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Searching for Truth with a Broken Flashlight

M

Man of Faith

Well-Known Member
I don't have to use a broken flashlight, Jesus is the light of the world. I just shine Jesus on the evidence for evolution and it disappears.
 
Wotan

Wotan

Active Member
Man of Faith said:
I don't have to use a broken flashlight, Jesus is the light of the world. I just shine Jesus on the evidence for evolution and it disappears.
Click to expand...

That kind of mindless nonsense is one reason why people of "faith" are often regarded as foolish.

There is NO evidence in that statement. No facts cited, no argument made, no authority cited. Merely an unsupported assertion of religious "faith."

WHY should anyone not already infected be in least swayed - or even interested - in such a bogus statement?
 
McBell

McBell

Unbound
Wotan said:
That kind of mindless nonsense is one reason why people of "faith" are often regarded as foolish.

There is NO evidence in that statement. No facts cited, no argument made, no authority cited. Merely an unsupported assertion of religious "faith."

WHY should anyone not already infected be in least swayed - or even interested - in such a bogus statement?
Click to expand...
Because if you do not believe it you will roast in hell for the rest of forever and ever.
PRAISE JESUS!!
 
Atomist

Atomist

I love you.
Man of Faith said:
I don't have to use a broken flashlight, Jesus is the light of the world. I just shine Jesus on the evidence for evolution and it disappears.
Click to expand...
So you admit there is evidence? But your imaginary friend Jesus, who I assume to be mexican, is a source of light that makes evidence disappear?

I'm not really following your line of reason... but at least you admit that there is no evidence.
 
A

Anaximander

Member
tumbleweed41 said:
This....


Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence is so strong.
National Academy of Sciences.

In the same sense, Gravity is a scientific fact, objects in our everyday experience tend to fall downwards when not otherwise prevented from doing so.It is shown mathematically in a Law, and explained through a Theory.Just as the scientific fact of Biological Evolution is explained in the Theory of Evolution.
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Both of our quotes come from the NAS and almost seem to conflict, but they really don't. When a scientist is speaking in the vernacular, he/she may be using fact in this way. This, though, anti-evolutionists can exploit. I believe Stephen J. Gould does a better job of clarifying:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.
- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

best,
 
M

Man of Faith

Well-Known Member
Wotan said:
That kind of mindless nonsense is one reason why people of "faith" are often regarded as foolish.

There is NO evidence in that statement. No facts cited, no argument made, no authority cited. Merely an unsupported assertion of religious "faith."

WHY should anyone not already infected be in least swayed - or even interested - in such a bogus statement?
Click to expand...


Well you will have to get accustomed to my style of debate. I assume that everybody knows the arguments and scientific evidences for and against evolution and creation. Therefore I like to discuss the conclusions that we gleem from the evidences, not to discuss the evidence that we already know.
 
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M

Man of Faith

Well-Known Member
Atomist said:
So you admit there is evidence? But your imaginary friend Jesus, who I assume to be mexican, is a source of light that makes evidence disappear?

I'm not really following your line of reason... but at least you admit that there is no evidence.
Click to expand...

There is data, scientific data and that data can be used for both sides as evidence. I can use the same data as evidence for creation that others use as evidence for evoluton. So when I look at the evidence presented that is pro evolution, I shine Jesus on it and it disappears or turns into evidence for creation when light gets on it.
 
McBell

McBell

Unbound
Man of Faith said:
Well you will have to get accustomed to my style of debate. I assume that everybody knows the arguments and scientific evidences for and against evolution and creation. Therefore I like to discuss the conclusions that we gleem from the evidences, not to discuss the evidence that we already know.
Click to expand...
Guess that is one way to ignore the evidences you dislike and the fact that creation has no evidence.
 
evolved yet?

evolved yet?

A Young Evolutionist
Man of Faith said:
Well you will have to get accustomed to my style of debate. I assume that everybody knows the arguments and scientific evidences for and against evolution and creation. Therefore I like to discuss the conclusions that we gleem from the evidences, not to discuss the evidence that we already know.
Click to expand...
So that explains your absence during the "Creationists, please provide evidence" thread...
 
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