Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by hamin_aus »

doo_much wrote:protestants don't see some books being canonical
As far as I am concerned none of them are :lol:
The catholic church has raped the collection of works that should have been the bible and the end result of their 900 years of cherry-picking is the book many people now consider to be wholly and completely true, direct from God's mouth to it's pages. The mind boggles.
Not that I have any great love for other Christian denominations. The Catholics are the only modern church that had access to the original works that constitute the modern bible. Methodists, Protestants, Anglicans, Pentecostals and all the rest based their doctrine on the "Catholic" bible.
That's like basing a complex mathematical equation on the statement 1 + 1 = 9
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

jamin_za wrote:IIRC they were mostly simple fishermen and herders. Probably illiterate.
At least four of them were fishermen, yes. I think it's a bit of a leap to assume that fishermen were necessarily illiterate. One was a tax collector. One was a member of the politico-religious organisation known as the Zealots. We're not sure about the others.
KALSTER wrote:The fact that the gospels don't agree with each other that well
For example . . .
jamin_za wrote:The Catholics are the only modern church that had access to the original works that constitute the modern bible.
No one has access to the original works. We have access to tens of thousands of manuscripts, none of which are the originals.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by KALSTER »

Stuart wrote:
KALSTER wrote:The fact that the gospels don't agree with each other that well
For example . . .
Well, I found this. Seems as good a source as any. I can look for better ones if you like, but these look to correspond to what I have read in the past more or less. Source

It seems like a glaring omission of John not to even mention Jesus' baptism for example, no? In fact, why did there need to be more than one story of Jesus in the first place? Also, these don't even include the gospels that were not included in the Bible, some of which had the support of quite a few that attended the counsel. Thanks a lot Constantine. :roll:

Somewhat unrelated, but still relevant, is the fact that the very people the whole of the old testament is about, God's chosen people, reject the New Testament.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

KALSTER wrote:Well, I found this. Seems as good a source as any.
So what it boils down to in essence, is not actual contradictions, just the fact that they focus on different events and teachings in Jesus' ministry?
KALSTER wrote:It seems like a glaring omission of John not to even mention Jesus' baptism for example, no? In fact, why did there need to be more than one story of Jesus in the first place?
Famous people frequently have multiple biographies written about them, and some ALWAYS include events that others exclude. This is evidence of contradiction? Biographers have a particular purpose in their particular biography, and they select events to describe that further their particular purpose. Are all biographies of, say, Winston Churchill, invalid because they don't all describe precisely the same events, or because they don't all ascribe precisely the same quotes to him?
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

KALSTER wrote: Somewhat unrelated, but still relevant, is the fact that the very people the whole of the old testament is about, God's chosen people, reject the New Testament.
So the fact that the Jews (largely) rejected Jesus as their Messiah is evidence that the New Testament is bogus? I don't follow.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by KALSTER »

Stuart wrote:
KALSTER wrote: Somewhat unrelated, but still relevant, is the fact that the very people the whole of the old testament is about, God's chosen people, reject the New Testament.
So the fact that the Jews (largely) rejected Jesus as their Messiah is evidence that the New Testament is bogus? I don't follow.
I wouldn't say evidence per se, but certainly curious. Wouldn't you agree?
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

Not particularly curious, given Israel's history. If you read the Old Testament you will see that they frequently rejected and killed the prophets God sent to them. If anything, it seems that it was somewhat characteristic of Judaism to reject God's messengers.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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Stuart wrote:
KALSTER wrote:Well, I found this. Seems as good a source as any.
So what it boils down to in essence, is not actual contradictions, just the fact that they focus on different events and teachings in Jesus' ministry?
There are a few direct contradictions, like the time of the last supper, who carried the cross, the length of his ministry, etc.
Stuart wrote:
KALSTER wrote:It seems like a glaring omission of John not to even mention Jesus' baptism for example, no? In fact, why did there need to be more than one story of Jesus in the first place?
Famous people frequently have multiple biographies written about them, and some ALWAYS include events that others exclude. This is evidence of contradiction? Biographers have a particular purpose in their particular biography, and they select events to describe that further their particular purpose. Are all biographies of, say, Winston Churchill, invalid because they don't all describe precisely the same events, or because they don't all ascribe precisely the same quotes to him?
This isn't Winston Churchill, this is The Son of God they are writing about. I would think it would be the most important thing they would ever do in their lives. Why would they not even be able to agree on details? Crucially, these writings are some of the only records of Jesus' whole existence, something Churchill doesn't suffer from. And they are, as far as we can see, not even contemporaneous to Jesus. John was connected to gnostic sects, but made it in, while other gnostic texts didn't. Plenty of other texts, some of which had some support among those on the council, didn't make it into the Bible, with some having some radical differences to the included four.

Anyway, with this I am not trying to argue against the existence of a Jesus person as such, but trying to highlight the dubiousness of the accounts of exactly what he did and was if he indeed existed. When you look at the whole story of Jesus, there really aren't that many facts that one would need to get right, yet you have all sorts of variations between the accounts of whole groups of people and it would seem that the Bible in it's current form only won out among the many sects because of the interference of Constantine.

If you want to assume the authenticity of the Bible on faith, that is one thing, but I can't see how firm ground can be reached based on the available evidence alone. The fact that the gospels are found in a book that is filled with often glaring inaccuracies that the compilers of the Bible themselves vouched for as true, it really does make it rather difficult to sift through it to determine what is true and what not.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

KALSTER wrote:
Stuart wrote:
KALSTER wrote:Well, I found this. Seems as good a source as any.
So what it boils down to in essence, is not actual contradictions, just the fact that they focus on different events and teachings in Jesus' ministry?
There are a few direct contradictions, like the time of the last supper, who carried the cross, the length of his ministry, etc.
The site you gave doesn't give much information on the "contradiction" in the time of the Last Supper. I don't know of anywhere in any of the Gospels where it specifies the time, so they're obviously going by some sort of context. I'd have to look at the context myself to see where the discrepancy lies.

Who carried the cross? Jesus did at first, and when he could no longer bear its weight they got Simon to carry it. That's a contradiction?

Similarly, if one Gospel account speaks of one year of ministry and another speaks of three years, why is that necessarily a contradiction. One Gospel could easily be focusing in an intense way on the last year of his three-year ministry, while another might focus on the three years as a whole. Again, I know of nowhere in the Gospel accounts where it LIMITS his ministry to a particular time frame. Conveniently, your site doesn't tell us where it gets its information from.
Stuart wrote:This isn't Winston Churchill, this is The Son of God they are writing about. I would think it would be the most important thing they would ever do in their lives. Why would they not even be able to agree on details?
Yes, it was the Son of God about whom they were writing, but it was beyond their scope to detail everything he did. John, in fact, makes that face very clear: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:30-31). None of the Gospel writers pretended to give an exhaustive account of his ministry, and apparent discrepancies can easily be reconciled in terms of the particular focus of a particular author.
KALSTER wrote:And they are, as far as we can see, not even contemporaneous to Jesus.
You're ASSUMING here that the names ascribed to the Gospels are pen names, and the burden of proof is on you. Matthew and John were both apostles, who were eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry. Mark and Luke were both companions in ministry with Peter and Paul, and so their testimony was gleaned directly from eyewitnesses. Unless, of course, you ASSUME pen names, which clearly you do.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by hamin_aus »

Stuart wrote:the burden of proof is on you
It's like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiin
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by KALSTER »

Look, nether of us are scholars of this stuff and have to rely on the assessments of those that study these matters. The position of the majority of scholars is that the authors of the gospels are not known, were written several decades after the fact, were probably written in Greek and borrowed from each other. I did not conveniently choose the link because it contained little explanation for it's claims, but simply because it had a good summary of the comparisons and presented views by both liberal and conservative Christians.

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel ... al_gospels
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author ... s_and_Acts

There is something to browse through that contain citations. I am not aware of any proof that the gospels were in fact written by the people you say did and no claims of authorship are made in them.

Try to look at this objectively. The Bible is qualitatively no different to other mythical recountings like the Iliad, Roman and Greek mythology, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc. It contains references to real events and places, but also contain fanciful happenings like people turning into salt pillars, a star that guided three wise men to a very specific location, a man that got swallowed by a fish and lived, global flood with a single boat that supposedly held all the "kinds" of animals that exist today, a man whose superhuman strength was dependent on his hair, creation myths that oppose known fact of evolution, various kinds of talking animals, etc, etc. This ancient text was written in bronze and iron age middle east by a superstitious tribe. Any reasonable person would ask for extraordinary evidence of such extraordinary claims, don't you think? Therefore proof of these claims need to come from those that claim its authenticity, not from those that question it.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by RiaX »

Stuart wrote:
RiaX wrote: why believe stories written so far back in history BY MEN who didnt even understand what the stars were?
Because they were eyewitnesses.
And how often are eyewitnesses are correct? A lot of the time especially considering the nature of these stories people often exacerbate the truth
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

Eyewitness account is usually afforded significant weight.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by RiaX »

Considering the level of intellect at the time I think not. Besides your history teacher didn't do that little experiment in class to show how word of mouth distorts the facts but whispering a statement to one student and they must pass it on and by the time the statement reaches the end it's completely different.

Religious stories are some what like that distorted over time. besides if god is real where has the deity's power gone to? I have not seen any miracle on that type of scale my entire life can the religious population explain this ? In the ancient time god was giving his power to prophets men who supposedly used their power to move oceans, make god rain fire on cities and cause a plague to kill the first born sons if the house wasnot marked with the blood of a lamb.

So I ask you where has the miracles of this caliber gone to? Or has your god retired ? This might seem like a cheap shot to win the debate and earn points for my view but none the less it's quite a valid one
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by rustypup »

Stuart wrote:Eyewitness account is usually afforded significant weight.
so are all those UFO sightings... what was the point here?.. my personally biased imaginary account is somehow magically valid because it supports the lie?

i "saw"* a pizza made with a halloumi base - this is a real thing! spread the good news! also, condemn anyone who questions this... also, anyone who puts anchovies anywhere near it...
RiaX wrote:Considering the level of intellect at the time I think not.
ignorance!=intellect... :|

very little of the preceding discussion had to do with either evolution or creation..i thought we'd moved on? :?

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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

RiaX wrote:So I ask you where has the miracles of this caliber gone to?
I'll take my reply to the Not Easily Offended thread before rusty has a hernia. :lol:
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by RiaX »

Lol I dunno why the topic has gone so of maybe cause I rudely jumped in my bad

In a sense though you can't prove evolution by disproving god but by disproving god existence you eliminate creation theories and that make your evidence stronger, a cheap way to win vote/ debates but an effective one so I suppose there is some relation here lol.

In terms of proof of evolution I will stick to my original posts of bacteria creating new organelles and making physiological change to survive in a change of their environment and my evidence. I see it everyday I deal with it everyday and it's pain
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Stuart »

RiaX wrote:In a sense though you can't prove evolution by disproving god but by disproving god existence you eliminate creation theories and that make your evidence stronger, a cheap way to win vote/ debates but an effective one so I suppose there is some relation here lol.
If only you COULD disprove God's existence. ;)
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by RiaX »

Indeed it's a difficult task, but I need not do it. As I stated in the other thread... As we progress scientifically we work of god is removed. The planets the moon the sun all thought to be gods today we know they are not. Perhaps mathematically I can say that devine creation is inversely proportional to scientific knowledge ?
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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www.weather.com wrote:Scientist Looking for Woman to Have Neanderthal Baby

A scientist has said it would be possible to clone a Neanderthal baby from ancient DNA if he could find a woman willing to act as a surrogate.

The process would not be legal in many countries and would involve using DNA extracted from fossils.

George Church, a genetics professor of Harvard School of Medicine, said that the process was possible and that far from being brutal and primitive, Neanderthals were intelligent beings.

They are believed to be one of the ancestors of modern man and became extinct 33,000 years ago. He added that altering the human genome could also provide the answers to curing diseases such as cancer and HIV, and hold the key to living to 120.

He told Der Spiegel, the German magazine: “I have already managed to attract enough DNA from fossil bones to reconstruct the DNA of the human species largely extinct. Now I need an adventurous female human.”

The professor claims that he could introduce parts of the Neanderthal genome to human stem cells and clone them to create a fetus that could then be implanted in a woman.

Church helped start the Human Genome Project that mapped human DNA and is well respected in the field. His comments will surprise most geneticists who believe that cloning humans is unacceptable. It is illegal in Britain.

Church said: “We can clone all kinds of mammals, so it’s very likely that we could clone a human. Why shouldn’t we be able to do so?”

He added: “Neanderthals might think differently than we do. We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us.

“When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it’s conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial. They could maybe even create a new neo-Neanderthal culture and become a political force. The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity.”

Church said the technique would involve artificially creating DNA from fossilised material and introducing this into human stem cell lines.

He discusses his idea in his latest book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.

He rules out recreating older human ancestors or dinosaurs, as was the subject of the Jurassic Park films, because the age limit of useful DNA is about one million years, he said.

He told the magazine: “One of the things to do is to engineer our cells so that they have a lower probability of cancer.

“And then once we have a lower probability of cancer, you can crank up their self-renewal properties, so that they have a lower probability of senescence (aging).”
1 - his name is George Church

2 - if he wants a Neanderthal baby he just needs to kidnap one of Fred Phelps' grandkids
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by rustypup »

hamin_aus wrote:
Scientist Looking for Woman to Have Neanderthal Baby
George M. Church wrote:.. blames a mistake in an article he says was written off an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, badly misinterpreting what he said — that such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday — and arriving at the conclusion that he was actively looking for a woman to bear a cave baby with DNA scavenged from ancient Neanderthal bones. He suggested poor translation skills may be part of the problem


and slap bang in the middle of the article:
Severely Impaired Person channelling Alannis wrote:..a project that scientists said has helped determined that...
:lol:
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

Post by Ark »

Thought I'd chip in with an article I posted recently on news24:
Ark wrote:All the time people approach me with questions and assertions over my position as an atheist. The questions I get are the usual stuff, but there are a few assertions that are worth mentioning.

They are:

1) The harmony and balance in nature is so perfect, it must have been created by a super intelligent designer.

2) Prayer really does work. Jesus helped me find my car keys. He also cured my horrible throat infection.

3) The bible is perfectly in line with modern science and every word printed in the bible is fact.

4) Without the bible, there would be no morality.

5) Hell is real and if you don't accept Jesus as you personal lord and saviour, then you will spend the rest of eternity there.

6) Heaven is real and if you accept Jesus as your personal lord and saviour, then you will enter this paradise.

7) The bible is the true word of God and Christianity is the one true religion.

8) God has given you free will to accept him or reject him.


Although some denominations of Christianity may disagree with one or more of these assertions (there are about 38 000 denominations of Christianity), the majority of them claim these points to be true. I'm going to talk a bit about them.

So starting from the top:

There has to be a creator:

For those who haven't been paying attention to what scientists have been doing in the past decade, particle physicists stationed at CERN's LHC have made a few rather remarkable discoveries. They have *almost* confirmed the existence of a particle that gives matter mass. So far, what they found looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck and they are now doing very thorough research and doing very expensive upgrades to the LHC to confirm that it is in fact a duck. This will prove that a universe can come into existence without a god. But I sense this may not be satisfying to you. I'm guessing you're still hanging to the designed belief. Let's say the universe has been designed. I now have a question for you. If your argument remains "The universe looks designed, therefore bible", then how did you get from "The universe looks designed" to "therefore bible"? If it looks like its been designed, then how did you get to bible being your answer? Why did you not go with the Quran?

Prayer really works:

People from all over the world and from all abrahamic religions claim that prayer works. If that is the case, then why haven't any amputees in recorded history ever been healed? People claimed to have their illnesses prayed away, or have prayed for lost belongings to be found and all sorts of other things, but amputees are for some reason totally ignored. Why is this? If you really look at it from a logical and rational perspective, you will find that answered prayers are perfectly in line with chance and coincidence. If you done a little research, you would find that the survival rate of illnesses like cancer are equal among the Christians, Muslims and atheists. Why is that? If you had to pray for something that could not be delivered by chance or coincidence, you will find that the prayer will not be answered. Amputees are a perfect example. Not one amputee has ever been healed anywhere in the world. It has never happened. Matthew 17:20 says "And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Do you believe that with prayer you can move a mountain? If so, care to demonstrate? You see, moving mountains are impossible and is another example of something that cannot be done by chance or coincidence (unless we're invaded by aliens or a comet hits us), so you will find that praying for it will not show any results. You can pray for a grain of sand to appear from nothing in your hand and it will show no results. Why is that?

Everything in the bible is fact:

There are a number of factual errors in the bible. You don't even need to look far to spot them, in fact, the first of many is right in the beginning at Genesis 1:1 in the creation story. It claims that Earth came to be before the sun, where we know it happened other way around. It also states that plants appeared and grew to the age of bearing fruit before the sun appeared. Taking into account that plants need the sun for photosynthesis in order to survive, this is too great an error for a book that is supposedly divinely inspired. Stars, like our sun, is formed out of one element: hydrogen. They are formed out of massive clouds of hydrogen floating around in space. Matter attracts matter and that is how gravity works. As hydrogen clusters together, its gravitational force increases. As the gravitational force increases, more hydrogen gets pulled in. As more hydrogen comes in, the gravitational force gets even stronger, causing pressure and heat to rise. As this goes on, more and more hydrogen gets pulled and in the pressure and heat keeps rising more and more. With enough pressure and heat, hydrogen fuses into helium, and a new star gets "ignited". If the star is big enough, it's life will after a few billion years end with a supernova. A supernova gives the right conditions for hydrogen and helium to fuse into other heavier elements. Our sun is the product of a supernova. After the sun was formed, Earth and the other planets formed out of left-over materials. What the bible says about how Earth came to be is complete nonsense. A lot of modern Christians knows it is nonsense and accepts it as nonsense, but there are also a lot of fundamental Christians who will still defend it with the "out-of-context" card or the "poetry" card. More errors include snakes eating dust, rabbits chewing the cud, 4-legged insects, etc.

Without the bible, there would be no morality:

This statement is very wrong. If the bible is the ultimate moral guide for all actions, then how does one know which parts of the bible to follow? If you follow the bible for your morality, and it says in the bible you can own slaves, and stone your children to death for disobedience, then isn't it okay for people to be doing these things? Leviticus 20:13 clearly states that gay people should be executed. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 condones rape. 1 Timothy 2:12 states that women are inferior to men. 1 Peter 2:18 promotes slavery. Exodus 21:7 states that you can sell your own daughter into slavery (and even gives you the rundown on terms of sale). Deuteronomy 21:18-21 permits you to kill your children for back-talk. Deuteronomy 25:11-13 commands you to cut off a woman's hand if she grabs your junk during a bar-fight. If the bible says all this is okay, then how you figure out not to kill your children and keep slaves? You know it's wrong to do, you're not a monster after all. How did you figure out which parts of the bible are relevant today and which one's aren't. Perhaps, you have a sense of morality, independent from your religion. Perhaps, you have a sense of morality based on empathy for others (like every other human). By saying that you only have morals because of a religion, you're saying it's not possible to figure it out by yourself. Humans have a conscience, a moral compass based on things that our parents and elders taught us and based on things experienced growing up. Personally, I would keep a close eye on any person who says that it is his god alone that keeps him in check.

You will burn in hell if you don't follow the Jesus faith:

This is by large a scare tactic employed by early Christians to keep their followers in line and to scare people into converting to Christianity. The concept of hell was only introduced in the new testament. The closest you'll find to hell in the old testament is "Sheol", which is described being very different to hell. Christianity is by large a fear based religion. If it was not then the concept of hell would be unnecessary (not a lot of Christians would admit this).

You will go to heaven if you follow the Jesus faith:

When was the last time you saw someone thanking a drunk driver for hitting and killing a pedestrian? When was the last time you saw someone throw a party to celebrate a terminal illness? When was the last time you saw someone thanking the state for receiving the death sentence even though he was wrongly convicted? Every religious person knows what the concept of heaven is and really wants to go there, but at the same time, those same people cling to life and do whatever they can to preserve their lives for as long as they can and mourn the deaths of those close to them. Why is that? Perhaps people don't really believe there is a heaven. Perhaps they just really hope that its there.

The bible is the true word of God.

What led people to that conclusion? I spend a lot of time in debate rooms. The one thing to note from what I have learned in debate rooms with Christians and atheists all around the world is this: the only thing Christians have to validate their holy book is the contents of their holy book. They quote scripture to prove their scripture. There is nothing else. So a good question to ask is what makes the bible any more valid than the Quran? What makes the Quran any more valid than the book of Mormon? All the holy books in the world all claim that particular book is the one true book while all the others are false. Peculiar, isn't it? Now consider the following: All races from different parts of the world natively have their own religion or beliefs. If a person is born in Israel, chances are he will become a Jew. If a person is born in India, chances are he will become Hindu. If a person is born in Iran or Pakistan, chances are he will become a Muslim. What religion people follow depends on where they are born. This tells us that a person will take on what ever religion his parents belong to. Does this mean that all religions are the one true religion, or does this mean that people only follow their religion, because they were brainwashed to believe what they believe by their parents and elders? If you think about this with a rational mind, then clearly only one of the following assertions are true: All religions are the right religions or none of them are. All of them have holy books, all of them have millions of followers and all of them have their own god(s). So how sure can one be that the bible is the true word of the one true god?

God has given you free will to accept him or reject him.

Pretty much all Christians will tell you that humans have free will. At the same breath, they will tell you that God is omniscient. To complicate things further, they will tell you that God has a plan and that God works through people (in mysterious ways). At first, this may make perfect sense, but once one starts to think about it, a few problems arise. In reality, this is a serious paradox. Omniscience is perfect knowledge of past and future events. Free will is freedom to choose between alternatives without external coercion. A paradox can be simply explained as statements or events that have contradictory/incompatible and inconsistent properties. Christianity cannot claim that God is omniscient and also claim that humans have free will. The claims form a paradox, a falsehood. If God is omniscient then even before we are born God will have complete knowledge of every decision we are going to make. Any apparent choice we make regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a saviour is predetermined. This must be true to satisfy the assertion that God is omniscient. Effectively we have no choice in the matter. What we think is free will is an illusion. Our choices have been coerced since we exist and act according to the will of God. Alternatively if human free will is valid, meaning that the outcome of our decisions is not pre-determined or coerced, then God cannot be omniscient, since he would not know in advance our decisions. If God knows the decision of every person, before they are born, regarding the acceptance or denial of Jesus as a saviour, then why does he create one set of individuals destined for heaven and another set destined for eternal damnation? This seems unjust, perverse and particularly evil. If God is omniscient then humans do not have free will (see argument above) and the apparent arbitrary choice of God to condemn many individuals to eternal damnation is evil. If that isn't enough, then consider this: If your choices are eternal pleasure or eternal torture, is that really free will? If you exercise your free will to reject beliefs you don't agree with, then you're screwed. That can not be classed as free will.

Personally, I have reached a conclusion. Gods are imaginary. If you remove the god concept entirely, then the world makes perfect sense. There is no correct religion. They are all wrong. The math works. We have free will, because gods are imaginary. Prayers are not answered, because gods are imaginary. Sometimes you get what you want, some times you don't. Amputees do not get healed, because gods are imaginary and its up to humans to create the technologies to assist them. All the holy books are wrong, because gods are imaginary. By teaching small children about ghosts, demons and Satan, you are in reality telling your child that the boogey man is real and wants to devour his soul. This is child abuse and it will be your own fault if your child is afraid of the dark.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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Lol
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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Ark, please provide a link, I need to share your column.
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Re: Creation & Evolution OFFICIAL DEBATE

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