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Is this stuff really taught in churches?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by F8L, Nov 24, 2007.

  1. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    Faith ought to stand on its own. Attempts to find a scientific basis for faith are a symptom of weak insecure faith.
     
  2. traydragen

    traydragen New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 25 2007, 11:40 PM) [snapback]544118[/snapback]</div>
    Yeah, I'm not really scared, I really like hearing what non-believers think. I mean ultimately my goal (not here tonight) is to show people the Christ that I know so to get a gauge of what I am up against is pretty awesome actually. And, thank you for having the conversation with me. On to my reply.

    Alright, the simple answer here is no. No, I cannot explain why my faith in something unseen; I honestly can't. I have experienced God, I know what it's like to live without God and the Bible lets me know God so I believe it to be true. The thing is, call me an idiot if you want, but I like it that way. I will not leave from here without offering some questions for you guys. Explain to me the cell theory (yes I will claim I know nothing about this and heard it from somewhere) and how were the first cells formed and also do you believe the Bible to be a historically accurate document, why or why not?

    And in reply to the guy who says faith ought to stand on its own, I have to disagree. I feel that faith, without questions, is dead, I stole that from Rob Bell. I think that is a big problem with the church right now. People have questions about something and they are afraid to ask simply because questions are off limits because for some reason we are to understand the trinity as soon as we are taught it. I could go on. (this was a poor paragraph and I apologize)
     
  3. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    i've been in science for 7 years now. i guess it's a little late to go back, but i just don't get where it DOESN'T make sense...

    with all intentions of being a chemist, i ended up studying biochemistry (more messy, imo tougher problems to solve, ie more fun) and molecular biology. the molecular classes, particularly bioinformatics, really set the point home that there is a common origin. look at all the diversity of species and yet all the things we share in our nuclei. why on earth do we use rats and pigs as human models? similarity. not perfect but good.

    some may interpret this as "oh wow, this world is far to spectacular to have come about on its own" but why stop there? no no, i see it as a giant puzzle. i will never solve it myself, but among many other scientists, in my lifetime we can learn SO MUCH. i can only study a tiny little piece of it personally, but that puzzle is still there waiting to be solved and it's what drives us all to get up and go to work in the morning and sometimes at night too :p
     
  4. RonH

    RonH Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Nov 25 2007, 11:17 AM) [snapback]543938[/snapback]</div>
    I'll disagree, at least in some narrow technical sense of idiocy. Even in a wider sense, there are some very clever and smart people making a good living at this. As to their sincerity, I'll let others judge, but lots of people can carry a heavy load of cognitive dissonance without encumbering their daily lives. Would you describe Marxists as idiots? Think of the internal heavy lifting educators who are labor union leaders must do?
     
  5. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    Traydragen,

    I'll use this agrument from the article I linked to show you an example of their evidence vs the scientific evidence.

    Quoted from BibleLife.org

    "If natural selection were true, Eskimos would have fur to keep warm, but they don't. They are just as hairless and everyone else. If natural selection were true, humans in the tropics would have silver, reflective skin to help them keep cool, but they don't. They have black skin, just the opposite of what the theory of natural selection would predict. If natural selection were true, humans at northern latitudes would have black skin, but they have white skin instead, except for the Eskimos with skin that is half way between white and black. Many evolutionist argue that melanin is a natural sunscreen that evolved in a greater amount to protect dark skinned people who live near the Equator. They simply ignore the fact that dark skinned Eskimos live north of the Arctic Circle. Melanin in the skin is not a sound argument in favor of evolution. The theory of natural selection is wrong because it cannot create something in the DNA that wasn't there in the beginning."

    In the first part of this paragraph the author assumes that traits are only based on environmental factors and are created by those environmental pressures. In modern synthesis we realize that environmental pressures play a large role in the evolution of populations but they do not create specific mutations and traits. An organism must exhibit a trait before it can be selected for. If an organisms has a beneficial trait that helps camoflauge it better than the rest of the population (it is more green) then it is likely to live longer and pass on those traits. Living in a jungle did not create the trait, it mearly allowed that organism's trait to be considered beneficial in that specific context. In the same way Eskimos do not have fur because there must not have been any Eskimos with a gene that coded for fur. Simply being in a cold climate is not going to make you grow fur. To get more specific, because Eskimo (I hate using that term) people are social and have technology like warm clothing environmental materials (blubber, snow etc.) the difference between some hair and a lot of hair is not a determining factor for breeding. The Eskimo with very little hair is just as likely to breed and pass on his/her genes as is a very hairy Eskimo (purposly excluding sexual preference here). Therefore there is no environmental pressure selecting for fury Eskimos.

    Onto color. Eskimos and Africans are dark-skinned (contain more melanin than most Europeans). The purpose of melanin is to protect cells from mutations caused by UV radiation. So we understand why Africans/Filipinos and other people living near the equator have darker skin than people living at higher latitudes (for very long periods of time). So why do Eskimos (Inuit) have dark skin? Well they are shown to have originated from cultures that had darker skin and lived in lower latitudes (more sunlight). When they migrated to the polar regions (fairly recently) they already had adaptive technology like clothing and due to their diet they had a rich source of vitamin D (one of the big factors for light skin in latitudes with low solar insolation).

    Does this help illuminate the problem we have with creationist science?
     
  6. PriuStorm

    PriuStorm Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]544134[/snapback]</div>
    No. The bible has been altered by humans too many times throughout history... wording changed, books rewritten, edited, removed and added. I think it's an interesting document, but not an accurate historical account.
     
  7. traydragen

    traydragen New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 26 2007, 12:37 AM) [snapback]544140[/snapback]</div>
    I think it absolutely does. F8L, I believe you have these very right wing creationists, God put everything of the world in this 3000 page book and I should take it word for word and for some reason they believe that the God they believe in is not creative. I think the science behind God's work is amazing and yes I feel evolution is definitely a part of it. I personally don't think (this is not Biblical at all) that God would make us to not be able to adapt to his ever changing creation and I think evolution is his way of doing this. I know, I know I have the easy job of just saying that all of this molecular biology simply puts a stamp on the reason why I feel that the was a person behind all of this. I really think we can agree on this fact. We must both have faith to believe in what we believe in. My faith being in a God who put all of this here and yours being an event that happened that put all of this here, am I correct on this assumption?
     
  8. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 25 2007, 09:16 PM) [snapback]544134[/snapback]</div>
    Cell theory. It all depends on how deep you want to go but this is a quote from a thread about god posted in 2006. These are my posts. If you would like to see the whole thread go HERE.

    "The first "life" were complex (non-random) chemical reactions that evenutally formed a membrane and allowed for different concentrations of chemicals on the "inside" vs the outside world. With catalysts and feedback loops going on inside these "cells", points of non-equalibrium were reached and new levels of complex organization appear and soon (a billion years or so lol) self perpetuating, self-replicating systems evolved. That is the simple version."

    Here is a link to page on cellular evolution and self-organization by Pier Liugi Luisi

    Galaxee can expand on this as she is more well versed in chemistry than I am. :)

    Here is an interesting idea on how life progressed beyond the point of the basic membrane:

    "The first cells led a precarious existence. The environment around them changed continually, and every hazard presented a new threat to their survival. In the face of these hostile forces-harsh sunlight, meteorite impacts, volcanic eruptions, droughts, and floods-the bacteria had to trap energy, water, and food to maintain their integrity and stay alive. Each crisis must have whiped out large portions of the first patches of life on the planet and would certainly have extinguished them alltogether, had it not been for two vital traits-the abilities of the bacterial DNA to replicate faithfully and to do so with extraordinary speed. Because of theri enormous numbers, the bacteria were able, again and again, to respond creatively to all threats and to develop a great variety of adaptive strategies. Thus they gradually expanded, first in the waters and then in the surfaces of sediments and soils.

    Perhaps the most important task was to develop a variety of new metabolic pathways for extracting food and energy from the environment. One of the first bacterial inventions was fermentation-the breaking down of sugars and conversion into ATP molecules, the "energy carriers" that fuel all cellular processes. This inovation allowed the fermenting bacteria to live off chemicals in the earth, in mud and water, protected from the harsh sunlight. Some of the fermenters also developed the ability to absorb nitrogen gas from the air and convert it into various organic compounds. The "fix" nitrogen-in other words, to capture it directly from the air-takes large amounts of energy and it is a feat that even today can be performed only by a few special bacteria. Since nitrogen is an ingredient of the proteins in all cells, all living organisms today depend on the nitrogen-fixing bacteria for their survival.

    Early on in the age of bacteria. photosynthesis-"undoubtedly the most importnt single metabolic innovation in the history of life on the planet" 27 -became the primary source of life energy. The first processes of photosynthesis inventd by bacteria were different from those used by plants today. They used hydrogen sulfide, a gas spewed out by volcanoes, instead of water as their source of hydrogen, combined it with sunlight and CO2 from the air to form organic compounds, and never produced oxygen.

    These adaptive strategies not only enabled the bacteria to survive and evolve, but also began to change their environment. In fact, almost from the beginning of their existence, the bacteria established the first feedback loops that would eventually result in the tightly coupled system of life and environment. Although the chemistry and climate of the early Earth were conducive to life, this favorable state would not have continued indefinately without bacterial regulation.

    As iron and other elements reacted with water, hydrogen gas was released and rose up through the atmosphere, where it broke down into hydrogen atoms. Since these atoms are too light to be held by earths gravity, all the hydrogen would have escaped if this process had continued unchecked, and a billion years later the oceans of the world would have disappeared. Fortunately life intervened. In the later stages of photosynthesis free oxygen was released into the air, as it is today, and some of it combined with the rising hydrogen gas to form water, thus keeping the planet moist and preventing it's oceans from evaporating. However, the continuing removal of CO2 from the air in the process of photosynthesis caused another problem. At the beginning of the age of bacteria, the sun was 25% less luminous than it is now, and the CO2 in the atmosphere was very much needed as a greenhouse gas to keep the planetary temperatures in a comfortable range. Had the removal of CO2 gone without any compensation, the Earth would have frozen and early lbacterial life would have been extinguished.

    Such a disasterous course was prevented by the fermenting bacteria, which may have evolved already before the onset of photosynthesis. In this process of producing ATP molecules from sugars, the fermenters also produced methane and CO2 as waste products. These were emitted into the atmosphere, where they restored the planetary greenhouse. In a way fermantation and photosynthesis became mutually balancing processes of the early Gaia system.


    The oxygen crisis

    As the bacterial web expanded and filled every available space in the waters, rocks, and mudflats of the early planet, its energy needs led to a severe depletion of hydrogen. The carbohydrates that are essential to all life are elaborate structures of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. To build these structures the photosynthesising bacteria took the carbon and oxygen from the air in the form of CO2, as all plants do today. They also found hydrogen in the air, in the form of hydrogen gas, and in the hydrogen sulfide bubbling up from valcanoes. But the light hydrogen gas kept escaping into space, and eventually the hydrogen sulfide became insufficient.

    Hydrogen of course, exists in great abundance in water (H2O), but the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules are much stronger than those between two hydrogen atoms in hydrogen gas (H2) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The photosynthesizing bacteria were not able to break these strong bonds until a special kind of blue-green bacteria invented a new type of photosynthesis that solved the hydrogen problem forever.

    The newly evolved bacteria, the ancestors of the modern-day blue-green algae, used sunlight of higher energy (shorter wavelengths) to split water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen components. They took the hydrogen for building sugars and other carbohydrates and emited oxygen into the air. This extraction of hydrogen from water, which is one of the planet's most abundant resources, was an extraordinary evolutionary feat with far-reaching implications for subsequent unfolding of life. Indeed, Lynn Margulis is convinced that "the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis was the singular event that led eventually to our modern environment.

    However, this evolutionary sucess came at a heavy price. Like all rapidly expanding living systems, the blue-green bacteria produced massive amounts of waste, and in their case this waste was also highly toxic. It was the oxygen gas emitted as a by-product of the new type of photosynthesis. Free oxygen is toxic because it reacts easily with organic matter, producing so-called free radicals that are extremely destructive to carbohydrates and other essential biochemical compounds. Oxygen also reacts easily with atmospheric gases and metals, triggering combustion and corrosion, the two most familiar forms of "oxidizing" (combining with oxygen).

    At first the Earth easily absorbed the oxygen waste. There were enough metals and sulfur compounds from volcanic and tectonic sources that quickly captured the free oxygen and prevented it from building up in the air. but after absorbing oxygen for millions of years, the oxidizing metals and minerals became saturated and the toxic gas began to accumulate in the atmospere. About 2 billions years ago the oxygen pollution resulted in a catestrophe of unprecedented global proportions. Numerous species were whiped out completely, and the entire bacterial web had to fundamentally reorganize itself to survive. Many protective devices and adaptive strategies evolved, and finally the oxygen crisis led to one of the greatest and most sucessful innovations in the entire history of life.

    In one of the greatest coups of all time, the blue-green bacteria invented a metabolic system that REQUIRED the very substance that had been a deadly poison...... The breathing of oxygen is an ingeniously efficient way of channeling and exploiting the reactivity of oxygen. it is essentially controlled combustion that breaks down organix molecules and yeilds carbon dioxide, water, and a great deal of energy in the bargin... The microcosm did more than adapt: it evolved an oxygen-using dynamo that changed life and its terrestrial dwelling place forever.

    With this spectacular invention the blue-green bacteria had two complimentary mechanisms at their disposal-the generation of free oxygen through photosynthesis and its absorption through respiration-and thus they could begin to set up feedback loops that would henceforth regulate the atmosphere's oxygen content, maintaining it at the delicate balance that enabled new oxygen-breathing forms of life to evolve. The proportion of free oxygen in the tmosphere eventually stabalized at 21 percent, a value determined by its range of flammability. If it dropped to below 15 percent, nothing would burn. Organisms could not breathe and would asphyxiate. If the oxygen in the air rose above 25 percent, everything would burn. Combustion would occur spontaneously and fires would rage around the planet. Accordingly, Gaia has kept the atmosphereic oxygen at a level most comfortable for all plants and animals for millions of years. in addition, a layer of ozone (three-atom oxygen molecules) gradually built up at the top of the atmosphere and from then on protected life on Earth from the sun's harsh ultraviolet rays. Now the stage was set for the evolution of the larger formsof life-fungi, plants, and animals-which occured in realtively short periods of time. ~ Fritjof Capra "The Web of Life" 1996
     
  9. traydragen

    traydragen New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PriuStorm @ Nov 26 2007, 12:44 AM) [snapback]544144[/snapback]</div>
    I'm going to pull an evolutionists stance here. Where is your proof of this? Is it just something you read off of the internet and claim it to be true? Or have you actually sat down and read the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic text that pretty much says what some translations say today (let's kick the KJV out of this conversation) other than those books that were removed at the Council of Trent (that are available as well).
     
  10. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 25 2007, 09:51 PM) [snapback]544147[/snapback]</div>
    I'm not sure I would call it faith. Most sources list faith as a conviction or a belief in something without logical or material evidence. Science has given us the material evidence and I do not like convictions because they pigeonhole us into a set structure and can hinder progress. I'm always ready to say "I do not know" or oops, I was wrong. Convictions do not allow for that even when faced with explicite facts. :)

    So you believe in the evolutionary process and it's ongoing nature correct? You believe that god has set this entire thing into motion? Do you believe God still plays a hand in it all or do you feel he set it up and then went back to simply watching and not interfering or interacting? My point is to try and figure out how your faith is structured. IE are you a theist a deist or somewhere between due to modern thinking and scientific evidence? This is not an attack or an attempt to catch you up in something. I am simply trying to learn about you and your faith. I think your attitude is great and I don't want to offend you or come across condescending. :)
     
  11. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]544134[/snapback]</div>
    Please consider the possibility that it is unseen for a reason. It is not there. Understand that your belief and feelings do not make anything true. No matter how strong these feelings are in you.

    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]544134[/snapback]</div>
    Most things alive are composed of cells. Small packets of proteins, lipids, sugars and nucleic acids that can divide and make copies of themselves. In multicellular organisms like us different cells do different jobs as pre-programed by the nuceic acids within (DNA) and other factors in the environment.

    No one know exactly how the first cells formed but we know two conditions that must have occurred.

    1. An imperfect copying mechanism
    2. Raw materials from the environment

    Nucleic acids can perform these tasks, and is not hard to envision this process arising spontaneously followed instantly by evolution and natural selection. This seems to be a very important point for creationists. For biologists its really a non-issue. Although the details may never be known, many perfectly plausible scenarios are possible.

    The bible is not historically accurate. There is little to no archeological evidence for most biblical events. In addition the text itself is known to contain many errors, additions and forgeries. For example the entire resurrection story was tacked to the gospels which had a very different ending. The story of the stoned woman saved by Jesus was added on the 13th century. All of Paul was made up years after Jesus' death by a greek that happened to have visions...please. 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus are definitely forgeries. And that's just the new testament.

    Even if the bible was accurate we would have to deal with the murderous, megalomaniacal and tribal god of the old testament. No thanks.
     
  12. PriuStorm

    PriuStorm Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 12:58 AM) [snapback]544150[/snapback]</div>
    You asked the question, "Do you believe the bible to be a historically accurate document? Why or why not?"

    This question invites an answer of opinion, because you asked what I believe. Therefore, I don't need to offer any proof. Same, if you had asked, "Do you believe in ghosts, why or why not?", my answer would equally be my opinion and would not require me to show you any proof.

    Now, my follow-up statement is based upon what I have read and learned watching various programs on the Science Channel (of all things, whodathunk), National Geographic, Discovery, and such. In addition, yes, I have read some things on the internet. Myself having a background in the technical and schooled in critical thinking, I have been able to form my own opinion based upon the accounts presented in the previously mentioned. And that's my own personal concluded opinion.

    Why kick out KJV? Isn't that the majority of the bibles circulated today? The question referred to some generic bible... not specifically 'the original' Hebrew, etc.
     
  13. Alric

    Alric New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 12:58 AM) [snapback]544150[/snapback]</div>
    There is no original bible. All we have are copies, of copies, of copies. I did not personally do this research because I have a different field of expertise. But I read the conclusions of experts in the field that use the scientific method to begin answering these questions. My favorite experts of textual criticism are

    Bart D Ehrman and Bob Price
     
  14. HolyPotato

    HolyPotato Junior Member

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    There are a number of ways someone can come to believe in something like young-earth creationism...


    I think people can believe whatever they wish in their deep, dark, secret little hearts. Someone can look at all the evidence (or just ignore it all) and believe that it's all a lie: planted by a trickster god, or a giant scientific conspiracy (though as a scientist trust me, we are way too disorganized to keep up a decent global conspiracy, I leave that instead to the oil conglomerates ;) An equivalent belief is that all of this is not real, and that I'm just a brain in a jar and my entire experience is being simulated by wires exciting the neurons in the brain in the jar... And for a lot of people, who don't work in medicine or science or education or animal husbandry or anything, it won't matter whether they understand or believe in evolution or some other theory, because for them it's all a theoretical exercise, something far beyond their daily experience.

    Of course, for those in education, science, etc., it becomes important to go with the theory that has evidence and predictive value. That is, the one that is the most useful. Sure, creationism may answer the question "how did this past event happen?" or "Why did this happen but not that". Handily, the answers to pretty much all these questions come down to "Well, because that's what God [or the Flying Spaghetti Monster] wanted." It's not falsifiable, and it's not predictive though, so it's not very useful.

    It doesn't matter if you believe an alternate theory, way down inside, but you best understand and use the one accepted by the scientific community.

    I could sketch out a rough idea, of cellular components, of viruses, prions, bacteria, and eukaryotic cells. Of incremental (or punctuated equilibrium!) increases in complexity and cabability. But there would be a lot in there that is unknown. Where did the first building block (amino acid/nucleic acid/carbohydrate/whatever) come from? Did life even start here, or was it transported from Mars or an extrasolar body (which makes the problem of tracking down the origins that much harder). It's unknown, and we might never know the answer, but it's not fundamentally unknowable.

    Sure, I'm in this deep, why not throw out some more opinions? :)

    No, I don't think it's a historically accurate document. It is a historical document, passed down and recopied through the ages, and some of the events in it probably happened and were recorded in there relatively faithfully. But it's a big book (a collection of many smaller books), and there's a lot in there that's wrong, whether due to original error or copying mistake, and a lot that was likely intended to be fictional right from the get-go. It's a valuable part of our culture, and it does contain some wisdom and parables/metaphors for how to approach our lives, but it is not literal. It is not infallible.
     
  15. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HolyPotato @ Nov 25 2007, 10:32 PM) [snapback]544160[/snapback]</div>
    That about how I see the bible.

    In particular I tend to focus on the disasters that are written about in the bible. The bible gives reasons for catastophes just like another other culture would. For example; the great flood in the bible vs the great flood as depicted in Indigenous peoples accounts of tsunamis. Although these are in different time contexts, it is worth noting that they both created a story to describe the event and what it's causes were because they lacked the education in geology, oceanography and hydrodynamics. :) Wiki explains the deluge myth better than I can here.
     
  16. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    I find it quite strange that the bible being the word of god has nothing about the shape of things man couldn't see at the time of it's writing.
    Nothing about the sun being one of billions of stars, the earth being just one of many planets, how about the earth being created before the other stars and the moon? That would be chronologically correct no doubt?
    Check this out! Shows how a god botherer turned his child from a happy go lucky lad into a frightened wreck in one short conversation. Well done I say! http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5001/5001_01.asp
     
  17. geologyrox

    geologyrox New Member

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    urgh, chick tracts! You didn't have to pull out the big guns, pat. That was a horrible thing to wake up to.
     
  18. traydragen

    traydragen New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 26 2007, 01:05 AM) [snapback]544152[/snapback]</div>
    Yes, I believe that God is still working among, in, and around us. Biblically, I realize that God's power was able to do what is naturalistically impossible: bringing forth life from lifeless matter. God created the substance (matter) of the universe ex nihilo. So yes, that would make me a theist. I feel the need to to ask you guys this question. I've read every word that has been typed (90% of it being over my head), I still haven't seen proof of how cells were formed....I hope I don't come off as a jerk here and hopefully you don't think I am close-minded because I love learning, I truly do; but how can you tell me my faith is wrong when you guys have to have faith in something as well? You must have faith that cells formed in whatever way you say they formed out of nothing. Isn't this what so many of you hate about the church and the scriptures, that essentially they tell you that you are wrong? That your studies and conferences and degrees ultimately amount to nothing because it has all been figured out. I'm just trying to put it back on a level field here, my original posts was about someone calling all creationists idiots (which I will agree there are a large number of them, especially in the south, where I'm from) and hopefully most of you don't think that. I'm not trying to run away from this conversation because I absolutely love it, I'm just saying, tell me where and how all of this came to beyond a reasonable doubt and I will walk away with my tail between my legs. I will be back later to answer the questions about the validity of the Bible, for now I must go back to work.
     
  19. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(traydragen @ Nov 26 2007, 07:46 AM) [snapback]544232[/snapback]</div>
    We can show how membranes form through simple chemistry. They were not formed out of nothing as you say, they were formed out of chemicals present in the atmosphere and water and powered by the suns radiation. It is replicated in the lab and in computer modeling. The lack of ability to actually create a living cell does not mean that the whole idea is wrong. Again, chemistry, biology, and physics all say that this is possible and each can explain how it is possible without breaking any fundamental scientific laws. So in essense science has built up so much evidence backing evolution that it would take a momumental amount of evidence to the contrary to break it back down. Evidence that would totally wreck modern medicine as well. ;)

    There is no faith here. Faith is based on a lack of evidence as I stated earlier. The bible does not prove anything nor does it give information on how to prove anything. The only thing that validates the bible is the bible. That is it. I can write a book about historical accounts and say that I am a god and that I created everything. The only reason no one would believe my book is that I wrote it during a time when more people were educated and it has not been passed down through the centuries as a truth. There is no proof whatsoever of god. None at all. So how is it that we are being proved wrong? Like the saying goes, "extrordinary claims require extrordinary proof". Science has provided it's proof, show me the proof of god and the bible. Since 90% of this is over your head I do not expect you to provide that proof but I do wonder why you can be so set in your opinion of god and the bible if you do not understand the science that refutes it. That is the main problem I have with faith, it throws out all available evidence and stubornly holds fast to its opinions.

    So we've given you examples of how life could have started and even stated that we do not know the exact mode that "sparked" it. All of these ideas follow logical and testable science. Science that is the foundation of everything you have today, your health, your clothes, your car etc. The creationists have their opinion on how life got started but unfortunately they have zero evidence for such a claim and the science that allows them to live today, refutes their claims. Can you see the problem here?
     
  20. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    i'm only gonna say this once:

    if it's evidence based, it is NOT faith.

    i'm so tired of hearing how we scientists have "faith" in science. religious types have faith without evidence and wear it as a badge of freakin' honor! how do you compare that to an evidence based line of logic?!