The TRUE reason for the EvC controversy, and why it can not be resolved.

I said "small minority", not insignificant.They are a loud minority - and a dangerous one, which seeks to destroy our education system. This site exists to prevent that from happening. Because Genesis 1 has been physically proven wrong. The others can not be. You don't need to prevent others from finding it out for themselves either. You don't need to help the creationists condemn our children to ignorance. Lots of us here used to be creationists.All it takes to cure that disease is to open your eyes and look at the truth.This message has been edited by Ringo, 2006-03-29 05:35 AM

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Everybody looks at truth through a world view. Everybody thinks his view is clear

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.I doubt myself all the time, being an Agnostic.

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Except Paul, who continually askes me to explain something which I call unknowable.

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That isn't true, and you should know it. I've consistently allowed the very point Chiroptera referred to all through the thread.What you object to is the fact that I don't accept your assertion that IF your views were correct it would be impossible to construct at least a speculative explanation of how physical laws could have varied to produce the observed physical evidence. I think that it is in fact impossible - but only because your views are incorrect. And I have your own specualtions on radiometric dating as evidence to support my view, as well as the work scientists have donee in calibrating carbon dating - and that's just the evidence that appeared in this thread.And the fact that you persistently indulge in obvious misrepresentations really does show up the true nature of the conflict. And it isn't really about the Bible at all.

Do you? Does this mean that one time you teeter on belief in God and some other time you teeter on atheism?Of course, the practical effect of agnosticism is that you live as though God did not exist.

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However, the real core, the real central part of the debate is not really a philosophical divide. Its creationists trying to misrepresent the science behind evolutionary theories attempting to convince others that evolution is a faith/religion rather than a science; to have the theory struck from the schools. Have evolution branded bad science and the practitionars shown up as being frauds or worse.

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All this because of the philosophical/theological differences which, because they cannot be honestly resolved, have to be resolved dishonestly.

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I can not deny that this is in fact what creationists are doing. They feel their believes are threatened, so they developed a "counter science" to fortify their believes, and then declared war. What I fail to understant is why evolutionists give credibility to this war by participating in it, rather than to just ignore it? People gravitate towards creationism, primarily because of religious reasons, not because of its scientific arguements.If you tear down all the creationist arguements, you'll find the philosophy I've mentioned at its core. Maybe creationists should add a disclaimer to their i priori believes. Creationism should be saying something more like "Due to our believe in the bible, we can not accept evolution as the truth, and it is our purpose to try and explain the natural world in light of what the Bible says."In effect, this thread is my unilateral peace treaty with the ToE. I don't accept it, but, since the debate is philosofical in nature, I no longer see the need to fight it, or to refute it. Maybe this post will make other creationists see it this way as well, but I don't see the war dying down.

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I'm happy with people believing anything they choose to believe. However, the debate 'battlefield' is not here, the warzone is when someone tries to convince others that a scientific theory will make them immoral athiests likely to get sexual diseases:

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1963 is when prayer and Bible reading was taken out of the American school system. Anybody remember that? A few got out, brought evolution in, same time. 1963 is when sexually transmitted diseases began to climb; this is for kids 10 to 14 years of age. 1963 is when divorce rates began to go up... Unwed birth rates for girls 10 to 14 years of age have increased 100%.

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(Hovind)

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ALL OF THE FOLLOWING IS OFF TOPIC>>>I can't speak for Hovind here, but back in South Africa, we followed a policy of "Christian National Education" up and till 1994, and it was still pretty much in tact when I left school in 1997. I count myself fortunate to have been educated in that time, where prayer and bible reading was common practice, as well as one bible class per week.I believe, because of its religious implications, evolution should not be taught before high school level. But that's just me.It also saddens me to see the damage the sexual revolution did to the family unit. I don't think people who practice free sex give enough thought about all the unwanted children and the broken homes the practice leads to. Sex have very expensive consequences. Maybe I'm more sensitive to this because I was lucky enough to grow up in a sheltered loving family, where my mother stayed at home. For this I am eternally gratefull. Sorry for wondering off the topic.<<​

Faith.All of what you say could well be true, because, as I said, it is all speculation. The thing is just, since I believe in it, regardless of whether I can explain it or not, I don't see why I should be searching for an explaination. God probably used a natural approach to create the flood, but to me it doesn't really matter one way or the other.However, what I am saying is: do we know of any condition that would not merely extend life, but give you immortality? No? Therefore, to aquire immortality, a change in physical law is required.What about the fossils? Well, if they died off after the fall and before the flood, you don't have the problem of fitting them all in on the ark. If mankind did not fill the entire earth before the flood, the flood does not have to cover the whole earth, which decrease the amount of animals on the ark even more. If the before mentioned change in physical laws was gradual, the animals that died before the flood could appear to be older than they really are. And a change in natural law would allow the rainbow appearing on the post flood earth without having a preflood earth with no rain. Rain is necesary for the dying animals to be fossilised.Is a change in physical law reasonable within the christian world view? Well, if you read about the second comming, and the conditions on the new earth, how the "verganklike" world will be made non-"verganklik", a future change in the laws of physics is implied. If God is going to do it in the future, what reason do we have to assume he didn't do it in the past as well? When did these changes stop? From what I can tell, somewhere after the flood. Maybe with the tower of Babel, maybe before. I don't know.Ofcause this is all speculation, which I don't really need in order to believe in the Bible.

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But this can be said about absolutely any event on the planet, GFC.

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True. But a naturalist will reject any event that does not appear be natural all the way to the beginning.

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But that's not crucial. If someone were convinced there was a flood that fits the Bible description, that would convince them of the truth of God's word, and that's plenty.

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No they won't. They would simply say, ok so there was a flood, and the bible is a historic account of that event. But you've shown that it was a perfectly natural event, and therefore God is not required. The flood would no more proof God's existance than a normal flood would today. It is the Holy Spirit that convince you of God, not human wisdom.

Hi Christian,Back in Message 268 you said in reply to Ringo: Ringo already pointed out that he said "small", not insignificant. I don't think anyone considers the creationist movement insignificant. This website exists because they represent such a significant threat to science education. You go on to ask a good question in your more recent post: Creationists lobby state legislatures, textbook publishers and state and local schools boards for increased representation of creationism and reduced representation of evolution in textbooks and public school classrooms. It would be off-topic to get into detail, but if you're interested then open a new topic.No one really cares what evangelical Christians believe. If they would stay in their churches and celebrate their beliefs I'm sure that would be fine with just about everybody. But they don't. They go to great lengths to try to force their views into public schools, and this cannot be ignored. It is why this site exists, to provide a relatively neutral site where people can discover through discussion why evolution is science and creationism is religion.That creationism is religion is something you seem to understand. You are correct that the philosophical views of science and evangelical Christianity have no likely resolution, but that creationism is not legitimate science is very clear.--Percy

ModulousYour arguements are very sound, and I must admit that, from a natural perspective, I can't shoot a hole in it.However - and I must probably have said this from the beginning - my big problem is with evolution, not a young/old universe. The length of the days in Genesis do not have any big theological implications. Also, the Bible does not specify the time span between creation and the fall. However, the idea of death and suffering before sin, or the idea that man was created with his current, sinful nature, that has enourmous implications which I can not accept.There is, however, one problem with your arguement :
"We can measure the radioactive decay of elements from the supernova"How? If the material is available when we saw it happen, it meant it traveled at light speed, something that is not possible. If we did capture the material, how can we tell it came from the supernova? Or that is is uncontaminated? As far as I know, the first microscopic material from space was only retrieved this year. Could you post a link that explain this?
Thanks

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I trust you are enjoying the debate?

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Very much so.

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I think the debate can be solved.
First, you have to realize that the science you are propsosing (all the creationists and Faith and GFC) is based off of your belief that a fall happened.

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Second, you have to realize that science is not founded on beliefs, but on careful observations and the occasional eureka moment. The only part of science not logical in nature is the eureka moment, the sudden understanding of something, like "wait a minute. The apple fell to the ground. I fall to the ground. I know. Gravity!"

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Third, a science based on belief is false.

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Science is the rational
Belief in god is the non-rational
believing that you can jump to the moon is irrational.

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So what are the solutions?

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You can either accept Doublethink, or is it blackwhite? Not sure
You can throw away everything you know about one or the other
Or
You can get rid of Aristotle, the guy who categorized thought into those categories.
Get rid of Aristotle, and you get rid of subjective and objective thought.
Get rid of those, and then there is no longer a conflict between two systems of thought.
I forgot what's supposed to replace them, but I'll look it up.

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You don't actually believe this is going to happen any time soon, do you?

I think I would argue with most of your speculations about how it all might have happened, but I'm getting that how it all might have happened isn't really important to you, so I guess there's no point. I simply have to believe it stopped with the Fall, even if at first it might have been so gradual as to be nearly undetectable. Certainly death started then. And I'm still not getting your reasoning about the later date. I gather that "verganklike' means "corruption" or "decay" If decay is intrinsic to the laws of physics, then certainly you are right that that law wasn't in existence pre-Fall and won't be in the new heaven and new earth. Yes, that seems to be your main point. But many people do stop believing in the Bible based on what science seems to say, you know, so it is hard to just leave it at that. But a naturalist is also going to reject your reasoning about a past and future state of perfection or nondecay, because their instruments can't detect it, and they trust their reasoning and their instruments over the Bible. Well, yes, it takes the Holy Spirit to convert people, but God uses all kinds of efforts to convince people. And they claim there is no proof of a worldwide flood so if there were that would certainly end that line of their argument. Truly there is no proof at all that would convince some.If all you are saying is that there is no use for debate about these things in the work of evangelism, maybe you are right, but I'm not sure we should just abandon the effort.But really, I think I'm missing the point of what you are trying to get said here, so I don't think you need to answer this and I will drop out of the conversation at this point.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-29-2006 09:51 AM

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2) You persistently insist on mischaracterising opposing conditions to make the creationist viewpoint look (relatively) better.

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I do not argue that you should believe one way or the other. This thread is not here to convince you to believe in anything, nor to even make you accept the creationist view as valid or even rational. Neither is this thread a defence of creationism, or an attack on evolution.

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This is probably off-topic. The thread Modulous referred you to is still open if you have questions, but I suspect that if you read Message 52 you'll find the answers you seek.--Percy

Unless you practice theological doublethink - which does not seem to be a problem to many - I agree.

ANd thanks again for proving that the real divide is not about religion or the BIble. The real basis for the dispute is in what you want to believe.You don't want to believe that you made the misrepresentations you did, so you produce an irrelevant quote and act as if that were a valid argument.In your world view beliefs that are important to you are assumed unassailably correct and any excuse to defend them is automatically a valid argument. Your position in the creation/evolution debate is simply a part of that.

All I'm saying is that there is a clear transitional period between Adam and Abraham. The circumstances directly after the fall was clearly still much better than that of Abraham and us. Conditions gradually declined. Yes, languages came at an instant, but it did not come directly after the fall. Yes, God willed to shorten the human life span, but that was several generations after the fall. You might view these events as independent from the fall, to me they're clearly related, as they would not have happened if there was no fall. Also, whether Nephalim means "sons of God" or "Giants", the point is that it clearly indicate that they were no ordinary men.