Timothy Spurlin
Active Member
Faith is believing without evidence.
Faith is subjective, coming from the mind.
Can faith prove there is a god?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
The flaws in Intelligent design
- Thread starter Bear Wild
- Start date
Faith is believing without evidence.
Faith is subjective, coming from the mind.
Can faith prove there is a god?
Timothy Spurlin
Active Member
I don't need faith to be an Atheist. Your the one that needs faith to believe in a God.
Timothy Spurlin
Active Member
What is evidence, define evidence, also define proof, define philosophy and define inference too.
Hmmm, i got an idea. Let me put it like this: if we fully understood our biology PERFECTLY and had the resource materials to build another human, then we very well COULD do so, theoretically.
So, yea, science tries to understand how things work and then use that knowledge for predictions and for technology. But, theres a seperate issue going on here between Intelligent design and naturalism. That issue is explanatory power of origins.
Atheistic naturalism has very little explanatory power of origins, while intelligent design has very good explanatory power in that department.
Physical laws are not the only thing. There is information too. Also you cant account for physical laws by physical laws. What caused the laws?
Also replication does not account for the code of information itself and its origin.
Also mutation usually degrades a organism, not helps it.
Natural selection accounts only for the most fit surviving, it does not account for how the most fit ARRIVED in the first place in order to survive.
What objective evidence do you have for a designer?
How do you tell what is designed and what evolve?
You were using the Bible to address a statement I had made about faith and how you apparently have a different definition of faith to mean acceptance based on evidence or something like that. Then you inexplicably posted a link that goes to a site making all sorts of claims that are outside the scope of your position on faith. I guess you consider it evidence for something. I do not know what.
To be fair, I did not look at every claim in that site, It was an overwhelming volume of seemingly unrelated material, but briefly looking, several of them amount to the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true or I believe the Bible is true because I believe what is in the Bible. Circular arguments.
Whatever reason you chose to provide that link for was lost on me and left unexplained. I am still have no reason to consider faith redefined as you seem to want to do it.
We Never Know
No Slack
We can't destroy the earth or life but we can destroy ourselves. Yes we do pollute the earth and we do make species go extinct but life and the earth were here long before us and will be here long after us.
We are hindering natural evolution of species, life in general by pollution, destruction of habitats, killing of species, some to extinction. This big spew of save the earth is only about saving our own dumb asses. Humans are a destructive and wasteful species and as much as I hate to see humans go extinct, the ole earth and the rest of life will be better off without us.
If you want to claim a God created life and the universe, I claim humans were his biggest mistake and failure.
Maybe Bigfoot was killed by aliens out riding around in their UFO and his ghost used ESP during the NDE prior to his death to show creationists that DNA is evidence of intelligent design.
That is about as valid a response as any I have seen offered.
Timothy Spurlin
Active Member
The Bible is the claim not the evidence. The evidence must be objective coming from outside of the mind.
What is the material at the other end of the link supposed to be evidence for? Is it your argument about faith being defined differently than it is? Is it about the veracity of the Bible? Are you using it for evidence for intelligent design? It is unclear. In the context of your claims about faith, it is even more unclear.
@Subduction Zone
Other lines of evidence:
**"There are many strands of evidence proving that the Bible really is God’s Word. Each strand is strong, but when all are taken together, they are unbreakable. In this chapter and the one following, we will discuss just one strand of evidence: the history of the Bible as a book. The truth is, it is nothing short of a miracle that this remarkable book has survived until today. Consider the facts for yourself....
these 66 books were written over a period of about 1,600 years, beginning when Egypt was a dominant power and ending when Rome was mistress of the world.
Only the Bible Survived
More than 3,000 years ago, when the writing of the Bible got started, Israel was just one small nation among many in the Middle East. Jehovah was their God, while the surrounding nations had a bewildering variety of gods and goddesses. During that period of time, the Israelites were not the only ones to produce religious literature. Other nations too produced written works that reflected their religion and their national values. For example, the Akkadian legend of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia and the Ras Shamra epics, written in Ugaritic (a language spoken in what is now northern Syria), were doubtless very popular. The vast literature of that era also included works such as The Admonitions of Ipu-wer and The Prophecy of Nefer-rohu in the Egyptian language, hymns to different divinities in Sumerian, and prophetic works in Akkadian.1
All these Middle Eastern works, however, met a common fate. They were forgotten, and even the languages they were written in became extinct. It was only in recent years that archaeologists and philologists learned of their existence and discovered how to read them. On the other hand, the first written books of the Hebrew Bible have survived right up to our own time and are still widely read. Sometimes scholars claim that the Hebrew books in the Bible were derived in some way from those ancient literary works. But the fact that so much of that literature was forgotten while the Hebrew Bible survived marks the Bible as significantly different.
The Guardians of the Word
Make no mistake, from a human standpoint the survival of the Bible was not a foregone conclusion. The communities that produced it suffered such difficult trials and bitter oppression that its survival to our day is truly remarkable. In the years before Christ, the Jews who produced the Hebrew Scriptures (the “Old Testament”) were a relatively small nation. They dwelt precariously amid powerful political states that were jostling with one another for supremacy. Israel had to fight for its life against a succession of nations, such as the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Edomites. During a period when the Hebrews were divided into two kingdoms, the cruel Assyrian Empire virtually wiped out the northern kingdom, while the Babylonians destroyed the southern kingdom, taking the people into an exile from which only a remnant returned 70 years later.
There are even reports of attempted genocide against the Israelites. Back in the days of Moses, Pharaoh ordered the murder of all their newborn baby boys. If his order had been observed, the Hebrew people would have been annihilated. (Exodus 1:15-22) Much later, when the Jews came under Persian rule, their enemies plotted to get a law passed intended to exterminate them. (Esther 3:1-15) The failure of this scheme is still celebrated in the Jewish Festival of Purim.
Later still, when the Jews were subject to Syria, King Antiochus IV tried very hard to Hellenize the nation, forcing it to follow Greek customs and worship Greek gods. He too failed. Instead of being wiped out or assimilated, the Jews survived while, one after the other, most of the national groups around them disappeared from the world scene. And the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible survived with them.
The Christians, who produced the second part of the Bible (the “New Testament”), were also an oppressed group. Their leader, Jesus, was killed like a common criminal. In the early days after his death, Jewish authorities in Palestine tried to suppress them. When Christianity spread to other lands, the Jews hounded them, trying to hinder their missionary work.—Acts 5:27, 28; 7:58-60; 11:19-21; 13:45; 14:19; 18:5, 6.
In the time of Nero, the initially tolerant attitude of the Roman authorities changed. Tacitus boasted of the “exquisite tortures” inflicted on Christians by that vicious emperor, and from his time on, being a Christian was a capital offense.2 In 303 C.E., Emperor Diocletian acted directly against the Bible.* In an effort to stamp out Christianity, he ordered that all Christian Bibles should be burned.3
These campaigns of oppression and genocide were a real threat to the Bible’s survival. If the Jews had gone the way of the Philistines and the Moabites or if the efforts of first the Jewish and then the Roman authorities to stamp out Christianity had succeeded, who would have written and preserved the Bible? Happily, the guardians of the Bible—first the Jews and then the Christians—were not wiped out, and the Bible survived. There was, however, another serious threat if not to the survival at least to the integrity of the Bible.
Fallible Copies
Many of the aforementioned ancient works that were subsequently forgotten had been engraved in stone or stamped on durable clay tablets. Not so the Bible. This was originally written on papyrus or on parchment—much more perishable materials. Thus, the manuscripts produced by the original writers disappeared long, long ago. How, then, was the Bible preserved? Countless thousands of copies were laboriously written out by hand. This was the normal way to reproduce a book before the advent of printing.
There is, however, a danger in copying by hand. Sir Frederic Kenyon, the famous archaeologist and librarian of the British Museum, explained: “The human hand and brain have not yet been created which could copy the whole of a long work absolutely without error. . . . Mistakes were certain to creep in.”4 When a mistake crept into a manuscript, it was repeated when that manuscript became the basis for future copies. When many copies were made over a long period of time, numerous human errors crept in.
In view of the many thousands of copies of the Bible that were made, how do we know that this reproduction process did not change it beyond all recognition? Well, take the case of the Hebrew Bible, the “Old Testament.” In the second half of the sixth century B.C.E., when the Jews returned from their Babylonian exile, a group of Hebrew scholars known as Sopherim, “scribes,” became the custodians of the Hebrew Bible text, and it was their responsibility to copy those Scriptures for use in public and private worship. They were highly motivated, professional men, and their work was of the highest quality.
From the seventh century to the tenth century of our Common Era, the heirs of the Sopherim were the Masoretes. Their name comes from a Hebrew word meaning “tradition,” and essentially they too were scribes charged with the task of preserving the traditional Hebrew text. The Masoretes were meticulous. For example, the scribe had to use a properly authenticated copy as his master text, and he was not allowed to write anything from memory. He had to check each letter before writing it.5Professor Norman K. Gottwald reports: “Something of the care with which they discharged their duties is indicated in the rabbinic requirement that all new manuscripts were to be proofread and defective copies discarded at once.”6
How accurate was the transmission of the text by the Sopherim and the Masoretes? Until 1947 it was difficult to answer that question, since the earliest available complete Hebrew manuscripts were from the tenth century of our Common Era. In 1947, however, some very ancient manuscript fragments were found in caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, including parts of books of the Hebrew Bible. A number of fragments dated to before the time of Christ. Scholars compared these with existing Hebrew manuscripts to confirm the accuracy of the transmission of the text. What was the result of this comparison?
One of the oldest works discovered was the complete book of Isaiah, and the closeness of its text to that of the Masoretic Bible we have today is amazing. Professor Millar Burrows writes: “Many of the differences between the [recently discovered] St. Mark’s Isaiah scroll and the Masoretic text can be explained as mistakes in copying. Apart from these, there is a remarkable agreement, on the whole, with the text found in the medieval manuscripts. Such agreement in a manuscript so much older gives reassuring testimony to the general accuracy of the traditional text.”7Burrows adds: “It is a matter for wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration.”*
In the case of the part of the Bible written in Greek by Christians, the so-called New Testament, the copyists were more like gifted amateurs than like the highly trained professional Sopherim. But working as they did under the threat of punishment by the authorities, they took their work seriously. And two things assure us that we today have a text essentially the same as that penned by the original writers. First, we have manuscripts dated much closer to the time of writing than is the case with the Hebrew part of the Bible. Indeed, one fragment of the Gospel of John is from the first half of the second century, less than 50 years from the date when John probably wrote his Gospel. Second, the sheer number of manuscripts that have survived provides a formidable demonstration of the soundness of the text.
On this point, Sir Frederic Kenyon testified: “It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the text of the Bible is certain. Especially is this the case with the New Testament. The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in the world.”10"**
Source: The Bible’s Fight to Live — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
To be continued.....
Last edited:
Now see, I asked you, "where". You didn't provide a specific example.
There isn't any, that I read.
Audie
Veteran Member
It was not really hope or faith, more in the nature of a call
to rise above the base and ignoble.
@Subduction Zone ...
More evidence that builds faith:
**"The People and Their Languages
The original languages in which the Bible was written were also, in the long run, an obstacle to its survival. The first 39 books were mostly written in Hebrew, the tongue of the Israelites. But Hebrew has never been widely known. If the Bible had stayed in that language, it would never have had any influence beyond the Jewish nation and the few foreigners who could read it. However, in the third century B.C.E., for the benefit of Hebrews living in Alexandria, Egypt, translation of the Hebrew part of the Bible into Greek began. Greek was then an international language. Thus, the Hebrew Bible became easily accessible to non-Jews.
When the time came for the second part of the Bible to be written, Greek was still very widely spoken, so the final 27 books of the Bible were written in that tongue. But not everybody could understand Greek. Hence, translations of both the Hebrew and the Greek parts of the Bible soon began to appear in the everyday languages of those early centuries, such as Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Ethiopic. The official language of the Roman Empire was Latin, and Latin translations were made in such numbers that an “authorized version” had to be commissioned. This was completed about 405 C.E. and came to be known as the Vulgate (meaning “popular” or “common”).
Thus, it was in spite of many obstacles that the Bible survived down to the early centuries of our Common Era. Those who produced it were despised and persecuted minorities living a difficult existence in a hostile world. It could easily have been badly distorted in the process of copying, but it was not. Moreover, it escaped the danger of being available only to people who spoke certain languages.
Why was it so difficult for the Bible to survive? The Bible itself says: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) In view of this, we would expect the world to be hostile to published truth, and this has proved to be the case. Why, then, did the Bible survive when so many other pieces of literature that did not face the same difficulties were forgotten? The Bible answers this too. It says: “The saying of Jehovah endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:25) If the Bible really is the Word of God, no human power can destroy it. And right up into this 20th century, this has been true.
However, in the fourth century of our Common Era, something happened that eventually resulted in new attacks on the Bible and profoundly affected the course of European history. Just ten years after Diocletian tried to destroy all copies of the Bible, imperial policy changed and “Christianity” was legalized. Twelve years later, in 325 C.E., a Roman emperor presided over the “Christian” Council of Nicaea. Why would such a seemingly favorable development prove to be hazardous for the Bible? .....
Not all the manuscripts found at the Dead Sea agreed so exactly with the surviving Bible text. Some showed quite a lot of textual variance. However, these variations do not mean that the essential meaning of the text has been distorted. According to Patrick W. Skehan of the Catholic University of America, most represent a “reworking [of the Bible text] on the basis of its own integral logic, so that the form becomes expanded but the substance remains the same . . . The underlying attitude is one of explicit reverence for a text regarded as sacred, an attitude of explaining (as we would put it) the Bible by the Bible in the very transmission of the text itself.”8
Another commentator adds: “In spite of all uncertainties, the great fact remains that the text as we now have it does, in the main, represent fairly the actual words of the authors who lived, some of them, nearly three thousand years ago, and we need have no serious doubt on the score of textual corruption as to the validity of the message which the Old Testament has to give us.”9
The Bible’s Well-Established Text
To appreciate how well established the text of the Bible is, we have only to compare it with another body of literature that has come to us from antiquity: the classical writings of Greece and Rome. In fact, most of this literature was written after the Hebrew Scriptures were completed. There were no recorded genocide attempts against the Greeks or the Romans, and their literature was not preserved in the face of persecution. Yet, notice the comments of Professor F. F. Bruce:
“For Cæsar’s Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Cæsar’s day.
“Of the 142 books of the Roman history of Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books III-VI, is as old as the fourth century.
“Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. A.D. 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. . . .
“The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. A.D. 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era.
“The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 B.C.). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.”—The Books and the Parchments, page 180.
Compare this with the fact that there are thousands of manuscripts of various parts of the Bible. And manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures go back to within a hundred years of the time of the writing of the original books."**
-- The Bible’s Fight to Live — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
(Same source as above)
More evidence that builds faith:
**"The People and Their Languages
The original languages in which the Bible was written were also, in the long run, an obstacle to its survival. The first 39 books were mostly written in Hebrew, the tongue of the Israelites. But Hebrew has never been widely known. If the Bible had stayed in that language, it would never have had any influence beyond the Jewish nation and the few foreigners who could read it. However, in the third century B.C.E., for the benefit of Hebrews living in Alexandria, Egypt, translation of the Hebrew part of the Bible into Greek began. Greek was then an international language. Thus, the Hebrew Bible became easily accessible to non-Jews.
When the time came for the second part of the Bible to be written, Greek was still very widely spoken, so the final 27 books of the Bible were written in that tongue. But not everybody could understand Greek. Hence, translations of both the Hebrew and the Greek parts of the Bible soon began to appear in the everyday languages of those early centuries, such as Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Ethiopic. The official language of the Roman Empire was Latin, and Latin translations were made in such numbers that an “authorized version” had to be commissioned. This was completed about 405 C.E. and came to be known as the Vulgate (meaning “popular” or “common”).
Thus, it was in spite of many obstacles that the Bible survived down to the early centuries of our Common Era. Those who produced it were despised and persecuted minorities living a difficult existence in a hostile world. It could easily have been badly distorted in the process of copying, but it was not. Moreover, it escaped the danger of being available only to people who spoke certain languages.
Why was it so difficult for the Bible to survive? The Bible itself says: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19) In view of this, we would expect the world to be hostile to published truth, and this has proved to be the case. Why, then, did the Bible survive when so many other pieces of literature that did not face the same difficulties were forgotten? The Bible answers this too. It says: “The saying of Jehovah endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:25) If the Bible really is the Word of God, no human power can destroy it. And right up into this 20th century, this has been true.
However, in the fourth century of our Common Era, something happened that eventually resulted in new attacks on the Bible and profoundly affected the course of European history. Just ten years after Diocletian tried to destroy all copies of the Bible, imperial policy changed and “Christianity” was legalized. Twelve years later, in 325 C.E., a Roman emperor presided over the “Christian” Council of Nicaea. Why would such a seemingly favorable development prove to be hazardous for the Bible? .....
Not all the manuscripts found at the Dead Sea agreed so exactly with the surviving Bible text. Some showed quite a lot of textual variance. However, these variations do not mean that the essential meaning of the text has been distorted. According to Patrick W. Skehan of the Catholic University of America, most represent a “reworking [of the Bible text] on the basis of its own integral logic, so that the form becomes expanded but the substance remains the same . . . The underlying attitude is one of explicit reverence for a text regarded as sacred, an attitude of explaining (as we would put it) the Bible by the Bible in the very transmission of the text itself.”8
Another commentator adds: “In spite of all uncertainties, the great fact remains that the text as we now have it does, in the main, represent fairly the actual words of the authors who lived, some of them, nearly three thousand years ago, and we need have no serious doubt on the score of textual corruption as to the validity of the message which the Old Testament has to give us.”9
The Bible’s Well-Established Text
To appreciate how well established the text of the Bible is, we have only to compare it with another body of literature that has come to us from antiquity: the classical writings of Greece and Rome. In fact, most of this literature was written after the Hebrew Scriptures were completed. There were no recorded genocide attempts against the Greeks or the Romans, and their literature was not preserved in the face of persecution. Yet, notice the comments of Professor F. F. Bruce:
“For Cæsar’s Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.) there are several extant MSS, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Cæsar’s day.
“Of the 142 books of the Roman history of Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books III-VI, is as old as the fourth century.
“Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. A.D. 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. . . .
“The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. A.D. 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era.
“The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 B.C.). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.”—The Books and the Parchments, page 180.
Compare this with the fact that there are thousands of manuscripts of various parts of the Bible. And manuscripts of the Christian Greek Scriptures go back to within a hundred years of the time of the writing of the original books."**
-- The Bible’s Fight to Live — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
(Same source as above)
Sapiens
Polymathematician
No, you did not. You stated that both ID and Evolution were each a hypothesis and you are in error, in both cases.
ID is a religious view, not a hypothesis, Evolution is a scientific theory thus ranking above a "law."
You erroneously implied that a "law" is the penultimate rank.
Go your way in wisdom.
Of course you would not find any and I do not expect you to find them.
It would be nice for you to tie up your interest in redefining faith and the inclusion of the link, but I do not expect that either.
It looks like you may have been intending it for someone else and accidentally attached it to my post, but I do not know.
In an aside, even if I were to accept everything you have posted about the Bible in your last post, that would only mean that the text has remained reasonably intact over a long period of time. It would not do one thing to verify the content as accurate or correct. Being old is not a criteria for determining the validity of content.
@Subduction Zone .....
Continued: Part 3
"The Bible's False Friend"....
The Bible’s False Friend — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
...and yet, the Holy scriptures survived. In fact, thrived!
This evidence builds faith.
Continued: Part 3
"The Bible's False Friend"....
The Bible’s False Friend — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY
...and yet, the Holy scriptures survived. In fact, thrived!
This evidence builds faith.
That may still take some faith considering what I have seen. But I hope you are correct.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
How does a terribly biased link support your claims? You need to find reliable sources.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Still no support and another joke link.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
and a third joke link. Surely you can do better than that.