Young Earth Creationism (the Six day theory), meets the big bang and Evolution...

[The Meach]

Traits and Adaptations based on environment are very different from evolution/mutation. The former suggests that based upon a particular environment over a period of time one gains intelligence and abilities to better survive in that environment while still being the same core being. The latter is a theory that suggests that based upon a particular environment over a period of time one mutates (either adding or subtracting chromosomes and other atomic and sub atomic structures, although to date science has only seen mutation by the subtracting of not the adding to) to better survive in that environment not by staying the same core being but in-fact changing into another being unique unto itself.

snip

The title itself is contradictory to the argument... They're still birds and for that matter the same species of bird, finches..

I'm not sure what you are asking to provide for you then...? The closest thing we have is a fossil record.

An example would be whales:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2C-3PjNGok]YouTube - Whale evolution[/ame]

Evolution hasn't stopped its just stayed constant. And entirely new and dynamic species can't evolve in the time as short as Man has been on the Earth. Like i said, to see the full effects of evolution you would need to live for millions of years.

 

[CoyoteCreekGuns]

I'm not sure what you are asking to provide for you then...?

That's the point, you can't, no one can.. No one can provide real true evidence for evolution. Go figure.....

Evolution hasn't stopped its just stayed constant. And entirely new and dynamic species can't evolve in the time as short as Man has been on the Earth.

By Evolutionists own definition evolution cannot stay constant it's always changing...

Like i said, to see the full effects of evolution you would need to live for millions of years.

Exactly! That's why only one person has the true answers, God.. He had no beginning and has no end, He is I AM, and according to His record (i.e. the Bible) evolution hasn't, doesn't and won't ever exist.

 

[Phil502]

Its all belief to me God is not subject to any answers of ours he just is and does, no math required.

All that reminds me of the Monty Python Movie where they made a big explanation of how coconuts got somewhere far away from the trees. Then they showed a guy emptying and splitting the coconuts and attaching it to a bird who flew with it. It was very simple.

 

[mettle]

The Meach: Our new liberally oriented pot stirrer. lol. You need a title man, label yourself something cool like; 'Humanist in catholic's clothing.'

FOLKS: just ignore these threads. It comes down to faith. Spirit of man and this age wants proof, and presents this man made science crap that doesn't prove a thing, or disprove a thing.

God does not care what man things; it goes to 'He that believeth'. God demands faith in Him.

These typical 'scientific breakthroughs' have been around forever. And, they always will be. The Lord won't do circus tricks to make us believe. You either accept it, or you don't. You either work to be a self sufficient man who needs nothing and no external help (which will never happen, what happens when you can't keep yourself from death?), or you learn the a life of faith in God is the only way, logical way. It takes a real man to admit he doesn't know all the answers. Some of them found answers, and b/c of some of them we can talk on the phone, have light in our home and drive an automobile.

God gave you a brain, stop trying to justify your existence with it and just believe Him.

 

[Dryden]

O.K., I got out my calculator, but the batteries were dead.
I'll get back to tackle this conundrum after a quick run to Walmart. Don't solve this without me.

 

[dburkhead]

That's the point, you can't, no one can.. No one can provide real true evidence for evolution. Go figure.....

Actually, we have seen speciation. Generally it's in very short lived species with very short generations, but it has been seen.

By Evolutionists own definition evolution cannot stay constant it's always changing...

Sophistry. If it's always changing, then change is constant.

Exactly! That's why only one person has the true answers, God.. He had no beginning and has no end, He is I AM, and according to His record (i.e. the Bible) evolution hasn't, doesn't and won't ever exist.

Well, that's nice. Now, which god? And what evidence is there to chose that particular concept of "god" over another. Consider, in one belief system the origin of the world is when the ice from Niffleheim met the heat from Muspelheim in the void of Ginnungagap giving birth to the frost giant Ymir and so forth and pretty much everything of interest in the world. That story is actually a pretty good metaphor for thermodynamics--the interaction between heat and lack of heat giving motion and being the source of everything interesting happening in the world.

Why is that story to be given less credence than:

In the beginning God created heaven and the Earth
And the Earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."
So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

And so on?

Or perhaps this one:

Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion.
From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Om. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu's navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu's servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord's command.
Vishnu spoke to his servant: 'It is time to begin.' Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: 'Create the world.'
A wind swept up the waters. Vishnu and the serpent vanished. Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth. With the third part of the flower he created the skies.

And so on.

Or perhaps this one:

In the beginning there was an empty darkness. The only thing in this void was Nyx, a bird with black wings. With the wind she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon this egg. Finally life began to stir in the egg and out of it rose Eros, the god of love. One half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and the Earth he named Gaia. Then Eros made them fall in love.
Uranus and Gaia had many children together and eventually they had grandchildren. Some of their children become afraid of the power of their children. Kronus, in an effort to protect himself, swallowed his children when they were still infants. However, his wife Rhea hid their youngest child. She gave him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed, thinking it was his son.
Once the child, Zeus, had reached manhood his mother instructed him on how to trick his father to give up his brothers and sisters. Once this was accomplished the children fought a mighty war against their father. After much fighting the younger generation won. With Zeus as their leader, they began to furnish Gaia with life and Uranus with stars.
Soon the Earth lacked only two things: man and animals. Zeus summoned his sons Prometheus (fore-thought) and Epimetheus (after-thought). He told them to go to Earth and create men and animals and give them each a gift.
Prometheus set to work forming men in the image of the gods and Epimetheus worked on the animals. As Epimetheus worked he gave each animal he created one of the gifts. After Epimetheus had completed his work Prometheus finally finished making men. However when he went to see what gift to give man Epimetheus shamefacedly informed him that he had foolishly used all the gifts.
Distressed, Prometheus decided he had to give man fire, even though gods were the only ones meant to have access to it. As the sun god rode out into the world the next morning Prometheus took some of the fire and brought it back to man. He taught his creation how to take care of it and then left them.
When Zeus discovered Prometheus' deed he became furious. He ordered his son to be chained to a mountain and for a vulture to peck out his liver every day till eternity. Then he began to devise a punishment for mankind. Another of his sons created a woman of great beauty, Pandora. Each of the gods gave her a gift. Zeus' present was curiosity and a box which he ordered her never to open. Then he presented her to Epimetheus as a wife.
Pandora's life with Epimetheus was happy except for her intense longing to open the box. She was convinced that because the gods and goddesses had showered so many glorious gifts upon her that this one would also be wonderful. One day when Epimetheus was gone she opened the box.
Out of the box flew all of the horrors which plague the world today - pain, sickness, envy, greed. Upon hearing Pandora's screams Epimetheus rushed home and fastened the lid shut, but all of the evils had already escaped.



And so on.

Or perhaps, well, we could go on and on. There are as many concepts of how the world came about as there are peoples of the world. Aside from simply "that's the way they were taught" why should anyone pick any of them over any others? None of them fit what we actually see in the world very well. And the Judeo-Christian belief, as written, is no better fit. So why should it be given credence over any of the others?

 

[dburkhead]

God does not care what man things; it goes to 'He that believeth'. God demands faith in Him.

And will torture him forever for the "crime" of not having that "faith." That's pretty harsh coming from one supposedly not caring what man thinks.

Oh, and most Christian beliefs are such that only someone who believes in the specific entity Jesus Christ avoids being tortured forever, which means that the majority of people, throughout the majority of history are completely doomed through no fault of their own--because they never heard of the guy.

 

[mettle]

And will torture him forever for the "crime" of not having that "faith." That's pretty harsh coming from one supposedly not caring what man thinks.

Oh, and most Christian beliefs are such that only someone who believes in the specific entity Jesus Christ avoids being tortured forever, which means that the majority of people, throughout the majority of history are completely doomed through no fault of their own--because they never heard of the guy.

Hey, I didn't write it. But, that about sums it up. Those who have heard of the 'guy' know, and have the text on hand to know... I'd say the 'guy' will judge pretty fairly. Interestingly, those who haven't heard of the guy actually find it in themselves to find out who the unknown guy is. My uncle just found an Apostolic church in the middle of the Eastern Montana Indian Reservation. They'd never been taught Acts 2:38, but they explained to my uncle that they wanted to know what a Bible was, found one and started baptizing each every one in the name of Jesus, just like the Apostles did and preached like in Acts 2.

DON'T tell me a hungry soul who wants to know what's real can't find a way. I know missionaries who are finding Acts2:38 churches in the CONGO that no man had preached to. They found a Bible, studied it, was hungry for it obeyed Acts 2:38 and God FILLED them with the Holy Ghost JUST like in Acts 2.

We can make excuses; but, in the end, if we were really hungry, we'd obey the Word.

 

[jblomenberg16]

Not to take away from the relatively serious nature of the thread, but it reminds me of the old SNL skit asking Ditka vs. God. Loosely Paraphrased:

"Ditka, but God is a supreme being, so it would be close."

So on the serious note, speed of light, speed of God, whatever. God is God - a supreme being, and if you believe that, you have no trouble believing he created the world and everything in it. Sure there are factions within the faith that believe in a literal 6 day creation and some that think it was longer.

The fact is, if you believe in God and Creation, it doesn't matter how long it took...as God is the Creator. If you don't believe that, you are more likely to believe that there was another source for life as we know it to take place, as our human minds try very hard to comprehend how something like this could be done.

What I always like to ask a hard core evolutionist is: What was there before the bang, and where did the energy for the big bang come from? Evolutionists are very smart people, and have come up with very interesting concepts, but routinely struggle when confronted with the fact that for evolution to work, time must be finite (albeit billions of years, but not infinite), and there had to be some source of energy to spark the actual big bang.

So, many find facts and evidence to support, and others seemingly find facts and evidence to refute each opposing view. Heck, we even have a hybrid view that God Created through evolution and was the source of the big bang. All the evidence I need is found in Genisis 1, which starts "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

 

[PatMcGroyne]

Man vs God

Just let me be God for ONE-SECOND, and all troubles will end!!!!!!!!!!! (BTW, God likes to be called "He", and not "he".)

 

[dburkhead]

Hey, I didn't write it. But, that about sums it up. Those who have heard of the 'guy' know, and have the text on hand to know... I'd say the 'guy' will judge pretty fairly. Interestingly, those who haven't heard of the guy actually find it in themselves to find out who the unknown guy is. My uncle just found an Apostolic church in the middle of the Eastern Montana Indian Reservation. They'd never been taught Acts 2:38, but they explained to my uncle that they wanted to know what a Bible was, found one and started baptizing each every one in the name of Jesus, just like the Apostles did and preached like in Acts 2.

DON'T tell me a hungry soul who wants to know what's real can't find a way. I know missionaries who are finding Acts2:38 churches in the CONGO that no man had preached to. They found a Bible, studied it, was hungry for it obeyed Acts 2:38 and God FILLED them with the Holy Ghost JUST like in Acts 2.

We can make excuses; but, in the end, if we were really hungry, we'd obey the Word.

Please explain to me how torturing someone so long that billions of years is nothing ("infinity" and "eternity" are like that) for the crimes committed in a finite lifetime can ever be considered a "fair" judgment? And that's even leaving aside that the only real crime of merit (since all others can be forgiven) is that of not believing in the torturer before he shows up to actually commit the torture.

So you can point to books? Well, strangely enough there are lots of books out there, many of them claiming to be the The Word Of Truth. What makes yours any different from any of the others? There's the cynical Pascal's Wager (if one believes, and is wrong, no harm done, but if one doesn't believe and is wrong....), but the problem with that is that it doesn't consider all the different possible belief systems.

In some belief systems the way to enter "heaven" is to die in combat. In others, the way is to strangle unbelievers with red silk scarves and mutilate the bodies. In still others, they way is pretty much to be lucky enough to draw the right relatives among the gods.

Consider this story:

There once was a man who had many servants. He was quite proud of the loyalty of the servants. One day, he was speaking to a rival and boasting of the loyalty of his servants. The rival said that they were loyal because the man gave them all good things and protected them from harm. They knew that if they were loyal that only good would come to them.

This annoyed the man because he was very proud of the loyalty that his servants gave and wanted the other to admit it. So he called the rival's claims nonsense and said that even if the rival were to steal everything the servant had, rape and murder his daughters, kill his sons and basically visit disaster on him the servant would still be loyal.

The rival said "prove it." And so the man agreed to let the rival do just that. (It so happened that the man and the rival were the highest authorities in the area so they did not have to worry about anyone coming by and claiming that they were in violation of any laws in what they were doing.) The only condition was not to touch the servant himself.

And so the rival did that. He slaughtered the servant's flocks, murdered his family, stole his goods, and basically laid waste about the servant. And so the servant turned and thanked his master, the man, for protecting him from harm.

When next the rival spole to the man, the master, he said that of course the servant remained loyal because he, himself was protected even if his family and goods were not. And so the man said go ahead and torture the man. Inflict all sorts of pains on him just so long as they are short of death (for how would their wager be settled if the man died?).

And so the rival took the servant and inflicted great pain on his body. The rival also had the servant's friends come in and accuse him of all sorts of crimes because why else would the master allow this to happen? Yet through it all the servant remained loyal.

Now, this story can be told from the point of view of honoring the loyalty of the servant but I think it says far more about the master, even when the servant's name is Job.

 

[dburkhead]

Just let me be God for ONE-SECOND, and all troubles will end!!!!!!!!!!! (BTW, God likes to be called "He", and not "he".)

If one is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent then all troubles would end. That's what those words mean.

I know, I know, the argument that usually comes if "free will," but that's a chimera in the face of the omni-three.

Does God know what any individuals choice (exercise of free will) would be in any given situation? He has to otherwise "omniscience" doesn't happen.

Will people make different choices if their situations are different or their backgrounds (including their genetic backgrounds)? (Example: If that person didn't have the chemical inbalance leading to depression and have his wife die and be diagnosed with canser, would he have committed suicide?) I don't think many here would argue otherwise.

Thus the exercise of one's "free will" is known in advance by the omni-threed God, and that the choice is what it is because of what the omni-threed set up in the first place.

In the conventional view that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God created the world and got everything started, then everything that happens afterward is the responsibility of that God and happens because God wanted it to happen that way (otherwise, start things out differently). So why in the world justify punishing folk for acting as God had set them up to act in the first place?

 

[ATM]

Has this "torturing torturer" concept come from somewhere besides the Bible?





Most likely IBTL.

 

[infidel]

*waiting for CrystalShip to find this thread*

 

[dburkhead]

Has this "torturing torturer" concept come from somewhere besides the Bible?





Most likely IBTL.

The common term is borrowed from Norse (from the name of the Goddess who ruled over the dead who did not die in battle) and the place to which this term is applied is often referred to in the Bible as "outer darkness" and is compared to "fire and brimstone" where there is much "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

If that's not torture, what is? And it's forever. And it's forever. There's no crime, or even set of crimes, that any human could do in a finite lifetime that justifies any punishment (not even a time out) that goes on forever.

There is no justice in infinite punishment for finite crimes, particularly when the only "real" crime is failing to believe in the Judge when the only evidence that said Judge even exists is hearsay. (Had to double check the spelling on that--it kept coming out as "heresy" .)

 

[mettle]

If one is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent then all troubles would end. That's what those words mean.

I know, I know, the argument that usually comes if "free will," but that's a chimera in the face of the omni-three.

Does God know what any individuals choice (exercise of free will) would be in any given situation? He has to otherwise "omniscience" doesn't happen.

Will people make different choices if their situations are different or their backgrounds (including their genetic backgrounds)? (Example: If that person didn't have the chemical inbalance leading to depression and have his wife die and be diagnosed with canser, would he have committed suicide?) I don't think many here would argue otherwise.

Thus the exercise of one's "free will" is known in advance by the omni-threed God, and that the choice is what it is because of what the omni-threed set up in the first place.

In the conventional view that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God created the world and got everything started, then everything that happens afterward is the responsibility of that God and happens because God wanted it to happen that way (otherwise, start things out differently). So why in the world justify punishing folk for acting as God had set them up to act in the first place?

Man has a will, and he uses it for good and bad. Just like people can use it to create science and 'proof' of different things. Man is quite creative himself and can argue all day long to a person. But, when he is in bed at night, he can never escape the conviction and feelings of inferiority that is a natural event when God is drawing Him. Talk is cheap, come to church with me and you can talk to the lady I sit next to who was blind from cataracts, she was prayed for; now she sees.

IBTL

 

[Dryden]

I got my calculator batteries and I punched in the numbers.
My final answer is Illegal Torture for all members of ACORN. Really, that's what it says on my calculator.

 

[ATM]

...If that's not torture, what is? And it's forever. And it's forever. There's no crime, or even set of crimes, that any human could do in a finite lifetime that justifies any punishment (not even a time out) that goes on forever.

There is no justice in infinite punishment for finite crimes...

The torture of that place is the separation from God and the despair of one's own choices.

The "punishment" of residing in eternity apart from God is not based on the finite lifespan of the created or the finite perception of good and bad, but the infinite chasm created when one offends in any manner against an infinitely holy standard. Neither relative goodness nor time bear on this standard of perfection.

The infinite crime must be judged with infinite justice.

That's my take.

 

[dburkhead]

Man has a will, and he uses it for good and bad. Just like people can use it to create science and 'proof' of different things. Man is quite creative himself and can argue all day long to a person. But, when he is in bed at night, he can never escape the conviction and feelings of inferiority that is a natural event when God is drawing Him. Talk is cheap, come to church with me and you can talk to the lady I sit next to who was blind from cataracts, she was prayed for; now she sees.

IBTL

Come to the graveyard with me and see the people who prayed for this or that and, well, they're in the graveyard.

The examples of spontaneous remission of physical ailments can be found among people of all beliefs, including atheists and agnostics. That you can find an example of someone who had one after praying (and how many people prayed and didn't have the remission?) doesn't really prove anything.

The Chinese believe that sticking needles into the skin at various points on the body can cure various ailments. Medical science has actually validated that this actually works (in some cases, for some people) in relieving pain. Does that mean that the Chinese belief in "chi" and "meridians" is thus validated? Nope. Partly because it also turns out that sticking needles in at random is just as effective as in those "meridians." It turns out that there are alternate explanations for that little "miracle" that make it far less miraculous than it would at first seem.

And I discussed the "free will" thing. If there actually is an omnipotent, omniscient "God" who created the Universe and everything in it, then Free Will cannot exist. Unless individuals will always make exactly the same decisions regardless of what their background was, including their genetic background (the person would make the same decisions as the son of !Kung in the Kalahari as he would as the son of a Stockbroker and Medical Doctor in New York City) then the only "free will" is that one doesn't know all of what went into the decision making. God, however, being omniscient, would know all that goes into that decision making and would know exactly what chain of decisions will be made from the beginning of time to whether you decide to have Bacon or Sausage for breakfast. Furthermore, God, being the Omnipotent Creator, set about the origin such that that chain happened and can no more escape responsibility for that result than I can escape the consequences of where a bullet fired from my gun lands. Less actually, because there are things affecting the flight of that bullet over which I have neither knowledge or control. There is nothing, however, beyond God's knowledge or control. One might claim God doesn't interfere with "free will" but God cannot help but interfere with free will since God set up everything that went into the decision making process in the first place.

One example I used was a person having a medical condition leading to depression, then add in that the person's wife dies, then have the person diagnosed with cancer. Had any of those things, beyond that person's control, been different the person using their "free will" to commit suicide may, indeed probably would, have made a different choice. And maybe the person's wife died because of somebody's free will (not necessarily the wife's--maybe she was murdered, or maybe it was "medical misadventure") but then there were other things that went into that decision that, if different would have led to a different choice. And so a man ends up being consigned to "outer darkness" who wouldn't have been had someone else made a different choice. But that person would likely have made a different choice if something else along the way were different. And so on back to the very beginning of the Universe. We cannot know all along the way what went into that decision, but an omniscient God would know all that. God would know that setting this atom here, rather than 2 nanometers that way would lead to that Suicide 6500 years later.

One way that many pagan religions make more sense than Judeo-Christian religion is that they don't try to reconcile an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity with the existence of pain, suffering, and evil in the world. In the Norse, even Odin (who was no prince himself) had to submit to the will of the Norns who were certainly not considered "benevolent." In Greek, "Destiny" ruled even over Zeus. They're not comforting belief systems because their's no guarantee of "if you're good you'll be happy forever, but at least they're consistent with the condition of the world.

Now, I don't have a problem with a person having beliefs that defy science or even logic. I hold a few of my own. But, claiming that they are someone "scientific" or deserve equal billing in science classes (cf. Creation/Intelligent Design/Evolution) is another thing entirely. It's also another thing for someone to expect others to believe simply by virtue of the strength of one's own beliefs. That you believe strongly in your God is of no importance to me. That may sound harsh but it isn't. After all, lot's of people believe lots of things just as strongly as you do. There's just no way I can give them all "equal time" if strength of belief was a criterion. Some people look for what's comforting. Others look for what a compelling and persuasive speaker has to say. We only need look at Washington to see how that works.

Me, I look for the evidence. I recognize that I have biases toward "comforting solutions" (it would be nice to believe that existence continues after mortal life, but the Universe is under no compulsion to provide answers based on "it would be nice") and try to compensate.

I grew up in a more radical form of Christianity (Latter Day Saint, if you must know). Two things led me to break from that belief system--the clash between the concept of the omni-three and the existence of evil (which, incidentally, the LDS handle a bit better than most other Christian religions) and Young Earth Creationism as I actually started learning geology and biology. Not interested in taking on another belief system because somebody says so.

 

[mettle]

This site makes for interesting reading concerning creation-based science.

The Institute for Creation Research

Excellent people with degrees verifying their findings on factual data, and showing many about the Bible, correct and accurate.