Conquer Club

Mach1tosh,

Requisate act for fruitful multiplication? You mean having sex? Who was kicked to the curb for having sex?

You might be able to make some valid arguments against free will, but can true love exist without it? Who wants to be a robot that can't make decisions?

And if evidence backs Him up and suggests that it's not true that inorganic self created matter created life and intelligence, then who are we to deny it whether there are some individuals who use religion as a crutch or not?

notyou2 wrote:Is widowmaker fitz's multi?

that is indeed a rather comical suggestion. I wonder if he will get a kick out of it as much.

My multi does not believe in God...if he did, he would not be able to break the rules and defy him by creating a multi, ie steal.

Lionz wrote:Mach1tosh,

Requisate act for fruitful multiplication? You mean having sex? Who was kicked to the curb for having sex?

You might be able to make some valid arguments against free will, but can true love exist without it? Who wants to be a robot that can't make decisions?

And if evidence backs Him up and suggests that it's not true that inorganic self created matter created life and intelligence, then who are we to deny it whether there are some individuals who use religion as a crutch or not?

Apparently in addition to never watching the Discovery Channel, reading a National Geographic or paying attention in science class, you didn't read the bible very closely either.

As I recall it was Adam & Eve who were banished from the garden of Eden for partaking of the forbidden fruit. The "original sinners" have made life miserable for the rest of us, in God's eye, for infinitum since.

There is no evidence that backs Him up contrary to the mountains of empirical scientific evidence, right down to getting amino acids to react to chemical stimulae and reenact the stirrings of life in the primordial ooze. As an agnostic I don't deny that anything is possible, but until proven I don't really believe in Sasquatch either but I'd be willing to bet that I'll see one of those before I see a God.

I would not dream of denying anyone free will and don't recall impinging upon anyone's at any point in this discussion. I do however reserve the same right of freedom of religion not to practice it and to call into question the intelligence of anyone, religious zealot or otherwise who blindly follows a dictum that has no factual or ethical basis. That is a dangerous road to follow and has resulted in many an historical debacle in the name of "faith".

What does eating fruit have to do with having sex?

And is there no evidence backing Him up? Is there not love that is? What about survival of the fittest would explain someone from the States trying to send an anonymous monetary donation to strangers in Africa? Has that not occured?

Is there not something called Bode's Law that is? Is there not a distance relationship between bodies in the solar system that suggests planets were placed in a certain way by Someone intelligent?

Is there not a lack of observed abiogenesis that is? Should we assume spontaneous generation has occured? What is meant by getting amino acids to react to chemical stimulae and reenact the stirrings of life in the primordial ooze? Who has created life from non-life?

Are there not personal testimonies concerning individuals claiming to have seen and heard spirits that is?

Is there not symbiosis that is? Are there not sophisticated relationships among diverse creatures that show underlying intelligent design and forethought at work? Does fungi not provide vital protection and moisture to algae and does algae not nourish fungi with photosynthetic nutrients? And what does pollination not help keep alive? Is there a plant that carries on with the help of pollination which existed years before pollinating insects?

Is there not fulfilled prophecy that is? Did Daniel not prophetically predict rising and falling of a number of empires and is there not prophecy concerning Yahushua (sp?) that's older than Mary and that has to do with Name and family line and place of birth and places of growing up and being betrayed for a certain amount of money and being betrayed by a friend and being abandoned by friends and way of death and timing of death and having garments parted and being offered vinegar and sky being darkened during day and being resurrected and timing between death and resurrection and more?

Are there not eyeballs that are? What are the odds that light sensitive photon recepting forerunning pigments happened to appear in a general area where noses and mouths and ears would later branch from?

Are there not secret societies in direct opposition to Him that ironically are? What do you know about freemasonry? It's quite related to goat images and upside down stars in pentagons and one or more degree system and also called the Craft perhaps. What does it not have in common with witchcraft and how many US presidents and supreme court justices and astronauts have there been who have not been masons? Seen an upside down star like image in streets north of the whitehouse pointing at the whitehouse or a giant obelisk south of the whitehouse? Know what the so called statue of liberty truly represents? Seen novus ordo seclorum on the back of one dollar bills? I might not be a fan of Notre Dame or the Vatican, but is this not a link to a Notre Dame site with a Latin translator that has that translated? http://catholic.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin ... o+seclorum Seclorum = world/universe; secular/temporal/earthly/worldly affairs/cares/temptation;? Can you not even get images that point to M and A and S and O and N by placing masonic square and compass images over dollar bill pyramids and turning one dollar bill pyramids into six pointed stars? You bring up mainstream media and public education? What should we expect if we're living in an attempted new secular world order?

Has there not been mass demonic possession that ironically is?

Are there not sexual organs that are? Would RNA transcription errors at individual levels explain penises and vaginas? Maybe it seems as though they were made for eachother or at least one for the other. Was there a first of each that happened to come about at about same moment in time and they happened to meet up? Would that not be evidence for a Creator? Did more than one of each come to be at about the same moment in time and two or more of them met up after that? Would that not be even more evidence for a Creator? Were there individuals with male organs and female organs who later evolved offspring with only one or the other? What suggests that's the case and what led to offspring with only one or the other if so?

Are there not followers of Yahushua (sp?) who saw Him after dying and who were later martyred that are? Were there followers of Him who had mass hallucinations of seeing Him perform miracles and of seeing Him resurrected who were later being martyred because of their faith?

And are there not laws of thermodynamics that are? If entropy decreased on earth without something on earth capable on converting sunlight into usable energy, then what happened? And do you claim that particles evolved into atoms and atoms into molecules and molecules into worlds and stars and galaxies and that inorganic compounds evolved into living materials and that living materials evolved into more and more complex plants and animals and finally into humans who can now intelligently control future evolution and claim that all of that occured without there being an increase in order and decrease in entropy in the Universe? Hey jonesthecurl. : )

This is at least the third time you've posted this crap lionzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz[turns over in his sleep]zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz[farts, still making more sense than lionzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

There have been changes you haven't noticed maybe. Notice jonesthecurl mention?

I think Mach1tosh may be Backglass's multi. It's one thing to dismiss the existence of God. It's quite another to make fun of those who don't and slander God Himself..... not a wise move.

Lionz wrote:How about we try to have a discussion without flaming? What suggests to you that polar bears and butterflies share a common ancestor if something does? Has life come from non-life once and only once?

How about you refer to the thread where I, and others specifically answered this question many, many times.... and how about you actually ask a real question instead of making statements that you pretend are real questions you are willing to debate simply because you put in "perhaps".

jay_a2j wrote:

jonesthecurl wrote:God can't have come from nothing. Nothing comes from nothing...or so I heard.

God was here before nothing.

Sorry, that statement is illogical.

The exception would be if there is no beginning or end, but that is pretty much what many physicists now suggest.. so not at odds with even your reading of the Bible.

Once again, you need to look to SCIENCE for what SCIENCE says, not creationist and conservative Christian websites.

WidowMakers wrote:Ok then....

1) Please define for me what an atheist believes. Your definition please and I will use that.

Atheists don't believe in God. Your definition was OK, the problem is that you limit the choices to pure atheism and Christianity. That is where you err. There are people who technically don't believe in "God", but who believe in a "force" or some such. There are also folks who won't say they know either way and there are, of course, people who believe in Gods other than the Christian one.

Limiting your debate is one of the biggest problems. It too often seems you "win" arguments by simply eliminating any discussion you find inconvenient. That is not honesty, it is "framing the debate so you can win".

WidowMakers wrote:2) Please respond to this.
It is hard for me to understand why you, who believes in a supernatural being, does not believe that that being is logical or understand the principles of math.

I never said God did not.

That God understands math is irrelevant. Like logic, math is simply a set of tools that humans use to better understand the world around them. As we understand more of the world, our use of math expands. Initially, we hade Euclidian, pretty straight-forward Geometry, along with Algebra, etc (some overlap). They deal mostly with straight lines and angles, though circles are in there, too. Calculus, though, is needed to really get to curves. Even so, most of Calculus just approximates curvatures. That's OK because absolute exact measures are almost never needed by humanity. To lay down a curved cement pad, you need only one level of precision. Even sending a rocke to the moon, while it requires much more precision, does not require absolute exact precision. The rocket just has to hit the moon, not a pixel-sized point on the moon (just to give an example).

Chaos theory, something of which you may not be entirely familiar because it is relatively new, takes us beyond that. It actually gives us calculations that can come close to truly predicting many natural systems, ranging from the flow of a stream to the drifting of smoke.

Quantum physics is yet another realm of calculations that utterly disputes most of what you feel "must" be true. See, most of what you feel "must" be true is really only true at the macro level, the level that we more or less see (though much smaller than what we can see unaided). When you get to the sub-atomic level, many of the "rules" of physics and reality just do not exist. This is already known. It is not theory.

Theory tells us that because the subatomic rules vary so significantly from what we now think of as the "macro" level, there might well be a level well beyond that where entirely different rules apply.

So, does God understand math? Of course!. Did math "exist" prior to human beings? In a sense, but only in a highly esoteric sense. That is, the things that logic and math teach us were there prior, but its sort of like saying classical music existed before there were musical instruments. True, but, also .. not quite true in any "real" sense. Also rather irrelevant.

See, God is not limited by our understanding of Math or Logic or anything else. The rules we understand apply to Earth, but do not necessarily apply elsewhere or even at distant levels (sub-atomic or when referring to levels encompassing many galxies). Some things probably do apply, but there is no gaurantee that all these rules apply at those levels. In fact, as I said above, we already know that they don't ofen apply at the quantum level.

WidowMakers wrote:-For if we truly invented the concepts of math (addition and subtraction, etc) and logic, then did God never understand them until we invented them?
-But if God understand the concepts of logic and math (not specifically the symbols 1,2,3, or English notation of math but the concept of mathematical properties) and invented them himself, before us, then math and logic did exist before men and we did discover it not invent it.

Again, this has nothing to do with proving or disproving God. God is simply beyond any of that.
But, to claim that as proof of God, you would have to eliminate each and every explanation provided by logic, etc. You cannot do that. I realize you sometimes think you can, but, sorry, that is because you don't know enough of science, not really.

WidowMakers wrote:I just find it very hard to understand how someone who believes in the supernatural would argue against that supernatural beings ability to understand math and logic since we were not here yet to invent it.

Am I missing something here? Do you believe God is logical and capable of understanding mathematical principles before humans existed?

Well, yes. From the outset, I never said God failed to understand them. I said that is irrelevant to the debate.

The biggest problem here is that you just plain have never really and truly learned real science. You think you have, because you understand "explanations" offered by Creationist/conservative Christian websites, but you don't really. You are intelligent, thoughtful, but have apparently not had a decent grounding in science. This is why I have gone from tolerance to anger at so many of those groups. They lie. Claiming, for example, that the theory of Evolution excludes God is a lie. Flat out, it is a lie. Christ tells us not to lie. They misrepresent Christ. They do it so well, with such deft skills that they convince very intelligent people who just have not learned real science. That is scary from 2 standpoints.

It is scary because few other things show how poor general science education has been in this country, in particular. It is also scary becuase it truly shows that even if many of the people who believe and are involved in Creationism honestly believe (as I am SURE you do!.. I don't suggest you lie, at all!), there have to be a good many who are well aware that they plain lie, no matter how they justify those lies to themselves.

So, I challenged you before and I challenge you again... look at REAL science. Don't accept the Assertion of Dr Morris's group that Scientists "simply begin with different assumptions." Go out and see if that is true (hint.. it isn't!). When it seems true, why?

Also, what supposed assumptions to THEY even insist scientists are making?

If you wish to take up evolution again, we started a new thread, with lionz. He brought up some different arguments than you did in your original thread (even aside from the fact that you refused to acknowledge the theistic views). However, a lot of the points would apply to your arguments as well.

Player,

Different things suggest different things to different individuals and those are questions not directed at you perhaps. There might ironically be quite a number of questions actually directed at you that you have not addressed though.

What do you mean by this question anyway? You not quoting three questions there? Who has answered a question by me referring to polar bears and butterflies specifically if you want to get technical? Neoteny brought up quite a number of things thought to suggest a wide variety of animals were related in a certain post and I responded with a lengthy reply addressing points brought up and then I was given a reply telling me I won maybe. And what have you said in response to any question asking what suggests two animals share common ancestry? You personally do not adamantly hold that universal common descent is true and have suggested you were not comfortable openly theorizing on cc forums about how many origins there have been maybe.

You addressed a number of questions including one mentioning whales and ants by saying this maybe...

Specific about whales and ants? Again, this is the kind of so-called "question" that drives real scientists batty when dealing with young earth creationists. And I don't think its at all cooincidental that you picked up 2 species that each have a somewhat "difficult" (not particularly straightforward) lineage.

The answer is almost all of the fossil record. Since neither whales, nor ants, nor even paleontology are my area of expertise, no I cannot pull out the specific fossils from my hat. I can tell you that the process of even realizing that fossils represented real animals took a while. Aristotle is credited with first noticing that fossil shells matched those living along the shore (to some extent) and deducing that fossils came from living creatures.

Linneas began the classification system we have now. The basic groups are Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Genus, Species. Those in one Kingdom come from one descendent line, those in other kingdoms from others. Their "joining" is very, very, very far back. Ants are in one Kingdom and Whales in another, so they are only barely related. So much as been learned of biology and paleontology in the past 2 decades, though that even a lot of the classifications I learned are now known to be incorrect. (again NOT the entire theory of evolution, but how various animals descended and are related to one another). Years ago there was debate over how to even look at the record. Cladistics was one way(1966 is the date wikki gives for publication). It took the superficial characteristics of creatures and then assigned them levels of hierarchy. A fox is a lot like a wolf and a cayote, so they would be considered more closely related than, say an elephant or an ant. It helped to a point, and is sometimes still used (with extreme caution) in species with limited fossil records, but genetics (genoptype) and looks (phenotype) do not always corrospond. Whales are a good example. Superficially (to a non-scientist, at least), whales look more like fish than a dog. In truth, though, their biology and the fossil record show they share a far closer ancestry with dogs than fish. Both a dog and a whale (and yes, even humans) can trace their ancestry back to a small mammal that appeared around the time dinosaurs were prominant. Another example is the whole dinosaur=lizards deal. I won't get into that whole history, but even when I was in college, it was pretty well thought that dinosaurs were giant reptiles. (I believe the dispute had been ongoing in the field, but it had not trickled down to basic education yet) Now, of course, we know they were actually birds.

As for the ant and a whale, the line has to go all the way back to the beginnings of animal evolution.

Almost all of the fossil record is what suggests to you that whales and ants share common ancestry? Here's some stuff you have already read and should read again maybe...

NG leads readers to believe that Darwin thought the fossil record supported his theory. But actually he admitted more than once in his famous book6 that the fossil record is an embarrassment to his theory of descent from a common ancestor. He knew that if his theory was true, there should be countless numbers of transitional forms (e.g., 100% reptile, 75% reptile-25% bird, 50% reptile-50%bird, 25% reptile-75%bird, 100% bird and many transitional forms between each of those). Darwin attributed the lack of evidence to our ignorance of the fossil record. But today our museums are loaded with fossils and the missing links are still missing.

As the late Harvard evolutionary geologist, Stephen Gould, put it:

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.7

In a 1979 letter responding to the late creationist, Luther Sunderland, Colin Patterson, then Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, concurred:

I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? ... You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line — there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.8

Richard Dawkins’ evolutionist disciple at Oxford University, Mark Ridley, is emphatic:

However, the gradual change of fossil species has never been part of the evidence for evolution. In the chapters on the fossil record in the Origin of Species Darwin showed that the record was useless for testing between evolution and special creation because it has great gaps in it. The same argument still applies. ... In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.9 [emphasis in the original]

That's missing one or more hyperlink and including numbers that should be raised up and smaller and it's a misquote maybe... you might want to go here and compare... http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/1106ng.asp

Lionz wrote: .

Lionz. If you want to talk about evolution again, I already said I would do so, but only within the other thread. I am not even going to read your comments here. If you want me to address them, then find and post them on that other thread... and yes, do begin by answering the questions I posed.

What questions and what do you have against discussing evolution here? You just responded to a post in here by me having to do with evolution that was not even directed at you maybe.

Lionz wrote:What questions? And what do you have against discussion evolution here? .

roroughly 18 pages that you barely even read.

Lionz wrote:You just responded to a post having to do with evolution in here by me that was not even directed at you maybe

I see, so you were referring to someone else called "player", maybe.

?

Lionz wrote:?

And I already addressed those sections you re-quoted. The short answer -- its misquoted, misconstrued garbage taken out of context. (for the real answer, go read the other thread).

Do you see Player anywhere in here...

How about we try to have a discussion without flaming? What suggests to you that polar bears and butterflies share a common ancestor if something does? Has life come from non-life once and only once?

HERE

Lionz wrote:Player,

Different things suggest different things to different individuals and those are questions not directed at you perhaps. There might ironically be quite a number of questions actually directed at you that you have not addressed though.

What do you mean by this question anyway? You not quoting three questions there? Who has answered a question by me referring to polar bears and butterflies specifically if you want to get technical? Neoteny brought up quite a number of things thought to suggest a wide variety of animals were related in a certain post and I responded with a lengthy reply addressing points brought up and then I was given a reply telling me I won maybe. And what have you said in response to any question asking what suggests two animals share common ancestry? You personally do not adamantly hold that universal common descent is true and have suggested you were not comfortable openly theorizing on cc forums about how many origins there have been maybe.

And if you think I have been flaming...

What specifically about the AiG quote or whatever (if you mean that) is misquoted or misconstrued garbage taken out of context?

You responded to a post having to do with evolution that was directed at Mach1tosh and I replied to your response and then you decided to claim that you will only discuss evolution within another thread?

WidowMakers wrote:
I am not quoting all of the post since it takes up space. I just wanted to quote some so that everyoen would be able to understand what I was referring back to in this post.

ditto.

WidowMakers wrote: it is impossible to have a rational conversation if the opposite side refuses to explain what exactly they believe and define it.

This is why we have dictionaries. However, what I was referring to went beyond that. You use terms that were solely created to describe a supposed group of people, defined by a set of thoughts, who are then shown to be misguided in their thinking. Except... those people just don't really exist. That is, I am sure you can pick any thoughts out of a hat and find at least 1 person on this great earth that thinks that way. However, they don't really permeate any movement and don't apply to large groups of people.

Your definition of "naturalism" is such.. as was your earlier definition of "scientificism". I mean, you spend all this time disputing a way of thinking that has nothing to do with what any of us actually think. If you want to know how I or anyone else thinks, ask them.

And please, please, please, if you are going to use scientific terms, be they evolution or thermodynamics or entropy or anything else, PLEASE use real definitions used by science and not the "explanations" of those terms put forward by some Christian websites. If nothing else, consult wikkipeadia! A lot posted there is not verified and can change, but it is a decent starting place.

Lionz wrote:Do you see Player anywhere in here...

How about we try to have a discussion without flaming? What suggests to you that polar bears and butterflies share a common ancestor if something does? Has life come from non-life once and only once?

Q. What suggests to you that polar bears and butterflies share a common ancestor if something does?

A. DNA is the same structure. To some, this is far more logical than an invisible creator who has never been seen or heard...ever.

Q. Has life come from non-life once and only once?

A. Perhaps, Perhaps not.

Is it not possible that life is a rare thing that takes just the right combination for it to start?

Do you not think life is incredibly hard to create, since you need to believe that an outside creator must be the only way for it to happen?

Since there are billions of stars and possibly millions or billions of planets with near infinitely different environments, is it not possible that there are many that life could happen, but happen in a different way?

Or perhaps have happened long ago, and traveled from one of the millions of meteorites and comets that have hit our planet over the course of millions of years?

Now...name one reason this is impossible, and requires a God snapping his fingers for this to happen. One reason other than we dont yet fully understand it that makes this impossible, or even improbable with any degree of real logic or example.

Now, after doing that, explain how a God is a more probable explanation, let alone a more logical one.

Further, since man has created many, many stories and tales throughout history, many of which we know to be untrue, why do you contend that the one you happen to believe, must be true?

Is it not, simply because, if you accepted it were not true, than everything you believed as a child and an adult, would simply become incorrect, so you hang onto this belief, no matter what?

Is that logical?