10. Pagan Origins: Abiogenesis and the evolution of genera are not new ideas. These emerged from mythology. Ancient Egyptian mythology records the myth, and later, Greek philosophers accepted it like Anaximander and Democritus. Diodorus Siculus, a first-century BC historian, presented in his “Universal History” the ancient Egyptian myth that life emerged from membranes in a wet marsh. He reported that Egyptians believed that bestial man hunted and gathered, invented language from grunts, and discovered fire. Does that sound familiar? Such theories are not original to science. Read more.
9. Habitability: The universe is fine-tuned for life. The cosmological constants perfectly set against naturalistic odds. The earth is precisely balanced for life. The habitable zone from the sun, the amount of liquid water, protective “gas giant” planets, the ideal orbit for stable temperatures, a precise axial tilt to maintain seasons and warmth, a protective magnetic field, an open position in the galaxy, and essential elements of biochemistry are some conditions necessary for life on Earth. Secular scientists have yet to observe another planet that meets these few conditions despite the thousands of observable planets. The earth is observably 1 in 10^24. Read more.
8. Hoaxes: Evolution of humanity rests on refuted conjectures and frauds. Find a “missing link”; find a hoax. “Missing links” are based solely on conjecture. The list of evolutionary hoaxes presented as the primitive man include the Piltdown man, Nebraska man, Orce man, Cro-magnon, and Neanderthal. Another hoax that stands out is Haeckel’s embryos. This fraud is still used in textbooks to indoctrinate children and adolescents that they evolved through forms of animals in the womb. There is no doubt that this lie is the basis the U.S.’s 50 million plus abortions since 1973 as seen by Carl Sagan’s belief that unborn children are just animals.
7. Biology: Whatever system is more complex than design is most likely designed. Biology is more complex than human design. Therefore, biology is most likely designed. The complexity of the internal order of the cell displays a complex machine. Kinesins are motor proteins that walk on cytoskeleton. Every process of every cellular organelle performs essential functions for each living cell to exist. Comprehending the processes of the cell only reveals a complex order equal from within only by its genetic code. The functions of a cell is an example of the irreducible order of life.
6. DNA: People learn and educate themselves to communicate in complex languages, and they intelligently design complex computer codes. According to evolutionists, nature formulated its own code — a molecular mechanical strand containing more than a trillion processes that instructs the building and maintaining each cell. The order of each code is different for every living organism. As scientists have observed, if SETI received a code one billionth in size to any strand of DNA, then they would declare the existence of intelligent life somewhere else in the Universe. How is it that DNA does not declare intelligent design behind life on Earth?
5. Radiometric Dating: God would create a mature and habitable earth rather than a mass of radioactive lava. By presuming that natural processes formed the original rock without God, secularists ignore any consideration that God could and would have created the universe for life to live in the beginning. According to Genesis, God created man and woman in maturity not infancy, and likewise, God created the earth and its life in maturity. Radioactive measurements reflect a mature creation not long ages. The atheistic assumption undermines long ages that secularists presume. Scientists recognize the assumptions upholding radiometric dating by presuming the original elements. Read more.
4. Causality: Causality is the law of cause and effect. The law affirms that everything that begins to exist has a greater cause. Trace the effect of every cause back and find the greatest cause of all. The cause of the universe must extend beyond the universe, and so the cause must transcend nature. Atheistic origins assert that a quantum flux formed mass-producing particles forming a dense ball of matter once known as the singularity that exploded in the Big Bang forming the precise order of the universe with fine-tuned cosmological constants. Read more here: The Law of Causality and Cause and Effect.
3. Biogenesis: As Louis Pasteur affirmed, life only comes from life, and life only produces after its own kind. This scientific fact is indisputable and no experiment has yet disproved this scientific Law. No scientist has formed life in the lab. No life has evolved from nothing. However, secular evolutionists conjecture without proof that there could have been a time when this might have happened given a number of assumptions. Read more.
2. Constant Virtues: Why believe someone who believes himself to be an ape and lays aside a constant standard of virtue? Why trust the person who believes humans are highly developed animals who invented morals? Why undermine all human rights by there being no constant right and wrong? Why reject the belief that virtues are constant? Right and wrong are always right and wrong. Why believe those who see the virtue of honesty as an idea invented by people? Evolution and its constructs are the prejudice that rejects virtues, because people attempt to console their guilty consciences and appease their own faults through self-righteousness. At the core of doubt and unbelief is the guilty conscience allowing self and society to claim morality. Read more.
1. God in the Flesh: Jesus Christ also testified to the Genesis account of the Creation of the universe (Matt 19:4–9; Mark 10:5–9). Critical scholars admit that Jesus lived as an apocalyptical preacher and his followers and opponents sincerely experienced appearances of Jesus risen from the dead (1 Cor 15:1–4). Furthermore, the writers of the Gospels testify of what they saw and heard, and they also testify to the testimonies of other eyewitnesses. Historical criticism affirms that Christ lived, was crucified, buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, women found the tomb empty, many experienced appearances of Jesus resurrect, and the church began upon faith in the resurrection. Their written testimonies remain for an honest examination before all. The written statements of the Gospels attest to Jesus as the predicted Messiah doing miracles, predicting Jerusalem’s destruction, and resurrecting from the dead (Ps 22; Isa 52:13–53:12). Read more.
The Breath of God 
It is a distinct pleasure to read discourse that is civil, intelligent, and reasonably presented. Thank you all.
“The peer-review process needs to be overhauled. Currently, it happens behind closed doors, with anonymous reviews only seen by journal editors and manuscript authors. This means we have no real idea how effective peer review is – though we know it can easily be gamed. Extreme examples of fake reviewers, fake journal articles, and even fake journals have been uncovered.
More often, shoddy science and dodgy statistics are accepted for publication by reviewers with inadequate levels of expertise. Peer review must become more transparent. Journals like Frontiers already use an interactive reviewing format, with reviewers and authors discussing a paper in a real-time, forum-like setting.”
Scientific fraud is rife: it’s time to stand up for good science
It is amusing that you think stricter standards would get more creationist science into the journals.
Poor Isaac Newton. That Creationist has no hope to be a scientist, does he?
Isaac Newton wasn’t doing biology, you buffoon. He was doing math and physics and his religious beliefs didn’t enter into them. If he did try to do biology and let his religion determine his findings, he would be as wrong and utterly refoted as the rest of you creationists.
Oh, yes. I am glad that life does depend upon physics and light. Wait, it does. Wait. Pasteur? Redi?
Oh, Scott, you obtuse fool… you again manage to hook onto the unimportant part AND be wrong about it. The important part is that Newton wasn’t using his religion when he did science. You creationist nutters do nothing but. That is why you are laughingstocks.
Yes. He was. He got his basis for observing the Creation by his faith. To observe Creation is religious (Psa. 19, Rom. 1:18ff). He also used the standard of evidence for his histories about Daniel’s prophecies. Remember the truth is proved by two or three witnesses. All the truth that we know is confirmed by observation.
Scott Shifferd Jr. wrote: “Yes. He was. He got his basis for observing the Creation by his faith.”
Stuff and nonsense. It adds nothing to your attempts to promote your religion as valid, let alone having anything to do with evolution, the topic of this blog entry.
Scott Shifferd Jr. wrote: “To observe Creation is religious (Psa. 19, Rom. 1:18ff).’
Looking at things in the universe is religious?! Well I guess I could agree with it as you put it, in that observing the universe and assuming it is some kind of creation is rather religious, being as that assumption appears to be based on nothing but imagination, emotion and blind (faithful) adherence to doctrine.
Scott Shifferd Jr. wrote: ” He also used the standard of evidence for his histories about Daniel’s prophecies.”
If so, then why did they not become established as solid reliable science like his work on physics and gravity etc.? Could it be that you are simply mistaken?
Scott Shifferd Jr. wrote: “Remember the truth is proved by two or three witnesses.”
Nonsense. Do you think that repeating this lie enough times will eventually make it true?!
As MIke has said; there were more than that for aspects of Mormonism, actual witnesses too; not stories that claim or imply the existence of witnesses. And there have been far far more that “two or three” witnesses for alien abductions, more that that for single such events in fact. Do you believe those claims as well? Or is this just a special reduced standard you accept for YOUR faith, while demanding far more for anything else?
All the truth that we know is confirmed by observation.
You have eyewitness accounts of 2 or more people claiming to have been seen aliens at the same exact time. Nope. Are you pretending to be ignorant? You do not know that witness are brought to testify of the same event and not separate accusations.
Oceanography was established by Matthew Fontaine Maury’s faith in Psalm 8:8 and his scientific observation.
“All the truth that we know is confirmed by observation.” Whose observation and how do you know it is true? How many accounts do you need to know that it is a fact? How do examine their reports? Do not pretend to be ignorant.
Poor Isaac Newton?!
You are one confused individual aren’t you? Your propensity for making unconnected & irrelevant remarks in response to comments is remarkable!
Isaac Newton was a Christian (denier of “the trinity” though) but never attempted to offer “creationist science”, certainly not with the pretense that it was real science. On the contrary; when he was doing science (before giving it up at a rather young age) the ONLY evocation of God came at the end of his ability to understand, typical God-of-the-gaps stuff. Basically “I’ve figured this, this and this out, but I got stuck here…so God did that bit!”
Interestingly he wrote far more on religious issues than scientific ones, yet what is he known for? Which of his writings had any real impact?
Newton is known for both writing on religious and science. He did not get to publish his works on the Bible during his life. It is you who ignore his history and observations of faith and choose ride on his science. Again, there is no proof that he did not believe in the trinity. That is a debated matter, because he was non-conformist and not a part of the state church.
Should we go down the list of Creationists, who discovered the most fundamental observations and then some in each field science?
Yet again, you ignore the actual important part of the comment. None of those creationists were using creationism when they did science. I will repeat it in the hope that you will remember it: None of those creationists were using creationism when they did science.
They observed creation being created by the Creator. No scientist ever used evolution to discover anything. That is a fact.
Scott Shifferd Jr wrote: “They observed creation being created by the Creator.”
Any evidence for this claimed “observation”? No; they BELIEVED everything was created by a mystical mysterious super agent, and so CALLED it creation, they OBSERVED nothing of the sort. There is a huge difference.
Scott Shifferd Jr; “No scientist ever used evolution to discover anything. That is a fact.”
That’s not a fact, it doesn’t even make sense.
But that is not an unbeliever defining who is a Christian. It is you rejecting the Christianity of the majority of Christians.
Okay.
So, do you now concede that your #9 was not only factually inaccurate, but fallacious as well?
#9 is absolutely right.
Explain how #9 is absolutely right Scott.
The Earth is precisely located in the galaxy for life. It is just the right distance from the sun for water to be balanced in 3 states. The Earth has a moon that is also just the right distance for tides and producing a perfect eclipse of the sun for observation. The Earth has a magnetic field repelling solar winds and it is tilted on its axis 23.5 degrees for the seasons. All of this essentially balancing the blueness of our planet, water. The amount of water on the earth is just right covering 72% of the surface balancing the temperature of the Earth and providing microscopic botany’s precise production of oxygen. Add to this the symbiotic relationship by the necessity of gases released between plants and animals. Thereby, the atmosphere is also balanced just right. You know these things I assume unless you conjecture and speculate that the amount of water balance will not be necessary for life in other places.
Seeing a distant planet in the habitable zone cannot be compared to the Earth’s ideal conditions.
Sorry. That should have been # 8.
Most of your supposed reasons why “evolution is false” don’t even address any of evolution (change of allele frequencies in populations), transmutation (speciation), natural selection or common descent. Many of them are fallacious (which is fortunate for you, as if they weren’t fallacious they would disprove creationism as well). You have to remember that proving Christianity doesn’t preclude evoluton being factual, so
Of your top 3 , #3 is a bad argument against abiogenesis, and doesn’t address any of evolution, transmutation, natural selection or common descent (and also if valid would refute creationism). If you take “life only comes from life” as your axiom then you have to infer than the universe is infinitely old, and life has always existed (Fred Hoyle’s position). But this is contrary to observation – regardless of how old the universe is, those parts of the universe causally connected to the contemporary earth was incapable of sustaining life 13.7 billion years ago[1]. So we are led to conclude that it is possible to have life when there previously no life, refuting your axiom, and the issue becomes how this happened not whether it happened. If the question is how life arrived on earth various forms of panspermia are possible, but as far as I can see we have three alternatives for the origin of life – spontaneous panspermia, directed panspermia, and supernatural panspermia.
There is more evidence for spontaneous panspermia and directed panspermia than for supernatural panspermia, though the fuzzy nature of the definition of life excludes an unambiguous claim of either having been observed.
Self-replicating RNAs have been observed to spontaneously form in certain environments. (See Spiegelman Monster.) If you stretch the definition of life this is spontaneous abiogenesis, though the environment is not relevant to the origin of the biosphere.
Turning to directed abiogenesis you have already been directed to Venter’s work. Your rejection of this was on invalid grounds – you claim Pasteur’s work as your support, but Pasteur’s work was a refutation of the formation of contemporary organisms from non-living material, so “bacteria are still bacteria” is a red herring. A better attempt at refutation is to note that Venter synthesised the genome, but not the host cell. As mammalian erythrocytes are agenomic (enucleate and amitochondriate), but as still considered living I guess we have to consider that agenomic bacterial cells are also living, so this doesn’t qualify as directed abiogenesis. However, scientists have synthesised viruses, so if viruses are considered living directed abiogenesis has been achieved. If otherwise, looking at the continuing improvements in technology, directed abiogenesis should be achievable in the foreseeable future.
But to return to the original point, all this is irrelevant – as evolution, transmutation, natural selection and common descent are all compatible with supernatural abiogenesis. It doesn’t strike me as a parsimonious or productive hypothesis, but is conceivable that a supernatural entity created the common ancestor of life 3 or 4 billion years ago.
Your #2 is fallacious (argumentum ad hominem is one of the classical fallacies), and also amoral, disgusting and unchristian.
With regards to your attack on Charles Darwin, Darwin did not complete transcend his culture (by the standards of his time he was a liberal on the subject of race), but an honest argument would compare his views with the racism of his creationist contemporaries (Agassiz, the slavery apologists of the American South, etc.) (even Lincoln’s views were worse than Darwin’s[2]), the sexism of the pseudoPauline epistles, the anti-Semitism of Martin Luther, and the misogyny, homophobia and racism (and even Social Darwinism) of today’s evangelical right as displayed in the last election cycle. You might also note that Jesus is not consistently depicted in the gospels as you contrast him – see Matthew 7: 25-29.
The remainder of #2 is blatant bearing of false witness.
And in the case of #1 even passing over all the other problems, it ignores that Jesus was known to use parables, metaphor and allegorical, so you are not justified in using his alleged references to Genesis to reject the factuality of evolution, transmutation, natural selection and common descent.
As a Christian you are supposed to believe that the world is the work of God. As such you would be expected to place more weight on the work of God, than on the words of men.
I also recommend to you an evangelical Christian blog.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/
[1] If you are willing to postulate unknown physics you have an out in the form of temporal panspermia (life delivered by time travel from the future) or paratemporal panspermia (life arriving from an alternative universe via a gateway). But Occam’s Razor is against this.
[2] I’ve seen a claim that Lincoln’s views in later life were better the usual quoted material.
What I love about the hoax argument is that by that standard, Christianity is hurting, from the Donation of Constantine to the Shroud of Turing to the present day PMD’s, and Barton, there’ve been lots of hoaxes.
That’s not Christianity. I am sure that unbelievers do not get to define, who is a Christian and who is not.
And you don’t get to define what is and isn’t science, since you don’t unde4rstand it. Oh, you also don’t get to say who is a Christian and who isn’t. Who do you think you are exactly? I mean other then another pureblind creationist?
Starting a new thread, because wow, you need to get a new comment system. I’d recommend one, but I haven’t found any that aren’t awful.
So, last to first: You actually cited dictionary.com? As an authoritative source on ancient terminology? Wow. Yeah, don’t do that. Keep words in their proper context. Do you need to learn Latin? I personally like the D’ooge book, but opinions may vary. Still: can’t argue with “free on Gutenberg”, so, yeah. That.
Also, I would recommend Hume’s On Miracles. Well, all of Hume, really. He’s one of those guys that make the rest of us look bad;
Pagan is a modern term. The Latin reveals little of modern usage.
“late 14c., from L.L. paganus “pagan,” in classical L. “villager, rustic, civilian,” from pagus “rural district,” originally “district limited by markers,” thus related to pangere “to fix, fasten,” from PIE base *pag- “to fix” (see pact). Religious sense is often said to derive ”
pagan. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved December 18, 2012, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pagan
That you and others misuse a term does not change the meaning of that term — unless you’re willing to admit that the meaning of words can change over time.
(Hint: This is a trap.)
Oh, and an afterthought: Have you read Hume yet?
Not completely yet. I will. I’ve read exerts and his arguments before. I wasn’t impressed by his ignorance.
His ignorance? You are aware that he wrote a twelve-volume History of England and the Treatise by the time he was 26, yes? And that the history was basically textbook for a hundred years? Be a little impressed!
Did he know modern science? Of course not. He lived in the 18th century. But he was very, very clever; cleverer than either you or I, I think. And his writing is what inspired Kant to emerge from his “dogmatic stupor”. In short: without Hume, we wouldn’t have Kierkegaard, we wouldn’t have Plantinga, and we wouldn’t have Alston. And that’s the short list of religious philosophers he influenced. From the late 19th to the 20th century. Again, be a little impressed!
Yep. not impressed by his ignorance of the Bible. I wonder what his standard for verifying history was. :)
What, exactly, do you find problematic about Hume’s so-called “ignorance of the Bible”? His aversion to relying on it in his philosophical works as an authority? Do you really think that anyone raised in early 18th century Britain with a good education could be ignorant of the Bible?
No, your problem goes deeper, I suspect. I’m neither competent nor inclined to work it out, but I do encourage you to engage in some serious self-reflection.
Hume’s “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” is a humorous echo of Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”. It really is plagiarism. In stead of using Cause and Effect as Locke did to see God, Hume ignored this point and directed himself toward preferring his own experience now over that the experiences and witnesses others in the Gospels.
Hume’s conclusions about miracles is shallow and short-sighted from prejudice. He does not understand witnesses and primary sources. He is not even able to see that his own experiences are witnesses! While Hume praises the human experience as one’s primary perception of truth, he valued his perception contrary everyone else’s while not seeing that his experience is a witness and that other witnesses are necessary to confirm his own. His whole argument contradicts itself as the honest and intelligent person would see. Then Hume said that the claim of miracles are contrary to his experience, and therefore any testimonies of miracles must therefore be be fraudulent. Add to this that his definition of a miracle is any contrary to nature according to Hume, and yet if nature’s God supernaturally created nature, because one cannot create nature by nature when nature does not yet exist, then it must be supernatural. Therefore, God can supernaturally act upon nature contrary to this laws that He established.
Hume is right that, “To apply these principles to a particular instance; we may observe, that there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men, and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators. This species of reasoning, perhaps, one may deny to be founded on the relation of cause and effect. I shall not dispute about a word. It will be sufficient to observe that our assurance in any argument of this kind is derived from no other principle than our observation of the veracity of human testimony, and of the usual conformity of facts to the reports of witnesses.”
Hume previously affirmed, “[T]he authority either of scriptures or of tradition, is founded merely in the testimony of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those of miracles of the Savior, by which he proved his divine mission.”
Was David Hume Confused about Miracles?
Just want to say, Brother Shifferd, that this column is a laugh riot! So glad it’s slow at work today. As a person who was raised in the COC and even attended a Christian College, I can readily identify every one of your tactics. You guys haven’t changed a whit since the 1980’s. I am now an out and proud atheist, and do NOT start about my not being familiar with the Bible. Like every good COC I went to church three times per week and spent the equivalent of years studying the Bible, as I did not walk away until I was in my 40’s. I even have 6 (worthless) hours of college credit for the formal study of books of the Bible. Just do everyone a favor and shut up. Quit while you are behind; go back to arguing about whether or not women can pray in a room if there are men in it.
To address #3: Life has been created out of non-life right here. In a lab: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/328/5981/958.pdf
This is the transfer of bacterial chromosome? No life evolved, but if considered created, it came by these scientists via Intelligent Design. This is as the article says a “synthetic copy”. There is no new form of life. Bacteria is still bacteria.
My main concern with #3 is the picture next to it stating that “Law of Biogenesis = Evolution Debunked”. Which I simply don’t understand and would appreciate if you would elaborate your view onto it.
Addressing your response: creating a new genome out of pieces of an old one (the pieces are in their individual form not alive), adding extra non-coding segments to determine that its offspring indeed is produced by the synthetic bacteria, would not make it do anything different than what the template bactria did. But, it would at least prove that, the synthetic copy did not spring into life from a previous bacteria. Which is why I posted the article. You said: “No life has ever been made in the lab.” I wanted to say: “Yes it has, scientists made an artificial bacteria.”
What if scientists would have made a completely artificial genome? Assembling it amino acid after amino acid, atom after atom for that matter. It would still be a prokaryote of some sort, but with no previous living ancester whatsoever. They would have made life, out of non-living material. In a lab.
And yes, it would have been designed. Eventhough I fail to see the link between intelligent design and scientists creating a genome from scratch.
“What if scientists would have made a completely artificial genome?”
“And yes, it would have been designed. Eventhough I fail to see the link between intelligent design and scientists creating a genome from scratch.”
They may be making it from scratch, but to use your analogy, they would be using the same same recipe and the same format. Again, this is intelligent design either way. The scientists, who wants to prove evolution, must assemble a non-living environment and the probable conditions to the exact moment when life would be formed, and then also provide the right conditions for the life-form to evolve and evolve into another organism. Then clearly, life will be seen to form naturally. This would prove that evolution is according to nature or nature’s Creator. This would imply that the Earth was organized precisely in the cosmos to do just that. Therefore, the research would expand to the expanses of the Universe. I’ll let you follow the reason further from there.
The Law of Biogenesis is a scientific law like gravity. No voting or consensus makes a law no longer a law. In short, the Law of Biogenesis affirms that life does not originate from nothing, and that one living thing does not produce another of a different kind. One may speculate that the conditions for biogenesis are much different than the common conditions present now. This remains speculation until proof is provided. No animal has observably been recorded to have genetically drifted into another kind. No lab has yet produced life through such supposed conditions. No one has shown that the Bible is wrong about these matters, but rather the affirmation of the Bible is that a Creator created the animals according to their kinds, and that God being God can do so in a short period of time.
You have the scope of the “Law of Biogenesis” incorrrect. It does not include the clause “one living thing does not produce another of a different kind”.
Kind is poorly defined turn. If we consider kind to be equivalent to species, then the claim you attribute to the “Law of Biogenesis” is observationally false, as speciation has been repeatedly observed in the wild, under domestication and in the laboratory. It is almost routine in agronomy.
On the other hand, if you define a kind as a clade whose members all share common ancestry, and do not have common ancestry with members of other clades, then the evidence is that life on earth all belongs to a single kind.
You are simply factually incorrect.
The “Law of biogenesis” as presented here is a creationist fabrication. The ‘Law’ of biogenesis as proposed by Louis Pasteur has never truly been codified as a scientific law. His observations, which are so woefully misrepresented here and in all such apologetics distortions, is of note however:
What Pasteur observed (through simple observation plus controlled experiment) was that macroscopic complex organisms (such as spider, worms maggots etc.) do not, as claimed, arise, “before our eyes” as it were, through any form of spontaneous generation or “special creation” (a decidedly religious notion) but rather that they arose from life via reproduction. And that the claimed instances of such spontaneous generations (such as horse hairs turning into worms after the rain!) were erroneous assumptions based on poor observation practices, and the leaping to hasty conclusions.
The observation and conclusions were NEVER meant to be applied to the (possibly singular) origin of the very first form of life on this planet, but was strictly concerned with the occurrences of life directly observed ‘today.’
Are you saying that there is no scientific Law of Biogenesis and that you have proof that organisms can be formed from non-living matter and that they do not always produce after their own kind but genetically drift into being another organism? I would like to see proof otherwise, but I find that this scientific law stands contrary to speculations like a “Cambrian Explosion”.
Yes I am saying that the “law of biogeneis” is not really a scientific law. In science a law describes patterns in observed facts, if the conclusions Pasteur drew had been codified, it would have been a s hypothesis then a theory, not a law.
Am I saying that I ” have proof that organisms can be formed from non-living matter and that they do not always produce after their own kind but genetically drift into being another organism”?!
What? No. Where in anything I wrote could you possibly have gotten that idea?! I made no remarks on evolutionary biology whatsoever, so how could I have possibly been saying any such thing?! What ARE you talking about? I was simply correcting a single error that you made in your article.
(genetic drift is only one of the processes of evolutionary diversification by the way.)
You “find that this scientific law stands contrary to speculations like a “Cambrian Explosion” “?
How? For a start; it is not a law. And there is no reason to think that the Cambrian explosion involves any kind of spontaneous generation, nor “life originating from nothing”, nor “one living thing producing another of a different kind” as per your straw man version of evolutionary theory. So therefore it wouldn’t “stand contrary” to it even if it was. In fact you would have to misrepresent both Loius Pasteur’s work AND the nature of the cambrian explosion to pretend that it did so!
Is it not the “pattern of observed facts” that organisms are not observed to emerge from the non-living and other organisms only after their own kind? Therefore, the Law of Biogenesis is still a scientific law based upon observed facts. Conjecturing that there may have been a time when life could have come from nothing does not make a fact, law, theory, or rational hypothesis.
Not quite in the sense that a scientific law is formulated, no. The majority of laws are of a mathematical nature. But be that as it may; it remains true that “the law of biogenesis” is predominantly a creationist straw man, a dishonest misrepresentation designed to promote their beliefs through lies. And to the small extent that it is not; it is an informal reference (not an actual scientifc law) to Lous Pasteur’s observations challenging the claims of spontaneous generation of organisms such as maggots, worms and insects.
Who suggested that life can come from nothing? Not I. On the contray that is a (rather poor) implication of what Paseur was refuting: Spontaneous generation!
Why do you persist in reading into everything I say, so as to prsume I am making claims that I have never even hinted at, let alone made?
My top 10 reasons why theism is false
10 Pagan Origins of Theism: Clearly the idea of gods was invented by the ancient Greeks, or if not, by their predecessors.
9 Planetary Habitability of Earth: As you point out, only one star out of many trillions is known to support human life. Clearly, if there is a God, human life is not high on his list of priorities.
8 Hoaxes: Mormonism, Scientology, Christian Science. Need I say more?
7. The Irreducible Disorder of Life: If there is a purpose in life, it’s not at all obvious. The purpose of cheetahs is to catch antelopes, the purpose of antelopes is to avoid being caught by cheetahs. One might almost think there were competing gods.
Good heavens, is that the time? I’m sorry, the remaining 6 reasons will have to wait.
Is #1 the problem of evil? If it is, do I get a biscuit? (If I don’t, would that count as evidence for said problem?) (I prefer jammy dodgers, just in case.)
Can the evolved tendency to be good at seeing faces be on the list?
Could be, but the pastor would probably see “evolved” as question-begging
You must admit, Scott, that’s a lot to respond to in one comment. And a lot of mystical drivel too. Do I have unlimited comment space? How about if I just do reason 10 & reason 1 for now?
Reason #10–If evolution in some form was originally conceived in “pagan [pre-historic?]mythology”, which I’ve never heard before, then those pagans had more on the ball than we thought. Of course, they would have been speculating out of sheer imagination, with no evidence or scientific methodology. But that’s precisely how pagans originally conceived of gods, too, & this fanciful & silly idea simply evolved through subsequent generations of self-appointed shamans & holy men, of which you are the latest evolution. Because religions have evolved into ever more complex cultural forms over the ages doesn’t make them any less silly or fanciful. Nor does it have any bearing whatever on the validity, or non-validity, of the theory of biological evolution.
Reason #1–Sounds like you , or somebody, has come up with an exceedingly simple mathematical formula for calculating the Certainty & Truth in a story. There is no such formula, & if there was, the Bible would fail it. The gospels were not written by people who “saw” what they were writing about, but by guys who wrote 30-90 years later. We don’t know who they were, what their sources were, nor how reliable they were as reporters. We do know that they got a lot of facts wrong, or simply made them up, such as the “decree by Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed & that each citizen should go to his anscestral city to register”, which appears in no other history of the time. We do know that the whole Bible was the product of an extravagantly credulous and superstitious age when miracles were as common as cats and dogs.
I appeciate that you have thrown open your site to all comers, but that such drivel is taken so seriously by so many Americans, including you, is an embarrassment to our country. And do not doubt the rest of the civilized world is laughing at us for it.
Diodorus Siculus also the described the invention of the pagan gods in Babylon.
There are no facts behind that presumption that the writers of the Gospels are not who they say they are. The whole opposition to the Gospels is based on conjecture embedded in the comfort of presumption, because the Gospels are contrary to the worldview of those asserting false statements. One notable point of prejudice is seen in not accepting a book’s authorship. If one would pick up a book today and make baseless claims that the author had not written it, these are great charges and a great crime worthy of the due penalty. Celsus never questioned the authorship the Gospels. I don’t see why any honest skeptics go to this level today.
Add to this that the Book of Acts was finished before the death of Paul in 65 AD. Before Acts, Luke noted in Acts that he had written his Gospel. Luke notes that the Apostles had previously written narratives, which he intended to do the same (Luke 1:1-3). Clearly, 3-4 of the Gospels were already written before Paul’s death. Add to this that 1 Tim. 5:18 quotes Luke’s Gospel as “scripture”. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark may have been written even before 40 AD. Mark does not name the high priest assuming that the readers know who the current high priest is when Jesus was crucified. Yet, the high priest, Caiaphas, died in 37 AD.
I hope that you will be more fair-minded about this. I write as one who was once a skeptic. I read the gospels with a critical eye, and they stand without contradiction.
They stand without contradiction? What were the last words of Jesus?
Both Luke 24 and Mark 16 say that before Jesus ascended that He spoke to His disciples, and Luke 24 specifies that He blessed them. Luke expanded upon this in Acts 1:4-8 presenting Jesus’ last words before ascending, “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, ‘which,’ He said, ‘you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth'” (NKJV).
Yet, Jesus did appear to Paul more than once, but I reasoned that you were referring to the gospels.
They are also contradicted by the Roman records (no census). There are more instances. Shall I list them?
Yes! Please!
Here’s one more. None of the gospels were written during the life of this Christ person (an individual with no historical record of any reliability) and include many patent impossibilities that render them completely unreliable. It would be like consulting “The Devil and Daniel Webster” while working on a biography of Webster and considering it proof of the existence of a man named Jabez Stone.
Alright, here we go. You claim Christians existed in the early 2nd century, but not Christ. The Christians just spontaneously appeared? Then you muster enough prejudice, you say that those who claim to be eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ are not, because – well, you don’t know. You are just saying it to appease your bias and guilt. That doesn’t change the coming judgment.
Ron Hubbard exists, and so does Joseph Smith. Why not Jesus? Where is your evidence? Believers have numerous accounts of eyewitnesses, and you have nothing. Even the hostile witness of Tacitus states that Jesus existed,
“Nero fabricated scapegoats—and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome”
Celsus also found that Christ existed.
“where is your evidence” you ask. Seriously? Are you that obtuse? You are actually asking me for evidence that a person didn’t exist? Wow, you are seruiously deluded on how logic and reason work.
You know God exists, but like most smug people, you pretend that He does not.
Scott Shifferd Jr. wrote: “You know God exists, but like most smug people, you pretend that He does not.”
Oh no, not the “you really know but pretend you don’t” canard. How pathetically low can you go?
Making truth claims on which you most certainly don’t know; the mental states of another. It’s just insulting.
Good.