Verifiable evidence for creationism?

[gnostic]

No, atheism is a statement that no god(s) exist. This is something that you cannot say – that no one can say. The sensible point of view is skeptical agnosticism – to reserve judgement on an issue about which you have no information.

Actually, I am an agnostic, not an atheist.

I am what you would call an empirical agnostic (or weak agnostic), and will accept any outcome, provided that there are evidences that I can verify to or with.

 

[gnostic]

Rain and wet ground is not an analogy for science. It's an explanation of a simple principle of logic using every day events that everyone (except you apparently) can easily understand.

To me, the comparison of rain and wet ground and comparing to the Big Bang, sounds more like analogy than logic. My point is that your comparison is stupid and oversimplified.

 

[Zosimus]

Actually, I am an agnostic, not an atheist.

I am what you would call an empirical agnostic (or weak agnostic), and will accept any outcome, provided that there are evidences that I can verify to or with.

The word "evidence" can never be plural.

What do you accept as evidence? If someone says, for example, that he knows that God (the Abrahamic one) exists because when he prays, he feels peace. Is that evidence?
If the Bible (or some other book he accepts as authoritative) says X, is that evidence for X?

Or do you take a radical view of what evidence can and cannot be?

 

[gnostic]

BTW, this thread was meant to be evidences for creationism, not evidences for the Big Bang, for evolution or for science in general.

I wish people would get back on topic.

 

[gnostic]

What do you accept as evidence? If someone says, for example, that he knows that God (the Abrahamic one) exists because when he prays, he feels peace. Is that evidence?

No, it isn't evidence. For it to be evidence, I would have to also feel this non-existence peace when I pray. If I prayed and I feel nothing, then is that evidence for no-god?

And if another person, he might feel anger, and another just might feel hungry. Another person praying, using the exact same words, as the 1st one (your example), he might feel horny or lustful.

Do you see where I am getting at, Zosimus? Please praying for the same thing might not feel the same. How do you account for each people feeling different things, count as evidence. People will feel different emotion or behave differently at different time.

In science, evidence has to be repeated and rigorously tested.

Can you test a prayer? If you can't, then is not evidence.

This prayer-and-peace is a stupid example for evidence.

 

[Sapiens]

4.0 perfect attendance.

So you were there but learned nothing, Reminds me of many of my liberal arts buds.

No, that's not why it's worthless that's why it's metaphysical. It's something outside the domain of science. Science is only good at dealing with specific, testable predictions. Science is useless for the important questions of life such as "why are we here?" or "what's the meaning of life?"

Metaphysical, that's the imaginary thing that can not be shown to have any effect on any part of reality.

You're like a man with a hammer who thinks that everything in the world is either a nail to be hammered or completely useless.

I have a full tool kit that includes more than a half dozen different types of hammers, each in multiple sizes.

Congratulations! You have failed your reading comprehension test. As anyone can see if they look at the post, I specifically mentioned a change in alleles as one of the possibilities.

Still don't know what you missed eh?

No, I specifically said that. Try remedial reading classes.

We need to find you one first I fear.

"In fact your clearly not a scientist..."

Could I offer you a grammar checker?

You could, but grammer nazi games are considered by most to be the last gasp of people with no arguments

.
All right, you think that natural selection does make specific, testable predictions. Please explain which outcome of a pair of domestic breeding cats placed on an island would be inconsistent with the theory of natural selection. That ought to be good for a laugh.

The genetic bottleneck of one breading pair is your big problem.

 

[Sapiens]

The exact time cannot be pinpointed, but many creationists believe it was between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. As for generations, it is hard to answer as the life spans of people living in ancient times was different from those living in post-flood times. In the Bible, it states 1000 generations in the Old Testament. How many years do you want to give per generation?

20 is classic, that OK with you?

 

[Zosimus]

No, it isn't evidence. For it to be evidence, I would have to also feel this non-existence peace when I pray. If I prayed and I feel nothing, then is that evidence for no-god?

And if another person, he might feel anger, and another just might feel hungry. Another person praying, using the exact same words, as the 1st one (your example), he might feel horny or lustful.

Do you see where I am getting at, Zosimus? Please praying for the same thing might not feel the same. How do you account for each people feeling different things, count as evidence. People will feel different emotion or behave differently at different time.

In science, evidence has to be repeated and rigorously tested.

Can you test a prayer? If you can't, then is not evidence.

This prayer-and-peace is a stupid example for evidence.

Okay, so your claim is that only things that can be tested are evidence.
You also have implied (if not actually stated) that evidence is required to make claims.
Therefore, I require you to provide evidence (the strict, scientific version of evidence that you just set out) for the claim that evidence is required to make claims and indicate how this evidence can be tested.

If you cannot provide this evidence, then your claims are incoherent as they fundamentally contract themselves.

 

[Zosimus]

So you were there but learned nothing...

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Metaphysical, that's the imaginary thing that can not be shown to have any effect on any part of reality.

Such as the metaphysical claim of natural selection?

I have a full tool kit that includes more than a half dozen different types of hammers, each in multiple sizes.

So, basically, you think that a full tool kit of hammers equips to you decide that screws cannot fasten two items together.

You could, but grammer nazi games are considered by most to be the last gasp of people with no arguments

I'm just generally of the opinion that fuzzy language betrays fuzzy thinking.

The genetic bottleneck of one breading pair is your big problem.

Amusing. All the genetic variety in the world can spring from one single-celled microorganism and a bit of mutation...
BUT two cats with 76 chromosomes between them don't provide enough genetic variety to have fertile offspring long enough to determine the effect on the finch population.

 

[gnostic]

The exact time cannot be pinpointed, but many creationists believe it was between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. As for generations, it is hard to answer as the life spans of people living in ancient times was different from those living in post-flood times. In the Bible, it states 1000 generations in the Old Testament. How many years do you want to give per generation?

Source, please.

Where did you get the 1000 generations from?

Have you both to count the number of generations in the genealogy given by Matthew and Luke gospels?

Not that I believe these genealogies to be real or true, but there is less than 50 generations in Matthew's (41) because he only start with Abraham, while Luke's is about 76 (not including God here). And between the OT and Matthew (from David to the last king of Judah) there are few missing generations.

As far as I can see, there are no 1000 generations, but I will wait till you provide a source, James.

 

[gnostic]

Okay, so your claim is that only things that can be tested are evidence.
You also have implied (if not actually stated) that evidence is required to make claims.
Therefore, I require you to provide evidence (the strict, scientific version of evidence that you just set out) for the claim that evidence is required to make claims and indicate how this evidence can be tested.

If you cannot provide this evidence, then your claims are incoherent as they fundamentally contract themselves.

What do you think I am talking about when I say "verifiable" or "testable" evidence?

It is a mean of confirming what is evidence, that's not merely an subjective opinion or delusion, Zosimus.

Let's say I told you that I own a farmland, and I have 3 cows and 5 goats.

If you ask me to prove it, I could sent you some pictures of me standing beside some animals. That would be considered evidences (those photos or images).

You could still be skeptical; you could claim that I photoshop myself with pictures of those animals. So I could possibly fax you a copy of my receipts of when and where I brought each animal. Those receipts would be evidences.

You can still be stupidly skeptical, and claim those receipts are fakes.

So the only way I could convince you, would be to invite you over to my farm, and see the animals for yourself. You being to see, hear, touch and smell those goats and cows, would be another evidence of what I say is true.

That's what I called "verifiable" evidence, Zosimus.

Can you do the same thing with someone's prayer? No.

Can you show me that God ACTUALLY answer his prayer, and that guy is not feeling heartburn or something other than this peace you are talking about?

How do we know this feeling of peace is not imaginary?

Your example with prayer is not something that I would call evidence, which I could verify to be true. Feeling, such as this peace, is subjective and more than likely imaginary.

You say your skeptical of science, but you don't seem to be skeptical at all with religion or with supernatural.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

You THINK you know where the complexity of life comes from. Nevertheless, you cannot provide any proof re the origin of life. Scientifically, it can't be explained. So, one cannot build a building without first having a foundation. Without the foundation of the origin of life, the subsequent construct is flawed and faulty, it falls down. As to your questions, the answers are irrelevant to the discussion. If one knows the odds of a universe creating itself is, conservatively, 10 to the fiftieth power to 1 against, and accepts it as happening, then the odds of a naturalistic explanation being replaced by metaphysical one at some point in time, must be acceptable too. And, acceptable by whom ? Scientific chauvinism precludes any answer but the predetermined one, it cannot have occurred but by the means we say it was.

Excellent post!

I read this somewhere.... It was suggested that for everything to be just right for organisms to live and thrive.....the four fundamental forces balancing perfectly off each other as they do, and being finely-tuned as they are; the cycles on this Earth, that clean it & promote life-essential symbiosis: oxygen-carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, etc.; the molecules of water rising when freezing; the size and placement of our moon; the distance of our Earth to the Sun....although at 93,000,000 miles, the nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere is perfectly set, because just the 23.5-degree tilt of this planet creates extreme cold or extreme warmth (to scale, if the Earth were the size of a peppercorn, the sun would be a soccer ball 78 feet away, emitting radiant energy, but the peppercorn's atmosphere would be so effective that just slightly tilting the peppercorn would make the closest part [1mm closer] hot, and the farthest part [1mm away] cold!!); then, on top of everything else, all the left-handed amino acids randomly forming the right protein chains again and again to aid in the development of RNA, to gradually form DNA; etc., etc.....Every one of these events being essential to life....
For all of this to happen before life, the odds were 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power!!

There's not that many atoms in the universe!

Yet, anything with odds of 1 to the 83rd power, scientists say it will never happen!

They look at a few of the trees, but ignore the forest!

There's too much complexity! I can't ignore it!

 

[Hockeycowboy]

The exact time cannot be pinpointed, but many creationists believe it was between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. As for generations, it is hard to answer as the life spans of people living in ancient times was different from those living in post-flood times. In the Bible, it states 1000 generations in the Old Testament. How many years do you want to give per generation?

"In the Bible, it states 1000 generations in the Old Testament."

No, it doesn't, at all!
I think you are referring to Exodus 20:6, talking about God's love toward His followers.
A couple other passages, too.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

What do you think I am talking about when I say "verifiable" or "testable" evidence?

It is a mean of confirming what is evidence, that's not merely an subjective opinion or delusion, Zosimus.

Let's say I told you that I own a farmland, and I have 3 cows and 5 goats.

If you ask me to prove it, I could sent you some pictures of me standing beside some animals. That would be considered evidences (those photos or images).

You could still be skeptical; you could claim that I photoshop myself with pictures of those animals. So I could possibly fax you a copy of my receipts of when and where I brought each animal. Those receipts would be evidences.

You can still be stupidly skeptical, and claim those receipts are fakes.

So the only way I could convince you, would be to invite you over to my farm, and see the animals for yourself. You being to see, hear, touch and smell those goats and cows, would be another evidence of what I say is true.

That's what I called "verifiable" evidence, Zosimus.

Can you do the same thing with someone's prayer? No.

Can you show me that God ACTUALLY answer his prayer, and that guy is not feeling heartburn or something other than this peace you are talking about?

How do we know this feeling of peace is not imaginary?

Your example with prayer is not something that I would call evidence, which I could verify to be true. Feeling, such as this peace, is subjective and more than likely imaginary.

You say your skeptical of science, but you don't seem to be skeptical at all with religion or with supernatural.

You seem to be honest and open.....good for you!

I wish that you and I could give each other our knowledge, share it.

Like the Vulcan mindmeld, lol.

Take care.

 

[Sapiens]

Assumes facts not in evidence.

But a fairly safe assumption, based on past performance.

Such as the metaphysical claim of natural selection?

There is no metaphysical claim to natural selection.

So, basically, you think that a full tool kit of hammers equips to you decide that screws cannot fasten two items together.

No, I think you are having trouble reading.

I'm just generally of the opinion that fuzzy language betrays fuzzy thinking.

But in this case it bespeaks nothing more that typing while riding in a car.

Amusing. All the genetic variety in the world can spring from one single-celled microorganism and a bit of mutation...
BUT two cats with 76 chromosomes between them don't provide enough genetic variety to have fertile offspring long enough to determine the effect on the finch population.

Clearly you understand nothing of evolution and very little of genetics. Take a glance at the cheetah bottleneck. Here's a rather well referenced paper: http://bio150.chass.utoronto.ca/labs/cool-links/lab5/OBrien_et_al_1985_lab_5.pdf

 

[Sapiens]

You THINK you know where the complexity of life comes from. Nevertheless, you cannot provide any proof re the origin of life. Scientifically, it can't be explained. So, one cannot build a building without first having a foundation. Without the foundation of the origin of life, the subsequent construct is flawed and faulty, it falls down. As to your questions, the answers are irrelevant to the discussion. If one knows the odds of a universe creating itself is, conservatively, 10 to the fiftieth power to 1 against, and accepts it as happening, then the odds of a naturalistic explanation being replaced by metaphysical one at some point in time, must be acceptable too. And, acceptable by whom ? Scientific chauvinism precludes any answer but the predetermined one, it cannot have occurred but by the means we say it was.

Science does not claim to prove this, it merely points out the most likely answer given the current state of knowledge.

I think what you meant was, "since you can use Reason and Philosophy, which clearly trumps science, debate with you is a waste of my efforts."

No, I meant what I said. Especially since you do not display reason and confuse philosophy with sophistry ... but what the hey, they both have "soph" in them ... kinda like sophomoric.

Oh yes. The cell phone fallacy. How often have I heard this one. Let's summarize this carefully.
If your cell phone works, science is fantastic.
But what if my cell phone doesn't work?
Science is still fantastic.

Great PR – bad logic.

That's because you broke it.

Claims do not require evidence. Or do you claim otherwise? If you claim that claims require evidence, then please provide the evidence that backs the claim that claims require evidence.

Sophistry not worthy of note.

Off the top of my head, I can think of which came first the chicken or the egg and the answer is the chicken. This has been verified by British scientists, using a supercomputer. They claim to have come up with the final and definitive answer as they identified the protein, ovocleidin-17, that is required to speed up the production of eggshell within the chicken. In twenty-four hours, an egg is ready to be laid. An egg cannot be produced without the chicken as the mechanism of the egg is quite complex. So, the chicken came first. This is testable.

Sorry, egg came first.

The word "evidence" can never be plural.

That is a modernism that is coming into vogue, "never" is clearly wrong. Hoist on your own petard grammar nazi.

 

[gnostic]

You seem to be honest and open.....good for you!

I wish that you and I could give each other our knowledge, share it.

Like the Vulcan mindmeld, lol.

Mindmeld?

I am afraid what would happen is that your brain might get fried. My thought hops back and forth.

 

[Parsimony]

For all of this to happen before life, the odds were 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power!!

Source?

 

[shmogie]

And yet Christians and believers of other religions (Muslims) often associated atheism with science or atheism with communism (as Zosimus just did).



It is not merely an opinion.

The epic of Gilgamesh have a history that span from the 3rd millennium BCE to 1st century CE. The Standard Version found in the tablets of the Library of Nineveh, are often word-for-word copy of the Bronze Age, during the Old Babylonian period and the Middle Babylonian period. And there is striking resemblance in the Gilgamesh of the Old and Middle versions about the Flood in the Old Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis, and the Epic of Atrahasis have many similarities to the fragments of Eridu Genesis.

Fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh were found in Megiddo, dated to the mid-2nd millennium BCE, demonstrated that Canaanite society were at least familiar with the stories of Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim (or Atrahasis or Ziusudra).

Whether the names of Deluge hero be Ziusudra, Atrahasis or Utnapishtim, the story of Noah have much in common with the Mesopotamian myth, of which predated Genesis, and the Israelite kingdoms.

Likewise, the creation in Genesis 1, bears some resemblances to the Old Babylonian Enûma Elish ("Epic of Creation").
I have read Gilgamesh, as well as treatises supporting the idea of the Sumerian texts being some form of precursor to the Genisis account,
No extant version of the Genesis creation and flood exist in the Bronze Age, and that would mean Genesis wasn't written by Moses. In fact, there is no historical or archaeological evidences that Moses ever existed as a real person.

And shmogie, when you tell people what they say as just a matter of opinion, then be prepared to back up your own claim. I can very well say that your belief in everything in the bible, as a matter of your opinion. But then we will be trading accusations of whose opinions matter the most, and more than likely get no-where.

I know that you don't believe anything that I say, but you can read the stories of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis yourself. The books I would recommend are

Andrew George, The Epic Of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Penguin Classics, 1999.

This has all the available translations from Old Babylonian to Standard Version (from the Library of Nineveh), as well as 5 Sumerian poems of​

Stephanie Dalley, Myths From Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World's Classics, 1991 (revised edition 2000).

Dalley's translations include the Epic of Gilgamesh, Epic of Atrahasis and Enûma Elish ("Epic of Creation").​

Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once...Sumerian Poetry In Translation, Yale University Press, 1997.

Jacobsen has only Sumerian literature, which include the Flood myth (known by scholars today as Eridu Genesis), but there are few other Sumerian creation myths found here.​

The 1st two books are available in bookshops and they are affordable. Jacobsen's book on the other hand, can only be ordered through on-line shops (like Amazon), and I paid nearly $100, so definitely not cheap.

But if you don't have money, you will find some translations of Sumerian texts at:

ETCSL (Electronic Texts Corpus of Sumerian Literature), http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/):

The Flood Story <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4&charenc=j >
Gilgmec, Enkidu andd the Netherword <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.4&charenc=j>
The Death of Gilgamec <http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.8.1.3&charenc=j>
​

You might not trust what I have to say, but there are some Christians and Jews, who also read the translations of Sumerian-Babylonian myths, and agreed as I do about Hebrew authors adapting older myths (creation and flood) into their own scriptures. Would you consider they also only have opinions?

I have read various articles and treatises supporting the Sumerian texts as a precursor to the Genesis account as well as those refuting this idea. When evidence exists about an issue that is contradictory, the individual must evaluate it, and reach a conclusion based upon that evidence., If you decide to adopt one position or another, it is your opinion based upon your evaluation, nothing more. You are right, so far I find little in your opinion to accept

 

[Zosimus]

What do you think I am talking about when I say "verifiable" or "testable" evidence?

It is a mean of confirming what is evidence, that's not merely an subjective opinion or delusion, Zosimus.

Let's say I told you that I own a farmland, and I have 3 cows and 5 goats.

If you ask me to prove it, I could sent you some pictures of me standing beside some animals. That would be considered evidences (those photos or images).

You could still be skeptical; you could claim that I photoshop myself with pictures of those animals. So I could possibly fax you a copy of my receipts of when and where I brought each animal. Those receipts would be evidences.

You can still be stupidly skeptical, and claim those receipts are fakes.

So the only way I could convince you, would be to invite you over to my farm, and see the animals for yourself. You being to see, hear, touch and smell those goats and cows, would be another evidence of what I say is true.

That's what I called "verifiable" evidence, Zosimus.

Can you do the same thing with someone's prayer? No.

Can you show me that God ACTUALLY answer his prayer, and that guy is not feeling heartburn or something other than this peace you are talking about?

How do we know this feeling of peace is not imaginary?

Your example with prayer is not something that I would call evidence, which I could verify to be true. Feeling, such as this peace, is subjective and more than likely imaginary.

You say your skeptical of science, but you don't seem to be skeptical at all with religion or with supernatural.

You talked, and talked, and talked, but you didn't answer the question.

Since you subject religion to a set of rules that I call "radical evidentialism" it is only fair that you subject your own opinions to the same set of rules. With that in mind, provide tangible, verifiable, measurable evidence to support the idea that all claims must be backed up by tangible, verifiable, measurable evidence. Don't write to me with more BS stories of farms and photos of animals. I want to see a picture or a receipt or to receive an invitation to go somewhere where I can witness the tangible, verifiable, measurable evidence that supports your claim.

If you cannot provide this information, then your beliefs are incoherent and unwarranted.