The problem with atheism.

[BitChick]

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9  He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Hmm. This just reaffirms my belief that the Christian god is a vain and prideful asshole. Who the hell tortures people for eternity just because they don't give them attention or worship him?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

That gift is for everyone.  He wills that EVERYONE comes to repentance.  He is no respecter of persons.  He loves us so much He gave his Son for us.  What more could He have possibly done?

But we have a choice to accept His gift or not.  You can look at him as prideful and vain but I look at Him as a loving Father that is to be respected but still loves us and wants what is best for us.

Come on Rassah.  We have had this discussion before.  I know how frustrated you are with the concept of a God that would send anyone at all to Hell for any reason.  But is it fair that no one gets punished for the evil they commit on earth?  Should people be allowed to get away with anything and everything?  There is a price to be paid for sins.  We have all committed them.  The only ones that will be cleared of them are the ones that accept the blood of God's son as a ransom for those sins.

Dammit, you had to go there. Therein lies the crux of the matter. Pun intended. God, who won't or can't show itself, creates an avatar and has it destroyed, briefly, so that "we" are all "saved" from "sin". Convenient, eh?

Try that in life. Kill somebody, then blame it all on them. You will hang. Further, all of the "justifications" in the world do not forgive the very IDEA that a being that is mortal deserves ETERNAL damnation, regardless of what they may have done to other mortals. Also, as an anarchist, I'm in favor of compensatory justice, not punitive. Punishment only works to CORRECT a behaviour. Punishment that never ends is evidence of sadism, and nothing else.

You act like I enjoy the fact that God is punishing people for eternity.  Well, there may have been a few people in my life where I was hopeful for that, but even in those cases God has helped me overcome my hate and pray for them instead of hating them (something only God can do BTW).

My point was that God loves us all.  He wills that all of us come to repentance.  Why there is a Hell is beyond my understanding but I did not write the Bible and even though you found it to not be true (I do appreciate that you admit you have at least studied it!)  I have found it is true.  

Thanks to eve in the garden sin has entered the world and now we have a not so perfect world.  (If I was Eve I would have tasted of the forbidden fruit too so she will get no judgement from me on that one) but for whatever reason we now have a fallen planet.  It is not as God intended.  Hell was not intended for us as humans but for the fallen angels and it grieves God greatly that we choose to go there.  Perhaps it is our own choice that sends us there, not God's.  It is a different way to look at it.

I'm not acting. You are. You have to, because your religion demands a level of hypocrisy that leads to an unacceptable rate of depression and suicide. Understand, I was a Christian minister at one time. My hatred for that religion knows NO bounds, but I don't hate Christians. Or "god" either. I've simply come to understand that IF there is a god, it's clearly not that one. It doesn't make sense, form top to bottom. You admit in your own post that Eve seeking knowledge was something YOU would do, and you believe in YHVH and it's avatar.

Further, Sin. What precisely is sin? The root word from which it's derived simply means "missing the mark" or "missing the target". It's larger ramifications ONLY matter to those who believe. Frankly, modern Christianity holds on to the doctrine of hell because fear is the only "weapon" left in their arsenal. They cannot anymore win against knowledge, as just about every argument they put forth is EASILY disproven except the existence of a deity and bio-genesis.Note that last one. Not Evolution, Bio-genesis. Evolution, which I'm sure you or another Christian in this thread will soon attack, is the most tested theory there ever was. It is incompatible with the book of Genesis, and Christian doctrine. If the one is true, the other is false. And the one IS demonstrably true. Contrary to Christian claims, evolutionary theory has nothing to do with the ORIGIN of life, thus does not by itself preclude a deity. It precludes YOUR deity, because we have irrefutable evidence that the Genesis account is just plain wrong from everything after "In the beginning..."

I have studied and found many things that prove the Genesis account.  The fact that many different cultures have stories about the flood independently is one small thing.  But a few others-  The amount of helium in the world.  There would not be any left at all if the earth was not young because the amount that the earth is losing is at a steady pace.  There is a fantastic book called Starlight and Time that proves that if the Earth was created out of a white hole then the stars could appear so far away because we were on the event horizon.  The fact that we all are related to the same mother and this is proven in genetics is another.  The amount of mutations that have occurred on the earth show that the earth is young based on the fact that there is a mathematical number that happens and it would be much greater than it is.  I could go on ( see http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n4/ten-best-evidences ) but the problem is that even if there are evidences that point in the direction of proving Genesis and the Bible for whatever reason people are blind to them and do not want to see them.

As for sin, I have sinned.  I am still tempted to sin but God helps me avoid temptation and keeps me from sin but I still do sometimes but it grieves Him and me as well.  I guess sin is not a problem for you?   Where does our conscious come from then?  Why do we even have concept of right an wrong?  I guess you think that has evolved too?

I am actually quite saddened that yours is a story of lost faith.  I don't know what exactly happened that brought you to that point.  Did God not come through like you expected Him too?  Did someone hurt you deeply or was it just a case of not having small seeds of doubt creep in and take root?  

Atheists are far more depressed and attempt suicide more often then Christians BTW http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html

[BitChick]

You know where I stand on that!    Here is a movie you will love to hate Rassah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ

"Can you give me some observable evidence of evolution?"

Sure! Look at your butt. You have a tail. It's under your skin, and is called a coccyx. You have no reason to have that tail, and it is actually more of a hindrance at this point (it can break, it causes pain, it gets in the way), but it's there, only because our ancestors actually had a full tail.

From an article:

The tailbone or coccyx has often been presumed to be vestigial and a leftover remnant to our alleged mammal and reptilian ancestors who also had tails. Evidence that is cited includes the variable number of bony segments humans can have (usually 4 but can be 3 or 5) as well as “babies born with tails.” But these so called tails are not really tails at all and instead are a type of fatty tumor. There are no bones or muscles in them at all, and thus, it cannot truly be considered a vestigial organ.5

Spinney acknowledges that the coccyx now has a “modified function, notably as an anchor point for the muscles that hold the anus in place.” In fact, the coccyx is the anchor point for the muscles that form the entire pelvic diaphragm. Therefore, while the coccyx has a clear function in humans today, the only reason to claim that the function has been modified is because of evolutionary assumptions. If you believe that humans descended from animals that possessed tails, then there must have been a modification of the tailbone. In contrast, if our ancestor Adam was created by God then there was no modification, and our tailbone is just as it always was. Without the evolutionary presupposition, the evidence that the tailbone is vestigial evaporates.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/setting-record-straight-vestigial

[termhn]

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

[dank]

Atheism makes no sense. If you want to call yourself an atheist because you don't believe there's a god, that's fine. But to try to claim that there can't be a god is just utterly insane.

In order of logic, from sane to insane:
Agnosticism: "There might be a moose in these woods."
Theism: "There is a moose in these woods, but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There can't possibly, under any circumstance or at any point in time, be a moose in these woods, but I have no proof."

Sorry, that's not how I look at it, and not how I believe the definition applies. It should be:

Agnosticism: "There might be a moose in these woods."
Theism: "There is a moose in these woods, but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There is no evidence that there is a moose in the woods, or that there ever was a moose in the woods, and thus the idea of a moose in the woods is simply irrelevant and shouldn't even be taken into consideration."

Clearly the atheist position is the most logical one, as the agnostic one would have to take into consideration every single creature that may or may not exist, or every single god or deity that was ever invented, to stay agnostic. Do you consider that every good w ever thought of might exist? And how does that affect your life?

I like these better

Agnosticism: "There might be a monster in Loch Ness."
Theism: "There is a monster in Loch Ness and I know some people who have personally experienced it but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There is no evidence that there is a monster in Loch Ness, or that there ever was a monster in Loch Ness, and thus the idea of a monster in Loch Ness is simply irrelevant and shouldn't even be taken into consideration.  Knowing what we know the idea is ridiculous and contradictory.  It's basically just an old myth."

The atheist position in these examples seems to be based on a logical fallacy: that absence of evidence implies evidence of absence. That's just wrong and unscientific. For scientists to be true-to-form (or atheists claiming a scientific basis for their beliefs), they basically can't be atheists. Positive evidence can always be disputed and rejected and so on, but pretty much the only things they can do with an absence of evidence is:
1) look for it
2) wait until somebody else finds some

Of course there's also a 3rd option:
3) ignore the issue
but then they're not doing any science and there's no science backing their views either.

Both the agnostic and theistic views are more logical. E.g., for theists: their beliefs have a basis, i.e. personal experience, and they correctly label their belief as a belief. Similarly for agnostics: lack of evidence does not imply anything, it's just a lack of evidence and there's nothing to suggest that some new knowledge won't emerge in a future.

For the most part I don't believe in the 'stories', although some of them are likely based on historical events (e.g.: floods happen all the time, massive climatic events also happen occasionally). However, I'm sure I've mentioned Qualia a couple of times already in this thread -- real, observable phenomena that 21st century science still can't explain. Everybody (those without disabilities) sees colours or hears sounds but what the hell is this process? I'm not talking about mechanical/electrical/chemical series of events tickling the brain-machine, I'm talking about the conscious mind that bears witness to it all.


To throw a spanner in the works and directly question epiphenomenal views of the world, if free will doesn't exist, then surely consciousness would never have evolved in the first place? (If it somehow evolved). To quickly elaborate on what I mean: if free will doesn't exist, then the conscious mind basically can't do anything anyway. It would be a helpless prisoner inside someone's body, sensing everything that they do, but being unable to exert any influence over that motion-picture experience. I've heard theories that an illusion of free will somehow evolved to combat the problem of "the feeling of helplessly observing the world from someone's body"... but come on, invoking evolution to fix a problem that needn't exist in the first place? That's why they call it the HARD problem of consciousness, i.e.: it's not easy.

Except that chemical reactions going on in the brain IS what consciousness is.

Wouldn't you prefer to believe that your consciousness is intelligent and capable of free will rather than just a bunch of random reactions?

[termhn]

Atheism makes no sense. If you want to call yourself an atheist because you don't believe there's a god, that's fine. But to try to claim that there can't be a god is just utterly insane.

In order of logic, from sane to insane:
Agnosticism: "There might be a moose in these woods."
Theism: "There is a moose in these woods, but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There can't possibly, under any circumstance or at any point in time, be a moose in these woods, but I have no proof."

Sorry, that's not how I look at it, and not how I believe the definition applies. It should be:

Agnosticism: "There might be a moose in these woods."
Theism: "There is a moose in these woods, but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There is no evidence that there is a moose in the woods, or that there ever was a moose in the woods, and thus the idea of a moose in the woods is simply irrelevant and shouldn't even be taken into consideration."

Clearly the atheist position is the most logical one, as the agnostic one would have to take into consideration every single creature that may or may not exist, or every single god or deity that was ever invented, to stay agnostic. Do you consider that every good w ever thought of might exist? And how does that affect your life?

I like these better

Agnosticism: "There might be a monster in Loch Ness."
Theism: "There is a monster in Loch Ness and I know some people who have personally experienced it but I have no evidence."
Atheism: "There is no evidence that there is a monster in Loch Ness, or that there ever was a monster in Loch Ness, and thus the idea of a monster in Loch Ness is simply irrelevant and shouldn't even be taken into consideration.  Knowing what we know the idea is ridiculous and contradictory.  It's basically just an old myth."

The atheist position in these examples seems to be based on a logical fallacy: that absence of evidence implies evidence of absence. That's just wrong and unscientific. For scientists to be true-to-form (or atheists claiming a scientific basis for their beliefs), they basically can't be atheists. Positive evidence can always be disputed and rejected and so on, but pretty much the only things they can do with an absence of evidence is:
1) look for it
2) wait until somebody else finds some

Of course there's also a 3rd option:
3) ignore the issue
but then they're not doing any science and there's no science backing their views either.

Both the agnostic and theistic views are more logical. E.g., for theists: their beliefs have a basis, i.e. personal experience, and they correctly label their belief as a belief. Similarly for agnostics: lack of evidence does not imply anything, it's just a lack of evidence and there's nothing to suggest that some new knowledge won't emerge in a future.

For the most part I don't believe in the 'stories', although some of them are likely based on historical events (e.g.: floods happen all the time, massive climatic events also happen occasionally). However, I'm sure I've mentioned Qualia a couple of times already in this thread -- real, observable phenomena that 21st century science still can't explain. Everybody (those without disabilities) sees colours or hears sounds but what the hell is this process? I'm not talking about mechanical/electrical/chemical series of events tickling the brain-machine, I'm talking about the conscious mind that bears witness to it all.


To throw a spanner in the works and directly question epiphenomenal views of the world, if free will doesn't exist, then surely consciousness would never have evolved in the first place? (If it somehow evolved). To quickly elaborate on what I mean: if free will doesn't exist, then the conscious mind basically can't do anything anyway. It would be a helpless prisoner inside someone's body, sensing everything that they do, but being unable to exert any influence over that motion-picture experience. I've heard theories that an illusion of free will somehow evolved to combat the problem of "the feeling of helplessly observing the world from someone's body"... but come on, invoking evolution to fix a problem that needn't exist in the first place? That's why they call it the HARD problem of consciousness, i.e.: it's not easy.

Except that chemical reactions going on in the brain IS what consciousness is.

Wouldn't you prefer to believe that your consciousness is intelligent and capable of free will rather than just a bunch of random reactions?

No, I would prefer to believe that it is intelligent and capable of free will because those chemical reactions are NOT random, and occur when they should to create consciousness. Because this is actually what happens.

[Rassah]

I have studied and found many things that prove the Genesis account.  The fact that many different cultures have stories about the flood independently is one small thing.  But a few others-  The amount of helium in the world.  There would not be any left at all if the earth was not young because the amount that the earth is losing is at a steady pace.  There is a fantastic book called Starlight and Time that proves that if the Earth was created out of a white hole then the stars could appear so far away because we were on the event horizon.  The fact that we all are related to the same mother and this is proven in genetics is another.  The amount of mutations that have occurred on the earth show that the earth is young based on the fact that there is a mathematical number that happens and it would be much greater than it is.  I could go on ( see http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n4/ten-best-evidences ) but the problem is that even if there are evidences that point in the direction of proving Genesis and the Bible for whatever reason people are blind to them and do not want to see them.

All of that isn't evidence FOR young earth, it's evidence AGAINST old earth. It doesn't automatically prove that your theory is correct, as there could be any number of reasons for those things to happen, and your theory would actually need some positive evidence to support it. At this point, going by your list, a theory that "God did it like it describes in Genesis" is no better than "Aliens did it," or "Zeus did it" or  even "There was way more helium locked in earth's crust that we expected." Discounting one theory does not automatically prove your own personal one.

[BitChick]

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

There is so much to answer here that I am going to use some articles to get my points across.


About the genetics issue:

In regards to hypothetical ideas about human evolution, one of the most commonly used arguments for “shared mistakes” inherited supposedly through common descent between humans and great apes has been the HBBP1 pseudogene. On the other hand, it is also one of the most perplexing arguments for human evolution because the sequence is so well conserved among humans and apes. According to evolutionary dogma, selective restraints should have been lifted on the pseudogene gene millions of years ago, thus allowing it to mutate freely.

see: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/human-beta-globin-pseudogenes


The crater?  From another article :

The New York Times article ignores another problem: the ongoing debate over the validity of the whole impact theory and the nature of the Chicxulub “impact crater” itself. (Some respected Earth scientists do not even believe it was a crater impact, as explained in the 1996 secular book The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy). Several difficulties remain unanswered:
◾ Why are there so many craters all over the Earth, with all sorts of different “dates” that don’t correlate with the fossil record?
◾How did light-sensitive organisms that live in shallow water survive, while the dinosaurs died?
◾Wouldn’t the dust from an asteroid impact create deadly acid rain that would wipe out amphibians and fish, but not necessarily large animals?

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2002/11/15/dinosaur-demise-theory

Dinosaurs lived with man (many were called dragons by most cultures BTW but us super smart people came up with a new name for them)

From another article:  

“One of these cells is 65 million years old, and one is about 9 months old. Can anyone tell me which is which?”
Her inferred answer was no.
Will evolutionists now be convinced to think about rewriting dinosaur history?
As AiG wrote in a news release 12 months ago about this find (in a release which was distributed nationwide to the secular media):

The tissue/blood vessels are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most. (I.e., by the global Flood of Noah’s time, about 4,300 years ago.)

I am not sure what you mean about the separate Creation stories?  Can you explain exactly.  I see only one but perhaps it is how I am reading it?

All that said, people have an amazing way of "finding" facts that support their preconceived ideas.  You can say that about Christians but I can say that about what is called "Science" today.  There are many things that are simply theories that are talked about like they are facts that is not good science.  

[Rassah]

From an article:

The tailbone or coccyx has often been presumed to be vestigial and a leftover remnant to our alleged mammal and reptilian ancestors who also had tails. Evidence that is cited includes the variable number of bony segments humans can have (usually 4 but can be 3 or 5) as well as “babies born with tails.” But these so called tails are not really tails at all and instead are a type of fatty tumor. There are no bones or muscles in them at all, and thus, it cannot truly be considered a vestigial organ.5

Spinney acknowledges that the coccyx now has a “modified function, notably as an anchor point for the muscles that hold the anus in place.” In fact, the coccyx is the anchor point for the muscles that form the entire pelvic diaphragm. Therefore, while the coccyx has a clear function in humans today, the only reason to claim that the function has been modified is because of evolutionary assumptions. If you believe that humans descended from animals that possessed tails, then there must have been a modification of the tailbone. In contrast, if our ancestor Adam was created by God then there was no modification, and our tailbone is just as it always was. Without the evolutionary presupposition, the evidence that the tailbone is vestigial evaporates.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/setting-record-straight-vestigial

If I was an inteligent designer, I would have attached all those things to the pelvis, as it makes a far stronger and better support for those muscles. And the claim that "there must have been a modification of the tailbone" is kinda false, as we simply had longer tails, with the same muscles atached to the base of it, and eventually the number of segments in the coccyx reduced from 10, or however many it was, to 3 or 5, leaving us with just the base of our tails.

Does your source say anything about the bible's claim of incorrect number of ribs in males, or of whales having vestigial legs inside their bodies from the time when they used to roam on land as much smaller animals?

[Rassah]

Wouldn't you prefer to believe that your consciousness is intelligent and capable of free will rather than just a bunch of random reactions?

I'd prefer to believe that I am a pretty fairy princess, with pretty butterfly wings, and a whole stable of pretty pink and purple unicorns (not really), but, alas, reality doesn't give a shit about what I want to believe, and it's more productive to NOT live in a fantasy world.

[RodeoX]

I'm curious how intelligent design advocates view other human ancestors and relatives? At times, as many as five or more species of humans lived together. What is the intelligence that leads a creator to create many hominids then kill off all but one? Were these other people-like animals not worthy of worshiping the creator? And why wait so long to create humans? Why wait billions of years?

[Rassah]

About the genetics issue:

In regards to hypothetical ideas about human evolution, one of the most commonly used arguments for “shared mistakes” inherited supposedly through common descent between humans and great apes has been the HBBP1 pseudogene. On the other hand, it is also one of the most perplexing arguments for human evolution because the sequence is so well conserved among humans and apes. According to evolutionary dogma, selective restraints should have been lifted on the pseudogene gene millions of years ago, thus allowing it to mutate freely.

see: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/human-beta-globin-pseudogenes

Noobody is arguing about that one particular gene that this site picks out. The genes in question make up a huge majority of your genetic structure, actually. So while these guys "win" on this one example, they still "lose" on the 20,000 others. And, again, it's not proof that "god did it," it's at most proof that "we don't know how it happened."

The crater?  From another article :

The New York Times article ignores another problem: the ongoing debate over the validity of the whole impact theory and the nature of the Chicxulub “impact crater” itself. (Some respected Earth scientists do not even believe it was a crater impact, as explained in the 1996 secular book The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy). Several difficulties remain unanswered:
◾ Why are there so many craters all over the Earth, with all sorts of different “dates” that don’t correlate with the fossil record?
◾How did light-sensitive organisms that live in shallow water survive, while the dinosaurs died?
◾Wouldn’t the dust from an asteroid impact create deadly acid rain that would wipe out amphibians and fish, but not necessarily large animals?

◾ Because earth used to be constantly bombarded with craters back when it was first coming together. Our solar system consisted of lots and lots of gas and rocks, and as rocks came together through gravitational pull, they became planets. There were still tons of rocks floating around in space, though, and they all kept slamming into earth and other planets and moons. Eventually, the number of leftover rocks decreased, and also earth got a gas atmosphere that burned up most rocks when they entered, and the number of new craters decreased. We still had some huge rocks flying around in space, though, and still do (one is scheduled to come really close in the next few years). Doesn't matter that craters have different dates. Only thing that matters is that one of them is as old as when dinasaurs became extinct.
◾ Because the thing that killed off dinasaurs wasn't a lack of light? It could have been a change in atmospheric composition, or, more likely, a change in global temperature. Cold-blooded dinasaurs died when it got too cold for them to survive, while mamals survived just fine.
◾ Why would an asteroid impact create acid rain? The cloud that gets tossed up is just dirt, not tons of burning carbon and sulfur. Besides, any amount of rain on earth is only a teeny tiny fraction of the amount of water in the oceans. It would be practically impossible for acid rain to polute oceans to the point where all fish die.

Dinosaurs lived with man (many were called dragons by most cultures BTW but us super smart people came up with a new name for them)

Dear god I hope you don't actually believe this. If this were true, you'd think we'd actually find some dragon bones, teeth, skins, scales, or anything else used by humans from that time period. Why do we have tons of antiques made from leather and bone from as far back as a couple thousand years ago, but yet not a single thing made from dragons? You'd think items like that would be extremely valuable, highly sought after, and very carefully preserved.

From another article:  

“One of these cells is 65 million years old, and one is about 9 months old. Can anyone tell me which is which?”
Her inferred answer was no.
Will evolutionists now be convinced to think about rewriting dinosaur history?
As AiG wrote in a news release 12 months ago about this find (in a release which was distributed nationwide to the secular media):

The tissue/blood vessels are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most. (I.e., by the global Flood of Noah’s time, about 4,300 years ago.)

No amount of catastrophic conditions can fossilize something in just 4000 years, sorry. Takes WAY longer than that. It's not just flesh becoming hard and rigid, it's all biological matter becoming completely replaced with minerals (stone). And no amount of catastrophic conditions can make atoms split apart faster than they actually do, which is how we tell how old things are.

All that said, people have an amazing way of "finding" facts that support their preconceived ideas.  You can say that about Christians but I can say that about what is called "Science" today.  There are many things that are simply theories that are talked about like they are facts that is not good science.  

The difference is that science says, "Well, this is the best idea we got, based on this and this and this and this and this. And maybe it's wrong, but at least it's all based on this evidence." Religion says, "This is the idea we must have. Let's find evidence to support it, such as this and this, but not this." One starts with no answer, and tries to find it using whatever it can, the other starts with an answer (your so-called "truth"), and tries to find evidence to fit it.

Sorry, but, unlike what you and your group may believe, evolution is not actually a disputed theory. At all. Not any more than the heliocentric theory, or the theory that the earth is round. There is just way way way too much evidence for it, and every time we make a prediction based on this theory, it gets confirmed yet again. If you want to try to disprove that theory, at most you will make parts of it a bit more questionable. You won't automatically make your fantasy be correct, because the question isn't "Evolution vs Creationism," it's "Evolution vs Creationism vs Zeus vs Aliens vs Hologram vs Just a dream vs Martian migration vs... vs ... vs ... and so on and so forth." To get your creationism theory to even be considered, you'd have to actually find some evidence of something being intelligently designed (so far there's zero of that), or some evidence of a god leaving a message or something behind, one that could not have beeen created by humans, such as with a written book.

[BitChick]

All that said, people have an amazing way of "finding" facts that support their preconceived ideas.  You can say that about Christians but I can say that about what is called "Science" today.  There are many things that are simply theories that are talked about like they are facts that is not good science.  

The difference is that science says, "Well, this is the best idea we got, based on this and this and this and this and this. And maybe it's wrong, but at least it's all based on this evidence." Religion says, "This is the idea we must have. Let's find evidence to support it, such as this and this, but not this." One starts with no answer, and tries to find it using whatever it can, the other starts with an answer (your so-called "truth"), and tries to find evidence to fit it.

Sorry, but, unlike what you and your group may believe, evolution is not actually a disputed theory. At all. Not any more than the heliocentric theory, or the theory that the earth is round. There is just way way way too much evidence for it, and every time we make a prediction based on this theory, it gets confirmed yet again. If you want to try to disprove that theory, at most you will make parts of it a bit more questionable. You won't automatically make your fantasy be correct, because the question isn't "Evolution vs Creationism," it's "Evolution vs Creationism vs Zeus vs Aliens vs Hologram vs Just a dream vs Martian migration vs... vs ... vs ... and so on and so forth." To get your creationism theory to even be considered, you'd have to actually find some evidence of something being intelligently designed (so far there's zero of that), or some evidence of a god leaving a message or something behind, one that could not have beeen created by humans, such as with a written book.

Creationist come up with many explanations but are just discredited because they are creationists.  It is no longer about "good science" anymore.

I take it you did not watch the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ

Give me an example of how one kind has evolved into another kind?  Just one example?  Sure there is plenty of evidence in the fossil record for adaptations within a kind for adaptations, but there is nothing that shows a monkey transitioning to human.  I will never believe evolution to be more than a theory until someone can show me that there has been changes from one kind to another.  Can you blame me for that?  You can say "It took billions of years" but no one was there billions of years ago.  So that, my friend, is a theory.  It is not a fact.   No matter how desperately you want it to be.

Also (as shown in the video) can you create a flower out of nothing?  Why not?  In the big scheme of things creating something simple like a rose should be easy enough but why can we as humans, who are fairly intelligent, not do that?  It had to be created from something somehow.  The entire world points to intelligent design.  It is mathematically impossible for it not to be!  Taking the physical variables into account, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into existence by coincidence? One in billions of billions? Or trillions of trillions of trillions? Or more?  Using probability I don't even know how you can argue with me?  See http://www.faizani.com/news/news_2003/math_impossibility.html

But all of that said, I really don't want to argue with you Rassah.  We could fight all day about who is right or wrong.  To me all of these debates just come down to a matter of the heart.  There are people that do not want to believe in God no matter what.  Perhaps they have deep rooted reasons for that.  Perhaps they have been "educated" to believe so or as it has been reiterated here again and again they just think God is a myth.  But there are those of us who have had personal encounters with Him that cannot be denied.  Is it right for you to say that my own encounter with God is not real?  You have not walked in my shoes so there is no way for you to say that.

[the joint]

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

My problem with modern evolutionary theory is that the exact evidence supporting it can be used to support other theories that are equally plausible, if not more so, than current theory.

[termhn]

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

My problem with modern evolutionary theory is that the exact evidence supporting it can be used to support other theories that are equally plausible, if not more so, than current theory.

And what theories are those?

[the joint]

Wait wait wait. You go as far as to disbelieve the THEORY OF EVOLUTION? There are so many ways to prove it. The coccyx is one small example that, even if it is wrong, doesn't matter. The REAL important proof comes from GENETICS. We can see useless genes in the human genome. These are left over from evolution. Genetics is what makes us what we are, and through it, we can prove evolution. In addition, how do you explain dinosaurs? The huge crater that is in the Gulf of Mexico from the meteor that wipes them out? No mention of that in genesis, man actually NAMES every creature, and yet, man did not even exist when dinosaurs did. If you are going to say "god put the remnants in the earth on purpose," what POSSIBLE motivation could he have?

Also, there are two completely separate stories of creation inside Genesis, each from a different biblical source. Which one do you believe? Why? What makes it correct and the other false? Why are there two of them?

It just doesn't make sense!

My problem with modern evolutionary theory is that the exact evidence supporting it can be used to support other theories that are equally plausible, if not more so, than current theory.

And what theories are those?

For example, evolution in consciousness leads to evolved physical states rather than vice versa.

[yogi]

This thread should be retitled;

"The problem of not having an imaginary friend"

[the joint]

This thread should be retitled;

"The problem of not having an imaginary friend"

Or "Peer Pressure:  'Tis better to be wrong than alone"

[BitChick]

I was really hoping someone would give me a counter argument that it is mathematically impossible for the earth to evolve by chance.  

The calculations of British mathematician Roger Penrose show that the probability of universe conducive to life occurring by chance is in 10 to the 10123 power. The phrase "extremely unlikely" is inadequate to describe this possibility.

http://www.faizani.com/news/news_2003/math_impossibility.html

Call God imaginary if you want.  But if it was not God, there is still an intelligent designer.  It is mathematically proven.

[termhn]

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_hurben/univ.html

Don't know if I approve with the rest of the site (haven't looked) but this article takes a lot of your common counter-arguments and disproves them.

[termhn]

I was really hoping someone would give me a counter argument that it is mathematically impossible for the earth to evolve by chance.  

The calculations of British mathematician Roger Penrose show that the probability of universe conducive to life occurring by chance is in 10 to the 10123 power. The phrase "extremely unlikely" is inadequate to describe this possibility.

http://www.faizani.com/news/news_2003/math_impossibility.html

Call God imaginary if you want.  But if it was not God, there is still an intelligent designer.  It is mathematically proven.

Penrose is arguing that the "uncanny coincidence" of the existence of our universe is evidence of an intelligent hand at work.

The problem is that any talk about the statistical probability of a certain universe occurring is meaningless. Our sample size of universe formation events is exactly one. How can we possibly know or measure how many "other universes" would have to form "randomly" before we get ours? We have no evidence that there even are other universes.

From faulty statistics, we get an untestable claim. It sounds good, but does it demonstrate anything?