Jill, I'm no bible expert, but I'm quite sure that religion defended the "flat, center if the universe, earth," more than science.

By the way, "Roger and Me" was the first major Michael Moore documentary, which is at 13 on the chart, just behind "Expelled". So Expelled apparently DID beat one of Moore's "atrocities"

Does Box Office Mojo have a category for "atrocities" or just documentaries?

"Shine a Light" is on one-fourth as many screens as Expelled, so that comparison is dubious.

Expelled still is about $25 million behind "Prom Night", proving that slicing and dicing of high school kids is still more popular than slicing and dicing of science. It is a matter of opinion which movie lowers the audience's IQ the most.

The Stanford students are right. I just took a final on copyright about 4 hours ago. Fair use was about half of the test.

Based on what I remember about the way it was used in the film, that's quite the waste of litigation dollars for Yoko. It's criticism, which is allowed, and it hardly harms the market for the song.

And Hal, the earth being flat is not in any way connected with the Bible. It isn't an history or a science book, although year after year, legitimate scientists debunk efforts to show inaccuracies in it. I do encourage you to become a Bible expert - I've never met someone that read it regularly that decided it is full of lies. Critics never seem to read the whole thing.

Meh.

I prefer watching documentaries on the History Channel about things that are actually...wait for it...interesting and meaningful!

The intelligent design/evolution debate is NOT interesting, nor is it meaningful...it's pointless.

Though I did watch a documentary once about the US ratings system and how farked up it was...good stuff.

"Expelled" is on one-fourth as many screens as Prom Night, so that comparison is dubious.

By the way, the language that I copied and pasted from "Bystander" was for criticism. That is another example of fair use.

Alex, you're witty. Lol.

And I didn't know Roger and Me was Moore.

Hal -

From "The Galileo Controversy"

"Aristotle had refuted heliocentricity, and by Galileo’s time, nearly every major thinker subscribed to a geocentric view. Copernicus refrained from publishing his heliocentric theory for awhile, not out of fear of censure from the Church, but out of fear of ridicule from his colleagues.

At Galileo’s request, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit—one of the most important Catholic theologians of the day—issued a certificate that, although it forbade Galileo to hold or defend the heliocentric theory, did not prevent him from conjecturing it. When Galileo met with the new pope, Urban VIII, in 1623, he received permission from his longtime friend to write a work on heliocentrism, but the new pontiff cautioned him not to advocate the new position, only to present arguments for and against it."

That doesn't sound like religion defended the "center of the universe, earth" thing you were talking about.

It's true that the vast majority of scientist held the heliocentricity view. The RCC, as it usually does, held their opinion for more research and the Pope asked for arguments for and against. When it was proven the RCC accepted it. Galileo couldn't prove it at the time unfortunately, so the RCC as well as Protestants stuck with the same view as 99.9% of science at the time.

@ ALex:

Legitimate scientists rarely waste their time debunking biblical claims - unitl some yahoo decides to shoehorn some biblical claim into science. Then they refute.

Jill's the one who used the bible quote. Good job - you just accused her of not reading the bible fully or regularly.

Roger and Me was a 1989 release by a little known director/producer. Pre-mass InterNet, low budget. Any comparisons there are dubious.

@ ALex:

Legitimate scientists rarely waste their time debunking biblical claims - unitl some yahoo decides to shoehorn some biblical claim into science. Then they refute.

Jill's the one who used the bible quote. Good job - you just accused her of not reading the bible fully or regularly.

Roger and Me was a 1989 release by a little known director/producer. Pre-mass InterNet, low budget. Any comparisons there are dubious.

Alex,

Yessiree, sooner or later them scientist folk will figger out that book learnin' don't do them no good, and that everthing they need to know is right there in the Bible...

Now THAT was intelligent. Do you actually have a rebuttal?

Jill-

Were you aware that the Boston Globe piece was written by Dr. Ken Miller, is not only a Professor of Biology, but a professed Christian? Perhaps if you had read his book, Finding Darwin's God, or even reread the article he wrote, you would know that he firmly believes that science and religion can, and do, co-exist. Dr. Miller gets it right, you get it wrong, and with all the errors in her screed, Phyllis Schlafly clearly doesn't get it at all.

There are many more Bible verses that seem to demonstrate that the Earth is indeed flat (of course, contradiction is what the Bible does best). When people thought the Earth was flat, there were no scientists in the way we think of them today.

What poor arguments you make.

Additionally, I've read, directly from Expelled sources, that 25 seconds of Imagine was used, not 15. When the lawsuit came up, then they started saying it was 15 seconds.

This movie is a fraud and a disgrace.

By the way, that op-ed "hit piece" was written by a Christian who has also authored Biology books used by millions of students today.

The fact is, this whole Expelled thing is just a pathetic attempt to cast doubt on evolution because Christians are afraid that when people learn about it, they will turn into atheists and leave their flock.

How can Miller state he "accepts both God and evolution" yet deny Intelligent Design? That's not intelligent.

Actually, (and I don't claim to know the intricacies) but I don't believe that evolution and intelligent design are necessarily opposed. I believe that was one of the points of the movie, also.

Creationism is probably inconsistent with evolution, but intelligent design is (at its core) I believe simply the suggestion that there is an intelligent creator behind the great mysteries we uncover. Evolution, or natural selection, can be one of the tools with which said Creator works.

For instance, Catholics are by no means banned from belief in evolution. But we certainly also believe that creation is the result of an all-intelligent creator.

I can be wrong on these things (law student, not biologist), but I believe that's what the situation is.

Logic lesson Jill:

1)God and evolution are not mutually exclusive (Miller's position)personal and reasonable.

Further reading:
http://www.findingdarwinsgod.com/excerpt/index.html

2)Intelligent Design and evoltuion are mutually exclusive (your position and evidently the ID'ers too).

Comment: It was a stupid fight to pick, since evidence for the opposition keeps mounting and when two claims are mutually exclusive, every bit of suport for the opposing side is a nail in the coffin of ID.

Conclusion: Intelligent Design Theory? That's not intelligent.

Did anyone read John Derbyshire's smackdown of "Expelled" on the National Review online? It was pretty awesome.

Derbyshire is a mathemetician Bobby, he's written some good books.

I've read his book Prime Obsession. I didn't know this, but it seems from his wiki page that he isn't a mathematician, yet an author who sometimes writes about mathematics. He actually seems to be a pretty interesting character according to the wiki page...

Derbyshire is a liar and an ignoramus. The proof - he keeps referring to "creationism" when writing about intelligent design. He wrote that evolutionism didn't need to explain the origin of life until a university student of the pseudo-science corrected him.

"Expelled" is on one-fourth as many screens as Prom Night, so that comparison is dubious.

"Expelled" is on four times as many screens as Roger and Me, so that comparison is dubious.

Fair use witticisms aside, if you divide it out, Roger and Me took in about about four times as many dollars per screen as "Expelled" has to date, and that was at 1989 movie prices. That doesn't give Stein and company much to crow about.

I've never met someone that read it regularly that decided it is full of lies. Critics never seem to read the whole thing.

Hi. I'm Edyt. I'm an atheist. And I've read the entire Bible. Some passages I've read multiple times and in multiple versions. :)

*raises hand* Atheist. Read the whole thing. It's a really messed up book.

Seriously. More violent than any video game ever created.

Greetings Edyt... Erin.

Are you both the same person? Or is it a coincidence that you two posted 7 hours, 30 minutes and 7 hours, 32 minutes after I posted that?

Anyways, I've apparently met at least one atheist Bible reader. I obviously wouldn't say what I say without believing in the validity of the Book. Because we probably will not get a chance to discuss face to face, I strongly suggest you direct your criticisms or questions to an apologist. It addresses, no doubt, the greatest questions we can ever ask ourselves.

To illustrate my point, if I disagree with the theories behind "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", I ignore the book - no harm done. If I disagreed with what the Bible has to say, I would really want to make sure I got to the bottom of it. It's quite an important matter.

Two. I was as shocked to see Erin post that as you were.

Are you saying we should direct criticisms and questions to someone else? Why can't you, a faithful Bible reader, answer any questions or criticisms? You seem to assume our criticisms aren't valid because we "haven't read the whole Bible" yet when we say that we have, you, the one who believes in it, is unable to defend it.

You scoff at atheists as if they don't understand the Bible, yet to those that do you say you essentially cannot understand it to the degree of being able to debate it.

Alex, why do you believe it?

Jill, you wrote: "How can Miller state he "accepts both God and evolution" yet deny Intelligent Design? That's not intelligent."

The fact that you could write this shows one of two things: Either you do not understand evolution OR you do not understand what Intelligent Design claims, which is that the existing animal species were designed directly by an intelligent designer, and have not changed since then.

Either way you should be embarrassed. Go do some more reading.

Gerry, can you explain to me the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design?

From http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/

"The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion."

Jill Stanek, if you are going to profess belief in Intelligent Design on your web site, shouldn't you learn what it is first?

Never mind, I'll answer my own question: from the same web site:

"Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. "

So Jill I take back what I said--Intelligent Design does not deny change in species over time--but it claims Evolution does not explain Biology. Still something to object to if you accept God and Evolution as one of His tools.

OK, reading from

http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.01.Ten_Questions_ID.pdf

William Dembski answers a lot of questions about Intelligent Design, and concludes: "...Since the unknown and
unexplored allow for an infinity of loopholes, the committed materialist regards
Darwinian and other materialist explanations of life’s origin and subsequent
development as always trumping intelligent design, regardless of the evidence."

We do not believe in your "evidence". We do not believe in irreducible complexity, only in so-far-unanswered evolutionary biochemical questions. --SoMG

He continues: "Note that intelligent design does not stack the deck this way. In particular, unlike
Darwinism, intelligent design is refutable. To refute intelligent design, it is
enough to display specific, fully articulated Darwinian pathways for the complex
systems that, according to intelligent design, lie beyond the reach of the
Darwinian mechanism (systems like the bacterial flagellum in question 5)."

No, if we did that you'd just say "ok, that one wasn't really irreducibly complex, but this one is" and point to another unanswered question in evolutionary biochemistry. Unanswered questions like, "How did it all get started?" or "How did the bacterial flagellum evolve?" or for that matter "Why is there something rather than nothing?" are NOT legitimate evidence of Design, and thinking they are is itself evidence of a lack of chemical/physical imagination.--SoMG

He writes: "Though Darwinists mistakenly charge intelligent design with being untestable, it’s
their theory that in fact is untestable."

In fact, as I showed above, neither theory is testable. How do you decide, in science, between two untestable theories? ANSWER: By means of Occam's Razor. (It is noteworthy that nowhere in his essay does the author mention Occam's Razor.) You go with the WEAKER and LESS COMPLEX of the two hypotheses. An Intelligent Designer capable of answering all your questions about biology is obviously more powerful and more complex than the purposeless combination of random forces and natural selection, and is therefore excluded by Occam's Razor unless and until you PROVE irreducible complexity rather than merely asserting it. Which, as you astutely pointed out above, cannot be done.--SoMG

So in the end it's not evolution that ID disputes, but Occam's Razor.

An Intelligent Designer capable of answering all your questions about biology is obviously more powerful and more complex than the purposeless combination of random forces and natural selection, and is therefore excluded by Occam's Razor unless and until you PROVE irreducible complexity rather than merely asserting it. Which, as you astutely pointed out above, cannot be done.--SoMG

I've commented on this before, but I have to raise this point. Who says a designer must be capable of or required to answer all your questions in order to be "real".... How can you say random forces and natural selection are purposeless when you look at the complex outcome? If you want to exclude an ID by Occam's Razor, how do explain that kindergarten age children can understand the concept of God (or insert the name of any intelligent designer you wish) unless it is quite simple.

If those reasons aren't sufficient to keep the idea of ID alive for you, I have another. How can you look at Eduardo Verastegui and say there isn't a God?:) Could Eduardo (perfection) have been created by random forces and natural selection? No! Lol. (Ok, not a scientific argument, but it works for me!)

Another so-far-unanswered question which some ID proponents cite as "evidence" for ID: How do intracellular proteins know where to go within the cell? By what mechanism are uroplakins (to pick a random example) dispatched to the apical surface of bladder cells where they form two-dimensional lattices that strengthen against urine leakage, and not to elsewhere in the cell or to other cell surfaces? Random diffusion within the cell does not explain it. The cell has a chemical apparatus that tells parts of itself where to go to assemble, which we do not understand at all. We've identified chemical moieties that cause the cell to move the object displaying these moieties to the nucleus, but how and why is still mysterious.

To claim that so-far-unanswered biochemical questions like the development of the bacterial flagellum are evidence of Design is extremely arrogant. It assumes we should already know everything. That we should have an atom-by-atom explanation for every biological or biochemical question. Well, the fact is we still don't know what most biomolecules do. Sure we've got the human genome but that just tells us the proteins, not the molecules synthesized by the proteins. There's no scientific reason to believe that the biological systems IDers call "irreducibly complex" could not have evolved by means of biochemical or proto-biochemical reactions we have not yet identified. And no matter how far back we go, there will always be the question, what happened before that?

It was once believed that life was absolutely different from everything in nature and that no chemical component of life could ever be synthesized in the lab. This was part of the Nature of Life. The counter example was synthetic urea which could not be distinguished from urea isolated from urine by any test. So much for people's quasi-religious intuition about the nature of life and the barriers between sciences and which sciences can explain which phenomena.

SoMG - *applause*

Thank you. ID attempts to stop science from progressing, but without further scientific study those unknowns may never be discovered. What IDers most fear is that we may one day find the answers, and not one of those answers will contain the supernatural.

Janet, you wrote: " how do explain that kindergarten age children can understand the concept of God (or insert the name of any intelligent designer you wish) unless it is quite simple."

Kids can understand complex concepts. Any kid can picture getting lost in an infinitely complex maze. It's not hard to imagine something more complex than yourself if you leave out the details.

But if you claim the Intelligent Designer is simple, then you're asking to beleve in a simple thing that can create a more complex thing. That contradicts the IDer's notion of Irreducible Complexity.

A designer intelligent enough to create the world has to be more complex than what he creates. Simple things are not intelligent. Gravity is not intelligent.

Anyway, you can argue for a simple designer if you want to get mystical about it, but you will not deny that a designer is more a more POWERFUL hypothesis than purposeless (therefore IMPOTENT) random events culled by natural selection.

SoMG:A designer intelligent enough to create the world has to be more complex than what he creates. Simple things are not intelligent.

Couldn't you argue that a supercomputer is more intelligent than the human that creates it?

SoMG:To claim that so-far-unanswered biochemical questions like the development of the bacterial flagellum are evidence of Design is extremely arrogant. It assumes we should already know everything.

On the contrary, it seems to me the arrogance is in the scientist who believes he is smart enough to find all the answers.

Edyt, This idea that religious people fear science is ridiculous. Is that based on scientific evidence or opinion? I could argue the contrary that scientists fear God because it would interfere with their need to understand everything. Is that a fair assertion? God could have made us all dumb as dirt if He didn't want us to think and learn. And ID does not have to keep science from progressing. It only changes the perspective of study. I think Science and Religion both have a place in this world.

SoMG:Anyway, you can argue for a simple designer if you want to get mystical about it, but you will not deny that a designer is more a more POWERFUL hypothesis than purposeless (therefore IMPOTENT) random events culled by natural selection.

Thank you. Then I could hardly argue for a simple designer, given Occam's Razor, could I? Can anyone prove that Occam's Razor applies to this argument? Perhaps it's Occam's Razor that is incorrectly being applied. It wouldn't be the first time a theory was proven wrong.

SoMG:

I've recommended this book to many on this site (including Edyt), I just began reading it and find it quite interesting : "Common Sense 101" by Dale Alquist. It's an intro to the writings of G.K. Chesterton.
He believed in God, but don't let that sway you from at least looking at it! Here is Alquist's website dedicated to Chesterton's work - Interesting as well. Some pretty "heady" stuff.

http://www.chesterton.org/

Janet, you wrote: "On the contrary, it seems to me the arrogance is in the scientist who believes he is smart enough to find all the answers."

No he doesn't. That's the point.

Janet, you wrote: "Perhaps it's Occam's Razor that is incorrectly being applied. It wouldn't be the first time a theory was proven wrong."

Occam's Razor is not a theory. It's a scientific reasoning principle.

"It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything."

G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas: "The Dumb Ox"

And I've already read more GK Chesterton than I need.

SoMG: Occam's Razor is not a theory. It's a scientific reasoning principle.

Does that make a difference?

SoMG 4:22:: If "that's the point" I don't follow you. Can you please restate who the arrogant one here is and why?

He was very fat, you know. Other writers used to make fun of him for it.

PG Wodehouse once described a loud crash as "a sound like Chesterton falling into a cucumber frame."

Janet, you wrote: "On the contrary, it seems to me the arrogance is in the scientist who believes he is smart enough to find all the answers."

Maybe I should re-state it as:

"On the contrary, it seems to me the arrogance is in the scientist who believes he MUST find all the answers." (?)

I have to go, but I'll be back later... Thanks for the discussion, SoMG.

SoMG:

Ha ha! Yes, I guess he was quite the character!

Janet, I call IDers arrogant because they assume that our failure to answer a biochemical question (eg "How did the bacterial flagellum evolve?") is evidence that the biochemical question cannot be answered at all (except by reference to mysterious extra-chemical forces called Design.) That reasoning attributes to us the capacity for exhaustive biochemical knowledge, a complete understanding of every detail which we do not currently have or claim and never will.

It is arrogant to say (as ID does) just because I don't understand something now, it is therefore incapable of being explained biochemically by anyone forever. Lots of equally puzzling apparant biochemical paradoxes have been resolved over time.

Some people rejected the existance of reverse transcriptase as "paradoxical". Genetic information went from DNA to RNA to protein, that's just the way it was!

Actually SoMG,

Using Occam's Razor, it makes more sense to believe that there is an intelligent designer.

After all, we have proof that stuff always comes from something, but nowhere do we have proof that something came from nothing.

It is harder to believe that there was absolutely no life and then magically, life appeared.

No one has ever been able to duplicate the creation of something out of nothing. The simplest explanation is that it was created. We've seen this happen over and over, but have never seen it's opposite.

Plus, having a Designer, takes NONE of the fun out of figuring it all out.

Going with the "watch" analogy, does the watch keep any less perfect time because it had a watchmaker? Did Dagwood Bumstead stop taking apart vacuum cleaners, because someone made the vacuum cleaner? Why would it matter to a scientist how something came into being. Isn't science interested in the what, not the who? Isn't that metaphysics?

MK, you wrote: "It is harder to believe that there was absolutely no life and then magically, life appeared."

Not if you take out the word "magically", it's not. There's no reason a non-self-replicating molecular system (non-life) couldn't turn into a self-replicating one (life) by chemical reactions we have no way to identify now that the non-life is gone.

Anyway, MK, the Principle of Occam's Razor does not necessarily favor the theory that is easiest (for you) to believe. It favors the WEAKEST theory, the theory which implies LEAST EXTRA STUFF, other than explaining the data. This is almost always also the simplest theory.

You wrote: "Isn't science interested in the what, not the who? Isn't that metaphysics?"

Yes, that's true--UNTIL intelligent designers start making real-world predictions based on their medaphysical theories (such as the prediction that the evolution of the bacterial flagellum will never be understood in biochemical terms). Then it becomes an attempt at a scientific theory.

If funding decisions get made by people who believe that the evolution of the bacterial flagellum will never be understood in biochemical terms, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prediction for as long as they are in charge.

"...on their medaphysical theories..."

metaphysical

Look mk,
(aside) I tried to post rather lengthy answers in our exchange on the other thread, but it did not post.

so...
ID'ers (disguised creationists as has been shown by the Wedge Document) opened up a can of worms they can't handle. Remember science didn't start this fight - evolution was taught in public schools, and every parent was welcome to answer JOhnny's questions about it at home by claiming, well God must have started the process, as many parents did. Science was science and religion was within the parent's purview.

But some of the Johnnnies' parents were fundamentalist Christians who had been telling Johnny the Genesis 6000 y o earth story - and felt they couldn't back out of it, as some religions have done by backing away from a literalist application of the bible. Comparable to a kid whose parents have been playing Santa Claus and who won't 'fess up when the kid finds the red velvet suit in the attic, and now declares that all kids in public school must be taught the Santa origin of Christmas gifts in addition to the Walmart version.

Bobby:

I expected a bit more from you than a spelling correction.

Janet:
a kindergartner may be able to parrot a very simplistic explanation of God, but the 3 omni version is one that tangles most adults.

mk:
Using the logic of your argument above, one arrives at the very uncomfortable question for believers: then who made God?
You see, you don't "solve" the mystery, you just move it a generation back.
Your "solution" is to begin with a belief in God, which is called circular reasoning.

Bobby:

I expected a bit more from you than a spelling correction.

Janet:
a kindergartner may be able to parrot a very simplistic explanation of God, but the 3 omni version is one that tangles most adults.

mk:
Using the logic of your argument above, one arrives at the very uncomfortable question for believers: then who made God?
You see, you don't "solve" the mystery, you just move it a generation back.
Your "solution" is to begin with a belief in God, which is called circular reasoning.

SoMG,

My understanding of Occams Razor, which admittedly comes from Sherlock Holmes, is that when deciding between multiple solutions to a problem, you choose the simplest. We have NO proof that non-life can become life. Saying that we have no proof that it can't, to me, puts this theory smack on par with the theory that there is an intelligent designer. You're response is that we can't prove intelligent design. And our response is you can't disprove it.

Our responsed to spontaneous life is that you can't prove it, and your response is that we can't disprove it.

My point being we know of lots and lots of things that exist and can point to their creators, art, cars, airplanes, leading us to believe that stuff is created. We have nothing, anywhere that has EVER been created from nothing. It is this "something" that we are talking about. What is the "something" that life came from. You can ALWAYS go backwards a step and ask, "Yes, but where did that come from?"

The Fibbonacci system and the golden rule, to me, are things that simply cannot be adequately explained. Why, why does that shell develop perfectly? Why is a flower subject to the same law? Where does this "law" come from?

While you might have an argument that things evolved into what they are, how do you explain "perfection"? And not just perfection in one thing, but across the board? Where you have a law as complex as this one, the most logical (Occams Razor) conclusion is that there IS a lawmaker.

Until you can create life from non life, or until you can explain the origins of "the golden rule" in nature, I think you will always have the unanswered question of "where is the "first""? Where is the beginning? Where is "start" on the gameboard of life.

You can study science all you want within the parameters of this, but you cannot, and I suspect will never be able to, explain the primary source.

Not if you take out the word "magically", it's not. There's no reason a non-self-replicating molecular system (non-life) couldn't turn into a self-replicating one (life) by chemical reactions we have no way to identify now that the non-life is gone.

That's the point! You are claiming that it happened once and now the evidence is gone, but in nature things happen the same way over and over. This is where we get our laws of nature with which we base our science on. We can only fly airplanes because we understand the laws of gravity and aerodynamics. Things that happen consistently.

Life coming from non life doesn't happen. You are claiming that it must have, at least once. But where else do we have nature doing something once, and never again?

"I expected a bit more from you than a spelling correction."

I don't take a stand on ID vs. evolution.

mk:

Please state your formulation of the "golden rule."

The hysterical reaction to this movie by evolutionists shows that they are afraid, and for good reason. After decades of their point of view being the only one allowed in public schools, and dominating popular culture, they are shocked to discover that the vast majority of Americans do not accept their arguments. It's therefore no surprise that they will do anything to maintain their domination of the Ivory Tower.

Just out of curiousity Jill, exactly when was it that "scientists" said that the earth was flat? I'm pretty sure they never did...

I haven't seen the film yet,so I can't pass
judgement on it.But I am definitely curious
to see it.From what I have heard about it,
I would say that it is right to point out that
it is wrong to fire academics merely for
expressing divergent opinions,but absolutely
wrong in implying that Darwinism is responsible
for Hitler and the holocaust,and the actions of
other murderous tyrants.Hitler did not need Darwin
to cause WW2 and the holocaust,nor did Stalin
for his paranoid,murderous career.
Darwin's theories are neither good nor bad
in themselves;they are just theories,and you
can take them or leave them.
The ironic thing is that Darwin was the most
benign and inoffensive of people.He himself stated that he had no intentions of interfering
with any one's religious beliefs.
He was a mild-mannered,kindly man,happily
married with a large family.By conservative
standards,he lived a life of exemplary
"family values".(I hate that term;it's just
a smokescreen for intolerance).

Heir,

The sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is known as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, ... (each number is the sum of the previous two).

Wow Robert, except for what you said about family values being a smokescreen for intolerance, I basically agree with everything you said.

Robert,
Children in public schools are taught Darwin's theories. How can they "take them or leave them?"

Hal,

Religionists may have wrongly described the earth as flat but nowhere does the Bible make that claim, ever.

God's Word is infinite. Man's understanding of it is finite. That is why the Book can be talked about and taught from for millennia and never becomes stale and more and more of its truths are discovered every day.

SoMG:

You obviopusly have taken biology courses and are more versed in that area of expertise than most of us on this site. By virtue of your retorts against ID and creationism, however, you are making the huge assumption that we who believe as such are somehow at a disadvantage.

I submit this; Evolutionism is full of extrapolations, assumptions, lies and downright misinformation. I.e., scientists taking a fragment from a jawbone and over different periods rendering completely different skull configurations from the same fragment. Thus, to be an evolutionist requires faith.

To believe that God created the earth and the heavens requires faith as well. Our evidence is 66 books written and compiled over 6,000 years by different Jews with a common theme: The revelation of the Creator to the created. How do we know that the Book is true? Because every single prophecy has been accurately fulfilled up to this point in history. This implies that the writer of the Book, who we believe is God, has knowledge of the future. Only a Being with an eternal perspective can have such knowledge.

If you were to spend one tenth the amount of time on studying these prophecies and their fulfillment as you do on promoting really what is, compared to theology, an elematary subject, and you were an honest person, only one conclusion could be arrived at. The Bible is true and its author God. To arrive at any other conclusion would demonstrate a closed mind, an unwillingness to change, and assumed mindset that one possessed more knowledge than the Creator.

I present to you a passage in the 17th chapter of Acts to you SoMG. If you had lived at that time you would have been one of these so-called scientists of the day, people who relied on man's accumulated knowlege up to that point, the philsophers of the time, to explain and cope with the human condition. Some listened with their hearts and were converted, others well.....here's the story:

16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

29"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

You've got one chance in this life SoMG to answer this question, the most important question every human being is asked which is,
"Who do you say that I am"?

"The sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is known as the Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, ... (each number is the sum of the previous two)."

Oh yeah! Not that I don't want to be, but why are we talking about this? Do ya'll want to prove that the limit of the ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers converges to the golden ratio? I can walk us thorough it... it'll be fun...

Robert:

Apart from Darwin's demeanor and lifestyle of the day, evolution devalues human life. Throughout the ages men have innocently put forth philsophies that they considered totally inert only to find out over time, resulted in much destruction.

When people like Stalin or Hitler embrace the essence of evolution's philosophies, conclusions are made that people have no intrinsic value or value assinged to them by their Creator. Eliminate the life causitive from the formula and the determinate becomes whatever one's dark desires can imagine. Men are supremely capable of self-deception.

That is how supposedley intelligent men and woman like Hitler and Stalin and Margaret Sanger, which we all agree now in hindsight, were complete idiots, could espouse the values that they espoused.

It is the same mindset which allows one today to embrace abortion as a morally neutral event. A mindset that can so violently assert that the baby in the womb, as TR so inanely preaches, is just "a blob of insentiant, non-viable mass of tissue and cells". Her idiocy will also be determined in the future as such.

OK stud man.

Explain to our group here how scientists and engineers, when presented with an indeterminate mathematical relationship, arrive at a solution employing the Runge-Kutta method (order 4) - my preference by the way.

Also, please tell the crowd how evolution uses a similar method (extrapolation), although not mathematical but more philosophical, in bantering evolution as a done deal, a solution narrived at, and how that assumption represents a total disconnect in logical sequencing. Summation, stud man, summation.

Hey evolution profs, are your faces red yet?

Darwin was an agnostic,not an atheist.
Blaming him for the holocaust is like blaming Jesus Christ for the Spanish Inquisition.
Students are taught about Darwin in schools,
but no teacher says to them"You must believe
this or else".If they do not believe what
they are taught,that is their right.When I
was in high school and college,I often heard ideas
from teachers and professors with which I disagreed.We would discuss things in class
calmly,and no one was harmed.Why can't it
be like this in schools today?

I'll leave the differential equations to you, HisMan. Of course, the truth is I barely remember anything about O.D.E.s, hehe.

But actually, Stud, I think your second paragraph touches on the fact that evolution has actually been hijacked by guys like Dawkins to to push his brand of illogical atheism. The science of it may be right, it may be wrong, I don't know, but there are all these philosophical corollaries that some people draw (which of course I believe do not follow) to push an atheistic agenda. That's where I think the real problem is.

But even the mathematics of evolution, I dunno.

Robert,

Why can't it
be like this in schools today?

That would be the point of the movie expelled.

Bobby,

My point about the golden rule/series/ratio/triangle etc. was that it is pervasive throughout the natural world and it is as close to perfection as anything.

I want to know how evolution can explain this theory showing up in EVERYTHING from human hands to sea shells to the Ark of the Covenant...and still say that it was random.

Exactly Mr. Berger:

Why can't the Bible be taught in public schools and then calmly be discussed?

Why is it censored as it is in communist and Islamic countries?

Let me just say that most scientists DON"T use evolution as a platform for athiesm. I can think of 2, and that is why they are famous and well-known (but also, they are brilliant scientists). The claim that this is all one big conspiracy is just paranoia on behalf of creationists.

And actually, we do have a pretty good idea of how the flagellum evolved.

Funny how many science documentaries are much farther up than this farce. I am enjoying it.
Penguins has it beat by approximately 71,000,000.
And look at all of those liberal documentaries! Fun.

Haha looks like even Tupac is more interesting than Stein at this point.

A promise: not all pro-lifers are this anti-science.

By the way, Galileo was in a sense protected by the church, but plenty of both Catholic and Protestant leaders kinda wanted him dead. He challenged their worldview.

"And Hal, the earth being flat is not in any way connected with the Bible. It isn't an history or a science book"

Alex you are getting it! You are getting it!!!

Hey PIP!

"Let me just say that most scientists DON"T use evolution as a platform for athiesm."

I think you're referring to my comment, and I didn't mean to just limit it to scientists. This also includes Sam Harris, christopher hitchens, John Allen Paulos, and others who subscribe to the "new" atheism, which I'm sure has Bertrand Russell and David Hume rolling over in their graves. God love you, PIP.

Exactly again Mr. Berger:

If Mr. Darwin had one inkling of any type of biblical knowledge perhaps it would have tempered his "science". His prejudice was obvious and the results are a philosophy that has led many away from God.

In fact, any scientist without the knowledge of God is a handicapped scientist.

@ Corinthians 10
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Proverbs 9:10
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 10:27
The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.

Proverbs 14:2
He whose walk is upright fears the LORD, but he whose ways are devious despises him.

Proverbs 14:16
A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil, but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.

Proverbs 14:26
He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.

Proverbs 14:27
The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.

Proverbs 15:16
Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil.

Proverbs 15:33
The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, [ Or Wisdom teaches the fear of the LORD ] and humility comes before honor.

Proverbs 16:6
Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil.

Proverbs 19:23
The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

Proverbs 22:4
Humility and the fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life.

Proverbs 23:17
Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the LORD.

Proverbs 24:21
Fear the LORD and the king, my son, and do not join with the rebellious,

Proverbs 28:14
Blessed is the man who always fears the LORD, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.

Hi Bobby,

Sorry if I misunderstood you. I thought you made the claim that most science teachers use it as a platform. If that is not what you are saying, then Expelled would be making false claims, according to you.

Now philosophy...that is a good place to discuss the metaphysical side of origins. That is a good thing. Philosophy is not science :)

Carla- just because it's taught to you in school doesn't mean you actually take anything away from it.

Like my sophomore AP Chem class. I don't remember ANY of it.

Man, I hated Chem.

"I thought you made the claim that most science teachers use it as a platform. If that is not what you are saying, then Expelled would be making false claims, according to you."

Oh I have no idea! I don't know anything about what most scientists are doing. I guess I should have been more clear that I had the new atheism in mind.

Hi Erin,
I get that.
I guess what I am saying is 6th and 7th grade students, being impressionable and only given Darwin's Theory of Evolution, taught as fact, should take away what exactly? And if you don't take anything away from it, why teach it??
I had a student who stood up in her 7th grade Science class and stated "That is not what I learned in Sunday School class." The teacher had no answer there. He asked her to sit down and then continued talking about monkeys.
Not looking to argue, babe just thinking through the posts. :)

PIP:

There you go again. And I must say, you are very arrogant in your assumption and statement that implies that there are any pro-lifers on this site that are ignorant anti-science types. I mean, none of us is as smart as you are PIP, right? I've spent more years in school than you've been alive. I just don't worship science and scientists like you do and for good reason. Science is as "shifting sand and passing shadow".
I choose to stand on the "Rock"

And, so you understand exactly where I am coming from I will back up my point with scripture if you don't mind...and repost this passage:
1 Corinthians 10
3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Note carefully PIP in verse 5 "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God", there is no qualifier as to the form of the argument or pretension that we oppose be it labeled evolution, or science, or philosophy, or religion, or whatever. We are not anti-science we are anti-Biblical ignorance. Can you grasp that concept PIP?

You asked me to read "Finding Darwin's God". I did. The guy has no clue about what the Bible says and his assertion that evolution doesn't conflict with the story of creation is hogwash and utter heresy. I now ask you to read the Bible. Learn Hebrew and Greek. Spend about 10 years at this and then come talk to me.

"Darwin's Theory of Evolution, taught as fact, should take away what exactly"

Well if it taught as fact and not theory + fact, then the teacher is at fault, there.

They should take away that evolution is change in allele frequencies over time, and hopefully learn about some darwinian and non-darwinian mechanisms of evolution, too. Hopefully the teacher won't bring in any religious motivations or we may have a problem.

"And if you don't take anything away from it, why teach it??"
Why wouldn't you take anything away from it? If science is an interest they should take away science from it.

"The teacher had no answer there"
Looks like you guys have some non-decent teachers. He/she should have said, "well, there are many ways religion and evolution can reconcile. Feel free to talk with me after class if you have any further questions on that."

PiP: A promise: not all pro-lifers are this anti-science.

How do you define "anti-science"? I don't see it here.

What I see are anti-God types who hold their scientific beliefs as tightly as a believer would hold their religion. And the scientists are much less tolerant of religion overall than the religious are of science.

HisMan- I am fluent in Greek and have read a copy of the Bible in Greek and in English.

I'm still an atheist.

Any better suggestions?

"There you go again. And I must say, you are very arrogant in your assumption and statement that implies that there are any pro-lifers on this site that are ignorant anti-science types."
Nah, I just think that any rabid intelligent-designer is anti-science...because intelligent design pins itself AGAINST science. Jeez, you have seen the movie right? Seems a bit anti-science to me.

" I mean, none of us is as smart as you are PIP, right?"
When did I attack anyones intelligence? I'm trying to debate really respectfully now. I would just assume that those who love the movie are anti-science...because the movie itself is anti science.

"I just don't worship science and scientists like you do and for good reason."
Now you are just being silly. How is the reading going, by the way?

I know that I talked about one specific teacher. I also have a friend who had a teacher that taught Darwins Theory as fact, BUT gave my friend one whole class period to discuss his faith in God and creation. Pretty cool.

I am thinking hard about all of this as my eldest son will be heading off to middle school and I am concerned about how this is taught. He will be the one to stand up too. :)

"How do you define "anti-science"? I don't see it here."

Those who are against science.. ;)
If someone supports ID, without giving evolution a fair read, then they are not being intellectually honest with themselves in my opinion. I think each side deserves to be researched. But still I would say those who are big fans of expelled are anti-science because the movie itself pins itself against science and its basic principles.

"What I see are anti-God types who hold their scientific beliefs as tightly as a believer would hold their religion."
There are not as many as you think, though. It's just most of those people are more outspoken.

PIP,
The science teachers I just talked about were both atheists. What exactly could they discuss about science and religion after class? Especially to a Christian student?

"I know that I talked about one specific teacher. I also have a friend who had a teacher that taught Darwins Theory as fact, BUT gave my friend one whole class period to discuss his faith in God and creation. Pretty cool."

I think it's cool if a teacher wants to set aside time to discuss how to reconcile God with evolution and have a discussion especially if you go to a christian school (like I do, and we did). But we should be careful not to insert religious opinion, that is were we can run into some trouble.

PIP,
I do love picking your brain!!! :)

"The science teachers I just talked about were both atheists. What exactly could they discuss about science and religion after class? Especially to a Christian student?"

Hm..well, I think most teachers should still care about the well-being of their students. They should be trained to reconcile problems like these. The least they could do is tell them to read "Finding Darwin's God." Maybe its just me and my high standards for public education, I don't know, lol.

"PIP,
I do love picking your brain!!! :)"

Aww, thanks :) I love discussing the issue!

"I do love picking your brain!!! :)"

I love picking my nose!

"You asked me to read "Finding Darwin's God". I did. The guy has no clue about what the Bible says and his assertion that evolution doesn't conflict with the story of creation is hogwash and utter heresy. I now ask you to read the Bible. Learn Hebrew and Greek. Spend about 10 years at this and then come talk to me."

Oh shoot I missed this part. Sorry. I got so passionate I had to respond quickly!!

Please tell me specific criticisms of some of the passages in the book. Then we can discuss how that relates to biblical interpretation.

And sorry, reading a 200 page book and studying the Bible for 10 years/learning two languages is not a fair trade.

Sorry, the 12 year old boy in me came out again...

This teacher really did upset my student. He never mentioned it to her again and she came to my room and had a good cry. He was a "my way or the highway" type of teacher. So much for critical thinking.
So I do like that you said teachers SHOULD still care about the well-being of their students. Agreed.

Same, Carla. Sadly, the public education system needs some serious reform. It seems like education nowadays is lacking in good teachers (maybe its a lack of motivation?). I'm sorry she was upset :(

LOL, Bobby!

I have to go to work now. I hope to be back in an hour or 2. Please feel free to respond and I'll get back with you all!

PIP,

since you've read Miller's book now, there's something I've wanted to ask you about, but I think I'll do that over fb, and if it makes sense we can talk about it here. I'll write to you later.

Janet 4:27 LOVE the quote!!!

"I do love picking your brain!!! :)"
I love picking my nose!

Erin:

No, you have read a copy of the New Testament in Greek.

So now I suggest you learn Hebrew.

A student of the bible knows that the New Testament was written in Greek and the Old, Hebrew. Tell me, what's the Greek word for love?

PIP:

I guess that depends on your priorities.

But please don't make assertions simply based on the lastest science class or prof you're swooning over when those assertions directly oppose Scripture. These temporal conditons will pass into obscurity.

Why am I being so hard on you PIP? Because you want to advance the notion that evolution and creation are compatible. You just can't seem to embrace the fact the the Bible simply means what it says, because well, that's too simple for you. A careful and diligent study of the Hebrew language and the Book of Genesis makes the creation/evolution compatibility notion untenable. Therefore, even though you are a believer, you are being misled and misleading others in the process. I therefore must rebuke you in the strongest terms in hopes that you will open your heart and learn the truth. We are commanded not to add to the Word of God.

If you understood God PIP, you would understand that He is infinite. While He is infinite, He is also simple, the infinite extrapolates to the simple and vice versa. Can you understand that? While the Bible is the infinite Word of God, it's principles are simple. It can appeal to a small child or a genius. That's why faith is so beautiful. It allows me the simplicity to trust that which is infinite. It allows me to surrender my inability to understand all.

However, when finite human beings promote ideas, and that's all evolution is, that are in direct oppositon to the Bible's simple truths, I have a problem with that.

Robert Berger asserts that Darwin was agnostic or atheistic. Assuming he is correct, and I could care less if he is, because I know in whom I have believed, the title of the book "Finding Darwin's God" is a misnomer, unless the title becomes, "Finding Darwin's god". The god of your favorite books does not exist.

HisMan- which kind of love? (Those greeks were fond of the eros type)

Hey Bobby,

You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose.
You can't pick your friends nose. Natural Law 101.

"You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose.
You can't pick your friends nose. Natural Law 101."

I don't see how that follows... lemme see what Robert George has to say about this...

"But please don't make assertions simply based on the lastest science class or prof you're swooning over when those assertions directly oppose Scripture. These temporal conditons will pass into obscurity."
Actually right now my teacher is making me angry because his tests are different each time we take them so I don't know whether I'm getting an A or B- on them.
But no, he doesn't say anything that opposes scripture.

" You just can't seem to embrace the fact the the Bible simply means what it says, because well, that's too simple for you."

Then I guess the bible really is geocentric. Bethany here is at least the most consistent on this.

"Robert Berger asserts that Darwin was agnostic or atheistic. Assuming he is correct, and I could care less if he is, because I know in whom I have believed, the title of the book "Finding Darwin's God" is a misnomer, unless the title becomes, "Finding Darwin's god". The god of your favorite books does not exist."

Hisman, you supposedly read the book. Nowhere did he claim that the book was written to explain Darwin's religious beliefs. Why does it even matter what Darwin believed-it doesn't matter to how valid the theory is. Would you disapprove of a mathematical theory simply because the person who came up with it was atheist?

", there's something I've wanted to ask you about, but I think I'll do that over fb, and if it makes sense we can talk about it here. I'll write to you later."
Sounds good.

And please HisMan let's discuss specific parts of the book you don't agree with.

Pip said:
Now philosophy...that is a good place to discuss the metaphysical side of origins. That is a good thing. Philosophy is not science :)

True, philosophy is not the same as science, but philosophy was called the Queen of the Sciences: includes math (symbolic logic) , originally including the natural sciences like physics, too. Psychology as in epistemology, and value, as is ethics.

I suggest you check some middle and high school course lists to find philosophy. Let us know what your discovery reveals.

Lets check that: It is not one of the natural sciences. I did not include the 'natural' part on the assumption that people would infer that. Will include it in the future.

I do wish high schools offer philosophy and theology classes. I really enjoy them at my school.

to elaborate, philosophy is not now considered a natural science, right? There is an underlying philosophy of science; that is the conceded basis that natural phenomena have natural causes.

HisMan, you wrote: "Why can't the Bible be taught in public schools and then calmly be discussed?"

It is. As literature.

The Bible can be taught in public school. It IS being taught. Check out The Bible Literacy Project.

MK, you wrote: "Our responsed to spontaneous life is that you can't prove it, and your response is that we can't disprove it."

Exactly. When two rival theories which attempt to explain the same thing cannot be tested against each other experimentally, scientists decide between them using (all together now, kids!) the Principle of Occam's Razor. Which dictates that you go with the theory which is WEAKEST, the one which implies the LEAST AMOUNT OF EXTRA STUFF besides explaining the data (or having the potential to explain it.)

You wrote: "Life coming from non life doesn't happen. You are claiming that it must have, at least once. But where else do we have nature doing something once, and never again?"

How do you know it only happened once? Maybe the First Biological Organism and all its progeny died off and a new one was generated by a repeat of the chemical reactions which generated the first one. Maybe this happened thousands of times before the life took hold. We don't know enough details about it to say, or to answer the question why it doesn't seem to happen today.

Which, by the way, we do not know for certain. Maybe somewhere deep in the ocean life is being generated from non-life all the time, and we just haven't tumbled to it yet.

OK SoMG:

Show me a "Bible as Literature" textbook that backs your claim. Lists the school districts where the textbook is used with contact names and numbers.

I'll then make some calls and determine exactly how it's taught.

That Bible Literacy Project looks pretty interesting, actually. Even I'd agree that a person needs to know something about the Bible to have a solid understanding of our culture. :)

Oh Carla - thanks for the laugh. TO quote one pundit, like the Moral Majority, the Bible as Literacy (and its textbook "The Bible and Its Influence" is neither - it's a thinly disguised effort of the religious right Templeton OFUndation et al,to get biblical teaching into public schools. As such, it is intellectually bankrupt, sanitized, decontextualized, shabby excuse to cut down a tree for the paper it's printed on.

You have to wonder, when real scholars diss it and the very fundamentalist, evangelical grousp it was designed to pander to also diss it how badly did they screw up?

Yes, it is good for students to have familiarity with cultural influences - from the Greeks and the bible to the Q'uran and the Tao I Ching. But do so honestly, fairly and critically in the scholarly sense.

SoMG,

Which dictates that you go with the theory which is WEAKEST, the one which implies the LEAST AMOUNT OF EXTRA STUFF besides explaining the data (or having the potential to explain it.)

EXACTLY! That's what I am trying to say. My answer? There was an intelligent creater, because we know that things are created. Everything complex that is manmade was created by man. We have evidence of ideas being turned into physicalities by creators.

Your theory: We have no idea but MAYBE there was nothing and then that nothing spontaneously became something, even tho we have NO EVIDENCE of that happening before or since. Actually, we have evidence that it doesn't happen.

Now which one takes a greater leap of faith?

Maybe the First Biological Organism and all its progeny died off and a new one was generated by a repeat of the chemical reactions which generated the first one. Maybe this happened thousands of times before the life took hold. We don't know enough details about it to say, or to answer the question why it doesn't seem to happen today.

And why is it easier, simpler, less stuff to believe that than Intelligent Design? Or aliens? Or elves?

SoMG,

We know, KNOW, that nature repeats itself. We know that the sunflower reproduces sunflowers. We know that water is collected in clouds and dropped on the earth. Over and over. Nothing in nature happens only once. To me this is evidence that nothing turned into something, because if it was part of nature it would be repeatable and it would happen again, and again...see?

JenR, you wrote: "Even I'd agree that a person needs to know something about the Bible to have a solid understanding of our culture. :)"

I agree. For one thing, you can't understand Shakespeare without it.

MK, you wrote: "There was an intelligent creater, because we know that things are created."

Nope. Not all things. Not even MOST things.

You wrote: "Everything complex that is manmade was created by man. "

So what? You (and IDers generally) are attempting to reason by analogy--you say "SOME complex things were created deliberately (by us), therefore ALL complex things must have been created deliberately (or evolved from something which itself was created deliberately)." Sophomoric faulty reasoning. Not even sophomoric--childish is a better description.

You wrote: "Your theory: We have no idea but MAYBE there was nothing and then that nothing spontaneously became something, even tho we have NO EVIDENCE of that happening before or since. Actually, we have evidence that it doesn't happen."

No we don't. We have evidence only that if it happens it takes longer than any experiment we have done so far, and/or requires different preceding chemical conditions than we have been able to set up.

And anyway, "my" theory is NOT as you say that there was "nothing" and that "nothing" became "something". The theory is that there was a NON-SELF-REPLICATING MOLECULAR ENSEMBLE (non-life or proto-life) which became a self-replicating molecular ensemble (life). Proto-life is not "nothing".

You wrote: "Nothing in nature happens only once. "

How about the Big Bang? The death of the last dodo bird?

You wrote: "To me this is evidence that nothing turned into something, because if it was part of nature it would be repeatable and it would happen again, and again...see?"

Again, you don't know that it isn't happening again, somewhere. If it WERE happening, we probably wouldn't know, it would probably be very difficult to detect. How would you set about looking for it? How would you recognize it if you found it?

Even if you DID know for certain that the chemical transformation from proto-life to life was not taking place anywhere in the world that's still not so hard to explain and you don't need to appeal to anything beyond chemical/physical law--maybe the chemical conditions required for effective proto-life (that is, a non-self-replicating molecular ensemble capable of turning into a self-replicating one) are rare, only occur once in ten billion years. Once is enough to potentially explain everything WITHOUT a designer, without appeal to anything stronger than physical laws and randomness.

You wrote: "And why is it easier, simpler, less stuff to believe that than Intelligent Design? Or aliens? Or elves? "

It just is. Aliens, elves, and an intelligent designer are all extra "stuff".

(mk) You wrote: "Nothing in nature happens only once. "
SoMG wrote: The death of the last dodo bird?

There were other dodos that died previously, it didn't happen just once. Once the last one dies, it's not really part of nature any more, is it?

You admit there are so many unknowns on the evolutionary side. Seems unwise to discount the possibility of ID. Why can't scientists on both sides continue their work in both areas of study? It shouldn't have to be one or the other....especially where research money is involved. I think that's the point that "Expelled" is trying to make. studying one doesn't invalidate the other. How many other scientific disciplines are limited to one area of research this way?

Jill, I'm no bible expert, but I'm quite sure that religion defended the "flat, center if the universe, earth," more than science.

Posted by: Hal at May 8, 2008 3:06 PM
***************
Remember - Jill is the one who insisted there is *no evidence* that mankind existed more than 6000 years ago .... then assiduously avoided all the piles of proof the statement was absurdly incorrect

That's the point of the example. The extinction of any given species is a unique biological event which happens only once.

SoMG, have you read this article from Discover?

It's called "Did Life Evolve From Ice?" and follows some very interesting experiments on RNA replication in low temperatures.

Very interesting studies.

Well, RNA replication is one part I found interesting, but I should clarify, it's more about the origins of life.

SoMG,

So what? You (and IDers generally) are attempting to reason by analogy--you say "SOME complex things were created deliberately (by us), therefore ALL complex things must have been created deliberately (or evolved from something which itself was created deliberately)." Sophomoric faulty reasoning. Not even sophomoric--childish is a better description.

No, I am saying that we have evidence that some things were created. You have no evidence of something spontaneously coming from nothing. Therefore the logical leap to "all things came from a creator" is less than the logical leap "therefore life came from non life". Even the act of new life is created by a man and woman uniting. Woman don't just become spontaneously pregnant.

How about the Big Bang? The death of the last dodo bird?

First, you have no proof of the big bang, and second we have seen other stars explode, no? As for the dodo bird, many animals have become extinct. The dodo bird fits nature repeating itself.

It just is. Aliens, elves, and an intelligent designer are all extra "stuff".

No, they're not. I'll stop using "something from nothing" and replace it with "life from no life"

Over and over and over again, we have life coming from life. Nowhere do we have life coming from non life. It is extra stuff to say that this one time life came from no life. It is nothing extra to say that life first came from THE life.

Heck, you're side can't even define life. Or the moment life begins. Yet you want me to accept that even tho you can't explain where it came from, you are posititive that it happened spontaneously.

Now that is childish.

We have proof, that to get life, you must start with life. That's scientific evidence.

You have no proof that to get life, you don't need life. That's conjecture.

You claim that the reason you haven't been able to duplicate this process of spontaneous life is that you just haven"t hit on the right combination of circumstances. Well, I've hit on it six times now.

I wasn't pregnant, then the right circumstances came together and I was pregnant....voila!

When life meets life, new life happens. There is no other way. There never has been any other way.
There never will be any other way.

Real science would be trying to figure out what life is, what this "thing" is that animates something. Rather than chasing after something they will never know for sure.

The fact that it is so unique and unreplicable is what makes it so sacred. Rather than killing off all of this life, and throwing it away with the McDonalds, scientists should be treating it like gold. It does, after all, hold the key to all of their speculations...

MK,
Have you ever seen Louie Giglio?
Go to YouTube and type in Louie Giglio-Laminin

He talks about a specific protein molecule. Amazing!! :)

Gerry: He wrote that evolutionism didn't need to explain the origin of life until a university student of the pseudo-science corrected him.

Evolution in no way is dependent upon a particular origin of life. We observe the evidence for evolution just as we do for gravity, though in both cases we don't know everything about them.

Do ya'll want to prove that the limit of the ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers converges to the golden ratio? I can walk us thorough it... it'll be fun...

Bobby, back on that thread a week or two ago where we were talking about math, I pointed out that one doesn't even have to begin with two Fibonacci numbers.

It works with any two numbers - I think I picked 2 and 43,980. After 7 or 8 iterations it was .615... getting pretty close.

philosophy is not now considered a natural science, right? There is an underlying philosophy of science; that is the conceded basis that natural phenomena have natural causes.

PIP, you continue to rock.

"What I see are anti-God types who hold their scientific beliefs as tightly as a believer would hold their religion."

PIP: There are not as many as you think, though. It's just most of those people are more outspoken.

On the "anti-God" part, I don't think that science has anything to do with it, necessarily. Nobody can say they have proof that "there is no God," or anything else in the supernatural realm.

Stating one's belief is fine, but in argument, pointing to one's unprovable belief as if it is fact, provided it is not shared by all participants, is faulty.

I want to know how evolution can explain this theory showing up in EVERYTHING from human hands to sea shells to the Ark of the Covenant...and still say that it was random.

MK, it's not "random." There are natural patterns of growth and decay that appear as you say, and they are also involved in population growth and decline, evolution included.

Conscious, "thinking" deities are one thing, but that there are physical/natural laws and tendencies across the universe isn't at issue, really. Or is it?

MK wrote: Nothing in nature happens only once.

SoMG: "How about the Big Bang? The death of the last dodo bird? "

MK: First, you have no proof of the big bang...

There is plenty of proof of the Big Bang. I forget the details but it was only a few years ago that an anisotrophy project added more proof of it.

However, the Big Bang would not necessarily be a one-shot deal. The universe could contract to a singularity, then expand, then contract again, expand again, etc.

It was thought for some time that that was what was occuring as we observe it - that the universe's rate of expansion would slow due to gravity (all matter attracting all other matter), thus setting up for another contraction.

Yet now it's revealed that the rate of expansion is increasing rather than decreasing. Whoa!

There is conjecture that "dark matter" and other things may be responsible, but there is much we don't know...

"It works with any two numbers - I think I picked 2 and 43,980. After 7 or 8 iterations it was .615... getting pretty close."

Right-o, Doug!

Hmm, for some reason the link didn't post.

Hopefully this will do it.

MK, I'd suggest a read. It provides a working example of life coming from non-life ...

One morning in late 1997, Stanley Miller lifted a glass vial from a cold, bubbling vat. For 25 years he had tended the vial as though it were an exotic orchid, checking it daily, adding a few pellets of dry ice as needed to keep it at –108 degrees Fahrenheit. He had told hardly a soul about it. Now he set the frozen time capsule out to thaw, ending the experiment that had lasted more than one-third of his 68 years.

Miller had filled the vial in 1972 with a mixture of ammonia and cyanide, chemicals that scientists believe existed on early Earth and may have contributed to the rise of life. He had then cooled the mix to the temperature of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa—too cold, most scientists had assumed, for much of anything to happen. Miller disagreed. Examining the vial in his laboratory at the University of California at San Diego, he was about to see who was right.

As Miller and his former student Jeffrey Bada brushed the frost from the vial that morning, they could see that something had happened. The mixture of ammonia and cyanide, normally colorless, had deepened to amber, highlighting a web of cracks in the ice. Miller nodded calmly, but Bada exclaimed in shock. It was a color that both men knew well—the color of complex polymers made up of organic molecules. Tests later confirmed Miller's and Bada’s hunch. Over a quarter-century, the frozen ammonia-cyanide blend had coalesced into the molecules of life: nucleobases, the building blocks of RNA and DNA, and amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Darwin was certainly well versed in the Bible;
he originally intended to become a clergyman.
If the Bible is to be studied in school,it
should be in classes on comparitive religion;
that's fine with me.But it has absolutely no
place in science classes being taught as
scientific fact.You conservatives wouldn't want
to have the government force religious classes
to teach evolution as fact.
Again,let students make up their own minds.
That's their right.
What I meant about the term"family values"
being a smokescreen for intolerance stands.
It's just a eupemism.It's used as an excuse
to demonize any one who is not heterosexual,
religious,and married with children by many
people.

PIP and Berger:

Here's a website, a very scientific website, that understands the debate and puts forth some compelling evidence for the creation account.

Open your minds, go to the site and study it.

www.creationevidence.org

And Berger, iy is Christians who are being demonized and censored, by the very groups you support. Why, because we stand for God's values that would require a rejection of perversion and an embracing of holiness.

EVIDENCE FOR CREATION

1. The Fossil Record...Evolutionists have constructed the Geologic Column in order to illustrate the supposed progression of "primitive" life forms to "more complex" systems we observe today. Yet, "since only a small percentage of the earth's surface obeys even a portion of the geologic column the claim of their having taken place to form a continuum of rock/life/time over the earth is therefore a fantastic and imaginative contrivance.1" "[T]he lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled."2 This supposed column is actually saturated with "polystrate fossils" (fossils extending from one geologic layer to another) that tie all the layers to one time-frame. "[T]o the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation." 3

2. Decay of Earth's Magnetic Field... Dr. Thomas Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso, has published the definitive work in this field.4 Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the earth's magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate, demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1,400 years. In practical application its strength 20,000 years ago would approximate that of a magnetic star. Under those conditions many of the molecules necessary for life processes could not form. These data demonstrate that earth's entire history is young, within a few thousand of years.

3. The Global Flood... The Biblical record clearly describes a global Flood during Noah's day. Additionally, there are hundreds of Flood traditions handed down through cultures all over the world. 5 M.E. Clark and Henry Voss have demonstrated the scientific validity of such a Flood providing the sedimentary layering we see on every continent. 6 Secular scholars report very rapid sedimentation and periods of great carbonate deposition in earth's sedimentary layers..7 It is now possible to prove the historical reality of the Biblical Flood.8

4. Population Statistics...World population growth rate in recent times is about 2% per year. Practicable application of growth rate throughout human history would be about half that number. Wars, disease, famine, etc. have wiped out approximately one third of the population on average every 82 years. Starting with eight people, and applying these growth rates since the Flood of Noah's day (about 4500 years ago) would give a total human population at just under six billion people. However, application on an evolutionary time scale runs into major difficulties. Starting with one "couple" just 41,000 years ago would give us a total population of 2 x 1089. 9 The universe does not have space to hold so many bodies.

5. Radio Halos...Physicist Robert Gentry has reported isolated radio halos of polonuim-214 in crystalline granite. The half-life of this element is 0.000164 seconds! To record the existence of this element in such short time span, the granite must be in crystalline state instantaneously.10 This runs counter to evolutionary estimates of 300 million years for granite to form.

6. Human Artifacts throughout the Geologic Column...Man-made artifacts - such as the hammer in Cretaceous rock, a human sandal print with trilobite in Cambrian rock, human footprints and a handprint in Cretaceous rock – point to the fact that all the supposed geologic periods actually occurred at the same time in the recent past.11

7. Helium Content in Earth's Atmosphere... Physicist Melvin Cook, found that helium-4 enters our atmosphere from solar wind and radioactive decay of uranium. At present rates our atmosphere would accumulate current helium-4 amounts in less than 10,000 years.12

8. Expansion of Space Fabric...Astronomical estimates of the distance to various galaxies gives conflicting data.13 The Biblical Record refers to the expansion of space by the Creator14. Astrophysicist Russell Humphries demonstrates that such space expansion would dilate time in distant space.15 This could explain a recent creation with great distances to the stars.

9. Design in Living Systems...A living cell is so awesomely complex that its interdependent components stagger the imagination and defy evolutionary explanations. A minimal cell contains over 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations.16 The chance of this assemblage occurring by chance is 1 in 10 4,478,296 .17

10. Design in the Human Brain...The human brain is the most complicated structure in the known universe.18 It contains over 100 billion cells, each with over 50,000 neuron connections to other brain cells.19 This structure receives over 100 million separate signals from the total human body every second. If we learned something new every second of our lives, it would take three million years to exhaust the capacity of the human brain. 20 In addition to conscious thought, people can actually reason, anticipate consequences, and devise plans - all without knowing they are doing so.21

1Woodmorappe, John, "The Essential Non-Existence of the Evolutionary Uniformitarian Geologic Column: A Quantitative Assessment," Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 18, no.1 (Terre Haute, Indiana, June 1981),pp. 46-71

2 Nilsson, N. Heribert, as quoted in Arthur C. Custance, The Earth Before Man, Part II, Doorway Papers, no. 20 (Ontario, Canada: Doorway Publications), p. 51

3Corner, E.J.H., Contemporary Botanical Thought, ed. A.M. MacLeod and L.S. Cobley (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p. 97

4Barnes, Thomas, ICR Technical Monograph #4, Origin and Destiny of the Earth's Magnetic Field (2nd edition, 1983)

5Blick, Edward, A Scientific Analysis of Genesis (Oklahoma City: Hearthstone, 1991) p. 103

6Clark, M.E. and Voss, H.D., "Fluid Mechanic Examination of the Tial Mechanism for Producing Mega-Sedimantary Layering" (Third International Conference on Creation, Pittsburg, July 1994)

7Ager, Derek, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (New York: John Wiley and Sons) p. 43 and p. 86

8West, John Anthony, Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt (New York: Julian Press, 1987) pp. 13-14

9 See Morris, Henry, Scientific Creationism (El Cajon, CA: Master Books)

10Gentry, Robert, Creation's Tiny Mystery (Knoxville, Tenn.: Earth Science Assoc.,1988)

11 Baugh, Carl, Why Do Men Believe Evolution AGAINST ALL ODDS? (Oklahoma City: Hearthstone, 1999)

12Cook, Melvin, "Where is The Earth's Radiogenic Helium?" Nature, Vol. 179, p. 213

13Cowan, R., "Further Evidence of a Youthful Universe," Science News, Vol. 148, p. 166

14Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22

15Humphries, Russell, Starlight and Time (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994)

16Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, 1986) p. 263

17 Mastropaolo, Joseph, "Evolution Is Biologically Impossible," Impact # 317 (El Cajon, CA: Institute For Creation Research,1999) p. 4

18Restak, Richard, The Brain: The Last Frontier, 1979, p. 390

19The Brain, Our Universe Within, PBS Video

20Wonders of God's Creation, Moody Video Series

21Weiss, Joseph, "Unconscious Mental Functioning," Scientific American, March 1990, p. 103

SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MACROEVOLUTION:

(Karl Popper's definition of the scientific method )

1. OBSERVATION -steps of evolution have never been observed (Stebbins )

In the fossil recordwe view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.(Gould )

2. EXPERIMENTATION -The processes would exceed the lifetime of any

human experimenter (Dobzhansky )

3. REPRODUCTION impossible to reproduce in the laboratory. (Dobshansky )

4. FALSIFICATION -cannot be refuted thus outside empirical science. (Ehrlich )

RESEARCH PROBLEMS WITH MACROEVOLUTION:

1. ORIGINS -the chance of life originating from inorganic chemical elements by natural means is beyond the realm of possibility (Hoyle )

2. DEVELOPMENT -to produce a new organism from an existing life-form requires alterations in the genetic material which are lethal to the organism (Maddox )

3. STASIS -enzymes in the cell nucleus repair errors in the DNA (Barton )

4. GEOLOGIC COLUMN -out-of-place artifacts have been found in earth's sedimentary layers which disrupt the supposed evolutionary order (Corliss )

5. DESIGN -irreducible complexity within the structure of the cell requires design (Denton, Behe ).

(DNA REPAIR: The genome is reproduced very faithfully and there are enzymes

which repair the DNA, where errors have been made or when the DNA is

damaged. - D.H.R. Barton, Professor of Chemistry, Texas A&M University,

Nobel Prize for Chemistry )

(CHANGE WITHIN GENETIC BOUNDARIES: Microevolution does not lead beyond the confines of the species, and the typical products of microevolution,

the geographic races, are not incipient species. There is no such category as

incipient species. Richard B. Goldschmidt )

(MUTATION ACCUMULATIONS RELENTLESSLY FATAL: Any random change

in a complex, specific, functioning system wrecks that system. And living things

are the most complex functioning systems in the universe.Science has now

quantitated that a genetic mutation of as little as 1 billionth (0.0000001%) of an

animal's genome is relentlessly fatal.The genetic difference between human and

his nearest relative, the chimpanzee, is at least 1.6% Calculated out that is a

gap of at least 48 million nucleotide differences that must be bridged by random

changes. And a random change of only 3 nucleotides is fatal to an animal.

Geneticist Barney Maddox, 1992 )

Hydrology
Hydrologic Cycle
Evaporation
Condensation Nuclei
Condensation
Precipitation
Run-off
Oceanic Reservoir
Snow
Hydrologic Balance
Springs in the Sea

Ecclesiastes 1:7; Isaiah 55:10
Psalms 135:7; Jeremiah 10:13
Proverbs 8:26
Job 26:8; 37:11, 16
Job 36:26-28
Job 28:10
Psalms 33:7
Job 38:22; Psalms 147:16
Job 28:24-26
Job 38:16


Geology Principle of Isostasy
Shape of Earth
Rotation of Earth
Gravitation
Rock Erosion
Glacial Period
Uniformitarianism
Dinosaurs
Isaiah 40:12; Psalm 104:5-9
Isaiah 40:22; Job 26:10; Psalm 103:12
Job 38:12,14
Job 26:7; 38:6
Job 14:18,19
Job 38:29,30
II Peter 3:4
Job 40,41


Astronomy Size of Universe
Number of Stars
Uniqueness of Each Star
Precision of Orbits Job 11:7-9; 22:12; Isaiah 55:9;Jeremiah 31:37
Genesis 22:17; Jeremiah 33:22
I Corinthians 15:41
Jeremiah 31:35,36


Meteorology Circulation of Atmosphere
Protective Effect of Atmosphere
Oceanic Origin of Rain
Relation of Electricity to Rain
Fluid Dynamics
Ecclesiastes 1:6
Isaiah 40:22
Ecclesiastes 1:7
Job 28:26; Jeremiah 10:13
Job 28:25


Biology Blood Circulation
Psychotherapy
Biogenesis and Stability
Uniqueness of Man
Chemical Nature of Flesh
Cave-men
Leviticus 17:11
Proverbs 16:24; 17:22
Genesis 1:11,21,25
Genesis 1:26
Genesis 1:11,24-2:7;3:19
Job 12:23-25; 30:3-8


Physics Mass-Energy Equivalence
Source of Energy for Earth
Atomic Disintegration
Electrical Transmission of Information
Television
Rapid Transportation Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3
Psalms 19:6
II Peter 3:10
Job 38:35
Revelation 11:9-11
Daniel 12:4

"Coal: Evidence for a Young Earth"

Abstract:

Evolutionary theory requires millions of years in the formation of coal in order to afford time for the development of living organisms whose fossils are found in coal deposits. However, laboratory and field research has demonstrated that coal is formed rapidly and in vast quantities. These vast coal deposits are unsullied by other material. The conclusion is drawn that actual research indicates a young age to the Earth that contains such coalified materials.

Introduction

"If coal takes millions and millions of years of heat and pressure to form, how is it possible that creationists are teaching that the earth is only a few thousand years old?" This is a commonly asked question among individuals seeking answers about the age of the earth and the universe. Research has been done by several creation organizations, as well as independent scientists, in order to answer such questions. The evidence actually shows that coal does not take millions of years to form, as is commonly asserted. In fact, the formation of coal has been proven to be a rapid process that can be duplicated in modern laboratories in a matter of days - or even hours.

I. Rapid Formation

In order for coal to be formed, several factors must be present. Pressure, temperature, water, time, and some sort of vegetation are the key elements for the formation of coal. According to evolutionary theory, the slow accumulation and decomposition of vegetation living in past ages accounts for the coal seams. However, this theory can not answer why such large amounts of original vegetation without soil can be found in the areas that are now coal seams, or how these coal seams became so thick - some being over two hundred feet in depth.

Scientist Robert Gentry analyzed coalified wood found on the Colorado Plateau in order to determine how long it took for coal to form.1 By treating coal with epoxy and slicing it into thin sheets, Dr. Gentry was able to examine tiny, compressed radiohalos found in the coal. Radiohalos are discolorations in the coal, ejected by radioactive elements in the centers (such as uranium).

According to evolutionary theory, in order for these halos to form, several processes must have occurred. First, water-saturated logs must have been laid down in several different geologic formations, including the Triassic, Jurassic and Eocene layers. Later, uranium solutions infiltrated the water-saturated logs, and uranium decay products were collected at tiny sites within the logs. The radioactive decay from the tiny particles ejected spherical radiation damage regions around those sites, thus producing halos. Finally, a pressure event on the site of the formations compressed the logs as well as the radioactive halos within them. However, because coal is not a malleable substance, scientists know that these logs had not turned to coal at the time the compression event occurred. This points to a quick burial and coalification of the logs – rather than a long time period.2

II. Decay Ratios

When the ratio of uranium decay to its decay product (lead) is analyzed, the conclusion is drawn that all the logs within the various geologic formations were buried at the same time. The high lead-to-uranium ratios admit the possibility that both the initial uranium infiltration and the coalification could possibly have occurred within the past several thousand years.3

III. Polystrate Fossils

The presence of "polystrate" trees (trees petrified or coalified in an upright position) point to a rapid coalification process. One of the most commonly known polystrate trees is found at Katherine Hill Bay, Australia. This fossilized tree can be seen extending over twelve feet, through several sedimentary layers. According to evolutionary theory the different sedimentary layers took hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate. However, we know this is impossible since the tree would have decomposed long before the sediments would have had time to accumulate. Rather, this tree is testimony to the catastrophic and rapid burial that must have taken place.

IV. Unsullied Deposits

Finally, coal seams such as those found in the Powder River Basin of Gillette, Wyoming, ranging from 150 to 200 feet in depth, point to a rapid coalification process. "These coal seams run remarkably thick and unsullied by other material. Usually, unwanted sediments, such as clay, washes over a deposit before coal seams can get very thick. This leaves scientists with the baffling question of how the seams get so massive and still remain undiluted by influxes of clay and other impurities before they thicken."4

Conclusion

The answer can be found in the Biblical account of Noah's Flood. The Biblical description of the fountains of the great deep breaking up gives strong reference to volcanic activity in the pre-Flood basins.5 This would have provided several of the key factors need for the production of coal, along with an explanation of how the process could have occurred at such a rapid pace.

Although the coalification process has been used in the past to support theories of an aged universe, research done by leading creation scientists reveals that this process actually supports creation teachings of a young Earth. Physical evidence demonstrates that the coalification process must have occurred rapidly, rather than over vast time periods.

CEM Staff Writer

1Robert V. Gentry, Video: Young Age of the Earth

2Ibid.

3Science , October 15, 1996

4Earth Magazine, May 1993

5Genesis, chapter seven

by Robert F. Helfinstine
Vita:

BSEE, 1950 University of Minnesota

U.S. Navy Commission as electronic specialist, 1951

Honeywell, Inc. 40 years in design and development of automatic controls for aircraft and spacecraft. Lead systems engineer on E1B/S2F automatic control system, lead systems engineer on Apollo command module control system – in addition to various aircraft and spacecraft systems. Independent research in ancient history, archaeology and dating techniques. Participation in excavation activities in Glen Rose, Texas and Hanson Ranch, Wyoming. President, Twin Cities Creation Science Association. Author of TEXAS TRACKS and ARTIFACTS.

Abstract: The secular view of mammoths centers on an Ice Age environment and extinction some 10,000 years ago. Some creationists view the mammoth remains as evidence from Noah's Flood. These large animals could never live in an Arctic environment such as we find in Siberia and northern Alaska, primarily because there is no food supply compatible with their needs. Scientific studies of these animals lead to the conclusions that they were from a temperate climate, there was a mass extinction of many of them, and many were buried along with trees and other vegetation after which the land became frozen by a sudden and permanent climate change. The cause of the extinction and burial appears to be a brief but massive flow of water from a post-Flood disturbance to the earth.

Introduction

The largest quantities of woolly mammoth remains are found in Arctic and sub-arctic locations. They had long hair and underwool, and those found with meat still on their bones showed a heavy layer of fat under the skin. From this evidence the secular view of mammoths is that these large animals, by evolutionary processes, were adapted to living in a cold climate. The frozen remains were attributed to the hazards of living in such a climate. But from earliest scientific studies of these animals, a different picture emerges.

I. Characteristics

Early research proved that the mammoth was distinct from modern elephants. Although related, it is a closer relative to the Asian elephant than the African elephant based on blood tests. It was not a tropical beast, neither was it adapted to living in the Arctic. Adaptation is supposedly based on thick skin, long fur and underwool, and fat deposits under the skin. Mammoth skin, essentially identical to that of the Indian elephant, does not have oil glands. Fur without oil glands is adaptation to a warm climate. The fat layer is not for insulation, but an indication of an adequate food supply. Preserved food found in the mouths and stomachs of several specimens contained temperate climate grasses which do not grow in the Arctic today, but 2000 kilometers farther south. Temperate climate plants and animals go together. The companions of the mammoth were woolly rhinoceros, bison, sheep, horses, bears, lions and deer.

II. Climate Conditions

The climate of Siberia and northern Alaska during the time of the mammoths was not the same as the present climate. Even Charles Lyell concluded that the mammoth Arctic climate was much warmer than it is today. The present tundra mosses and grasses which grow only about eight to ten weeks of the year are unpalatable and even toxic to large herbivores. Mammoths would be living in a practical desert under the present conditions.

Large rooted trunks of trees are found in beds containing mammoths. Large trees cannot grow over permafrost. Animals living with the mammoths, horses and bison, could not have endured the mires of Arctic summer which make travel almost impossible.

III. How Did Mammoths Die?

Some modern ideas of how mammoths died include falling into ice crevasses, falling over a cliff in a storm, falling through thin ice or being buried by a landslide.

Scientific analysis of bodies and other remains in the tundra provide the following information. Remains are for the most part just bones scattered about and piled together with trees, volcanic ash, vegetation and bones of other animals. Some animals were torn apart by violent action. Animals with preserved flesh are buried in the frozen tundra near its upper surface and usually at higher elevations. Decay began before the bodies were frozen, but once frozen they never thawed until exposed by erosion or excavation. The animals died suddenly in the late summer as indicated by food found in their stomach or mouth. Frozen mammoth remains and other animal remains increase in number the farther north one goes in Siberia, being most numerous in the New Siberian Islands.

The probable cause of the death of so many animals is described by H.H. Howorth.

"A great catastrophe occurred by which the mammoth and its companions were overwhelmed over a large part of the earth. This catastrophe involved a brief but widespread rush of water which not only killed the animals but also buried them under continuous beds of loam and gravel."

IV. Dating the Catastrophe

The big question is "When did it happen?" Based on Biblical history, the event happened after the Flood of Noah. Not all people agree with this conclusion.

But there were other effects of the orientation change. Great tidal waves were reported by the Chinese and North American Indians. The Sahara dried out and became a desert. Its present condition appears to have begun after 2000 B.C. The Tarim basin in China was once populated with cities and settlements and forests. Now it is mostly desert. There is evidence that India, Pakistan and Iran all had abundant rainfall before the climate changed. Large areas of former agricultural land on the India-Pakistan border are now desert. American deserts once had abundant rainfall based on pollen and tree remnants found at archaeological sites. All the world's deserts seem to have started about 3500 years ago. This is the same period identified by Charles Ginenthal for the extinction of the mammoths. It is also the time of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

References

1.Stewart, J.M., Frozen Mammoths from Siberia bring Ice Ages to vivid life, SMITHSONIAN, Vol 8 No. 9, Dec. 1977

2.Hapgood, C.H., The Extinction of the Mammoths and the Mastodons, Ch. 10, The Path of the Pole

3.Howorth, H.H., The Mammoth and the Flood, London 1887

4.Farrand, W.R., Frozen Mammoths and Modern Geology, SCIENCE, 17 March, 1961

5.Dillow, J.C., The Riddle of the Frozen Giants, Ch. 10, The Waters Above, 1982

6.Ginenthal, Charles, The Extinction of the Mammoth, The Velikovskian, Vol III, Nos. 2,3, 1997

AWW I missed so much. I'm in Indy for my brother's graduation.

Hisman, I'd continue to debate you, one point at a time, but I don't have the time to address them all right now (got 2 finals to study for). So let's start with one and go from there, okay?

The very first point I want to make is that speciation ("macroevolution") is being observed all the time.
"Experiments" can include observational studies, and doing that we see speciation too. Someone can go out and perform the same observational studies too, and would be able to verify any results should they be called into question. There are many ways to falsify macroevolution. For one molecular evidence has provided many avenues to falsify evolution...except it just made it stronger. (If you need me to provide some videos I'd be happy to help you out, but seeing as you have supposedly read Finding
Darwin's God you should have gotten a good idea of how extensive the evidence is. But again, you haven't really put down any specific criticisms to parts of the book. I'm skeptical that you even bought it in the first place.

Now tell me...where does creation fit into these categories? I cannot replicate special creation. I can't observe it. Special creation can't account for the speciation or molecular evidence at all. Special creation can't be falsified. How can you claim evolution isn't science but special creation is? Please!

Also, just want to add this as a side note:
(DNA REPAIR: The genome is reproduced very faithfully and there are enzymes

which repair the DNA, where errors have been made or when the DNA is

damaged. - D.H.R. Barton, Professor of Chemistry, Texas A&M University,

Nobel Prize for Chemistry )

Viruses like HIV have very little repair mechanisms and this has allowed them to evolve resistance VERY quickly to all of the medicines we develop. This makes them harder to eradicate and therefore they are fruitful and multiply (so to speak.) So, no clue as to how the above refutes evolution; in fact the ability to observe the extremely rapid evolution in the body of one person is only added evidence.

Viruses are a good study for evolution though. They are very simple organisms...brings up the debate whether we can truly consider them "alive" regardless of possessing a basic form of genetic material, coating, and proteins.

And...quote mining is something to avoid in research. The "incipient species" quotation by Goldschmidt is quote mining. He was not a creationist. He was a bit unorthodox though, and his ideas have been refuted in several respects. He only rejected the gradual macroevolution, but not macroevolution itself. He just proposed an alternate mechanism to macroevolution. (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/people/richard_goldschmidt.html)

Okay, your turn.

"We observe the evidence for evolution just as we do for gravity, though in both cases we don't know everything about them."

We have more evidence for the theory of evolution than the theory of gravity, actually. Gravitational theory is mostly mathematics.

PIP:

You asked: "Now tell me...where does creation fit into these categories? I cannot replicate special creation. I can't observe it. Special creation can't account for the speciation or molecular evidence at all. Special creation can't be falsified. How can you claim evolution isn't science but special creation is? Please!"

In my world I don't worship science. Therefore, I need no proof or have a need to follow the scientific method to believe in Creation even though there is ample evidence of such. My faith in God and belief that He created the universe as described in His Word requires no proof. "For without faith it is impossible to please God".

When the Word states, "the earth is filled with the glory of God", I believe that. If science can help me verify that, fine, if not, it is science's failure not the failure of God's Word.

In your world where you have been convinced that science trumps all and where you have to bend your faith model to fit into your science box, you require proof based on observation.

My point is that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Get it, not seen. Read those words very carefully. Since science requires observation and evidence it is by definition opposed to faith and never the twain shall meet.

You will never be able to prove that God exists by the scientific method, ever. To try to do so indicates a lack of or a very weak faith. Besides, God is not mocked.

Hence, I see science as a tool, like a book, or a hammer or computer or a method of knowing, or instructions for learning. While I am not opposed to science, it is very limited. My faith is limitless since it's object is God Himself and relies on Him for my very life and being. You can say that science is earhtly, fleshly, 3 dimensional and hence, exists at a lower level than faith. Faith transcends the limits of space and time.

PIP, if you decide to run your life based on the scientific model and its principles of knowing I think you will be sorely dissappointed in the end and that certainly is your privilege. Being an engineer, who is really a scientist who applies scientific knowledge, I have learned that God, in His mercy, can be depended on. Science, however, will fail you, guaranteed.

Anon:

Have you flown in an airplance lately?

Hisman:

This was an interesting conversation until you threadjacked it.

FYI:

1) It's impolite to post entire websites after you've listed a link. If someone wants to go there, they will. But you obviously have control problems.

2) Monopolizing conversations in this way makes you a really boring, boorish person. Hint: in the real world, have you noticed people avoiding you, or, if you corner them, getting that glassy eyed stare, right before they snore in your face? Bet you do this in person, too.

3) Website stealing, posting of multiple arguments, not even yours, is a way of killing conversation and making people wonder if you have an original thought in your head. If we want to read an encyclopedia, we'll buy one of our own choice.

4) No wonder you like talking to your god so much, he just listens to you blather on and on, and you don't even need to pause for breath. That's not really a conversation, it's a one sided monologue, which is not really communication, but it seems all you're capable of.

It's Saturday night, and time to find real conversation - or blogs without bullies and boors like Hisman.

'Night to the rest of you.

"In my world I don't worship science."

Well then please, don't ever say your "hypothesis" is scientific. Or that evolution isn't. If you could care less what is science then why are you bothering to post about it? Or at least, post what other people say about it.

"You will never be able to prove that God exists by the scientific method, ever."
I never said that.

Your whole post HisMan is based on all these assumptions about my personal beliefs when I haven't discussed them AT ALL (caps for emphasis). It only shows me you can't address the real points I brought up; instead you would rather set up a straw man of my worldview so you can seem more righteous.

"No wonder you like talking to your god so much, he just listens to you blather on and on, and you don't even need to pause for breath. That's not really a conversation, it's a one sided monologue, which is not really communication, but it seems all you're capable of."
YES

Excuse me Phylo and PIP:

I answered the question thoroughly and accurately when PIP tried to equate science and faith.

She is the one who couldn't repsond! What can't handle the truth?

And don't ever, ever, ever, ever again, characterize my relationship with God as blather.

And PIP:

You don't need to explicitly discuss your world view as they are implied in your posts.

By the way, I thought were mercifully dissappearing for a while with your boy toy.

HisMan,

you know very well I never equated evolutionary theory with faith in God; I merely refuted some of the scientific points you posted. I asked specifically for your perspective on what you have read and researched; you haven't done it. You only told me what you think my worldview is, which it isn't. If you had paid attention to any other debate you will see that I am a Christian and that is sorta..why I asked you to read FDG. The only person equating evolutionary theory with faith here is you; that is why you are so threatened by its very existence.

By the way thanks HisMan,

I'll be thinking of you on our double date to the movies tomorrow.

The cut and paste keys on your computer must be worn to nubs, Hisman.

PIP isn't required to answer an entire website that you happen to have glommed on to.

And BTW - "And don't ever, ever, ever, ever again, characterize my relationship with God as blather."

or what? You'll cut and paste some and then blather some more?

Hey PIP:

Confused here - aren't you the atheist pro-lifer? Or is that someone else?

phylosopher,

I'm a liberal pro-lifer, therefore I'm a liberal Christian :)
I'm also not an evangelical or anything, though, so I mostly keep my faith to myself and stick to reasoning that works for people of all faiths.

Now that I think about it, is Mary an atheist? I don't remember if she's said.

I was talking about how there needs to be more atheists in the pro-life camp, and if pro-lifers start appealing to the people who they have generally been ideologically opposed to we can get stuff done..maybe that's what you remember from me?

@PiP: Mary and Jen R. are both agnostic PLers. :)

Thanks Rae!

By the way, I thought were mercifully disappearing for a while with your boy toy.

Wow, what a jerk thing to say. No wonder atheists, agnostics and other liberal-minded people are hesitant to side with pro-lifers. You could do all pro-lifers a favor and stop insulting other pro-lifers.

HisMan, your relationship with "God" is blather.

MK, you wrote: "First, you have no proof of the big bang, and second we have seen other stars explode, no? "

The Big Bang was not a star exploding. It was much bigger than that. Read about it.

You wrote: "Therefore the logical leap to "all things came from a creator" is less than the logical leap "therefore life came from non life". "

Nope. Life coming from proto-life could have happened without violating the known physical/chemical laws. A creator is something IN ADDITION TO known physical/chemical laws. Extra stuff.

You wrote: "When life meets life, new life happens".

Sometimes. But then you wrote:

"There is no other way. There never has been any other way.
There never will be any other way."

You don't know this. You ASSUME it. There is no physical or chemical reason a non-self-replicating molecular ensemble couldn't turn into a self-replicating one. Providing the preceding chemical conditions were right.

Again, maybe the physical/chemical conditions required for effective proto-life are rare. Maybe they only occur naturally once per ten billion years.

You wrote: "... you want me to accept that even tho you can't explain where it came from, you are posititive that it happened spontaneously."

No, I am positive only that it COULD have happened sponeaneously. Occam's Razor does the rest.

MK, you wrote: "We have proof, that to get life, you must start with life. That's scientific evidence. "

You sound like the organic chemists of the 1800s, who believed that it was not just impossible, but THEORETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, to create a biomolecule by artificial means. "To get life, you must start with life", they said. Like you. Because no one had ever seen a counterexample.

The artificial synthesis of urea which could not be distinguished by any known test from urea isolated from urine killed that idea.

MK, read this:

http://w3.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may09/23124.html

Also this (it's long but good):

http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/faq-misconceptions.pdf

Money quote: "Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point....This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules
could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the
immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable
different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating
molecule would have been non-random to start with.
(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of
any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)"

Here's Richard Dawkins, from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html

"Suppose life's origin on a planet took place through a hugely improbable stroke of luck, so improbable that it happens on only one in a billion planets. The National Science Foundation would laugh at any chemist whose proposed research had only a one in a hundred chance of succeeding, let alone one in a billion. Yet, given that there are at least a billion billion planets in the universe, even such absurdly low odds as these will yield life on a billion planets. And - this is where the famous anthropic principle comes in - Earth has to be one of them, because here we are."

What conservatives say about religion being in danger in America,and marriage being threatened
etc,and all that,is nonsense.No one is preventing
them from going to church and praying there,or in their own homes etc.And no liberal is trying to
stop heterosexuals couples from getting married,
having as many children as they choose,and
bringing them up as they choose.I have absolutely
no objection to them doing this.Gay people are
not a threat to America.The vast majority are
just ordinary people who mind their own
business and mean no one any harm.They are not
trying to"impose" their lifestyle on any one,
certainly not children.You are either gay or
you aren't.If you are heterosexual,no gay person
can make you gay.If you are,nothing can stop
you from being gay.The idea that gays are out
to "recruit" children,or that having them
speak in schools is harmful to kids is just
plain ludicrous.

SoMG:

From someone like you that is a compiment. However, I warn you again; I consider you or anyone else calling my relationship with God blather extremely offensive, and as such I will ask Jill to ban you.

Go take a course in probabilty. If you believe this garbage go bet your life saving's on the lottery. The odds are much better. You probably believe the increase in UFO sightings are due to aliens from other worlds getting ready to "reveal" themselves to us?

And Edyt: If you were fluent in these posts it was PIP herself who said she was leaving because she now had a boyfriend.

More and better Dawkins, from back when the court battle over teaching ID was raging in Pennsylvania :

http://richarddawkins.net/article,129,Natural-Knowledge-and-Natural-Design,Richard-Dawkins

Money quote: "The central (and virtually only) argument offered in favor of intelligent design is the Argument from Improbability. Some biological feature -- an eye or feather, biochemical pathway or bacterial flagellum -- is claimed to be too statistically improbable (irreducibly complex, information rich etc.) to have evolved by natural selection (naive old-style creationists say 'chance'). Therefore, by default, it must have been 'designed'. Positive evidence for design is never even considered: only alleged failures of the alternative. It is hard to imagine a more lamentably weak argument. "

Later in the essay: "The United States is, by any standards, the leading scientific nation in the history of the world. Yet this unprecedented powerhouse of scientific achievement is being dragged down in derision, in the eyes of the entire educated world, by the preposterous antics now occurring in a Pennsylvania court, ... A second rate mathematician, a mediocre biochemist [the "mediocre biochemist" is Michael Behe--SoMG], a born-again retired lawyer, and a Moonie have somehow succeeded in elevating themselves, in the eyes of influential but ignorant politicians, rich benefactors, and duped laymen, to near parity with the entire National Academy. How has it been allowed to happen? When will this great country come to its senses and rejoin the civilized world?"

HisMan, you wrote: "Go take a course in probabilty. "

I have TAUGHT courses in probability.

And your relationship with "God" is still blather.

Mr Berger:

What planet do you live on?

The gay egenda requires the muzzling of churches with regards to their preeaching against homosexuality. They want to be able to force churches to marry them and if they refuse sue them in courst or put the church out of business. We are not unaware of satan's schemes and we are ready for the battle.

It's happening all over Europe where priests and preachers are being prosecuted for taking a stand against homosexuality.

Jill,

I consider SoMG's chracterization of my faith in God as blather extremely offensive.

Please provide me with his contact info so I can sue him for slander.

HisMan,

I never said I'd be leaving the website. But good try, trying to justify your insults.

PIP:

You'd better go read you posts of about a week ago because that's exactly what you said.

You said something like, "I have a boyfriend now, I'm leaving".

Why don't you find it and repost it.

I get tired of your constant barrage against creationm. I read your book, "Finding Darwinn's God", it proved nothing and you just keep badgering me with your assertions that God created earth using evolution. It's a lie and I'm not going to stand by and let you decieve everyone. The belief in creation is foundational to faith. Destroy or alter that and you may as well destroy the notion of God.

Every atheist on this site knows this and you play their fiddle.

"Please provide me with his contact info so I can sue him for slander."

@HisMan: Thanks for contributing to America's already enormous problem with FRIVOLOUS lawsuits. Good grief, you are just as sue-happy as the ACLU. Bravo.

And no, PiP didn't say anything about leaving because she had a boyfriend.

Thanks, Rae, but I do not fear HisMan's lawsuit.

To collect, he would have to prove damages.

I'd be more worried about him shooting me than suing me.

And Edyt: If you were fluent in these posts it was PIP herself who said she was leaving because she now had a boyfriend.

She said nothing of the sort. What you said was downright offensive and rude and YOU should do the Christian thing and apologize. If you go back a few days you will see she mentioned having a boyfriend and possibly leaving for that night, but she said nothing about leaving for good because of it.

""I have a boyfriend now, I'm leaving"."

No, I probably said something like, hey, before I go (here hisman, this is diction implying I was leaving for the night, since it was a bit late), I just want to say that I now have boyfriend. It's very exciting.
Again quit making excuses for your insults.

I also quite politely expressed interest in what you thought about the book specifically so we could discuss it. You have ignored this request. Just as when I pointed out some scientific criticisms of the creationist stuff YOU POSTED (caps for emphasis), you decided to go on a spiritual attack. If anyone is evading anything its you.

Again, you are the one saying evolution is so evil and blah blah blah, while we are simply trying to tell you that it is just a scientific theory like every other one, so you are the one who is making evolution into a religion, not me.

The gay egenda requires the muzzling of churches with regards to their preeaching against homosexuality. They want to be able to force churches to marry them and if they refuse sue them in courst or put the church out of business. We are not unaware of satan's schemes and we are ready for the battle.

No it doesn't. You can say whatever BS you want if you're up on the pulpit. But you take responsibility for what you say, like anyone else. And if you want to preach against black people or gay people or atheists, go ahead. But if any one in your congregation commits a hate crime because you instructed them in that way, then you must take responsibility. Freedom of speech does not excuse you from the consequences.

I get tired of your constant barrage against creationm. I read your book, "Finding Darwinn's God", it proved nothing and you just keep badgering me with your assertions that God created earth using evolution. It's a lie and I'm not going to stand by and let you decieve everyone. The belief in creation is foundational to faith. Destroy or alter that and you may as well destroy the notion of God.

Well, surprisingly many people who do believe in evolution and aren't willfully ignorant still believe in God. Even scientists! The only thing evolution destroys is the notion that the Bible is the absolute truth and every word is literal.

Every atheist on this site knows this and you play their fiddle.

Please! You flatter us! *blush* We aren't trying to convert anyone, seriously. You can have your faith. You just can't force it on everyone else!

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."--HL Mencken.

SoMG, your comments in this thread made me very happy this morning. :)

"Well, surprisingly many people who do believe in evolution and aren't willfully ignorant still believe in God. Even scientists! The only thing evolution destroys is the notion that the Bible is the absolute truth and every word is literal."

@Edyt: I've been working on reading the bible as of late for penance and it's the "New American Bible" aka the Catholic version of things and it explicitly says in the preface (as it was a new edition, published in the 50's) that Genesis was NOT to be taken literally but allegorically. And this was in the 50's/60's! Well before the whole evolution vs. creationism crap got fired up.

Rae, interesting point. I believe many of the original authors of the Bible did not think they were writing anything but the myths of their culture! I suppose a lot of them would be turning over in their graves to realize people today actually interpret it as fact.

Edyt,

I agree. Taking it literally may cause some problems when you find out that the 2 stories were written at different times, use different names for God, and take place in 2 different environments.

@Edyt: Hey, just so you know, the Dresden Dolls are releasing an album called "No, Virginia" in a couple weeks with a bunch of b-sides and songs originally for "Yes, Virginia" on it as well as a few new songs.

I think it's released stateside May 20th.

PiP, it's worse than that. The "editors" of the Bible purposefully changed the number of gods to reflect on just one creator, when in fact certain myths pertained to multiple gods.

The Hebrew word "Elohim" which was used to represent "gods" was mistranslated to mean just "god" even though Elohim is the plural form of El (one god). So the Bible should read: "In the beginning, Gods created the heaven and the earth..."

That problem is where you end up with verses like this: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26) which represent the original idea of multiple gods creating man.

Rae, thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely be looking for it. Have you heard anything about it yet? Like is it similar to their old stuff?

@Edyt: Yeah, some of the songs are sessions from "Yes Virginia" that didn't make it to the album (due to "not fitting at the time") and a few were just recorded over the winter when they were on tour.

Two of the songs are up on their Myspace if you want to hear it:

http://www.myspace.com/dresdendolls

"That problem is where you end up with verses like this: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26) which represent the original idea of multiple gods creating man."

Actually, Edyt, there are at least two much more probably explanations for this. Most likely, God was speaking like a king i.e. using the royal "we." The other explanation is that this is an allusion to the the trinity. But the rest of the bible is very clearly monotheistic.

Bobby, you completely glossed over the translation error.

Well, I'm no Hebrew scholar, but the wiki article on the word Elohim does not seem to claim that the plural understanding of the word is much of a problem in the text. It seems the "plurality" of the word depends on the context.

"In some cases (e.g. Exodus 3:4, "... Elohim called unto him out of the midst of the bush ..."), it acts as a singular noun in Hebrew grammar (see next section), and is then generally understood to denote the single God of Israel. In other cases, Elohim acts as an ordinary plural of the word Eloah (אלוה), and refers to the polytheistic notion of multiple gods (for example, Exodus 20:3, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me.")"

So it seems fine to me.

BTW, Edyt, I don't mean to be short with you or blow-off your comment. It's just that I usually try not to comment on things I don't know about or haven't really studied, and the Hebrew language is one of them.

But if Elohim even has the possibility of being translated as a singular God, then at least the Catholic has no problem with it because for us, the bible must be understood in light of the teaching of the Catholic Church. We don't get our beliefs from the bible alone, and so since the Catholic Church teaches that there is one God, it must be the case that passages that use the word Elohim and would be contradictory if that word was understood as multiple gods thus must be understood as God singular. It is a question of authority i.e. who interprets the bible? and we believe that that "job" so to speak has been given solely to the Catholic Church. Hopefully that makes sense. Take care.

Elohim has plural morphological form in Hebrew, but it is used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew text when the particular meaning of the God of Israel (a singular deity) is traditionally understood. (From the same wiki page)

Take note of the phrase "traditionally understood."

Now, what if the writings were not referring to the "God of Israel" at all, but several gods that were mistranslated over a period of time? The wikipedia page is not supporting the idea that the word means only one god, it is saying that it is traditionally understood to mean only one. Perhaps the Hebrews did not intend this interpretation at all!

PIP:

Let's say I buy into the evolution thing.

Where's does it ultimately lead?

What other books in the Bible then become "allegorical". Hosea, Psalms, Jeremiah, the gospel of John, how about Acts? What about Revelation?

Yep, let's just make it all a myth so none of us are accountable to it and holiness is not a requirement for living godly lives.

Oh, so the promise to Abraham was just allegorical?

Before you know it you've got "Christians" worshipping mother earth and eating granola for communion.

And Edyt may God have mercy on you:

Here's a Bible passage just for you.

Psalm 10
1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.

3 He boasts of the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.

4 In his pride the wicked does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

5 His ways are always prosperous;
he is haughty and your laws are far from him; he sneers at all his enemies.

6 He says to himself, "Nothing will shake me; I'll always be happy and never have trouble."

7 His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue.

8 He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent,
watching in secret for his victims.

9 He lies in wait like a lion in cover;
he lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.

10 His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.

11 He says to himself, "God has forgotten;
he covers his face and never sees."

12 Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.

13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
"He won't call me to account"?

14 But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.

16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.

17 You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

"Let's say I buy into the evolution thing.

Where's does it ultimately lead?"

There is no "ultimate leading," unless you mean leading to scientific discovery and explanation.

If nothing else Psalms gets pretty allegorical ;)

But seriously, you can usually understand by the use of language and its context what is figurative and what is not.

"Now, what if the writings were not referring to the "God of Israel" at all, but several gods that were mistranslated over a period of time? The wikipedia page is not supporting the idea that the word means only one god, it is saying that it is traditionally understood to mean only one. Perhaps the Hebrews did not intend this interpretation at all!"

Right. Well, I noticed that you posted this at almost the exact same time I posted my other post, so I think that second post on mine answers that. I mean, you're right actually, in the sense that it is POSSIBLE that the Hebrews didn't intend it that way. No doubt. But that's where the authority of the Catholic Church comes in.

ANd much of that "authority" came from the point of a sword or the coal used to light the fire at the foot of a stake.

Thus, it was and is illegitimate authority.

Bobby, I got to add:

That's where God's authority comes in.

Everyone else:

I've got to honor my wife and my kid's mom now so I won't be posting anymore today.

Have a great mom's day and don't forget to call your mom and say, "Mom, thanks for not aborting me".

"Bobby, I got to add:

That's where God's authority comes in."

Right. This is obviously one place where you and I disagree Stud, but we can agree that the ultimate authority comes from God, and it's just a matter of who/what/ or how that authority comes about or whatever. God love you.

@ Hisman:

a few definitions you seem to lack:

defamation involves false statements, the truth or falsity of which can be verified. An opinion is neither true nor false.

tort law - good luck getting an avatar recognized in a court of law and proving that a cyberpersona has suffered damage.

Then let's look at the trajectory - can Jill ban? Certainly, but she has publicly stated that the reasons for banning are obscenities and threats - neither of which occured. AS a good businesswoman, she probably recognizes the value of a controversy to her blog - I think she's boasted of # of hits.

Should she decide to release emails, my guess is most prochoicers would never again visit (remember, it's your side that has the history of harassment and illegal violence). Refer to the compliment to Jill's business acumen above.

Not to mention ISP's do not release that info without a court order.

So, blather on, Hisman.

HisMan, you wrote (way back): "Evolution devalues human life."

Even if this were true, it would have no bearing on the question of whether or not evolution is factually correct.

For a short, expert debunking of the idea that Hitler was influenced by Darwin's ideas, read this:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2488,Open-Letter-to-a-victim-of-Ben-Steins-lying-propaganda,Richard-Dawkins

The Anti-Defamation League--the premier watchdog against American anti-semitism, issued the following statement about EXPELLED:

"The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory.

Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler’s genocidal madness.

Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry. "

Next we'll be hearing that the ADL aren't *real* Jews.

"We observe the evidence for evolution just as we do for gravity, though in both cases we don't know everything about them."

Anonymous: We have more evidence for the theory of evolution than the theory of gravity, actually. Gravitational theory is mostly mathematics.

Heh - that may be. My point is primarily that a thing being a "theory" in a scientific way, versus a secular way, is no necessary evidence against it. Among peer-reviewed scientists, evolution is not in doubt - we know of it, we know it operates, etc. That is not to say that life appeared on earth any certain way, however.

The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)

Well there ya go. Thank you , SoMG.

Phylo:

If you don't believe that Intelligent Design exists then you have to believe that either Unintellignet Design exists, i.e., the designer wasn't too smart or that that there was no designer, i.e., you're a dues paying member of the Nodesign crowd, that's NDC or (No Damn Cranium).

I guess one other option is that there is a designer, but He untintelligently used random chance, mutation and natural selection as genesis or just plain forgot about what He started. Yep, His dad got him a Universe erector set for well, Christmas, (sorry Target and Best Buy), and He, ya know, the Son, got bored when the proteins got fried in his microwave, and then forgot all about it. He came back a few billion years later and BINGO, look at the mess in this closet. He then tried to get a book deal to pay his Dad back for the screw up. It took 6,000 years and had 66 parts to it. It was an all-time best seller. Lately however, a number of his creatures, who He hadn't planned on would turn out to be wackos, decided to burn the book.

That's certainly a possibility right SoMG? I mean, you taught (that hurt) probability right? Tell me big man, how many billion billion gods are there grasshoppa? If there's a billion billion stars with a billion billion planets, well there's got to be at least a few hundred gods, no, nanu, nanu? Won't you at least give me that? Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase! Why not?

Well that makes's perfect sense to me. No design, no designer and that in an entropic world. Which by the way must conclude that there's absolutely no evidence that the universe is designed.

Let's see we are perfectly placed at just the right distance from the sun, an atmosphere that provides food and life, and protects us from gamma rays, x-rays, solar rays, Billy-Ray, Phylo-rays, and well, very big rocks, and on and on and on and on, infinitum.

Just add water, a few billion years, a black jack dealer, a casino, a few nuts like you, bake, simmer, and poof......humanity, nature, animals. intelligence (only the human kind), consciousness, a built-in moral sense, love, hate, jealousy.....babies in the wombedy, wombedy....

I've got it, you worship the Pillsbuty Dough Boy!!!! And your Bible; used Betty Crocker cake boxes from the garbage dunp....real, real old ones.

As I said, makes perfect sense to me....for you.

And then you get a rocket scientist like SoMG coming on here and saying, "well, we're here because we're here and that's why we're here.....or, was that you that said that Phylo! Or Abbott and Costello?

You know, it's hard to tell the difference between you two guys. I'm not sure if you guys make this stuff up on your own, or if there's just a stupid pill out there that you somehow both take. Can't be a pill, you wouldn't be able to open the bottle. Must be a gene.......

Gene......genetics.......Genesis......language.........intelligence.......words.......root......designer......plan.......beginning.....

This is Rod Serling, and you have just entered the Twilight Zone. Two boys, who thought they were men, found some pills....their goal....to destroy humanity........and the God that claims to be their maker......who woulda thunk it possible.......yes....there is one Probababble Smegma Man and his masked couterpart, Phylodoegocentric Man. Stay tuned for their Intellignetly Designed Retort (or perhaps and more probably possible unintelligently designed retort).

Ya know, it's hard not to blather when you're deal with bliterherers. Cause and effect?

Well I've been googling ID all day and here's the most interesting thing I've found:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Apologetics/POS6-99ShenksJoplin.html

Money quote: "It has recently been argued by Michael Behe that at the biochemical level a type of complexity exists -- irreducible complexity -- that cannot possibly have arisen as the result of natural, evolutionary processes, and must instead be the product of (supernatural) intelligent design. Recent work on self-organizing chemical reactions calls into question Behe's analysis of the origins of biochemical complexity. His central interpretative metaphor for biochemical complexity, that of the well-designed mousetrap that ceases to function if critical parts are absent, is undermined by the observation that typical biochemical systems exhibit considerable redundancy and overlap of function."

Hisman,

Like I said, blather on. However, neither I nor anyone else needs to feel compelled to answer you, since you can't make a rational argument on your own without excessive use of the cut and paste key.

As in that last screed, you dismissed Paley's argument, and he's on your side. Do take care not to let the froth hit the keyboard, it can fry the electronics, especially when it's as bitter as the bile you spew.

In future Hisman, you'll be talking to the hand.

I can assure you SoMG:

The best link I know for ID is the Word of God.

You should try it sometime, you may actually LEARN something.

And Phylo: No answer requested, no answer needed.

HisMan: It's all in your mind.