Summations Only

Well if you can agree with this:
Finding Darwin's God (excerpt)
then you aren't a creationist.

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...However, I would like to ask the Bible believing creationists to please reread the 1st chapter of Genesis carefully. Please tell me when/where does God ever say "let there be water?" Where does it say "let there be land?"

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He doesn't. The water was already there according to the Genesis account. Maybe it was there for eons upon eons.

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I'll say that you got this right, The Genesis 1 creation account starts with the Primordial Ocean of Middle Eastern Creation myths. A view completely at odds with the reality shown to us by science.And this is why anyone hoping to build a bridge between science and religion must recognise that religion includes myths, and myths cannot be taken as accurate accounts of what happened.

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Please explain why science does not believe in a Primordial Ocean when life first began on planet Earth?

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I think that you fail to grasp the concept of the Primordial Ocean as opposed to A primordial ocean. Or even understand that Genesis 1 has no concept of the planet Earth.Science accepts that there were primordial oceans prior to the appearance of life, but only after liquid water accumulated sufficiently. The Primordial Ocean, however, is the idea of the Ocean as the only physically existing thing - no planets, no stars, no life, except perhaps for some god or gods.

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Yes, I agree that some religions include myths, but some also contain many truths (some more than others)

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I'm using myth in it's full sense here, not just as a synonym for falsehood. Many have written on myths as a way of conveying truths - just not those obtained by a superficial, literal, reading.

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Science has its truths and falsehoods also. It changes continually with new discoveries, and previously regarded facts become 'myths' and are rightfully discarded, albeit, at times, with much kicking and screaming if the new discoveries disagree with well established think tanks. That is why some brilliant scientists are ridiculed throughout their lives, cannot get their works published, etc., and are not vindicated until after their death.

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I think that you will find that that is a rare occurrence. Witness, for instance, the success of Einstein with Relativity, and the pioneers of Quantum Theory (which Einstein helped lay the foundations for).You may have Wegener in mind, but don't forget that his ideas had problems that were not solved until later.On the other hand, even great scientists can come to fallacious views and those are rarely accepted on authority.Science is far from perfect, but it works. I'm not so sure that religion works nearly so well when it comes to any sort of knowledge at all.

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Therefore, there are many factions in the scientific community, not unlike the religious one, battling over their differing tenets, even now. I will admit that at least they are striving to learn more and more while on the other hand, there are many (NOT ALL) on the religious side of the proverbial fence that are somewhat to outright lackadaisical in their attitude about contemplating scientific discoveries.

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I think the more significant point is that it is scientific discoveries that you expect the religious to react to. Not religious discoveries. Religion does not really have any method of discovery to match that of science.

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I don't believe the truth or the true 'theory of everything' will ever be discovered until science and spirituality reconcile their differences.

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The question here, is what does "spirituality" have to offer science ?
And what concessions is science expected to make for these alleged benefits ? I hope that you're not proposing something as crude as science having to accept some religious beliefs just for the sake of compromise.

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Thank you for pointing out the difference between the "Primordial Ocean" and the "primordial ocean." I was unaware of this. Genesis does not include the term primordial ocean, whether beginning with upper or lower cases, yet it does present the concept that a body of water is necessary to precede life. Therefore, I disagree with your last statement, but it is a matter of interpretation (IMO).

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I don't see how the conclusion can be avoided. Genesis 1 starts with the ocean and God as the only things existing. Everything else - not just life - comes later. Genesis 1 doesn't say that the ocean is necessary to precede life (it doesn't even imply it) but it does have the ocean existing before creation.

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I think it is a common occurrence.

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Really ? How many great scientists have had their work rejected by the scientific community only to be vindicated after their death ? Or better, how many can you name ?There are reasons why science is conservative - to block bad ideas. And there are many which deserve to be blocked, and I think that they are rather more numerous.

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As far as religion offering science anything, no, it can't offer science anything in the means of a conventional, rigorous scientific method to discover new knowledge. Nevertheless, why discount it altogether, or "ignore" it (as an earlier poster put it), because it is an unconventional source of inspiration?

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Why care about the source of inspiration at all ? I don't think that science does. The source of inspiration isn't the point - it's the work developing that inspiration from a mere idea to a strongly supported conclusion that counts.

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Kekul figured out how benzene molecules were constructed by imagining snakes swallowing their own tails. Not exactly a conventional method.

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And I think you will find that it is the entirely conventional work that Kekul did following up that inspiration was the important thing. And that is how it should be.

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Sir Isaac Newton practiced alchemy, and this arcane 'science' formed the basis of modern chemistry. Perhaps the Emerald Tablets still contain valuable insights that are ignored by modern scientists, or perhaps not. They apparently helped Newton. The Mayas had incredibly accurate calendars and advanced knowledge of astronomy as well as the Egyptians, who built structures, yet modern scientists are still challenged with figuring out their engineering feats. They were also religious societies. Some Buddists can seemingly levitate when in deep meditation, but since it can't explained in a pure scientific manner, it is debunked as trickery or an illusion.

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But the magical parts of alchemy don't seem to work, or to have benefited Newton. The advanced astronomy of the Egyptians and the Maya is the product of observation - i.e. through methods that modern science can duplicate or better even with the technology available to the ancients (ignoring modern problems like light pollution !). And amazing as some of the structures of the ancient world are, it seems to be more a matter of figuring out their techniques than anything special. (And the "Yogic flying" of TM is quite amusing to watch, and impressive in it's way, but again nothing that indicates that religion offers any deeper insights that science needs).

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No, there is no need to have to blindly accept beliefs, just the possibility. That the unexplainable world of faith can be a way to attain knowledge about the natural world and have some merit despite that it remains unexplainable.

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If you want to claim that faith can be a valid way of attaining knowledge then I think that you are going to have to do more than just claim that it should be accepted. It looks to me as if faith is more a way of obscuring knowledge than attaining it.

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According to some nothing but God and an ocean existed. I personally don't believe that, but I believe we were placed in a dimension that has a linear timeline, which necessitates a starting point. Perhaps God decided that was a good place to start when explaining the origins of self aware beings, who would no doubt wonder where they came from and what was/is the meaning of their existence.

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I think you're confusing what Genesis 1 says and what you personally believe. In Genesis 1, in the beginning, only God and the ocean are mentioned as existing, and many other things are mentioned as being created later. (including the stars, many of which existed long before our planet)

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If I delve into this, would I open myself up to accusations of being a conspiracy-believing kook? Probably so. Most of the people here think I'm kooky already for believing in a Higher Being.

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Not really - if they've been vindicated then there wouldn't be anything kooky about believing that they were right.

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As far as your second point goes, I agree that bad ideas need to be blocked. However science can be guilty of the suppression of good ideas if they don't have proper checks and balances on the elites and think tanks of the science community.

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Maybe so, but any system will be imperfect. The question is how bad it really is. Wegener's ideas were blocked for reasons that were justifiable at the time. And we haven't had any examples from you.

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I agree to certain extent. It has been repeated to me numerous times that science should always ignore the supernatural. If so, they will never develop an understanding of supernatural phenomenon. An example I stated in a previous post was the example of levitating monks. If that was phenomenon was studied extensively instead of being debunked by mainstream science, perhaps a new breakthrough will be discovered on the way law of gravity works which may solve the mystery of what is inside a black hole. Maybe changing the vibration/brainwaves of an organism changes the magnetic fields surrounding it and allows it to defy gravity. If that was the case, a machine could be made to mimic those conditions to advance anti-gravity technology. Even if they prove it was an illusion, how the illusion was created may prove useful for some other purpose. I don't know and neither does science. So therefore it will remain esoteric and only for the few initiated.

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Well the first thing to establish is if the monks can really levitate. Everything I've seen says that no, they can't (except for the weird jumping about of "yogic flying"). And if they can't then there is nothing to study. So, let's get the unexplained phenomena demonstrated properly before we talk about studying it or making bizarre speculations about how it might work.Actually I find it very odd that you wouldn't talk about scientific work that had been rejected and later vindicated because you think that it would make you look kooky (how ?), while going on about "vibrations/brainwaves" "changing magnetic fields" enabling people to "defy gravity". Which is absolutely. definitely kooky.

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Faith can enlighten or obscure knowledge, so I don't totally disagree with your point.

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I've yet to see any way in which it "enlightens knowledge"

Since this is in Free For All...

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Ok, Mr/Ms Panda, how about you do the EvC thing and cite three or four examples of Buzsaw stupidity in the Science Fora. You have 8+ years to cherry pick them from.

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One could say that tempting fate by issuing such an easily met challenge is itself stupid - there is something of an embarrassment of riches...But here's a few examples from one thread and it's follow-on:1) Citing a website devoted to penny stocks as an authority on hurricane frequency without doing adequate checks on the claims it made Message 256 In fact it turned out to rely on assuming that a list of selected major hurricanes was a complete list of major hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. Wrong! (It wasn't even restricted to hurricanes making landfall in the U.S.!)2) Setting aside data from an authoritative source (NOAA) that contradicted the penny stock website by indicating that there were hurricanes not on the list used by webpennys Message 286 and again Message 17 and again Message 433) Falsely claiming that the NOAA list used as a basis for the webpennys article was "the only NOAA frequency trend chart available " when - as had already been shown - it was only an incomplete list of major hurricanes around the U.S. Message 44
Whether the stupidity is in ignoring the existence of the obviously better information that had already been offered, or in thinking that nobody would notice such an obvious falsehood is left to the readers...And I can find plenty more....Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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So Paul, we now have a total of one message which you deem inaccurate in my eight year profile archive. You say there's plenty more..

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Since I cited 5 messages in my post saying that there is only 1 is not exactly sensible.

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Perhaps any given long time member would have a few questionable posts, particularly given the cited ones would likely involve some ideological bias. Perhaps even you might not have been 100% pristine in all of your 9434 messages archived. No?

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These are not just questionable posts, though. I really, really doubt that you can find anything in my posts that is as stupid as claiming that we should use the webpenny's list because it was or was based on "the only NOAA frequency trend chart available" when it wasn't even based on a NOAA frequency trend chart (or any other list that would be valid for working out the frequency of hurricanes) and actual NOAA frequency data had already been cited in the thread.And since you seem to doubt that I can find more really stupid claims, here's another one: from Message 364In reality, the only other "possible" crossing site mentioned was the Straits of Tiran, which is the main alternative among those who prefer Jebel-al-Lawz over the traditional Mt. Sinai and that was shallower! And, as anybody who followed the discussions knows, the traditional Gulf of Suez and the Bitter Lakes preferred by modern scholars are shallower still.

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LoL. How many of you do you think I, being a relative loner here, could ever convince of anything, given the wide gap in our thinking and ideologies?

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I think that if you had decent evidence and sound arguments you could do rather better than you do. The fact that you lack both good evidence and good arguments is a major reason why you do so badly here.

More correctly Panda pointed out - yet again - that Buzsaw's ban from the science forum was not an attempt to silence an effective debater, but instead done to remove an arrogant, ignorant, prejudiced, irrational waste of time.Buz asked for evidence of his stupidity, probably running one of his typical bluffs - and the rest is history. He never learns...

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Out of 9000 posts over an eight year period, do you think that three or four cited by Paulk are enough for evaluation?

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As Panda has already pointed out you asked for three of four examples. I've listed SIX posts so far. But yes, you've been here long enough that we know that your challenge wasn't honest...But since you want more: Message 27Attempting to answer genetic dating by repeating the nonsensical claim (a claim that even the major YEC organisations would recognise as stupid) that the Flood would disrupt all major radiometric dating methods. Despite often repeating this claim - and often being challenged on it - you have never made any serious attempt to explain how it could even be possible.For instance - fission track dating is based on counting the "scars" left by the nuclear fission of U238 in a sample of rock, with the age being based on the density of the tracks. How would a flood affect that, so as to give an older age (heat can make the rock appear younger by erasing tracks but obviously that is no help to you).But the real stupidity is in using it to try to refute a claim that is completely unaffected by the age of rocks. Even if your claim had been entirely true instead of a silly fabrication it would still be completely irrelevant.

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Who on this board do you think are so pristine that they would not have as many or more questionable posts as me?

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The vast majority of the membership...

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You have ignored my point that ideology factors in here.

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How does it factor in ? You haven't disputed a single example. And every example I've given is based on objective facts, not ideology.For instance it is an objective fact that the NOAA list used by the webpenny site was not intended for use as frequency data and is not suitable for such use. It is an objective fact that actual NOAA frequency data was cited. It was therefore objectively untrue that the webpenny list was "NOAA frequency trend data" and objectively untrue that we had no other source. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Oh, so now participants can bloviate until the cows come home that all creationists are stupid but now here at FreeForAll you've taken it upon youself, member Percy, to restrict me from posting on topic reasons why I'm not stupid, citing ideological perceptions as to what constitutes stupidity.

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Nobody is saying that all creationists are stupid. Just that a great many of your posts are.

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Imo, some posts of Panda, Paul and you, et al are stupid for failing to recognize that ideology does factor in as to one's perspective of stupidity.

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And yet not one of my examples is based on ideology at all. At least not any ideology you've admitted to following.

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For example, Paul cites what he regards as one of my stupid messages in which I argued valid ressons why the Noaic flood would implicate a vastly different planet surface and atmosphere previous to the flood. That message of his would be regarded as stupid by all floodist proponents including some doctorate scientists.

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This is yet another stupid lie from Buzsaw. In fact Buz, you have NEVER given any valid reasons and your position is so stupid that no knowledgable YEC would endorse it. And I provided just one example of the things that you have failed to explain, in fission track dating - which you fail to answer.

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The reason this is a lot about me is that my unique hypotheses counter some of the lame brain conventionalist YEC ones that so many of you rightfully decry;

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And often they are even more stupid.Look, Buz, forget your ego and actually try to be honest for once. Actually look at the examples and think about what you're doing. And maybe one day you'll be a decent human being.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.