Part 2, an attack on creationism

[roli]

I know that this post is somewhat weak, but taken with the other one, I think I provide a pretty complete argument. This is an old post from another place, but I like it enough to bring it over here.

A CRITIQUE OF CREATIONISM​

This post will cover New Earth Creationism (by far the most fun, like shooting fish in a barrel), Theistic Evolution (completely harmless, but not rational). I will also provide all the evidence of evolution that creationists ask for (transitional fossils and, observed evolution, etc...) and correct myths spread by creationists today in another post.



Why would God decide to work through the process of evolution? Is he hiding? The simplest solution tends to be the best one. Evolution explains why life in this world looks the way it does, and does a great job of it. No one can prove that there isn’t a divine hand behind evolution, but there is no evidence that there is.

Once again, if you have any questions, would like to challenge me, or provide some other evidence for creationism, I'd love to hear it, I probably won't agree with you, but I'm always up for hearing new things.

A humanist will have a very difficult time looking at creation and believing a higher intelligence created it , typically because they have enthroned themselves as the higher power. Oh what a feeling !!!!! ,that must be extremely empowering and supremely divine indeed.
The HUMANIST look to themselves and the vast array of knowledge they have accumulated, which would be quite small if actually quantified, possibly 1% of all knowledge and I'm being gracious here just to make a point.

As a christian, I would not even attempt to get into a discussion with you about the numerous varifiable findings , including Archeological , historical landmarks,scientific and recorded documents that support the creation story ,by first verifying the accuracy and validity of the bible.
If one can discredit the creation ,one can attempt to discredit the rest of the accounts,but your not the first to attempt and you won't be the last.
Like I said such attempts have not only failed but furthered the kingdom of God on the earth,so thanks.

If God, or lets say, some higher power did'nt create it, then what an amazing feat of chance /coincidence that the natural selection theory and the forces behind it could create but sustain the plantets,stars,sun,earth and all it's complexities ,not even including the human body and all living organisms.Theory only I presume..


That to me requires so much more faith then believing in God or anything for that matter.I commend you for your faith in such a perposterous hypothesis


Do you suppose your car ,your bike,all the utensils and everything we see man has created was just a hoax as well ,that they were never created by a higher intelligence, that being man,they by natural selection and evolutionary time ,a lot of time, just appeared. I'm sure you could rationalise the answer to fit your position

How do you explain the principal behind the design, intent ,purpose development ,engineering , layout ,blueprints etc. in the making of everything we see man as created or invented.

Everything created ,invented or produced whether man made or natural existing things ,as mentioned above, takes a immeasurable amount of planning and I beleive exists under the same principals ,that being ,intelligent design and developing


Oh you say ,we know man created ,designed ,developed ,planned , and built these things ,ya well, if you beleive that the simplest forms of inanimate objects created by man required logic to be designed and systematically arranged ,how can you look to human beings and all of nature and it's intricate,detailed and complex makeup and function and attribute it to evolutionary development, which leads you to discount creation,it almost appears a contridiction of terms

It certainly blows my mind !!!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

A humanist will have a very difficult time looking at creation and believing a higher intelligence created it , typically because they have enthroned themselves as the higher power.[/FONT]

That is gross ad hominem garbage.

 

[roli]

That is gross ad hominem garbage.

Read the humanist Manifesto and you can't walk away with anything other than the fact thatthey seem to elevate themselves as godlike

 

[rasor]

Yes, we don't need evidence, only common sense to know which propositions are absurd and which are not.

Yes,common sense,which most believers are sadly lacking in.

 

[rasor]

There is no proof and there is no evidence. I depend on my internal awareness, my intuition and reason.

In other words you believe because you want to believe.

 

[Valjean]

Humanists don't believe themselves Gods. They look at people realistically as odd animals capable of good or evil, wisdom or foolishness -- and in charge of their own destiny.

 

[Autodidact]

A humanist will have a very difficult time looking at creation and believing a higher intelligence created it , typically because they have enthroned themselves as the higher power. Oh what a feeling !!!!! ,that must be extremely empowering and supremely divine indeed.
The HUMANIST look to themselves and the vast array of knowledge they have accumulated, which would be quite small if actually quantified, possibly 1% of all knowledge and I'm being gracious here just to make a point.

As a christian, I would not even attempt to get into a discussion with you about the numerous varifiable findings , including Archeological , historical landmarks,scientific and recorded documents that support the creation story ,by first verifying the accuracy and validity of the bible.
If one can discredit the creation ,one can attempt to discredit the rest of the accounts,but your not the first to attempt and you won't be the last.
Like I said such attempts have not only failed but furthered the kingdom of God on the earth,so thanks.

If God, or lets say, some higher power did'nt create it, then what an amazing feat of chance /coincidence that the natural selection theory and the forces behind it could create but sustain the plantets,stars,sun,earth and all it's complexities ,not even including the human body and all living organisms.Theory only I presume..


That to me requires so much more faith then believing in God or anything for that matter.I commend you for your faith in such a perposterous hypothesis


Do you suppose your car ,your bike,all the utensils and everything we see man has created was just a hoax as well ,that they were never created by a higher intelligence, that being man,they by natural selection and evolutionary time ,a lot of time, just appeared. I'm sure you could rationalise the answer to fit your position

How do you explain the principal behind the design, intent ,purpose development ,engineering , layout ,blueprints etc. in the making of everything we see man as created or invented.

Everything created ,invented or produced whether man made or natural existing things ,as mentioned above, takes a immeasurable amount of planning and I beleive exists under the same principals ,that being ,intelligent design and developing


Oh you say ,we know man created ,designed ,developed ,planned , and built these things ,ya well, if you beleive that the simplest forms of inanimate objects created by man required logic to be designed and systematically arranged ,how can you look to human beings and all of nature and it's intricate,detailed and complex makeup and function and attribute it to evolutionary development, which leads you to discount creation,it almost appears a contridiction of terms

It certainly blows my mind !!!

If you can't attack the argument, attack the person making it.

 

[Autodidact]

Read the humanist Manifesto and you can't walk away with anything other than the fact thatthey seem to elevate themselves as godlike

Really, I'm not getting that:

FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

Sounds like they see themselves as part of nature, which would be about the opposite of a God, wouldn't it?

Is it possible for you to discuss the issues, rather than the character of the people espousing views that differ from yours? Not only is it offensive, but is a classic fallacy, the ad hominem attack, and actually reveals the weakness of your position.

 

[Autodidact]

Nick, I was thinking about you overnight, although I'm lost between our two threads which are so similar. In one or both you talked about Christianity making sense to you, and satisfying your intuition. Couple thoughts about that.

As I recall, one of the reasons it satisfies you is that it explains why it is possible for God to permit people not to know Him. Of course, that assumes that there is a God. I find that most Christian apologetics assumes what it's trying to prove, which is of course an utter fallacy. (My guess is that your intuition find it hard to accept that the universe got here without a Creator, and that is why you assume there is a God, and then try to figure out His nature.)

Anyway, as far as making sense, this is what you're telling me:
The Creator of all things, vastly greater than we can conceive, who set the galaxies to wheel about space, who made the nebulae, the birthplaces of stars, and foresees their eventual explosive demise, who decreed that E should = mc squared and pi should = r squared, as well as that 2 + 2 = 4 and that A cannot be not A, the divine Creator of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars, is extremely concerned with what goes on on a single small planet, of which the sun is (I think) roughly equivalent to an atom to Him, and so the planet something like an electron in His universe. Not only is the planet itself a sub-microscopic particle, but it contains on its surface over a hundred million species (and ten times as many extinct species) of creatures, many of which have millions of members, so billions of living things, but He has a special concern with a single species, Homo sapiens sapiens which he made in His image. (on an electron, mind you.) Not only that, but of the billions of people who live or have lived or will live on earth, in Japan and Micronesia and Madagascar, he only ever stopped in to confer with one tiny tribe in one obscure corner of the world, His people, a few thousand of them, leaving the rest for some obscure reason to figure things out for themselves, so He inspired a few select and almost pre-historic Israelites to command and guide and reward, leading them to conquer the tribes around them, and making sure that they were very careful to:

When you sacrifice your peace offering to the LORD, if you wish it to be acceptable,It must be eaten on the very day of your sacrifice or on the following day. Whatever is left over until the third day shall be burned up in the fire.

(Leviticus 19)

do not breed any of your domestic animals with others of a different species; do not sow a field of yours with two different kinds of seed; and do not put on a garment woven with two different kinds of thread.

(Ibid)

Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. 18For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
19Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.

(Leviticus 21)
And my personal favorite:

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, 12 you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

Deuteronomy 25:11

I mean, the Creator of all things could have said anything, could have taught us how to master our self-centered viewpoint and learn compassion to all living things, who could have explained exactly who is a neighbor and how to treat them, how and when to commit violence and when not, who could have defined "murder", instead of just telling us not to do it, who could have imparted any wisdom He wanted about the nature of the universe, time, space, matter and energy, who could have clued us in that in fact matter and energy are One, and let us know whether the universe is eternal or not, and how the heck those quantum particles do it, instead thought the best thing He could tell us was capital punishment for an obscure and unlikely wrestling infraction?!?

And that's not even getting into the sex obsession or the weird idea that killing one guy somehow atones for my sins or the really weird stuff.

And what you're telling me is that makes sense to you and satisfies your intuition? Because you can't retreat to the usual "God's ways are mysterious" when your whole point is that they arent', that in some fundamental way this makes sense to you?!?

ETA: And would you please respond to my points in post #86? Thanks.

 

[Jose Fly]

roli,

As a christian, I would not even attempt to get into a discussion with you about the numerous varifiable findings , including Archeological , historical landmarks,scientific and recorded documents that support the creation story

Why not?

 

[Nick Soapdish]

Sorry I haven't been around for a bit... I have had a rough week...

Anyway, to your points:

Really? What were their names? How do you know?

There have been many Christian martyrs. This book catalogs over 200,000, from many different sources. The ones that strike me the most are the apostles and their stories: Paul, Peter and Philip.

How do you know this happened? (btw I don't see a weekend of suffering as the greatest possible sacrifice. That would be actual permanent death.)

Only through faith that the Gospels are true.

so what?

It explains our moral conscious. If we know something is wrong, why do we do it anyway?

Unless you think about it too hard. Like why a loving God advocates slaughtering innocent babies, or why the Creator of an immeasurably vast universe is very worried about what you do with certain of your bodily organs. Why people who pick up sticks on the wrong day should be murdered,

That is a very cynical view, if you don't mind me saying so, and doesn't really represent the picture of God that the Bible portrays. I think we need to receive the Old Testament as being filtered through writers with their own prejudices. I don't expect that the directions for society back then make sense for us today. If we lived during he times the Old Testament, these things would make a lot more sense. Jesus created a new covenant that corrects the mis-directions in the Old Testament and they make more sense for our society today. Jesus tells us it is what is in our heart that matters, not our perceived actions, and that loving our God, and our neighbors as ourselves are the most important commandments.

or even why God had to arrange to sacrifice Himself to Himself to obtain His forgiveness for actions that He permitted His creations to commit.

He permitted His creations to sin because of freewill. Jesus came here to teach us how to live. His death only pays for our sins if we accept Him as our savior. These are important pieces you are leaving out.

Problem of evil?

We are created as free creatures that have rebelled against God. If this was not possible, we would be puppets under His control, and could not have meaningful, deep relationships with each other and God.

It doesn't matter--they're both a lousy way to find out what's going on in the world. Sometimes they're all we have, and we have to rely on them. But to find out the truth about the natural world, which is to say, the world, we have to use science. It works, and it's the only thing that does.

"It works, and it's the only thing that does"

How do you know this?

 

[Nick Soapdish]

Nick, I was thinking about you overnight, although I'm lost between our two threads which are so similar. In one or both you talked about Christianity making sense to you, and satisfying your intuition. Couple thoughts about that.

As I recall, one of the reasons it satisfies you is that it explains why it is possible for God to permit people not to know Him. Of course, that assumes that there is a God. I find that most Christian apologetics assumes what it's trying to prove, which is of course an utter fallacy. (My guess is that your intuition find it hard to accept that the universe got here without a Creator, and that is why you assume there is a God, and then try to figure out His nature.)

Anyway, as far as making sense, this is what you're telling me:
The Creator of all things, vastly greater than we can conceive, who set the galaxies to wheel about space, who made the nebulae, the birthplaces of stars, and foresees their eventual explosive demise, who decreed that E should = mc squared and pi should = r squared, as well as that 2 + 2 = 4 and that A cannot be not A, the divine Creator of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars, is extremely concerned with what goes on on a single small planet, of which the sun is (I think) roughly equivalent to an atom to Him, and so the planet something like an electron in His universe. Not only is the planet itself a sub-microscopic particle, but it contains on its surface over a hundred million species (and ten times as many extinct species) of creatures, many of which have millions of members, so billions of living things, but He has a special concern with a single species, Homo sapiens sapiens which he made in His image. (on an electron, mind you.)

I don't believe the purpose of this Universe is spinning galaxies. The material world is a stage for us. To me, its immense size and greatness represents God's power. His infinite power is able to subjugate the entire Universe, including each and every particle.

The real purpose of this Universe is for us to build relationships. Everything else, as immense and beautiful as it is, is just a backdrop. We have matter, energy, physical bodies, and laws of physics that allow us to negotiate our freewill and interact with each other. But it is our relationships with each other that is of central importance.

Not only that, but of the billions of people who live or have lived or will live on earth, in Japan and Micronesia and Madagascar, he only ever stopped in to confer with one tiny tribe in one obscure corner of the world, His people, a few thousand of them, leaving the rest for some obscure reason to figure things out for themselves, so He inspired a few select and almost pre-historic Israelites to command and guide and reward, leading them to conquer the tribes around them, and making sure that they were very careful to:
(Leviticus 19)
(Ibid)
(Leviticus 21)
And my personal favorite:
Deuteronomy 25:11

I believe Israel is the nest prepared for Christ's arrival. God's plan included Him being a physical part of this Universe and He used Israel to prepare for His coming.

I do not know the fate of those that never have heard of Jesus. Perhaps in the afterlife they are given an opportunity for salvation. I just don't know. But it is clear that God made certain vessels for destruction (as Paul discussed in Romans), which many Christians (including myself) have difficulty with. We have to accept that none of us deserve or are entitled to anything more than eventual death.

I mean, the Creator of all things could have said anything, could have taught us how to master our self-centered viewpoint and learn compassion to all living things, who could have explained exactly who is a neighbor and how to treat them, how and when to commit violence and when not, who could have defined "murder", instead of just telling us not to do it,

Have you read the New Testament? This is exactly what it is about. It is a book of wisdom, of how to live our lives ethically and how to relate to others and to God.

who could have imparted any wisdom He wanted about the nature of the universe, time, space, matter and energy, who could have clued us in that in fact matter and energy are One, and let us know whether the universe is eternal or not, and how the heck those quantum particles do it, instead thought the best thing He could tell us was capital punishment for an obscure and unlikely wrestling infraction?!?

The Bible doesn't teach us how to cook either. It is not meant to be a physics book and to do so would undermine its purpose. People don't need to know how quantum particles work to live ethically.

And that's not even getting into the sex obsession or the weird idea that killing one guy somehow atones for my sins or the really weird stuff.

And what you're telling me is that makes sense to you and satisfies your intuition? Because you can't retreat to the usual "God's ways are mysterious" when your whole point is that they arent', that in some fundamental way this makes sense to you?!?

In my opinion, you spend way to much time on the brutal aspects of the Old Testament and you ignore the "he who is without sin cast the first stone" parts. And yes it does make sense to me, once I accept an infinite being that seeks glorification through His creation.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

Then you were just being lazy. Creationists are notorious for extremely dishonest quote mining.

Is this posturing really necessary?

That depends on which of Behe's definitions one chooses to use. If it's the original "if you take away any of its parts, it doesn't work", there are countless examples of irreducible complexity in biology. Unfortunately for Behe, it's been demonstrated numerous times that this type of irreducible complexity is completely evolvable.

In response to this, Behe (sort of) changed his definition to "the more unselected steps in the proposed evolutionary pathway, the more irreducibly complex it is".

This definition is so arbitrary it's useless.

Why are you using an ID advocate's definition? I am asking for the atheist opinion. What was Darwin talking about in that quote? Is it something that any atheist should just ignore because they are to remain absolutely confident in an eventual answer that fits within natural selection?

 

[~Amin~]

I don't believe the purpose of this Universe is spinning galaxies. The material world is a stage for us. To me, its immense size and greatness represents God's power. His infinite power is able to subjugate the entire Universe, including each and every particle.

WOW i like that, but some people ignore, or reject whats
clear around them, Guidance and the allowance of submission
is in the ALMIGHTY's Hand Alone.

 

[fantome profane]

I don't believe the purpose of this Universe is spinning galaxies. The material world is a stage for us. To me, its immense size and greatness represents God's power. His infinite power is able to subjugate the entire Universe, including each and every particle.

WOW i like that, but some people ignore, or reject whats
clear around them, Guidance and the allowance of submission
is in the ALMIGHTY's Hand Alone.

Obviously ~Amin~ doesn’t see the problem with this. Perhaps Nick can see it.

This statement was made by Nick Soapdish in an attempt to explain why his belief in God satisfies his intuition. And as such it is certainly valid. And it is nice that his expression seems to resonate so strongly with ~Amin~’s own intuition.

The problem of course is that other people intuitive “understanding” differs. My intuition for example tells me that the personal relationships of a bunch of primates crawling around on the face of one tiny little planet cannot be the real purpose of a universe that is as immense, beautiful, and strange as this one. My intuition of course is no more valid than Nicks (but no less) and it would be ridiculous of me to start insulting people who don’t see things the way I do, to say that they must be blind not to see the evidence that is so clear to me.

We cannot even have an intelligent discussion if our arguments are based solely on our intuitions.

 

[~Amin~]

and it would be ridiculous of me to start insulting people who don’t see things the way I do, to say that they must be blind not to see the evidence that is so clear to me.

Very True, I'm assuming your speaking of me i didn't mean it
in a rude way i promise, if i did i would be going against Islamic teachings,
please don't misunderstand me but truly when people don't recognise God they
are spiritually blind, just the way you may see me to be blind in a way for
not seeing thins your way.

 

[~Amin~]

And do not insult those they
invoke other then God, lest
they insult God in enmity
without knowledge. Qur'an 6,108.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

In other words you believe because you want to believe.

Please, expand on this conclusion you have come to about what I believe and how you reached it.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

Obviously ~Amin~ doesn’t see the problem with this. Perhaps Nick can see it.

This statement was made by Nick Soapdish in an attempt to explain why his belief in God satisfies his intuition. And as such it is certainly valid. And it is nice that his expression seems to resonate so strongly with ~Amin~’s own intuition.

The problem of course is that other people intuitive “understanding” differs. My intuition for example tells me that the personal relationships of a bunch of primates crawling around on the face of one tiny little planet cannot be the real purpose of a universe that is as immense, beautiful, and strange as this one. My intuition of course is no more valid than Nicks (but no less) and it would be ridiculous of me to start insulting people who don’t see things the way I do, to say that they must be blind not to see the evidence that is so clear to me.

I agree, except for the possibility that one intuition is correct and one is wrong. In that case they are not equal. But I agree that we ought not posture as if someone is a fool for not believing in something we do. Sadly, I am guilty of that on occasion.

We cannot even have an intelligent discussion if our arguments are based solely on our intuitions.

Not sure I agree with this. Might as well throw the majority of philosophy out the window if that is the case.

 

[Autodidact]

There have been many Christian martyrs. This book catalogs over 200,000, from many different sources. The ones that strike me the most are the apostles and their stories: Paul, Peter and Philip.

Sorry, like most of what Christians think they know about their religion, this is probably not true. The idea that Peter and Paul were martyred is only a legend invented by Tertullian over a century after his death. The same is true of Philip, except that nothing was written about him for another century. These are just legends, not history.

Only through faith that the Gospels are true.

You know it because you believe it? And remember, this all makes sense to you.

That is a very cynical view, if you don't mind me saying so, and doesn't really represent the picture of God that the Bible portrays.

Oh really? Do you really want me to start listing the pages upon pages in the OT that describe nothing but genocide and commandments to commit genocide? Slaughtering other people is a major OT theme. Basically, God rescued the Israelites from Egypt, brought them into Canaan, and commanded them to annihilate everyone in sight. Amalekites, Jebusites, Perrizites, and around twenty or thirty other --ites. It gets tedious, and by the time you get to Joshua they just start listing all the destroyed and decimanted tribes, one per sentence. Often God emphasizes the importance of killing the babies, as in this passage:

=1 Samuel 15:3]Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys

. Remember, the point of all this is that this makes sense to you. That's why you believe it, because this theology makes sense. And the being that commands His followers to be sure to kill all the babies is your God, the Being that the whole thing is about, all-powerful and all loving.

I think we need to receive the Old Testament as being filtered through writers with their own prejudices. I don't expect that the directions for society back then make sense for us today. If we lived during he times the Old Testament, these things would make a lot more sense.

But remember, the whole point of this is that it make so much sense to you, right now. That's why you believe it! Because it makes so much sense!

Jesus created a new covenant that corrects the mis-directions in the Old Testament and they make more sense for our society today. Jesus tells us it is what is in our heart that matters, not our perceived actions, and that loving our God, and our neighbors as ourselves are the most important commandments.

If it made such good sense, why does Jesus have to correct it? Remember, Jesus is the Being who commanded His people to take care not to leave the babies out when they are committing genocide. Because Jesus is God. And this is the religion you have chosen because it makes so much sense!

He permitted His creations to sin because of freewill. Jesus came here to teach us how to live. His death only pays for our sins if we accept Him as our savior. These are important pieces you are leaving out.

Look, let's say I'm a sinner. And let's say Jesus was crucified. Why would it make any difference to my sin what Jesus did? In my world-view, I'm responsible for my own actions, and only I can do anything about them, including atoning for them. How does it make perfect sense for someone else to atone for my sin?!? That's just weird.

We are created as free creatures that have rebelled against God. If this was not possible, we would be puppets under His control, and could not have meaningful, deep relationships with each other and God.

Why not create us free, but good? I'm just asking.

"It works, and it's the only thing that does"

How do you know this?

Do you disagree? Again, you've been arrested and charged with murder. How would you like the jury to decide your guilt? Divine revelation, or evidence? Which one works?