There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[Subduction Zone]

Complexity does indicate design. But in an indirect way. It's actually the specificity of the result that indicates the presence of the element of design. The more precise and predictable the result, the more design control will have been required to produce it. And the term 'complexity' refers to an observed increased in the specificity of the result.

Everyone is a rational and reasonable thinker whether you happen to understand and agree with their reasoned rationale or not.

Nice word salad, but it does not really help you. You would need to give examples that are not well explained by evolution without a designer. To date no one has come close to doing that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Why is this so hard. My initial argument was not about complexity of design but sometimes complexity can point to a God.

So, complexity of what, exactly, points to a god?

The 2nd guy installed the internet in a more efficient way.

Why is that? Because it's more simple, or more complex and overly complicated and inefficient?

We do know that evolution is a method for many forms of life to have evolved and adapted to all sorts of environments and keep adapting to different environments and possible scenarios.

This was in response to, "You agreed with me that the second guy in the scenario would be the better designer.
And then here you want to claim that the first guy is the better designer."

Evolution is the first guy in our scenario.

You are wanting to compare chalk and cheese.

What? How so?

I did respond.

Yes, to something I didn't ask.

I don't want to get out of it. I just wish you could understand what I am saying is evidence for a designer.

You should want to get out of it because you're not using it properly and it's not making the case you think it's making.

How did the genome become what it functionally is without a designer?
That confirms my faith in God just as the complexity of the design of the genome also confirms it.

And here we are at "complexity of design" indicating a designer again, which you claimed above is not your claim.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Then this won't be for you.
Someone came to preach and when actually challenged got b.hurt.

Hmm didn't see an answer to:
"who said? Did you speak with the doctors? Did you read his medical records where doctors reported a lack of explanation? Or did you hear anecdotal retellings from someone or someplace?"

He put me on ignore a long time ago when I demonstrated that the Ebionites did not believe in a magical Jesus. He did not like that. At first I though that he was going to be a rational Christian that followed the teachings of Jesus. Sadly I found that was not the case.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Complexity does indicate design. But in an indirect way. It's actually the specificity of the result that indicates the presence of the element of design. The more precise and predictable the result, the more design control will have been required to produce it. And the term 'complexity' refers to an observed increased in the specificity of the result.

Ahh, the old specified complexity argument. Meh. Debunked long ago.

Everyone is a rational and reasonable thinker whether you happen to understand and agree with their reasoned rationale or not.

No they aren't.

 

[SkepticThinker]

He put me on ignore a long time ago when I demonstrated that the Ebionites did not believe in a magical Jesus. He did not like that. At first I though that he was going to be a rational Christian that followed the teachings of Jesus. Sadly I found that was not the case.

What a great way to set yourself up inside an echo chamber where you never have to be challenged or forced to think.

 

[PureX]

Nice word salad, but it does not really help you. You would need to give examples that are not well explained by evolution without a designer. To date no one has come close to doing that.

I didn't post a thing about there being any "designer". As an atheist, that's your bogeyman to deal with. What I posted was that design is required to achieve a specific result. And complexity is a big increase in specificity.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn't post a thing about there being any "designer". As an atheist, that's your bogeyman to deal with. What I posted was that design is required to achieve a specific result. And complexity is a big increase in specificity.

Uh huh. Pull the other one. Here is your opening sentence to the post that I responded too:

"Complexity does indicate design. "

 

[PureX]

Uh huh. Pull the other one. Here is your opening sentence to the post that I responded too:

"Complexity does indicate design. "

It does more than just indicate design, it requires it. But there was still no mention of any "designer".

 

[Subduction Zone]

It does more than just indicate design, it requires it. But there was still no mention of any "designer".

Then you need to define your terms properly. One of the objections to the word 'design" is that it implies a designer. You may be using your own private definitions. In which case the fault is yours.

What exactly do you mean by "design"?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

First, you quote:

In the past 40-50 years, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes about a dozen times."

Then, in the same post, you twist the facts:

Since 1900 we exceeded the average about 12 times. Totally normal activity.

What. a. trip.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Here’s something that further supports my statements:

“Between 2004 and 2014, 18 earthquakes with magnitudes of 8.0 or more rattled subduction zones around the globe. That's an increase of 265 percent over the average rate of the previous century, which saw 71 great quakes, according to a report to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America this week in Vancouver, British Columbia.”
…..

“ ‘If we look at all earthquake magnitudes, the past 10 years is not unusual in terms of the rate of events; the rate increases are just seen for events with magnitudes larger than 7.5 or so,’ he* said.”

*”he” is study author Thorne Lay, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.


Source material:

Worldwide Surge in 'Great' Earthquakes Seen in Past 10 Years

The global rate of “great” earthquakes nearly tripled in recent years, but does that portend a problem for unruptured faults along the northwest U.S.?

www.nbcnews.com

And note the date: this article is already over 9 yrs old.

So-long.

 

[joelr]

The "if something is possible" is a big if but is what you presume to be true. You presume that life did happen naturally, that God did not give life. So you begin with that belief and of course the probability of life coming about naturally is one given that presumption.

A big if???? You don't seem to understand probability?

"

Quantum Objects Are Simultaneously in All Locations​

According to Born and his way of thinking about quantum mechanics, an electron (or any other quantum object) is extended across the volume of space that is covered by the wave function. When we measure the location of an electron, it is always point-like, without any spatial extent.

However, before being measured, an electron is simultaneously in all of the locations covered by its wave function. It effectively is in many places, and all at the same time. In this sense, electrons and other quantum objects have a kind of probabilistic existence, being in all possible places and doing all possible things, at all possible times.

This can also be described in terms of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. According to this principle, the more precisely defined the location of a quantum object is, the less specified is its velocity, and vice-versa. So, what quantum mechanics says is that an object cannot be in only one place and moving at only one speed.

Imagine an electron. It’s described by a wave function that peaks sharply at two places, which we will name locations A and B. Now, let’s assume that the shape of the wave function covers locations A and B equally, and to the same extent. In this case, if an experiment is carried out to measure the location of the electron, there would be a 50% chance that it would be found at location A and a 50% chance that it would be found at location B."

This means if something is likely it will be likely to a certain percentage, if it's high it's going to happen. If it's low but you have billions of years then it will EVENTUALLY happen. If it's vanishingly low then it will never happen.

Basic building blocks of like are everywhere in the universe.

But if something is impossible in one place then it is impossible in other places also. Time and probability do not make things less impossible. IOWs it's not just a matter of mathematics.

Oh boy. That's super wrong.


Ask a Physicist:

Q: In an infinite universe, does everything that’s possible have to happen somewhere?​

The original question was: Lets say that we determine that an event is physically possible. So that means the probability of that event is greater than zero. Right? So my question is this. Is there any sense in saying that the event will NEVER happen even if it has a non-zero probability? In other words, if it can happen, will it happen given enough or infinite time? Does it have to happen eventually?

Physicist: There are a lot of subtleties in this question! The answer is basically yes, but there are some sneaky assumptions worked into that.

Right off the bat, a probability is always based on “priors”. For example, “the probability that it will rain today” or “the probability that a 4 will be rolled” are not, completely on their own, well-defined probabilities.

Before you can find a probability that’s an actual number, you need to know something about the priors. The probability that it will rain depends on the place, time, season, whether or not it rained yesterday, etc. The probability that a 4 will be rolled depends on what kind of die is being rolled, if it’s weighted, or even if dice exist.

In this general case, you may have a tiny, non-zero probability, but if it’s based on priors that are themselves impossible, then the event itself may also be impossible. You can generalize the priors a lot, but you can never quite get rid of all of them. For example, it may be possible to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the probability that a unicorn is violent is 5%, given that unicorns exist (when a scientist says “given”, they’re about to spit out some priors). However that doesn’t guarantee that a violent unicorn must exist, because it requires that unicorns (with their magic, and virgin sensing powers, and whatnot) must already exist in general.

But (and this may be more at the heart of the question), given an infinitely large universe that’s more or less homogeneous (lots of “stuff”, like the part of the universe we can see with telescopes, instead of just being empty forever), then pretty much anything that’s remotely possible, that could conceivably be the result of a string of remotely possible causes (e.g., horse begets unicorn begets violent unicorn), will happen somewhere.

Yes and I suppose given enough time the whole of time and space is going to pop into existence, I guess that must be what happened with the B theory of time.

Then you guesses wrong. That only works if the space where it happened was also probabilistic. There could be an infinite universes or things we don't even know to ask. Science says it doesn't know when it doesn't know.

It's a combination of mathematics and human imagination and presumed to be true.

No probabilities are a proven fact. The math just describes very accurately what we see in reality.

It's a godless faith which cannot be shown to be true or false.

It isn't faith when you can use probability equations to make predictions and they work, to a degree staggeringly accurate. No phyics is faith, you make a mathematical model, make predictions and see if it matches reality for starters.

The only faith is needed for God which has no evidence. And if you read Fransesca Stavrakopoulou's new book, God, An Anatomy, you will see the Israelites and Judahites were worshipping a very typical Near-Eastern deity, everything in the Bible has roots in older myths. Not just the things I mention, everything. Every story about Yahweh is a variation on older Mesopotamian, Ugarit, Akkadian, etc.. stories. The Bible was sanitized by later theologians who wanted Greaco-Roman theology about a non-corporael deity to be the theology and they re-wrote the Hebrew to English and tried to censor and change the early beliefs. Yahweh had a body, when Adam aquired wisdom he became "like one of us", meaning like the Gods.

The evidence with the presumption that life came about naturally, points in one direction and without people giving alternative views that direction would be the presumed truth for everyone, as it is for many.

Of course it came about naturally? There are no other views? Sure you can say a storm giant spewed humans out of his butt. Show evidence for a storm giant for starters.
You claim a God did something, show evidence for this God. Ezekiel saw him. He saw a large dark cloud, enveloped by flashes of fire, "with a shining brightness emanating from within. Inside the cloud are 4 cherubim - hybrid beings who accompany the deity. Each one has 4 faces, human, bovine, eagle, leonibne, hooved feet, wings with human hands. They create a thundering rumble as they move.
Ezekiel gazes at God "upward from what looked to be his motnayim, I sw it sparkling like amber, it seemed to be enveloped all around by fire. And from his motnayim downward I saw something like fire." Ezekiel 1 27-28 Hebrew
Ezekiel leaves exposed one body part: God's motnayim, a Hebrew term traditionally (and politely) rendered "loins or waist", but which more accurately refers to the groin or genitals. He shys away from describing his arms legs and feet but he openly acknowledges God's genitals. This is deeply rooted in mythology about all deities going much further back. This is mythology.

Chemistry is one thing, but presuming only chemistry for life is a faith based on the presumption that it is only chemistry.

Not by scientists? There may be science there we don't yet understand. If you bothered to educate yourself on tyeh actual world instead of living in pure fantasy you might learn something.
You believe it's all from a fictional being and then criticize scientists? What? People are so self centered as if they can never be wrong. Science knows this.

"What this means is that we should be wary of imagining that life is indeed just the sum of its chemical parts. That’s not to say it needs any sprinkling of vitalistic fairy dust, or any new principle of physics of the kind Erwin Schrödinger forecast. Rather, it seems likely that the ‘new biology for a new century’ that Woese called for in his 2004 article will need to be able to span and integrate scales of time and space. It will also need to determine how principles of function and design translate between them. Attempts to make synthetic living cells from the molecules up7 might flounder, then, until those principles are understood. As Richard Feynman wrote: ‘What I cannot create, I do not understand.’"

Is life the sum of its chemical parts?

Unravelling the mysteries of our cells

www.chemistryworld.com

IOW the evidence of chemistry can only point to the formation of chemicals, but we should not presume that means that it points to how life began and what life is. That part of it is presumed to be chemical in nature.

It's organic chemistry. It's much more complex than you are aware I suspect.

so you are saying we shouldn't presume things we have evidence for when there is an obvious mythology that says humans were made from clay? Like all the older creation myths also did.

 

[joelr]

Science looks at what it can study and test but does not presume that God and spirit do not exist simply because it cannot test for those things.

No, it's because there is no evidence for any Gods. No where in scripture does it say Gods cannot be tested for by humans. The scriptures are 00% packed with humans and God talking, walking, wrestling, "you shall have designed an area outside camp to which you shall go (bathroom)............you shall did a hole and cover up your excrement because Yahweh your God walks in your camp".

deuteronomy 12-13
Yahweh walked in the garden, he walked with Enoch, Abraham saw Yahweh standing with 2 other divine beings, Moses sees God standing on a sacred stone.
Moses and Aaron saw the God of Israel and under his feet there was something like a brick pavement of lais lazuli, like the very heavens fro clarity.
at a temple in Jerusalem Yahweh says "glorify where my feet rest, this is the place for the soles of my feet, where I will reside among the people of Israel forever" (the temple) Isaiah 60.13. Ezekiel 43.7

Yeah, you can test for those things.

That presumption is for individual humans to make or not, as they see fit, and based on maybe other evidence in the world that is available for such decisions, evidence which science cannot test.

No,no, scripture is full of physical acts by deities, even the NT. That apologetics is nonsense. If you cannot test God, there just isn't any God to test.

So the people who say either yay or nay to the existence of spirit and God do so by taking a leap of faith. You are among them.

I don't say that. Almost no atheist says that. Do you always argue against strawmen? Are you ever going to engage in actual arguments?

I say there isn't any evidence for Inanna, Zeus, Krishna, Yahweh, Jesus, Mithras or Roswell craft.

Those who say nay have probably rejected the evidence that science cannot test and go only by what science can test.

What evidence please? Can you once and for all show what this evidence is? You do not need physical evidence to demonstrate it's likely wrong.
Jesus in New Zeland, is that Jesus? Right now he has a ministry. HE is Jesus. You are doubtful. Huh, look at that, you agree with me. You went and rejected the evidence and claims.

Those who say nay are the ones who say that life is nothing but chemistry and science is showing us that because science is slowly being able to show that the chemicals of life could have formed naturally and organised themselves into life forms naturally.

Nope. I'm saying that is where th eevidence points to. Massive evidence. Zero evidence for a soul. ZERO.

These people, including you, do not realise that they have a faith that life is chemically based,

I don't know about "those" people but I have evidnece that life is chemically based.
No evidence of vitalism. The soul is a Greek invention adopted by Hebrew thinkers. That means it's a myth they thought sounded nice and wanted it in their religion.
I know you really really want it to be true, but if you care about what is actually true you will have to face reality and see it's made up from ancient mythology.


"The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[50] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC).[43] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[43]"



THE HEBREWS INHERITED..............made.up.myth.

they think that because science cannot test or find spirits that means that spirits (including God) do not exist and that the only evidence worth considering,,,,,,,,,,,, and believing,,,,,,,,,,, is what science can test. Some even say that only the things that science can test can be called evidence.

There is a lot of supernatural baloney science cannot test for, doesn't make it true, doesn't make it something one should believe.
In Numbers any woman accused of adultery is brought into Yahweh's sanctuary. The priest mixes dust, holy water and ink from the curse "may this water that brings the curse enter your bowles and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop. If she suffers a miscarriage, she is guilty of adultery and will be estranged from the community, if not she is innocent, any child she bears will be that of her husbands.
Numbers 5. 11-31

Now, funny thing, we can test this, especially by then doing DNA after, to compare how reliable this message from Yahweh was, in comparison to the results from a DNA test on the father and baby.
We can do this all day. How do you think it will go?

You have evidence it's a bunch of superstitious nonsense. Yet you will still find Unfalsifiable claims and be like "but this claim, this claim could be true!!" Yeah, well everything else is fiction. This is confirmation bias at it's finest.

Religious leaders soon realised that the scientific method was good and embraced it and accepted it's results even when they seemed to contradict their religious books. Some have accepted the results more than others.
I still see the evidence for the Bible as good and see much of what science says about the past as not really good science.

Yes, you will see things that conflict with your beliefs as not good science. The absolute worst way to know what is true.
You do not care at all about what is true.

What evidence for the Bible is good? Why can't you manage to give any evidence then? You have had plenty of time and space.

The science you are looking at is what the evidence presents up to this point. If you went and got a PhD in that science you would know all that evidence. Remaining questions still need be answered. That science is on solid ground, some frontier science is still searching for what is true.
Until they can duplicate results and other opposing science teams also get the same result , then it becomes more solid.

Meanwhile you are stuck in an ancient mythology, no evidence, entirely rooted in older tradition, and none of it looks to be true.

You have had to create strawmen just to have something to argue. Your view of science only uses confirmation bias because you can't even come up with a reason fro your position. Its' anti-scriptural, doesn't agree with scripture in the argument about testability or that there is evidence for it. You have had to create a fictional position, not supported by scripture to form an abstract argument.

 

[joelr]

So I am right.

No, science doesn't say there is no God. Evolution is not frontier science. Abiogenesis will not include spirits because that isn't a real thing.

So are you claiming that differences in OT versions, such as the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls etc show that people were tweaking the scriptures to make it look like prophecies came true?

Depends on the prophecy. Many were written after the fact. Do you buy the prophecies in the Quran or were they possibly written after the fact?

The Messianic prophecies were simply not Jesus. That is a Christian invention.

The 200 things Yahweh said that didn't happen show it's man made stories.
MAny are vague and can be mapped onto many events, same as the Quran and Nostrodamus.

"Written after the fact" comes from skeptic presumptions about when the books were written and then these presumptions and conclusions are then used to say that prophecies were written after the fact. You can see that this is circular reasoning I hope.

I already told you more on this and you reverted and cherry picked one statement to strawman.
Many of the prophecies turned out to be false, they prove the Bible is not inerrant.

The Bible itself contains a test for determining whether a prophecy was inspired by God. Deuteronomy 18:22 explains: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”

Applying this test to the Bible leads to one conclusion: the book contains many statements that were not inspired by God.

OT prophecies:

Genesis 2:17 says the Lord warned Adam and Eve about the fruit contained on the tree of knowledge. He stated: “n the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” According to Genesis chapter 3, however, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and didn’t die on that day.

Genesis 35:10 claims that God told Jacob: “[T]hy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. . . .” But 11 chapters later, the Lord’s own act proved his prediction to be wrong. Genesis 46:2 relates: “God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.”

At II Chronicles 1:12, God promised Solomon: “Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.”

As Robert Ingersoll pointed out in the nineteenth century, there were several kings in Solomon’s day who could have thrown away the value of Palestine without missing the amount.[48] And the wealth of Solomon has been exceeded by many later kings and is small by today’s standards.[49]

Isaiah 17:1-2 prophesies that Damascus would cease to be a city, become a heap of ruins, and remain forever desolate. Yet some 27 centuries after the prediction was made, Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world and is still going strong.

Jeremiah 25:11 predicts the Jews would be captives in Babylon for 70 years, and II Chronicles 36:20-21 views the prophecy as fulfilled. But the Jews were taken into captivity by the Chaldeans when Jerusalem fell in 586 B.C.E. And Cyrus of Persia issued an order in 538 B.C.E. allowing them to return from Babylon to Judah. Thus, the Babylonian captivity lasted about 48 years.[50]

Examples of other unfulfilled Old Testament prophecies include the following: the Jews will occupy the land from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18); they shall never lose their land and shall be disturbed no more (II Samuel 7:10); King David’s throne and kingdom shall be established forever (II Samuel 7:16); no uncircumcised person will ever enter Jerusalem (Isaiah 52:1); and the waters of Egypt will dry up (Isaiah 19:5-7).

NT prophecies

In applying the Bible’s test for identifying false prophets, the conclusion is inescapable that Jesus was one of them. For example, he was wrong in predicting the world would end within the lifetime of his followers.

At Matthew 16:28, Jesus tells his disciples: “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” The people who were standing there all died eventually, and they never saw Jesus return to establish a kingdom.

Similarly, Jesus is depicted at Mark 13:24-30 as listing signs that shall accompany the end of the world. These include the sun becoming darkened, the moon not giving any light, the stars of heaven falling, the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and angels gathering the elect. Then Jesus announces: “Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.” His generation passed away long ago without the predicted events occurring.

Jesus also erred in predicting the amount of time he would be in the tomb. At Matthew 12:40 he teaches: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Mark 15:42-45 shows that Jesus died on a Friday afternoon. But Mark 16:9 and Matthew 28:1 tell us he left the tomb sometime on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Either way, the amount of time was less than three nights.

Another significant false prophecy is at John 14:13-14. Jesus promises: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” Everyone knows there have been millions of instances where Jesus failed to respond to Christians who asked for things in his name. And the graveyards are full of people who prayed to him for health.

As is the case with other incorrect statements in the Bible, false prophecies cast doubt on all biblical claims. If one verse in the Bible is wrong, it’s possible for many verses to be wrong.​

I also said, "what prophecy" and clearly you don't want to give your best one. Wonder why?

The skeptic don't seem able to read the Bible very carefully and so gets it wrong. God does give conditional promises and the land was subdued and Israel had peace and not war, but Canaanites were left in the land so that the weeds and wild animals would not take over and they were left to test Israel to see if it would be loyal and obey God, which it did not, and then there would be attacks and war again. But eventually the Canaanites were driven out completely.

Never happened, archaeology shows, actual facts. That is a myth, like most other stories.

"

THE ORIGINS OF ISRAEL​

Q: What have archeologists learned from these settlements about the early Israelites? Are there signs that the Israelites came in conquest, taking over the land from Canaanites?

Dever: The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today.

"

NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Archeology of the Hebrew Bible | PBS

In this article, archaeologist and biblical scholar William Dever discusses how archeology can offer vivid insights into the biblical world.

www.pbs.org

That seems to be a verse about the coming Kingdom after the return of Jesus.
SAB Isaiah 19

So you don't do science, history or exegesis?

Isaiah 19:18 Commentaries: In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing allegiance to the LORD of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction.

 

[joelr]

Really? because some Jewish scholars say Isa 53 is not about Jesus, that settles it?
Isaiah 53 - Wikipedia

Well it's the Jewish religion and Christians went back and re-interpreted things to make it look like Jesus. This happened. Jesus of the Gospels is a myth as are all these tales. But it did not mean Jesus who was not invented yet.

Isaiah 53 Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

They got the ideas from their captors, the Persians. This actually happened. Evidence, which you mysteriously don't take into account because you don't care about truth, you have one version that has to be true and that's final,


fundamental doctrines became disseminated throughout the region (FROM THE PERSIANS TO HEBREW), from Egypt to the Black Sea: namely that there is a supreme God who is the Creator; that an evil power exists which is opposed to him, and not under his control; that he has emanated many lesser divinities to help combat this power; that he has created this world for a purpose, and that in its present state it will have an end; that this end will be heralded by the coming of a cosmic Saviour, who will help to bring it about; that meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death; that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences - a tiny minority, holding staunchly to their own beliefs, but evidently admiring their Persian benefactors, and finding congenial elements in their faith. Worship of the one supreme God, and belief in the coming of a Messiah or Saviour, together with adherence to a way of life which combined moral and spiritual aspirations with a strict code of behaviour (including purity laws) were all matters in which Judaism and Zoroastrianism were in harmony; and it was this harmony, it seems, reinforced by the respect of a subject people for a great protective power, which allowed Zoroastrian doctrines to exert their influence. The extent of this influence is best attested, however, by Jewish writings of the Parthian period, when Christianity and the Gnostic faiths, as well as northern Buddhism, all likewise bore witness to the profound effect: which Zoroaster's teachings had had throughout the lands of the Achaernenian empire.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_53#cite_note-18

Yes Nostradamus is believed by some and interpreted to mean various events in history.
But imo you still have not shown where the Bible prophecy is wrong.

1. God promised many times that he would drive out all the inhabitants of the lands they encountered. But he failed to keep that promise 1:19, 1:21-27, 3:1-5

Skeptic's Annotated Bible / Quran / Book of Mormon

skepticsannotatedbible.com

I no longer care if you want to pretend these never happened or apply some weird convoluted apologetic like "maybe they will still happen"?

Maybe God will go back in time and drive out the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans

maybe he will do that.

Maybe you will care about what is actually true as well.

 

[joelr]

Can a brain and body act as a fully functioning person.

Do fully functioning people have brains and bodies?

Then the answer is yes.

I can only say yes if I fully agree with the presumption that the physical is all there is.

Cool, please say no. Then walk outside and see all the people with brains and bodies functioning well.

Then notice people with brain damage being severely handicapped, personality changes, one person became split personality, one theist, one atheist. One soul? Atheist and theist?

Show me all the souls, show me evidence a soul left the body.

Your belief and agreement have no bearing on truth.

Of course a more complex brain gives a more complex consciousness, but that does not tell us that consciousness is chemically based.

No, the chemicals in the brain do and the lack of magic voodoo in the brain. Also all supernatural brain wu-wu, NEVER DEMONSTRATED EVIDENCE. No psychic was seen warning about 9/11 the day before. No physic did anything like that ever.
Ingo Swann failed military tests. He could have had a career, but he's fake.

Its all fake. Just brains exist, and chemicals, possibly a quantum device.

It's the how genes managed to become a control for design and heredity and etc. That is what needed a designer imo.

Oh, cool, God of the gaps. Fun game. That always worked out.
Lightning, earthquakes, drought, all weather, all. sickness, all luck, all national protection, military protection, yeah, that worked out great!!!

Earth is the center of the universe. Scientists burned for suggesting the planetary model, ridiculed for germ theory (God causes illness), we can keep going?

Oh how about an adultery test? Do you want to know a GREAT way to find out if your wife slept with another man? Because YAhweh himself explained a way to know.
Will you try this out if you are in this situation???
Wait, you might not have a priest write the curse and have her drink the ink to see if y'know that terrible thing happens? You mean, you actually know science is correct and the curse DIRECTLY FROM YAHWEH is B.S???????????


HUH!?!? But you have evidence for Yahweh? Not science evidence. They suck right?

So genes just accidentally fell into their function as part of a control mechanism for body functions and heredity and evolution?

Genes that are heredable have no choice but to evolve because they produce variations. Because when they didn't produce variations it didn't work, and those creatures died.

But adultery, this method is no accident, Yahweh himself gave it. So by all means, don't use science and DNA, drink the ink curse.

There are plenty of biologists and neuroscientists who believe in God and say that God is ultimately necessary.

They do not say that. There is no paper, peer-reviewed that says God is needed at all. They just have personal faith thyat there is some God after death, they feel the universe is all natural, maybe started by a God. But they also don't look into it. People who look into it see it's mythology based on anecdotal superstition and just more of the same, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, it's just the version that survived.

Its'a fallacy to say a biologist believes. Not in the biology.

It is the minority of people in the world who say there is no need for God and they also seem to think they know more than the rest of us and are somehow superior because of that belief.

Appeal to popularity. Will that also be true when Islam becomes the biggest religion?

Another strawman as well. I said there is no evidence. If someone needs a fictional character in their life then go for it.

I never said I know more? I said I know historical studies along with apologetics and so on.

I never said I was superior? Strawman.
I said I prefer the truth over fantasy. You can do what you want.

How many things are you going to make up in these posts? Can you only argue against strawmen?

And most of them don't even seem to know that it is a belief just like the belief in ancient stories.

Uh no evolution, neuroscience, consciousness and even historical studies, is not the same as belief in Zeus. Or Krishna. Or Yahweh.

There are decades of evidence, medical procedures based on the evidence, ways to cure people based on evidence.
Psychology has helped many people understand consciousness. History has shown us the assumptions about Christianity are false, history is far different than what the bible claims and it's not at all original but continues myths from several nations.

I'm just not sure if you are in denial, just trying to be difficult or cannot understand the difference between science and a belief in say Romulus, who died and rose again for Rome then ascended to the heavens. Also son of God, his corpse went missing, he comes back in a new body, superior to the last, after his resurrection he meets with followers on the road to the city, he gives a great commission, ascends into a cloud, witnesses are frightened, some flee, claims are made of alternative accounts, his post-resurrection story leads to belief and rejoicing and a cult is paid to him, like a God.

 

[joelr]

He put me on ignore a long time ago when I demonstrated that the Ebionites did not believe in a magical Jesus. He did not like that. At first I though that he was going to be a rational Christian that followed the teachings of Jesus. Sadly I found that was not the case.

Yeah right, he's supposed to defend the faith. He wrote to me?

 

[joelr]

First, you quote:




Then, in the same post, you twist the facts:

What. a. trip.

That. would. be. one. way. to. overreact.


It's from this statement:


"
According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 16 major earthquakes in any given year. That includes 15 earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range and one earthquake magnitude 8.0 or greater. In the past 40-50 years, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes about a dozen times.

The year with the largest total was 2010, with 23 major earthquakes (greater than or equal to magnitude 7.0). In other years the total was well below the annual long-term average of 16 major earthquakes. 1989 only had 6 major earthquakes and 1988 only had 7.

"

Why are we having so many earthquakes? Has naturally occurring earthquake activity been increasing? Does this mean a big one is going to hit? OR We haven't had any earthquakes in a long time; does this mean that the pressure is building up for a big

A temporary increase or decrease in seismicity is part of the normal fluctuation of earthquake rates. Neither an increase nor decrease worldwide is a positive indication that a large earthquake is imminent. The ComCat earthquake catalog contains an increasing number of earthquakes in recent...

www.usgs.gov

It was a typo and the point is (y'know I'm not the only one allowed to do actual research in this discussion, to like, see if your doomsday talk is a bunch of bunk...(it is) )


THE POINT IS EARTHQUAKES ARE ON AVERAGE, AVERAGE.



Put a period between that Mr Doomsday.

 

[Brian2]

A big if???? You don't seem to understand probability?

"

Quantum Objects Are Simultaneously in All Locations​

According to Born and his way of thinking about quantum mechanics, an electron (or any other quantum object) is extended across the volume of space that is covered by the wave function. When we measure the location of an electron, it is always point-like, without any spatial extent.

However, before being measured, an electron is simultaneously in all of the locations covered by its wave function. It effectively is in many places, and all at the same time. In this sense, electrons and other quantum objects have a kind of probabilistic existence, being in all possible places and doing all possible things, at all possible times.

This can also be described in terms of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. According to this principle, the more precisely defined the location of a quantum object is, the less specified is its velocity, and vice-versa. So, what quantum mechanics says is that an object cannot be in only one place and moving at only one speed.

Imagine an electron. It’s described by a wave function that peaks sharply at two places, which we will name locations A and B. Now, let’s assume that the shape of the wave function covers locations A and B equally, and to the same extent. In this case, if an experiment is carried out to measure the location of the electron, there would be a 50% chance that it would be found at location A and a 50% chance that it would be found at location B."

This means if something is likely it will be likely to a certain percentage, if it's high it's going to happen. If it's low but you have billions of years then it will EVENTUALLY happen. If it's vanishingly low then it will never happen.

Basic building blocks of like are everywhere in the universe.

Oh boy. That's super wrong.


Ask a Physicist:

Q: In an infinite universe, does everything that’s possible have to happen somewhere?​

The original question was: Lets say that we determine that an event is physically possible. So that means the probability of that event is greater than zero. Right? So my question is this. Is there any sense in saying that the event will NEVER happen even if it has a non-zero probability? In other words, if it can happen, will it happen given enough or infinite time? Does it have to happen eventually?

Physicist: There are a lot of subtleties in this question! The answer is basically yes, but there are some sneaky assumptions worked into that.

Right off the bat, a probability is always based on “priors”. For example, “the probability that it will rain today” or “the probability that a 4 will be rolled” are not, completely on their own, well-defined probabilities.

Before you can find a probability that’s an actual number, you need to know something about the priors. The probability that it will rain depends on the place, time, season, whether or not it rained yesterday, etc. The probability that a 4 will be rolled depends on what kind of die is being rolled, if it’s weighted, or even if dice exist.

In this general case, you may have a tiny, non-zero probability, but if it’s based on priors that are themselves impossible, then the event itself may also be impossible. You can generalize the priors a lot, but you can never quite get rid of all of them. For example, it may be possible to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the probability that a unicorn is violent is 5%, given that unicorns exist (when a scientist says “given”, they’re about to spit out some priors). However that doesn’t guarantee that a violent unicorn must exist, because it requires that unicorns (with their magic, and virgin sensing powers, and whatnot) must already exist in general.

But (and this may be more at the heart of the question), given an infinitely large universe that’s more or less homogeneous (lots of “stuff”, like the part of the universe we can see with telescopes, instead of just being empty forever), then pretty much anything that’s remotely possible, that could conceivably be the result of a string of remotely possible causes (e.g., horse begets unicorn begets violent unicorn), will happen somewhere.

So impossible things will never happen anywhere?
If life is not just chemically based then life will never come about through chemistry only.

Then you guesses wrong. That only works if the space where it happened was also probabilistic. There could be an infinite universes or things we don't even know to ask. Science says it doesn't know when it doesn't know.

Science does not know that God does not exist and says so.

It isn't faith when you can use probability equations to make predictions and they work, to a degree staggeringly accurate. No phyics is faith, you make a mathematical model, make predictions and see if it matches reality for starters.

The only faith is needed for God which has no evidence. And if you read Fransesca Stavrakopoulou's new book, God, An Anatomy, you will see the Israelites and Judahites were worshipping a very typical Near-Eastern deity, everything in the Bible has roots in older myths. Not just the things I mention, everything. Every story about Yahweh is a variation on older Mesopotamian, Ugarit, Akkadian, etc.. stories. The Bible was sanitized by later theologians who wanted Greaco-Roman theology about a non-corporael deity to be the theology and they re-wrote the Hebrew to English and tried to censor and change the early beliefs. Yahweh had a body, when Adam aquired wisdom he became "like one of us", meaning like the Gods.

From this site:

The Soleb Inscription: Earliest-Discovered Use of the Name 'Yahweh'

And evidence for the much-debated era of the Exodus

armstronginstitute.org

In short, the Soleb inscription indicates that around 1400 b.c.e., a nomadic people was on the scene to the north. Their distinguishing feature was their god Yahweh. They were known, hated, and perhaps even feared in Egypt, and they were numerous—so numerous that the Egyptian empire considered them a threat.

Of course it came about naturally? There are no other views? Sure you can say a storm giant spewed humans out of his butt. Show evidence for a storm giant for starters.

You are talking about science and that there are no other views in science. But of course, as I said, science does not claim or know that God does not exist, that claim comes from the faith of skeptics and atheists who believe only what science says, but take it further, proclaiming their own faith and wanting to make it look like it is from science.
I don't believe in a storm giant. I believe in YHWH who has evidence of His existence unless you want to presume it away with naturalism only and no other possible interpretations of religions in general and the Bible in particular.

You claim a God did something, show evidence for this God. Ezekiel saw him. He saw a large dark cloud, enveloped by flashes of fire, "with a shining brightness emanating from within. Inside the cloud are 4 cherubim - hybrid beings who accompany the deity. Each one has 4 faces, human, bovine, eagle, leonibne, hooved feet, wings with human hands. They create a thundering rumble as they move.
Ezekiel gazes at God "upward from what looked to be his motnayim, I sw it sparkling like amber, it seemed to be enveloped all around by fire. And from his motnayim downward I saw something like fire." Ezekiel 1 27-28 Hebrew
Ezekiel leaves exposed one body part: God's motnayim, a Hebrew term traditionally (and politely) rendered "loins or waist", but which more accurately refers to the groin or genitals. He shys away from describing his arms legs and feet but he openly acknowledges God's genitals. This is deeply rooted in mythology about all deities going much further back. This is mythology.

Interesting interpretation and based on the presumption that all religions copied from other religions and none are true.

Not by scientists? There may be science there we don't yet understand. If you bothered to educate yourself on tyeh actual world instead of living in pure fantasy you might learn something.
You believe it's all from a fictional being and then criticize scientists? What? People are so self centered as if they can never be wrong. Science knows this.
"What this means is that we should be wary of imagining that life is indeed just the sum of its chemical parts. That’s not to say it needs any sprinkling of vitalistic fairy dust, or any new principle of physics of the kind Erwin Schrödinger forecast. Rather, it seems likely that the ‘new biology for a new century’ that Woese called for in his 2004 article will need to be able to span and integrate scales of time and space. It will also need to determine how principles of function and design translate between them. Attempts to make synthetic living cells from the molecules up7 might flounder, then, until those principles are understood. As Richard Feynman wrote: ‘What I cannot create, I do not understand.’"

Is life the sum of its chemical parts?

Unravelling the mysteries of our cells

www.chemistryworld.com

How is that any different to "life is just chemically based"?

so you are saying we shouldn't presume things we have evidence for when there is an obvious mythology that says humans were made from clay? Like all the older creation myths also did.

Believers in God etc know and admit that they have a faith.
You don't know or admit that.
About the creation myths, imo the Genesis account should be similar in some ways to older accounts but also imo it should correct corruptions in older accounts.
But of course we all know that humans are made from the earth but the creation myth of today is that earth is all there was and there is nothing else that gives the clay body life.

 

[joelr]

Here’s something that further supports my statements:

“Between 2004 and 2014, 18 earthquakes with magnitudes of 8.0 or more rattled subduction zones around the globe. That's an increase of 265 percent over the average rate of the previous century, which saw 71 great quakes, according to a report to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America this week in Vancouver, British Columbia.”
…..

“ ‘If we look at all earthquake magnitudes, the past 10 years is not unusual in terms of the rate of events; the rate increases are just seen for events with magnitudes larger than 7.5 or so,’ he* said.”

*”he” is study author Thorne Lay, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.


Source material:

Worldwide Surge in 'Great' Earthquakes Seen in Past 10 Years

The global rate of “great” earthquakes nearly tripled in recent years, but does that portend a problem for unruptured faults along the northwest U.S.?

www.nbcnews.com

And note the date: this article is already over 9 yrs old.

So-long.

Wait - it's possible to read the first 3 lines of an article and completely miss the point in favor of a nonsense Persian mythology still kept alive 2000 years later?

Did not know?



further down -

"
“If we look at all earthquake magnitudes, the past 10 years is not unusual in terms of the rate of events; the rate increases are just seen for events with magnitudes larger than 7.5 or so," he said. "This suggests that great events were ‘catching up’ on the plate boundary motions in several regions with fortuitous similar timing.”

And by fortuitous, Lay means that he thinks it’s just coincidence that all those big earthquakes happened over the last 10 years.

Related quakes strike along same faults​

So Lay isn’t suggesting that an earthquake in Japan or Sumatra is going to trigger a big one in the Cascadia subduction zone, the line along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northernmost California where the oceanic plates dive under the continental plate.


Thank you study author Thorne Lay, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.


So-Long Persian Apocalypticism Lord