Shroud of Turin is from first AD.

[Sheldon]

Evolution says nothing about when civilization would appear. It does not predict a gradual appearance of civilization. It says nothing about the appearance of civilization at all.

Evolution deals with biological changes. The appearance of civilization was a social one.

Well it takes a special kind of creationist stupidity, to talk about a characteristic unique to one species of ape, that evolved just 200k years ago, and insist evolution doesn't evidence when it occurred, or offer a timeline for it.

Though to be fair, there is no limit to the stupidity of creationist claims, as this thread is amply demonstrating over and over again.

 

[Sheldon]

The source was a dishonest book written by a creationist from the "Discovery Institute". A creationist organization that is based to my shame in my state. But not to worry, they are all but bankrupt.


Evolution: A Theory in Crisis - Wikipedia.

Well it's an ill wind, maybe you can get a life-size model of a diplodocus being ridden by a smiling child for the garden?

It'll p*** the neighbours off something rotten.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well it's an ill wind, maybe you can get a life-size model of a diplodocus being ridden by a smiling child for the garden?

It'll p*** the neighbours off something rotten.

Rats fresh out of diplodocus. Would a triceratops do?

Design Toscano Jurassic - Sized Triceratops Dinosaur Statue | Wayfair

Forget that one. I want this one. It is a good 2 meters tall:

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

No, you are not paying attention. The magic rain shower was supposed to kill everyone. That would mean that the civilizations would have died and it would take over a thousand years to build up to that level again.

Remember almost no people. Only eight. And only six if you count those that are having children. Come on, this is your fairy tale. You should understand it better than that.

At least the Greeks put more thought into it. They may not have been able to talk about genetic bottlenecks, but they just figured their characters could sow dragons’ teeth and make more people.

 

[Subduction Zone]

At least the Greeks put more thought into it. They may not have been able to talk about genetic bottlenecks, but they just figured their characters could sow dragons’ teeth and make more people.

Greek mythology tends to be much better than that of the ancient Hebrews. The ancient Hebrews copied much of their from surrounding or countries, or even countries that conquered them, but they tended to mess up t he story. The Noah's Ark myth is from an even older Sumerian one. An expert in myth could probably identify the source of most of them.

 

[joelr]

Everyone has a bit different understanding of the teaching that does not mean the teaching is wrong. It only means humans are at different level of understanding of what the texts say.

You are being too vague to comment directly. Teachings regarding wisdom and ethics are created by humans and some concepts better than others. The rest is mythology. If myths, legends about Gods and demigods and afterlifes and who to believe in needs to be taken literal than one is at a different level of understanding. If one sees them as metaphors than that is also a different level.

You can't read the text alone and thing you gained all the wisdom from it, because more wisdom rise the more the person change them self to live as the teaching teaches.

A religious book is not like other non spiritual books.

I don't expect you to understand that.

Well your expectations betray you. A religious book is usually a book of wisdom and spirituality and set within mythology. Religion is mythology. Do you think Krishna and Innanna are real?

Of course you have to live through your ethics and virtues?

 

[Spirit of Light]

You are being too vague to comment directly. Teachings regarding wisdom and ethics are created by humans and some concepts better than others. The rest is mythology. If myths, legends about Gods and demigods and afterlifes and who to believe in needs to be taken literal than one is at a different level of understanding. If one sees them as metaphors than that is also a different level.




Well your expectations betray you. A religious book is usually a book of wisdom and spirituality and set within mythology. Religion is mythology. Do you think Krishna and Innanna are real?

Of course you have to live through your ethics and virtues?

Spiritual/religious scriptures is not myth to me.

 

[joelr]

Honestly @Sheldon and @joelr it does not matter what anyone in religious discussion or debate telling you, you are not listening anyway.

This is your ego talking. The very first lesson in spirituality. I have been asking questions and you are incredibly vague, little to go on. Then you accuse me of not listening when you are saying almost nothing? Why can't people debate honestly. That passive aggressive approach is lame.

Spiritual lifestyle are inward in to the persons being, the teaching in the scriptures are meant to awakening the true being. Not to explain physically evidence for something that is invisible to a person who don't seek it. And you are not seeking it by your self

Answers given to you will never resonate with you, because you only understand the physical world.

I stop being a part of this debate now, no need to try explain at all.

Maybe Eastern religions, I don't think this is true for Western religion.
I already told you spirituality is an ill defined term. But I do not think it means worshipping a Greek/Persian deity or OT Yahweh is spiritual at all. I was Christian and I understand Advaita Vedanta Hinduism and other Eastern religions to some degree, they are far more insightful than Western mythology.

Greek philosophy and Shopenhaur cover many spiritual issues as well as ethics and virtues and reasons for morality.


These assumptions are ridiculous and don't even apply to the actual conversation. I think you are just on a script.

 

[Spirit of Light]

This is your ego talking. The very first lesson in spirituality. I have been asking questions and you are incredibly vague, little to go on. Then you accuse me of not listening when you are saying almost nothing? Why can't people debate honestly. That passive aggressive approach is lame.




Maybe Eastern religions, I don't think this is true for Western religion.
I already told you spirituality is an ill defined term. But I do not think it means worshipping a Greek/Persian deity or OT Yahweh is spiritual at all. I was Christian and I understand Advaita Vedanta Hinduism and other Eastern religions to some degree, they are far more insightful than Western mythology.

Greek philosophy and Shopenhaur cover many spiritual issues as well as ethics and virtues and reasons for morality.


These assumptions are ridiculous and don't even apply to the actual conversation. I think you are just on a script.

 

[joelr]

That’s a cool story but if you’re an atheist then your starting point is you have nothing. This explanation is your religious belief.

We have the universe, 4 fundamental laws, the big bang and all sorts of amazing mysteries, much we don't know, but would inserting Krishna or Inanna solve those problems? No. Neither does Yahweh. That is equally as much fiction. Genesis is a reworking of Mesopotamian creation myths and both have ZERO actual information about the real universe. It's man-made myth.

We already see nature doing amazing things, the idea it cannot also create life and a universe isn't supported by fact. You are attempting to squeeze in a fictitious deity in the mix because it's a personal God and it eases the fear of death/ It's just not real.

Yet even starting from your organism it’s impossible to get to the Creation reality we live in today from there, this is a story you make up and use billions of years which cannot be verified or duplicated.

No evolutionary science actually has most of the answers once you get self replicating RNA. That part is well accounted for. You are just parroting apologetics from fundamentalists.

I just saw on Alicia Childers apologetics podcast were this "skeptic" historians thing comes from. Apologists/fundamentalists call regular historians who just report facts as they find then "hyper skeptical minimalists"?

It's like taking the scholars who write about the Greek stories, The Illiad, and who write about it as if it's fiction (it is) and then joing a cult who worships all the characters and says they are historical. SO they then call Greek historians "hyper-skeptical minimalist" scholars because they don't believe the Illiad is true?

Uh, no, its ancient fiction. Just like ancient religions?
There IS evidence Alexander the Great lived and historians report that. Because there are countless historians of the day who mention seeing him in person, coins, books, records, stories about him from other cultures, other rulers who met him and more.

Life had to be created in an instant to be able to be sustained. You can’t even revive a previous healthy human being that’s drowned after an hour and you believe life could happen all on its own through evolutionary process over billions of years.

This is hilarious. You just do not care about what is actually true? There is so much information about this you could go to school for 8 years and not learn it all? Yes, self replicating compounds over billions of years became simple cells. Yes organisms die very easily, that's why reproduction is the biggest drive in all organisms. Eat, make babies.
Most Christians believe in evolution. A small anti-science minority of science deniers are not giving you accurate information.

And it didn't have to be created in an instant? You need self replicating compounds. There are many papers online about the science of that. Eventually they replicate with variations. The ones that work better fail. The ones that work better add something to the mix. Information is free. You can actually read layperson books on abiogenesis?
Forest Valki is a biologist on youtube who answers skeptics on evolution.

 

[joelr]

I've asked this same question of multiple posters, as well as to give examples of spiritual truths gleaned and methods used, and the answers contain no information. One poster on this thread gave examples of what he meant after he commented that just because science can't detect spiritual things doesn't mean they aren't real, and then wrote, "If you sow lying, stealing and deceit will you end up receiving a blessing or a curse? If I am a generous person will I receive blessing or cursing? These are spiritual laws and realities." It's still not clear to me how that relates to science and reality, but I got a glimpse of what that one poster might mean spiritual - what I would call the wisdom gleaned from experience in a sufficiently decent and intelligent observer.

I've also asked the same question of the poster you're interacting with here. I'd address him directly, but he doesn't like that, and has blocked me. His answers are vague as you suggested, so it's hard to know if he's referring to anything specific that he can't articulate or whether he has no clear idea himself, but I've been reading his posts for a couple of years, and I think he's referring to the kind of learning we all do, but don't generally attach the word spiritual to.

What makes this area even more vague is the concepts of spirits as invisible beings, and when one attaches the supernatural to the process, there is a tendency to call it spiritual. And so, the claims for gods and angels and the realms of the afterlife are called spiritual truths, spiritual discernment, knowledge requiring the Holy Spirit. Now, it no longer resembles the kind of thinking a humanist has, and normal intellectual and moral growth and development are called spiritual growth.

For the record, I have a concise description of what I call authentic spiritual experiences. It is a sense of mystery, connection, awe, and gratitude that arises in various activities such as looking up at the night sky with an understanding of our connection to the stars, or a rapturous passage of music, or gardening. It's this experience that I believe theists are calling experiencing God or evidence for God. I had it myself in church settings when I was a Christian, and mistook it for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then I was discharged from the military and returned to my home state, where I searched in vain for a congregation that was as full of the Spirit as my first (I became a Christian in the army), and realized that I had been in the hands of a charismatic pastor who created that feeling, not in the presence of the Spirit, which ought to have followed me to California. So, I'm pretty sure that that is what they are calling experiencing God after a few hymns and some singing and clapping that this is the day that the Lord has made, so be glad and rejoice in it.

By the way, that some interest and knowledge you have in religious history.

I tried to ask several times what spirituality even means to him but got nowhere. Once I called out a few things it got passive aggressive (your clearly not at that level so I can't explain), I think he was just looking to engage then tell people they are not spiritual like he is.
By "spiritual" I think he means interacting with things from a spiritual realm and doing what they say. The funny thing is when the scripture was written they were not in a spiritual realm. They were in the upper atmosphere and heaven was at the top. The blue sky was the cosmic ocean above heaven. They were just divinities.

 

[Spirit of Light]

I tried to ask several times what spirituality even means to him but got nowhere. Once I called out a few things it got passive aggressive (your clearly not at that level so I can't explain), I think he was just looking to engage then tell people they are not spiritual like he is.
By "spiritual" I think he means interacting with things from a spiritual realm and doing what they say. The funny thing is when the scripture was written they were not in a spiritual realm. They were in the upper atmosphere and heaven was at the top. The blue sky was the cosmic ocean above heaven. They were just divinities.

Spirituality is the state of having a connection to God or the spirit world. An example of spirituality is praying every day. Concern for that which is unseen and intangible, as opposed to physical or mundane. Something, such as property or revenue, that belongs to the church or to a cleric.

 

[joelr]

Making assumptions about what I will or won't understand based on very cursory posts where very little was said is a bit of a dig. Don't know why this response is surprising?

 

[Spirit of Light]

Making assumptions about what I will or won't understand based on very cursory posts where very little was said is a bit of a dig. Don't know why this response is surprising?

I might have come to the conclusions that some people are impossible to discuss/debate with, so my answers has no meaning anymore.

 

[joelr]

Science has changed and keeps changing its view, you take what science says as a fact and then those supposed facts are shown to be false and then the excuses how great science is and is always improving.
I don’t need to know all the ins and outs about counterfeit money, all I need to know is all about the real money, how it looks, feels and be an expert at the true bill. Then it’s easy to spot the counterfeit.
Same with evolution, mix a little bit of truth and add a whole lot of nonsense. You laugh at my example yet you believe a simple organism over billions of years turned into all the diversity of life we have here. You can concoct any story you want, call it science or whatever but you cannot duplicate or get your theory to work, except make viruses more deadly.
Easy to spot the evolution fraud

That is an apologist/fundamentalist strawman. Congrats on letting other people think for you.
A simple organism, eukaryotic cells - eukaryotic cells evolved from a symbiotic association of prokaryotes—endosymbiosis—is particularly well supported by studies of mitochondria and chloroplasts, which are thought to have evolved from bacteria living in large cells.

It's called endosymbiotic theory.

Here is a paper on basic cell evolution. Which part do you disagree with?

We do not have to duplicate evolution to prove it? An apologist lie. Do we have to duplicate the formation of the Earth, solar system, form our own star from a nebula, make a neutron star, make a black hole, make a big bang and see if galaxies form on their own?

 

[joelr]

Spirituality is the state of having a connection to God or the spirit world. An example of spirituality is praying every day. Concern for that which is unseen and intangible, as opposed to physical or mundane. Something, such as property or revenue, that belongs to the church or to a cleric.

Ok. I don't agree, but that is how spirituality is, a free for all.
I believe spirituality is for one understanding how to live from your higher self which is the part of you that understands compassion for others and has a connection to life and humanity such that as Shaupenhauer says "if you hurt someone else you hurt yourself"
The physical world and our desires and will are something of an illusion and will create constant need for more, desires and suffering. There are some Eastern philosophies that deal with this as well. The ego tends to want things which is a whole different subject.

There is no evidence for any Gods or spirit worlds. Quieting the mind every day is a good idea so praying in that sense may be good. If I said I'm spiritual because I pray to Zeus and pray to Herecules his son every day and I feel a connection to them, would you consider me spiritual?

 

[joelr]

Well yeah, your first organism made it all by itself in a puddle? What came first the organs, blood, body, brain? You’re saying this happened over billions of years and also out of this organism, plants, bacteria, viruses and impossible yet you believe it.

NOw it's easy to see you are a troll. Just simple cells took billions of years to become more complex. And another billion for microscopic sea life. I think you know this.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Ok. I don't agree, but that is how spirituality is, a free for all.
I believe spirituality is for one understanding how to live from your higher self which is the part of you that understands compassion for others and has a connection to life and humanity such that as Shaupenhauer says "if you hurt someone else you hurt yourself"
The physical world and our desires and will are something of an illusion and will create constant need for more, desires and suffering. There are some Eastern philosophies that deal with this as well. The ego tends to want things which is a whole different subject.

There is no evidence for any Gods or spirit worlds. Quieting the mind every day is a good idea so praying in that sense may be good. If I said I'm spiritual because I pray to Zeus and pray to Herecules his son every day and I feel a connection to them, would you consider me spiritual?

If you follow the teaching of zeus and pray to those God that means one would be spiritual seeking answers yes (in my understanding)

 

[joelr]

Just to let you know, theories are made from facts but theories never become facts.

For example I see that when I throw this apple on the ground it made a dent in the dirt. Fact

Now I can make a theory that cannot be proved and say my theory is based on a fact. That’s what evolutionists and you all do.

Oh wow, it gets worse? Theories in science don't mean what they mean in police work?
A theory is a solid fact. The theory of gravity. Will you jump off a cliff because it's just a theory?
Germ theory.
Atomic theory


Are germs a fact or is that still up in the air?

 

[joelr]

I don’t need the definition of words, I asked for a science paper stating that gravity is a fact, you would think it is an obvious fact, but is it still considered a theory? Do you have a science source saying that Gravity is a fact and not a theory?

It's not a fact, it's many facts.

A theory is a carefully thought-out explanation for observations of the natural world that has been constructed using the scientific method, and which brings together many facts and hypotheses.