The Believabliltiy of Evolution

[rrobs]

I wanted you to explain common ancestry in light of your view that evolution is not a reality of life

First of all, I've said over and over that evolution within a genus is a reality, so your distortion of that is a prime example of a straw man argument. But to answer your question just read the first 2 chapters of Genesis.

 

[rrobs]

Bible stories are claims, not evidence.

Heb 11:1,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.​

 

[rrobs]

I am not interested in getting into a discussion of my personal views of the Bible in this thread, since, as you say, it is off topic. However, it is not that I do not believe in creation, I just do not interpret it literally as written and consider that an allegory for consumption by a culture that would not have understood a more detailed and accurate description. Not that they were less intelligent than we are, but that they were more ignorant of the world around them. My other choices, as I see it, would be do like some and bury my head in the sand and pretend certain parts of reality do not exist or to abandon my beliefs. Neither of those is a good option. Since I do not require evidence to believe, I do not fear that new discoveries will destroy that.

That is all I am going to say and I would recommend you end your query there or it might give the false impression that you are using this to attack another Christian. I wouldn't want to feel persecuted.

I'll take your recommendation and end my query here.

 

[SkepticThinker]

First of all, I've said over and over that evolution within a genus is a reality, so your distortion of that is a prime example of a straw man argument. But to answer your question just read the first 2 chapters of Genesis.

Good grief, I don't know why this is so difficult.

LOL You were just claiming that my question to you about common ancestry is a circular argument. When I ask why, you now claim it's a straw man argument. And still no answer to the question.

This discussion is futile, it seems. Sorry I'm not into word games and obfuscation.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Heb 11:1,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.​

Faith is not a pathway to truth then.
So I have no use for it.

This does not address my point.
What's with that?

 

[gnostic]

Well, I was just going by:

Prov 1:7,

The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.
​

You're credentials are? In other words, where do you get your ideas? Mine come from the scriptures.

You think I did at some times in my life didn't believe in the bible?

Although I didn't join any church, I had actually believed in Genesis, Exodus, the gospels and other books.

What changed my outlook of the Bible, is that I no longer let church teachings/interpretations colored my understanding of the Old Testament.

And this change, originally didn’t come from the Genesis or Exodus, but from the gospels' interpretations of Old Testament, regarding to the “Messianic” prophecies. And that was back in 2000, when I was 34, and that was when I had my first doubt about the bible, and Christianity in general, in particular Matthew 1:22-23 interpretations of Isaiah 7:14.

It may reviewed all other NT interpretations of OT Messianic, and I found that they were all nothing but NT propaganda.

Back in 2000, not only I began to doubt gospels for dishonest interpretations of the OT, I no longer trust church interpretations in general.

So my doubts didn’t start because of historicity or with science, I simply can no longer trust the NT and church teachings.

But before 2000, I was a believer, for almost 20 years.

Now, I may not be able to quote you exact chapters and verses, but I am no novice with understanding the bible. I actually understand the Bible better now than the whole time when I did believe in it, when I was younger.

 

[rrobs]

You think I did at some times in my life didn't believe in the bible?

Although I didn't join any church, I had actually believed in Genesis, Exodus, the gospels and other books.

What changed my outlook of the Bible, is that I no longer let church teachings/interpretations colored my understanding of the Old Testament.

And this change, originally didn’t come from the Genesis or Exodus, but from the gospels' interpretations of Old Testament, regarding to the “Messianic” prophecies. And that was back in 2000, when I was 34, and that was when I had my first doubt about the bible, and Christianity in general, in particular Matthew 1:22-23 interpretations of Isaiah 7:14.

It may reviewed all other NT interpretations of OT Messianic, and I found that they were all nothing but NT propaganda.

Back in 2000, not only I began to doubt gospels for dishonest interpretations of the OT, I no longer trust church interpretations in general.

So my doubts didn’t start because of historicity or with science, I simply can no longer trust the NT and church teachings.

But before 2000, I was a believer, for almost 20 years.

Now, I may not be able to quote you exact chapters and verses, but I am no novice with understanding the bible. I actually understand the Bible better now than the whole time when I did believe in it, when I was younger.

Thanks for the reply. I understand what you're saying. Like yourself, I've never been part of a church. I think the church is responsible for untold errors in the scriptures. I even go so far as to say that they are largely responsible for all the ills we see in society today. When error is substituted for truth there's no telling where things can end up.

Putting doctrine aside, it is not hard to see the Roman Catholic practice of martyring anybody who disagreed with them ought to be reason enough for anybody to run away as fast as they can. It's mind boggling to me that they have even 1 adherent, let alone millions. And at this stage, I don't see protestant doctrine much different. The RC church has itself firmly embedded in society. They are the ones who have permeated society with non scriptural ideas, beginning with the trinity (a pagan god-man creature) and going downhill from there.

I want to be clear that I'm not criticizing all Roman Catholics. They only know what they've been taught. I blame the institution, not the people in it. I'm sure most are sincere God seeking individuals who have be hood winked. If anything, it points out the incredible slyness of the devil.

Not to press you or proselytize you, but what is it about Matthew and Isaiah that you don't like?

 

[rrobs]

Faith is not a pathway to truth then.
So I have no use for it.

Then that's what you believe in. That's your faith. So faith must have some use to you. Unless you have some direct and infallible connection with reality, everything you think is based on faith. Every time you sit on a chair you are demonstrating your faith that it will hold you up.

This does not address my point.
What's with that?

You asked me for evidence. I gave you a very succinct answer that said faith is the evidence. You may not like the answer, but it did address your point head on.

 

[rrobs]

Good grief, I don't know why this is so difficult.

LOL You were just claiming that my question to you about common ancestry is a circular argument. When I ask why, you now claim it's a straw man argument. And still no answer to the question.

This discussion is futile, it seems. Sorry I'm not into word games and obfuscation.

Your argument about where common ancestry from assumes there is a common ancestry. That's what makes it circular. You would first have to prove a common ancestry. I don't recall equating circular argument with straw man.

A straw man is when someone misrepresents what someone else said in order to make their attack a bit easier. Where have I misrepresented something you said? Not saying I didn't, just like to know where.

Just out of curiosity, who or what do you think was the number one organism from which all other's arose? Who or what is that common ancestor? I know that's in the realm of bio genesis and therefore not directly related to evolution (or so I've been told more than once here) , but it's at least a cousin of the actual topic. I hope it's OK to bring it up.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Then that's what you believe in.

No, that's what you said faith is. I agreed with you and pointed out that it's not a pathway to truth, as you've defined it.

That's your faith.

I don't have any faith, as you've defined it.

So faith must have some use to you.

It has no use to me whatsoever.

Like I said, it's not a pathway to truth, so it's not something I'm interested in.
What I am interested in, is believing as many true things as possible, and not believing false things. Faith doesn't get me there, as you've defined it.

Unless you have some direct and infallible connection with reality, everything you think is based on faith. Every time you sit on a chair you are demonstrating your faith that it will hold you up.

We all have the same direct connection with reality. We all interact with it on a daily basis. I navigate through the world I live in (as does most everyone else), not based on faith, but from a reasonable expectation of what will occur, based on mine (and other peoples') experiences in navigating through reality.

I know from my experience with chairs, that most of the time when I sit on them, they stay put and hold me up. But on occasion, I have sat in chairs that weren't very well made.
There is no faith involved in sitting in a chair and having a reasonable expectation that it will hold me up. Now, if before I sit in the chair, I look at it and notice that one of the legs is broken or missing, my reasonable expectation would be that the chair may collapse if I sit in it, and I'd probably decide against it and instead find another chair that doesn't look damaged. There is no faith involved at all in any of those assessments.

You asked me for evidence. I gave you a very succinct answer that said faith is the evidence. You may not like the answer, but it did address your point head on.

Faith is not evidence, and this harkens back to my point. It's the excuse people give for believing when they don't have good evidence. If you had good evidence, you would have provided it instead of falling back on "faith."

 

[gnostic]

Not to press you or proselytize you, but what is it about Matthew and Isaiah that you don't like?

There are many issues I have with gospel interpretations of Isaiah’s original sign.

For one, the gospel (Matthew 1:22-23) only focused on one verse, whereas the original sign include 4 verses as a complete sign - so to understand the context of sign, Isaiah 7:14-17 must be read as whole.

Leaving out 3 verses, the gospel author was is cherry picking, hence being dishonest with his interpretation.

The sign also clearly indicated it was about the war Ahaz have with his neighbors, Pekah and Rezin (Isaiah 1), and the sign was about WHEN Assyria would intervene and attack the two kings.

The WHEN (Assyrian intervention, 7:17) will occur is when the boy (Immanuel) reach a certain age 7:15 & 7:16.

Isaiah 7:14-17 make it very clear that it had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and Mary.

Isaiah 8:3-4 is a similar sign, also related to when Assyria will intervene in Ahaz’s war with Israel and Aram. The name Immanuel is even mentioned again in connection to Assyria intervention, read Isaiah 8:6-8:

6 Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and melt in fear before Rezin and the son of Remaliah; 7 therefore, the Lord is bringing up against it the mighty flood waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glory; it will rise above all its channels and overflow all its banks; 8 it will sweep on into Judah as a flood, and, pouring over, it will reach up to the neck; and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

Not once, did any call Jesus “Immanuel”, but twice Immanuel was mention in connection to Ahaz, to the two kings, and to the king of Assyria.

So for any Christians (including whoever wrote gospel of Matthew) who ignored the whole sign by cherrypicking the verse, and claiming them to be Mary and Jesus, aren’t being honest with their interpretations.

It was re-reading passages (back in 2000) from both Isaiah (7 & 8) and Matthew’s version, together, that made me doubted the New Testament for the first time.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You've got nothing. You have no experiments, science, observations, or logic to prop up your laughable Dunning-Kruger assertions.
Ignore away - I've exposed your nonsense repeatedly and you are too full of yourself to admit that you could possibly be wrong.

Still no experimentation supporting your assertions. And I will keep pointing it out whether you ignore it or not, so that anyone can see your phoniness laid bare.

I must be honest. I don't even pay attention to those posts other than to note they exist. The claims are so wild and unfounded, so closed off into a little world of make believe that I do not see any value in even simple discussion of them.

 

[rrobs]

.I navigate through the world I live in (as does most everyone else), not based on faith, but from a reasonable expectation of what will occur, based on mine (and other peoples') experiences in navigating through reality.

That is the very essence of faith. How you got it is irrelevant. The bottom line is that you had experiences that gave you faith that something is whatever you think it is. Like it or not, the reason you sit on chairs without hesitation is because you have faith it will hold you up. That is what experience has taught you. I guess at some point a chair broke on you. Me too. Probably most have had a similar experience. But the vast majority any individual sits down the chair works just fine, so the few times it may break are not enough to disturb one's faith that chairs usually work as advertised. Now if you sat down hundreds of times and the chair kept breaking, experience may lead you to loose your faith that it will hold you up.

"Blind" faith, which most attribute to Christians, is not faith at all, at least not what I'm (and many others) talking about. To have faith in something requires trust which requires experience. If I experience the goodness of God, it causes my trust in Him to increase. In other words I have more faith in what He says in the scriptures.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You quoted my OP as an example of a strong man argument. A straw man is something one does in reply to another person's assertion in such a way that it distorts what the person said to make for an easier attack. The OP was just that, an OP and not a reply to someone else. Therefore it is not a straw man. I think your reply would be a better example of a straw man.

You created a straw man in response to an existing scientific theory so you could make it easier to attack.

Anyone recognizing your straw man is not operating on a fallacy.

 

[Marcion]

To have faith in something requires trust which requires experience. If I experience the goodness of God, it causes my trust in Him to increase. In other words I have more faith in what He says in the scriptures.

You seem to have blind faith in a certain way of interpreting scriptures.
That however is not what Jesus was about, Jesus attacked the dogmatic religious or superstitious viewpoints. E.g. 'the Sabath was made for man and not man for the Sabath'.

 

[rrobs]

There are many issues I have with gospel interpretations of Isaiah’s original sign.

For one, the gospel (Matthew 1:22-23) only focused on one verse, whereas the original sign include 4 verses as a complete sign - so to understand the context of sign, Isaiah 7:14-17 must be read as whole.

Leaving out 3 verses, the gospel author was is cherry picking, hence being dishonest with his interpretation.

The sign also clearly indicated it was about the war Ahaz have with his neighbors, Pekah and Rezin (Isaiah 1), and the sign was about WHEN Assyria would intervene and attack the two kings.

The WHEN (Assyrian intervention, 7:17) will occur is when the boy (Immanuel) reach a certain age 7:15 & 7:16.

Isaiah 7:14-17 make it very clear that it had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and Mary.

Isaiah 8:3-4 is a similar sign, also related to when Assyria will intervene in Ahaz’s war with Israel and Aram. The name Immanuel is even mentioned again in connection to Assyria intervention, read Isaiah 8:6-8:



Not once, did any call Jesus “Immanuel”, but twice Immanuel was mention in connection to Ahaz, to the two kings, and to the king of Assyria.

So for any Christians (including whoever wrote gospel of Matthew) who ignored the whole sign by cherrypicking the verse, and claiming them to be Mary and Jesus, aren’t being honest with their interpretations.

It was re-reading passages (back in 2000) from both Isaiah (7 & 8) and Matthew’s version, together, that made me doubted the New Testament for the first time.

There are explanations for the apparent contradiction, but it requires first that one believes that it was God, not men, who authored the Bible. If it believed that different men just wrote what they thought they ought to right (apart from inspiration), then the Bible is, as you allude, worthless and might as well be abandoned. It would truly be the logical thing to do.

Still, I wonder why so many come to a religious forum when they seemingly abhor religion. Not judging, just noting the paradox.

 

[rrobs]

You created a straw man in response to an existing scientific theory so you could make it easier to attack.

Anyone recognizing your straw man is not operating on a fallacy.

Since scientific knowledge constantly changes the existing theory, it must all be a straw man. Some scientist responding to or disputing the current scientific theory does not mean he is using a straw man.

I've wondered why the "straw man" accusation comes up so frequently here at RF. I think somehow the wrong impression of what a straw man actually is got started and took on a life of its own. The mistake became truth.

A straw man is not just disagreeing with something. It is twisting someone's response to say something they didn't at all mean or say.

 

[rrobs]

You seem to have blind faith in a certain way of interpreting scriptures.
That however is not what Jesus was about, Jesus attacked the dogmatic religious or superstitious viewpoints. E.g. 'the Sabath was made for man and not man for the Sabath'.

"I seem"....check your premise.

You speak of my misinterpreting the scriptures. I don't think any of the scriptures require any more interpretation than reading the daily paper, or even this post. They all just say what the mean and mean what they say. I mean, how in the world could Genesis 1:1 be "interpreted" other than that it says that, "In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth?" One may not believe that God created the heavens and the earth, but that in no way nullifies what the text avers. Even if God did not create the heavens and the earth, it still would not change the simple declaration of Genesis 1:1. It just does not need to be "interpreted" any more than the daily newspaper, a physics textbook, or Harry Potter.

I mean, what if we had to "interpret" every thing we read or heard? "I'm going to the store to get a loaf of bread." Hmmmm....what could that possibility mean? How do we "interpret" such a statement? How about skipping the "interpretation" and just say the guy is going to the store to buy a loaf of bread?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Since scientific knowledge constantly changes the existing theory, it must all be a straw man. Some scientist responding to or disputing the current scientific theory does not mean he is using a straw man.

I've wondered why the "straw man" accusation comes up so frequently here at RF. I think somehow the wrong impression of what a straw man actually is got started and took on a life of its own. The mistake became truth.

A straw man is not just disagreeing with something. It is twisting someone's response to say something they didn't at all mean or say.

In the attempt to discredit science and marginalize the theory of evolution, I see straw man arguments used by anti-evolution creationists all the time. It makes sense. They have no legitimate argument against the theory based on evidence, so they have to turn to tricks, intentional or in error.

Science is not a straw man and there is no means to make that appellation fit honestly. The fact that conclusions and explanation in science change based on evidence is a strength and not the weakness that anti-science antagonists pretend it is.

The fact is that in all my time involved in discussions about science and evolution, I have rarely, if ever, seen arguments from the creationist side that start with what statements of theory that are actually being used in science. Scientists start with what is known, describe what they intend to demonstrate, show how they did it and their conclusions. If it is the norm for scientists to meet those standards, why is it not the norm for people claiming to hold "Thou shalt not bear false witness" as one of their core values? If there is no call to maintain ignorance, then why not disagree with the actual instead of some third rate manufactured and false narrative?

 

[cladking]

You have no experiments, science, observations, or logic to prop up your laughable Dunning-Kruger assertions.

Yet you keep ignoring the fact I have said repeatedly that every single experiment ever performed supports sudden change in species. You do not address my arguments, you change the subject.

I could do a far better job arguing for "Evolution" than you do.