There are no example's of life coming from non-life. There is no evidence for me to deny. Even when scientists in a lab attempt to create life by cheating they have failed miserably. It has never been observed or documented. There are the most easily refuted theories but no actual evidence of any kind. Exactly what is it I am denying. BTW if you think I reject all evidence against my claims I would prefer it if you just ignored me Please do not claim a bunch of answers exist but you are unwilling to supply them and half hint that no debate is justified. In spite of no one ever changing their minds I supply evidence and debate or I completely ignore a person on rare occasions. I do not engage a person by telling them they are not worth debating.

I have debated you before and several other creationists who simply **** on science as if it were on fire. If you cannot accept simple evidences then you really are not worthy of debating. If we can come together and stand on solid evidence in our arguments then I have no problems. But you yourself stated off by saying "all those things that prove me wrong? No I don't accept those so if thats what your going to say then shove off."

Just on the subject mentioned above I have been given dozens of articles that claim that the "problem" of life coming from only life has been resolved. I have spent hours reading these articles only to find out what I already knew. They have no evidence at all, no examples, no observations, no records, nothing but theories that still have problems. I have critiqued a representative amount of those articles several times and it can easily be searched for. I cannot and will not go through all that again from scratch. At least 90% of those problem areas I mentioned I have learned of through secular scientists. I think they were all mentioned by a panel moderated by Bill Buckley. A half dozen secular scientists pointed out the problems and another half dozen either conceded the issue, moderated it's relevance, or attempted to refute them in a few cases with theory. Not one of them suggested there was no issue to begin with. These are so well known and granted that there exists no end to the discussions and research on each of them.

You suggest that most scholars except macro-evolution. I grant that, but they do so in-spite of the problem areas. There are many reasons why: Tenure, grant money, honest conclusions, faith, the ability to get published, theological preference, etc.... BTW I have provided evidence of each of these from the scientists themselves. There is no proof of macroevolution, there is only faith that it occurred based on the interpretation of evidence. I simply find the problems with it, in light of my own experience and research unconvincing. If a single scientists could know (go out and measure macro-evolution) I would be very convinced by their agreement. Since it is not something that can be known, so much of the evidence is arbitrary and speculative, and since science has become a money driven industry I remain justifiably skeptical.

Since your generalized objections to my position were to broad and un-specific to assist in resolution I have suggested that you only give me the evidence that conclusively shows life came from non-life. Can you do so? Don't bother telling me macro-evolution is independent of abiogenesis. The theory as it exists in a textbook may not but the reality it supposedly represents does. I work in the application end of science and am interested in whether the instrument works in a real system not whether it looks good on paper.

I agree abiogensis is not perfected yet and may never be. There are literally dozens of theories (probably more) on how it works that may or may not be correct. However that makes little difference in macro-evolution debates. I agree they are connected and that the two theories are connected as evolution implies that there should be abiogensis of some sort. However even if that part of the theory is wrong (I'm not saying it is and I'll explain why in a moment) the other parts of the theory stand alone without the need of abiogensis. That is why so many people make the mistake of saying they have nothing to do with each other.

For example if a group of scientist created a model of evolution that linked together a certain line of species throughout time as the proper evolutionary model of how they came to be, but then found out they were wrong with the discovery of a new fossil or DNA evidence, then that would not mean that evolution was simply wrong, but that a single part of evolution and a single example was wrong.

We make new discoveries every year in evolution and its ever changing in our understanding. However it is a solid fact that we evolved and that our species specifically is only a few hundred thousand years old and that we do share a common ancestor with chimpanzees that lived about 2-3 million years ago. That Chickens are the closest living evolutionary relative of the T-rex.

The fossil evidence ALONE is astoundingly sound. However the most convincing evidences have been new. If you ever have time (as you seem to be running short on) I have a good video that outlines a lot of very specific evidences of evolution that I would not mind you to take a look at. Its a long video and I'll have to post it later when I get home. But its worth the view and everyone should learn something from it. I've watched it twice and feel like I've walked away both times having been more educated from the experience.

*EDIT
I think its strange that you feel that evolution is such a powerful cover up story that somehow they have gotten a near unanimous consensus in the scientific community on the subject. No money is really being made off of it and unless you believe that there is some kind of atheist conspiracy to overthrow Christianity specifically.... I am a bit at a loss as to how this system works. But no the religiously motivated and HIGHLY funded creationist "scientists" who have an alternative view on evolution who clearly have a very specific non-science agenda have somehow gotten it right. This somewhat irks me and it seems very much like a blatant double standard.

 

[Agnostic75]

I will be happy to debate that with you as long as you like, but I would rather get back to discussing issues, such as the Tyre prophecy.

If only.

I have replied to all of your most recent arguments in the thread on the Tyre prophecy, and you have not replied to any of my most recent arguments in that thread.

 

[Agnostic75]

I will be happy to debate that with you as long as you like, but I would rather get back to discussing issues, such as the Tyre prophecy.

If only.

I have replied to all of your most recent arguments in the thread on the Tyre prophecy, and you have not replied to any of my most recent arguments in that thread.

You are referring to my posts 3448, 3449, 3450, and 3496. This is typical of some of our debates. You debate a topic a lot, get into trouble, say that you are repeating some of your arguments, refuse to reply to my replies to those arguments, and claim that you won the debate.

What the heck? I never complain about repeats except concerning you alone. I will even answer the same question or address the same post 2 or 3 times in a row. Only you just keep repeating things over and over and over. Just look back through your posts. Even after you have edited out duplicates (which you alone contently do) what is left is usually a few points stated in different or even identical ways over and over again. Your guessing at my motivations here is no more accurate than any where else and I wish you would stop confusing exasperation with defeat.

This can be best settled with actual post numbers in certain threads. Regarding this thread, I will provide a number of examples of where you did reply to what I originally said, but refused to reply to my revised reply to what you said.

 

[Agnostic75]

Message to 1robin: I will number my arguments for easy reference. I will reply to your replies in the near future. My main reason for making this post is to provide readers with the links to the pages of the pertinent posts. I do not believe that any Christian can adequately refute those posts.

Argument 1

My post 3448, at http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...le-rational-proof-god-exists-existed-345.html for quick reference, shows that 1) the God of the Bible would not have free will even if he did exist, and that 2) it is probable that the God of the Bible does not exist since he asks people to love him even though morality has not meaning without choice. No moral God would do that since that would be deceptive.

Some of your points are good. However repeating them over and over again makes you appear to be a robotic one trick pony. I try and not guess at what is driving an opponent unless I can prove it in some way, but if I was to, I would suggest you have canned arguments that you copy and paste over and over and do not really think hard about. I however do not regard either of the two arguments above as among the good points you have made.

Argument 2

My post 3449, at the same page, shows that God is not fair regarding providing reasonable evidence for everyone. That also implies that the God of the Bible does not exist since a loving God would be fair to everyone. In that post, I also showed that chance, and circumstance largely determine what people believe.

That is not what you posts showed. You posted God did not show everyone an equal amount of evidence. I do not even know how anyone would go about doing what you claimed you have. I have shown that with a willing heart the amount of evidence necessary for faith is not that great and that with an unwilling heart no amount is enough and that most of us have at least that minimal amount and probably much more.

Argument 3

My post 3450, at the same page, reasonably proves that self interest is a primary reason why Christians claim that the Gospels are a reliable source of information.

Argument 4

My post 3496, at http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...le-rational-proof-god-exists-existed-350.html for quick reference, reasonably proves that it is just as likely that God is an imposter as it is that he is who he claims he is. Actually, it is more likely that God is an imposter than it is that he is who he claims he is.

It would take several volumes of well researched textual and historical scholars to demonstrate even the possibility of what you state. I have more than enough justification to think the Bible an the NT scriptures vastly more reliable than the minimum necessary for faith. It is more textually reliable (on an objectively demonstrable scale) than any other work of any kind in ancient history and it's historical reliability is legendary and only increasing.

 

[Agnostic75]

Aquinas is dead. I would not debate Craig, White, Plantinga, or Zacharias about biblical textual criticism, but I would be willing to debate them regarding homosexuality, the Tyre prophecy, and my posts 3448, 3449, 3450, and 3496 in this thread. That is because regarding those topics, I believe that I have the advantage, not because I am as intelligent, or more intelligent than they are, but because no amount of intelligence, and education can reasonably prove that all homosexuals should practice abstinence, that a God inspired the Tyre prophecy, that God has free will, that God provides reasonable evidence for everyone, that self interest is not a primary reason why Christians claim that the Gospels are a reliable source of information, and that God is not an evil God who is masquerading as a good God.

It was a parody not an actual challenge. Did that escape you?

No, I know that they would not be interested in debating me. I just wanted to let you no that no Christian can adequately refute certain arguments, such as the arguments that I mentioned.

Of course I do not expect you to debate these very busy scholars, so they need not be alive. It appears you will not debate them about matters even slightly applicable to them (only one of them is a textual scholar) but you would be willing to debate them about a subject they have no relevance to. Why is that?

I have already told you several times that biblical textual criticism is a vast field, and that I do not know a lot about it. It makes sense for me to limit my debates to topics that I think I know enough about to adequately debate. I think that the recent topics that I have mentioned are very important.

Judging from this forum I would not debate the issue of homosexuality against anyone if I were you. There never has been a single issue as impossible to defend as yours on homosexuality in the thousands of hours of debate experience I have in formal and informal debates. Not a single subject no matter how bad or good have you made have been as ineffectual as for homosexuality. It is not your fault, as it is an indefensible position. However it is your fault for defending what can't be.

That is utter nonsense. You easily lost the debates on homosexuality. Whether or not you will admit it, the most important issue by far is what should be done about homosexuality. From a secular perspective, no action is wrong unless there are reasonable alternatives. Your recommended solution was that all homosexuality should practice abstinence. All major medical organizations would disagree with that, and yet you claimed that you won the debate.
Few people would claim that they won a debate where all major pertinent professional organization disagreed with them. In addition, you were unfair since you claimed that a number of other high risk groups should not practice abstinence.

Two obvious reasons why your abstinence argument for all homosexuals is utter nonsense are because for some homosexuals, the risks do not justify abstinence, and safe sex provides many physical, and emotional benefits.

Even if you were right, homosexuals who have sex would not be any more wrong than many millions of Christians who die premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, and obesity, which cause far more suffering, and medical costs than homosexuality does.

Regarding practicing homosexuals who were monogamous for their entire lives, and never got any STDs, do you object to their having sex?

 

[Agnostic75]

I think the only thread I ever gave up on was homosexuality. I have an extensive record of carrying on debates long past their due. I have continued in the Tyre thread long after you began making the same arguments that did not work the first time because occasionally you challenged me.......The only thing I quit on as a lack of challenge. I wanted a challenging response to my two primary claims about homosexuality. That is why I debate.

That cannot be true since you have refused to debate macroevolution with some experts, and you have refused to debate biblical textual criticism with some very knowledgeable skeptics at http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=634b4bdae8ebdfa4b149cbe3504fa306. There are also some very knowledgeable Christians there too. Unlike you, who debate many things, many of those people specialize in biblical textual criticism, and they know far more about it than you do.

Regarding the thread on homosexuality, by far the most important issue is what should be done about it.

That is not true. The most important thing to do is to resolve it's nature. The punishment or pardon of theft cannot even begin to be discussed until the nature of theft is determined.

But as you know, most experts say that all of the causes of homosexuality are unknown. Pending the results of future research, you recommended that all homosexuals should practice abstinence. All major medical organizations disagree with you. So does common sense since 1) some homosexuals have very low risks that justify them having sex, 2) long term abstinence has proven health risks, and 3) having sex provides important physical, and emotional benefits.

Whatever causes homosexuality, lots of research reasonably proves that it is very difficult to change sexual identity.

I do not doubt that environment can be an important part of homosexuality, but if genetics is also an important part of homosexuality, which many if not most experts believe is the case, environment alone cannot prevent homosexuality in the majority of cases.

I posted lots of scientific evidence in various threads that show that genetics is probably an important part of homosexuality, but as far as I recall, you refused to reply to most of it. Part of the evidence that I posted was about research about fraternal, and identical twins. The research showed what the scientists expected, which was that fraternal twins were homosexuals a good deal more than non-twin siblings were, and that identical twins were homosexuals a good deal more than fraternal twins were. I also provided evidence that shows that genetics has an influence in the womb.

You conveniently confused to reply to my argument that most children who are raised by homosexuals turn out to be heterosexuals. If environment was the primary cause of homosexuality, that would not be the case.

 

[Agnostic75]

I thought you said that you did not want to discuss macroevolution anymore.

I said that since you claim that no laymen can possibly know enough to make an informed decision one way or the other there is no point in debating it WITH YOU.

No, I said that it is fine for laymen who know a lot about biology to discuss macroevolution.

The majority of people in the world do not know enough about biology to oppose macroevolution based upon their own personal knowledge of biology.

How much do you know about paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy?

Exactly what form would an answer to that question come in?My opinion, a numerical value, a percentage, proof of my competence, my publications? I spent at least 10 years watching every formal debate by scholars who do know these things banging away at each other constantly. Exactly how much of the important stuff can be gained by ten years of hours of study with experts every day, reading dozens of books from each side, and listening to scholars in relevant areas like philosophy and history? I don't have any idea how to put that into a figure but it is easily enough to have a working knowledge of the subject. I would never dream of teaching the subject to even tenth graders but do believe that I have more than enough experience to make a justifiable informed estimate.

You do not know nearly enough about biology to win a debate about macroevolution with an expert in biology. Even if you had a Ph.D. in biology, most experts would still disagree with you, and most people are not able to adequately judge debates among experts.

A large consensus of skeptic and Christian experts accepts macroevolution. I am not aware of any good reasons not to accept their opinions.

Please note:

"Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level (i.e. speciation) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature."

By all means please supply this documentation. Anyone who would state something so controversial but not supply the evidence is suspicious. It is such a well known fact that species changes can not be observed that the understandable and well known defense that species changes occur of such a vast time that it will never be observable is a given and is acceptable. Please provide a video or picture of these million year cycles or even the case of a fruit fly a few thousand year cycle at best.

What I quoted was from a Wikipedia article about macroevolution. The pertinent footnotes are as follows:

Rice, W.R.; Hostert (1993). "Laboratory experiments on speciation: what have we learned in 40 years". Evolution 47 (6): 1637–1653. doi:10.2307/2410209. JSTOR 2410209.

*Jiggins CD, Bridle JR (2004). "Speciation in the apple maggot fly: a blend of vintages?". Trends Ecol. Evol. (Amst.) 19 (3): 111–4. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2003.12.008. PMID 16701238.

*Boxhorn, J (1995). "Observed Instances of Speciation". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 26 December 2008.

*Kirkpatrick, Mark; Virginie Ravigné (March 2002). "Speciation by Natural and Sexual Selection: Models and Experiments". The American Naturalist 159 (3): S22–S35. doi:10.1086/338370. ISSN 0003-0147. JSTOR 3078919. PMID 18707367.

You are welcome to study, and try to adequately refute those sources if you wish.

Also, please note:

"While details of macroevolution are continuously studied by the scientific community, the overall theory behind macroevolution (i.e. common descent) has been overwhelmingly consistent with empirical data. Predictions of empirical data from the theory of common descent have been so consistent that biologists often refer to it as the 'fact of evolution.'"

I can agree with this to a certain level. Most evidence and the theory line up.

That is much different from your former claim that all of macroevolution has problems.

So far that is just not enough to convince me.

You are entitled to your own personal opinions, and to the opinions of a very small number of creationist experts, many of whom also accept the global flood theory, and/or the young earth theory.

Michael Behe, who you once used as a source in this thread, said:

"For example, both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. ... It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. ... Despite some remaining puzzles, there’s no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives.” The Edge of Evolution, pp. 71–72

No matter what he was trying to state you are missing a lot of context. There are many statements that cannot be altered by context but this is one that makes no sense and could mean anything depending on context. Where is it? Behe is famous for questioning it for the love.

It is obviously from Behe's book "The Edge of Evolution." The quote easily shows that Behe accepts macroevolution.

The same Wikipedia article at Michael Behe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that I quoted also says:

Unlike William A. Dembski and others in the intelligent design movement, Behe accepts the common descent of species, including that humans descended from other primates, although he states that common descent does not by itself explain the differences between species. In his own words:

".......I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world." Darwin's Black Box, pp 5–6.

 

[Agnostic75]

It depends upon the issue, but regarding macro evolution, as I have told you, I would still be an agnostic even if most experts said that creationism is true. That is similar to your claim that you would still be a Christian even if macroevolution is true.

You are far too intelligent not to understand that posting between 3 and 7 posts in a row in each thread on average will wear out whoever your talking to and not make for a lively discussion. I keep putting of your posts because of the time they take to address and the repeats they contain. I must put them off and then hurriedly get through 10 or 12 in a row. IN the days before paper the driving force was space. Whenever a speech was given or a paper written people were always trying it minimize language and increase the meaning per word. I would suggest you try it out. Always think "can I half this".

You said:

Which subjects do you bow to popular opinion on and why?

I merely answered your question, and you replied with a bunch of nonsense that had nothing to do with my reply to your question.

I have never made any argument the creation being true makes the biblical God true.

I have never said that you did.

I have only said that creation is consistent with the biblical God. Your straw-manning this all up.

I did not make a strawman argument since, as I told you, my only reason for discussing macroevolution is because many conservative Christians reject it.

I never disagree with a large consensus of experts unless I believe that I know a lot about an issue. Millions of Christian creationists in the world know very little about biology, and they still reject macro evolution. Do you object to that?

Do I object to what? Them doing this? No, not because they have cause but because there is no profit in adopting macro-evolution until proven.

On the contrary, there is not anything wrong with laymen accepting a theory that is accepted by a very large consensus of skeptic, and Christian experts. Dr. Ken Miller is a Christian, and he applauds the research of his skeptic biologist associates.

It is a useless theory even if true. It may be they arrived at the right position by the wrong method.

If you mean that naturalism is the wrong method, I am an agnostic, not a naturalist. Anyway, the Bible puts all non-Christian theists in the same boat as naturalists.

Let my compare this too something. I would argue (and find it easy) that Christian moral foundations should be accepted regardless of the existence of God, over evolution's lack of moral foundations. IOW we should agree God does not exist (if that can be shown) but still retain a theistic moral framework..

As I told you in another thread, I think that Christian Science produces people who are generally more moral than Christians are. The same might be true of deism.

BTW you do disagree with what you say you do not, above.

What are you referring to?

Which subjects do you bow to popular opinion on and why?

Almost every one except for the ones I use here. I debate politics, theology, evolution, textual criticism, history, science, and philosophy.

You do not know nearly enough to win debate about textual criticism with skeptic experts, or even with knowledgeable skeptic amateurs, such as some knowledgeable skeptic amateurs at Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com • View forum - Christian Texts and History that I previously told you about. There is also at least one professional there too. His name is Stefan Huller, and he has his own website.

Just the Gods that people make up, not all possible Gods.

Of all the God's ever believed in the Biblical God is by far the least likely to have been the product of man's imagination.

On the contrary, deism is far more probably true than Christianity is.

As I have told you, my only reason for mentioning macro evolution is that millions of conservative Christians reject it. I assume that your main reason for mentioning macro evolution is that naturalists accept it, but I am an agnostic, not a naturalist.

The rejection or non-allowance for a "theos" makes naturalism almost a default necessity.

Yet again, my only reason for discussing macroevolution is because many conservative Christians reject it.

Personal experience, and how many people have personal religious experiences, is very poor evidence that any God exists. How are your personal religious experiences more valid that the personal religious experiences of the followers of all other religions, including deism?

In what universe are miracles poor evidence for a God? There is no comparison possible between those in Christianity that claim personal experience with the supernatural and any other faith. Not even if you tallied them all together.

But since you later admitted that no one knows how many Christians there are in the world, no one knows whose personal religious experiences are authentic since no one knows who is actually a Christian, and how many Christians have personal religious experiences.

What kinds of miracles are you referring to?

If God is an evil imposter, he would easily be able to perform miracles.

Feeling wonderful does not necessarily have anything to do with the truth. Are you implying that the supposed large number of Christians who have had wonderful personal experiences reasonably proves that the God of the Bible exists?

Nor did I claim it did. No, I am claiming that personal experiences with components that have no natural explanation if experienced by large enough a percentage of a population and attributed to both the same source and that are described in detail by the text that applies to that source then you have a factor that cannot be dismissed.

But without a reasonable estimate of how many Christians there are in the world, your theory is useless.

What kinds of personal experiences are you referring to?

 

[Agnostic75]

There are of course not any required knowledge tests for participating in discussion forums, but anyone who has followed your posts about macroevolution in this forum knows that you do not personally know enough about it to question it, and that most experts have no problems accepting it. An easy way for you to prove that you know a lot about biology would be to defeat some experts in debates, but you refused to do that.

Whatever you say about my points would also have to be said about the scholars in the field. Every single point I made about any problem came from discussions between scholars in the field.

One study showed that in the U.S., 99.86% of experts accept macroevolution. That would naturally include the majority of Christian experts. I am not aware of any good reasons for laymen to reject the opinions of those experts.

As I have told you before, even if you had a Ph.D. in biology, most experts would still disagree with you, and most people would still not be able to adequately judge debates between experts. You said that some aspects of evolution can be understood by high school students, but few high school students know enough about biology to have informed opinions about macro evolution.

Then my education level is irrelevant and should no longer be brought up.

There is not any need for me to bring it up unless you claim that the scientific evidence for macroevolution is not very good.

Do you need a degree in metallurgy and aerodynamics to believe that rocks make bad fixed wing aircraft?

No, but having a degree in biology helps a lot regarding adequately understanding macroevolution.

How many degrees does it take to know that even in a lab and with scientists help and fudging that no life has ever been produced by non-life?

I am not a naturalist.

At the Dover trial, the judge was John E. Jones III. He is a Christian, and a Republican, and was appointed by a Republican president. In part of his ruling, he said:

Please note:

"while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science."

This is what happens when lab rats get out of the lab, theorists must make things that work, and judges decide what science is. However I could accept this ruling if his criteria were also applied to Dawkins or Hawking's musings. Creation may ultimately be a mater of faith but so is M theory and even evolution in totality.

No, the judge did not decide what science is, he accepted the opinions of a large consensus of experts. Part of what I quoted from the judge's opinion is as follows:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. … It is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena.

Please note:

"ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community."

In other words, even if intelligent design is true, science is not able to reasonably prove that it is true.

If you worked in application science you would know what a poor arbiter of truth science was. Even for the Phd I work for intuition and the seat of the pants is relied on when inevitably the calculations and theory fail, and this is on established technology and proven fields which we have aces to in real time and not about what happened a billions years ago.

If you were one of the 99.86% of American experts who accept macroevolution, you would not believe that intuition has very much to do with the vast majority of experts accepting macroevolution.

Most experts believe that the evidence for macroevolution is much better than the evidence against it. If you agree with that, we do not need to discuss macroevolution any more.

 

[1robin]

I have debated you before and several other creationists who simply **** on science as if it were on fire. If you cannot accept simple evidences then you really are not worthy of debating. If we can come together and stand on solid evidence in our arguments then I have no problems. But you yourself stated off by saying "all those things that prove me wrong? No I don't accept those so if thats what your going to say then shove off."

You do not refuse debate on the grounds of guesses about what frame of mind another is in. I would not lump me in with creationists like you describe. I have a scientific degree, work in science, and like it. However what is used to contend with the bible comes mainly from the deepest end of science. It isn't reliable and consists mostly of faith based conclusions from a tiny amount of ambiguous data. The reliable areas of science are very consistent with the bible.

I agree abiogensis is not perfected yet and may never be. There are literally dozens of theories (probably more) on how it works that may or may not be correct. However that makes little difference in macro-evolution debates. I agree they are connected and that the two theories are connected as evolution implies that there should be abiogensis of some sort. However even if that part of the theory is wrong (I'm not saying it is and I'll explain why in a moment) the other parts of the theory stand alone without the need of abiogensis. That is why so many people make the mistake of saying they have nothing to do with each other.

In a theological context the only relevant issue is whether natural explanations exist for genetic reality in totality. They do not at this time, and good reasons exist to think none will be found but it is not a certainty. This is not a scientific forum so not really a place for in depth analysis on macro-evolution in detail. I am simply saying that the theory is not a threat to the bible at this time.

For example if a group of scientist created a model of evolution that linked together a certain line of species throughout time as the proper evolutionary model of how they came to be, but then found out they were wrong with the discovery of a new fossil or DNA evidence, then that would not mean that evolution was simply wrong, but that a single part of evolution and a single example was wrong.

My position is that the rightness or wrongness of that type of model is first not able to be checked against reality, and second based on so much faith and conjecture that either model is unreliable. My job depends on application science and I have had 90% failure rates and that is on 90's technology. What occurred a billion years ago is a crap shoot.

We make new discoveries every year in evolution and its ever changing in our understanding. However it is a solid fact that we evolved and that our species specifically is only a few hundred thousand years old and that we do share a common ancestor with chimpanzees that lived about 2-3 million years ago. That Chickens are the closest living evolutionary relative of the T-rex.

This is not really the place for debates on dino's turning into birds or what our descendants look like. It is the place where abiogenesis is important. Only what is relevant to godless explanations for genetic reality apply here.

The fossil evidence ALONE is astoundingly sound. However the most convincing evidences have been new. If you ever have time (as you seem to be running short on) I have a good video that outlines a lot of very specific evidences of evolution that I would not mind you to take a look at. Its a long video and I'll have to post it later when I get home. But its worth the view and everyone should learn something from it. I've watched it twice and feel like I've walked away both times having been more educated from the experience.

My position is not the macroevolution is wrong. It is that macro evolution has holes and problems and does not at this time contend with the bible (or at least some of the major interpretations of genesis).

*EDIT
I think its strange that you feel that evolution is such a powerful cover up story that somehow they have gotten a near unanimous consensus in the scientific community on the subject. No money is really being made off of it and unless you believe that there is some kind of atheist conspiracy to overthrow Christianity specifically.... I am a bit at a loss as to how this system works. But no the religiously motivated and HIGHLY funded creationist "scientists" who have an alternative view on evolution who clearly have a very specific non-science agenda have somehow gotten it right. This somewhat irks me and it seems very much like a blatant double standard.

Science in modern times has become a cult of personality driven by a lot of money. Similar to anything that has went that route, integrity has suffered. Sports, politics, even entire empires have suffered by the effects, science is not immune. Especially the parts of science which lack a reality test to compare theories against. In my lab I must produce instruments that work. I do not have the luxury of speculating about M theory, abiogenesis, or multi-verses. I have no way of knowing how much effect greed has had on any specific theory but it no doubt has infected much of them. The type of science macro-evolution is, is conducive to over confidence to meet the demands of cliques, to get published, and to acquire tenure. I am not saying any particular data is incorrect, just that scientists have motives different than that which inspires confidence. If I have 12 for 12 failures concerning hands on engineering I have little confidence in theories about what occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. We debatably hotly what took place 2000 years or even in the civil war with written accounts. What occurred on the young earth is not known and probably not knowable.

 

[Bunyip]

You do not refuse debate on the grounds of guesses about what frame of mind another is in. I would not lump me in with creationists like you describe. I have a scientific degree, work in science, and like it. However what is used to contend with the bible comes mainly from the deepest end of science. It isn't reliable and consists mostly of faith based conclusions from a tiny amount of ambiguous data. The reliable areas of science are very consistent with the bible.





In a theological context the only relevant issue is whether natural explanations exist for genetic reality in totality. They do not at this time, and good reasons exist to think none will be found but it is not a certainty. This is not a scientific forum so not really a place for in depth analysis on macro-evolution in detail. I am simply saying that the theory is not a threat to the bible at this time.

My position is that the rightness or wrongness of that type of model is first not able to be checked against reality, and second based on so much faith and conjecture that either model is unreliable. My job depends on application science and I have had 90% failure rates and that is on 90's technology. What occurred a billion years ago is a crap shoot.

This is not really the place for debates on dino's turning into birds or what our descendants look like. It is the place where abiogenesis is important. Only what is relevant to godless explanations for genetic reality apply here.

My position is not the macroevolution is wrong. It is that macro evolution has holes and problems and does not at this time contend with the bible (or at least some of the major interpretations of genesis).

Science in modern times has become a cult of personality driven by a lot of money. Similar to anything that has went that route, integrity has suffered. Sports, politics, even entire empires have suffered by the effects, science is not immune. Especially the parts of science which lack a reality test to compare theories against. In my lab I must produce instruments that work. I do not have the luxury of speculating about M theory, abiogenesis, or multi-verses. I have no way of knowing how much effect greed has had on any specific theory but it no doubt has infected much of them. The type of science macro-evolution is, is conducive to over confidence to meet the demands of cliques, to get published, and to acquire tenure. I am not saying any particular data is incorrect, just that scientists have motives different than that which inspires confidence. If I have 12 for 12 failures concerning hands on engineering I have little confidence in theories about what occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. We debatably hotly what took place 2000 years or even in the civil war with written accounts. What occurred on the young earth is not known and probably not knowable.

Surely if you really do have a scientific education you would know that macro-evolution is an observed fact?

 

[1robin]

I have replied to all of your most recent arguments in the thread on the Tyre prophecy, and you have not replied to any of my most recent arguments in that thread.

I explained why I take a bit to respond to you. I have been busier than normal in my lab and you require a long stretch of time to respond to.

 

[1robin]

I have replied to all of your most recent arguments in the thread on the Tyre prophecy, and you have not replied to any of my most recent arguments in that thread.

This is another example of why I save your posts until the last. This is word for word what the previous post stated. It takes a long time to strain the repeats out of your posts and get to new points.

This can be best settled with actual post numbers in certain threads. Regarding this thread, I will provide a number of examples of where you did reply to what I originally said, but refused to reply to my revised reply to what you said.

Another example. Now I have to backtrack through posts in order to have a debate about the debate.

 

[1robin]

Message to 1robin: I will number my arguments for easy reference. I will reply to your replies in the near future. My main reason for making this post is to provide readers with the links to the pages of the pertinent posts. I do not believe that any Christian can adequately refute those posts.

Argument 1





Argument 2





Argument 3



Argument 4

I am not sure what I am to do with this. Are you saying I have never addressed the points above? Is this an argument about argumentation?

 

[1robin]

No, I know that they would not be interested in debating me. I just wanted to let you no that no Christian can adequately refute certain arguments, such as the arguments that I mentioned.

There are 2 billion Christians including some of the best scholars in history. You can't possibly know what it is you claim is true.

I have already told you several times that biblical textual criticism is a vast field, and that I do not know a lot about it. It makes sense for me to limit my debates to topics that I think I know enough about to adequately debate. I think that the recent topics that I have mentioned are very important.

The textual integrity for the bible is so outstanding, so beyond expectations, and so much greater than any work in ancient history of any type that I do not recall anything you said posing any serious threat to it. If you feel you did have a claim that challenges the bible significantly then you will have to remind me what it was.

That is utter nonsense. You easily lost the debates on homosexuality. Whether or not you will admit it, the most important issue by far is what should be done about homosexuality. From a secular perspective, no action is wrong unless there are reasonable alternatives. Your recommended solution was that all homosexuality should practice abstinence. All major medical organizations would disagree with that, and yet you claimed that you won the debate.

There was not a single challenge to even one of my two primary claims. However this claiming of victories that do not exist is trivial, immature, and a waste of time. Believe what you wish about that subject. I am no longer interested in it.

Few people would claim that they won a debate where all major pertinent professional organization disagreed with them. In addition, you were unfair since you claimed that a number of other high risk groups should not practice abstinence.

Two obvious reasons why your abstinence argument for all homosexuals is utter nonsense are because for some homosexuals, the risks do not justify abstinence, and safe sex provides many physical, and emotional benefits.

Even if you were right, homosexuals who have sex would not be any more wrong than many millions of Christians who die premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, and obesity, which cause far more suffering, and medical costs than homosexuality does.

Regarding practicing homosexuals who were monogamous for their entire lives, and never got any STDs, do you object to their having sex?

This is silly and is till an argument about an argument, which has no effect on the issues at hand.