Defeating "Dr" Kent Hovinds' claims.

That's hillarious. Thank you very much for a nice good laugh out loud moment at work

Really? Do share Well duh, of course it has been shown to be wrong in all resolved cases. The question is whether this is one of those things that will be resolved. Allow me to be a skeptic and say that I don't have the faith to believe that this one will be resolved.Atheists all have faith to believe that one day, somehow, scientists will be able to explain something coming from nothing, or life arising from non-life which to me seems to require more blind faith than believing that some higher power did it.Comparing the problem of the Origin of Life with lightning bolts and the water cycle is simply not going to get you anywhere. I could just as easily give you the typical creationists response and say that looking for a naturalist answer to the Origin of life is like looking for a natural process that creates wristwatches. In fact, I do say that it is more like wristwatches than lightning bolts.

I will set you straight on the matter right now. I am an atheist because I personally require evidence to be presented where in a logical case is made to support the contention that there is a supernatural aspect to life that can be demonstrated to exist and be amenable to investigation.
Since no effort at such evidence has ever been succesful under sceptical examination I have ,after many years, taken the stance that the likelihood of such is so vanishingly unlikely as to not warrant futher concern on my part. Thus I saddle myself with the label of atheist which is given more than its fair share of reckless misinterpretaion by those who feel that their impressions of what constitute an atheist is somehow clearer than those who actually consider themselves as such. If you think this is anywhere remotely close to the understanding of science as pertains to origins of life then you are sadly lacking in information.The interwoven nature of the laws of quantum mechanics applied to chemistry and from there to biochemical processes to life itself is well researched even though there are vast gaps in the details of how it all fits the general outline is quite well established.
It seems quite clear that the means by which such extraordinary complexity can arise is quite simply a failure of our imagination to make the leap into considering why such complexity arises from such simple rules and interactions of those rules and the enviroment they occupy.

Unless you can tie this more clearly to his claims you will get a suspension like that other loud mouth up there did.

NosynedI apologize for the intrusion into the topic and I will pursue this in a seperate thread

I don't know. Maybe scientists will one day find out that life has always existed and that the earth was just seeded from outer space. But I doubt that it requires more blind faith to believe that life arose from non-life than it does to believe that some higher power did it, because the former means that you only have to believe that life arose from non-life, whereas the latter requires you to believe that some higher power did it, as well as that said higher power has either always existed or arose from some lower power, or, God forbid, from non-power. The tally is: one thing to believe for the atheists, and two for the creationists. In the game of Blind Faith, the creationists are firmly in the lead. I own no less than eight mechanical wristwatches and I can tell you that, without exception, they were all the result of a natural process. Although I do admire their extraordinary skills, I do not think that watchmakers are supernatural entities. Do you see the error in your rhetoric, or do you need someone to spell it out for you?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Everything I have ever seen has obeyed the laws of nature. Nothing I have ever seen has been supernatural. Nor have I ever heard a verifiable report of a supernatural event. Hence, I have the strongest possible empirical grounds for the conclusion that the origin of life took place within the laws of nature rather than in violation of them. Faith is not required.You yourself would take this attitude most of the time. If you saw a conjuror make an elephant disappear, and you didn't know how he did it, you wouldn't conclude that he really had magical powers, would you? But when you come across something in biology you don't understand, then its time to roll out the good ol' god-of-the-gaps fallacy: because when it comes to religion, you need to play by different epistemological rules.As far as the origin of life goes, you might want to look up what happens when you mix amino acids with Q- replicase. No deities are involved.

I'm sorry....but, I feel bad for your friend. Hovind's not even got credible Scientific credentials.I'm a YECS by the way...and I think Hovind's a complete fraud.Tell him to rely on Dr. Jonathan Sarfati and Dr. Gary Bates's works instead.Edited by Casey Powell, : No reason given.

I already see a problem with that.You assume that Supernaturalism violates the Laws of Nature.Not really, if God decides to implant a spermozoa into a virgin, the virgin goes through a 9 month process of birth just like any other pregnant women would, with the birth pains and the like being applicable.Let me ask you this question.If I pick up a chair, do I violate the Law of Gravity?No.So why is it a problem if God picks up a chair?

Does the law of gravity dictate that you shouldn't be able to pick up the chair?Brian.

Does the law of gravity dictate that God shouldn't be able to pick up the chair?I'm already anticipating David Hume nonsense, so go ahead and bring it on.Edited by Casey Powell, : No reason given.

Can you answer the question?Brian.

Wo cares what kind of claim this dishonest criminal makes? You'd have to be a certified ignoramus to give any sort credibility to his farcical claims and argument.Edited by Isana Kadeb, : No reason given.

I agree. However, it does seem that the vast majority of YECs do believe Hovind to be one of the greatest living scientific authorities. Casey Powell's statements here are very rare, a YEC who denounces Hovind.YECs' veneration of Hovind can be surprisingly extreme. In a Yahoo discussion group, a YEC repeated some Hovind claims so I pointed out that they were wrong and preceisely why they were wrong. In response, the YEC vehmently denounced me for having "made a vicious attack against Christianity". WTFO? This YEC had elevated Hovind to a level equal to the Christ and Christianity.So we care about what that charlatan does and says because he has so many YECs completely hoodwinked. But the good news is that it's so easy to refute his ridiculous claims. The bad news is that the YECS have been hoodwinked into believing that if Hovind's claims are false, then the Bible itself is false and they must become hedonist atheists. Or worse. And I have so far found it virtually impossible to convince one of them that their faith does not depend on Hovind's claims being true.

You beat me to the punch, I was going to post a similar response but yours is more eloquent.To me, the YEC elevation of Hovind et. al. above any other scholar of religion and science, indeed often seemingly over any figure mentioned in the Bible, is a delusion as troubling as the similar elevation of Koresh, Jones, and Manson to similar status.