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Author | Topic: "Evidence and Faith" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I think that you need to be clear on exactly what you are asking.
By "the world" do you mean the planet Earth, our Universe or something else ? By "created" do you mean that some intelligent entity somehow had a hand in the origin of the world - perhaps indirectly - or that an intelligent entity directly made the world or even that the world simply had an origin ? Taking the liberty of assuming that you mean to ask if there is solid objective evidence that an intelligent entity directly constructed the planet Earth I would have to answer that there is none that I am aware of.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I assume that you mean this claim:
1. Sudden creation of the universe, energy and life from nothing.
So I would characterise the claim under discussion as asserting that the universe (including the Earth) was directly created by an intelligent entity no more than 10,000 years ago. In that case there is no real objective evidence for it, and so much evidence against it that it is not a scientiifcally tenable view. The same goes for Creation "Science"'s Flood Geology or the notion of separate creation.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: That's a contentious issue. My view is that a literal reading of Genesis severely limits the time, as the YECs say.
quote: Creation "Science" is strictly Young Earth.
quote: If you're asking for objective evidence I don't really think you could find any outside of science.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: I guess you don't know the Bible that well. THe Bible doesn't say that anybody saw that happen. The only reference to 500 witnesses is 1 Corinthians 15:6
quote: Interestingly it does not seem to refer to any event in the Gospels. So all we have is a claim that 500 unidentiifed people saw something - a claim which apparently was not credible enough to make it into later accounts of the story. If the Gospel writers didn't believe it, why should we ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Except for not knowing what they supposedly saw. And not knowing that none of the Gospel authors actually mention it.
quote: That isn't what I said. What I said was that NONE of the Gospel writers mention it. Not even Luke who supposedly made a thorough investigation. If they didn't find it credible, then why should anyone else ?
quote: Since it isn't an established fact, it doesn't deserve a lot of respect.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
The Bible never identifies the author(s) of Genesis, nor does it explain where the stories came from.
The Flood story is fairly clearly a variant of a similar story found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The first creation story is, IMHO, largely a creation of the author, a priest writing at about the time of the Babylonian Exile who wrote it to emphasise the Sabbath and the superiority of Jewish religion over Babylonian beliefs. The second story is older, and its origins more obscure.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: You are correct that without an idea of evil the queston makes no sense. And that the concept is not needed unless we have some degree of comparison. However if here is an absolute morality as Christians claim it is false to say that goodcannot exist without evil or vice versa. The absence of a need for the concepts in thought and speech would not mean that the things themselves do not exist. Secondly we neither need absolutes nor do we need anyone to set those absolutes even if they do exist (indeed it is questionable whether the latter idea even makes sense - it certainly doesn't fit with our intuitive ideas of morality) But even with all that your response is self-destructive. Ultimately you are arguing that the question makes no sense because God doesn't exist. Your argument amounts to admitting that the question is part of a valid reductio ad absurdam argument against God's existence (assume the premise you want to disprove and show that it leads to a contradiction). So it is the skeptic who has logic on his side while the Christian is reduced to self-contradiction . No you didn't prove God. But you did deny that he existed. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Well no, I don't because even if this argument was sound my objections still stand. But it isn't sound. Our sense of morality comes from deeply embedded social instincts plus a good deal of educzation starting from a quite young age.
quote: Because that's the common human response. Humans DO feel for each other. Or at least for those recognised as being 'one of us'. It's those social instincts - and again a good dollop of education.
quote: Since we don't HAVE a demonstrably objective morality the question applies no matter what your view is. You can't prove anything is wrong, all you can do is appeal to other people's subjective views and hope that they agree. Either that's good enough or you have to give up on morality.
quote: Which is essentially what I said. Your only answer to the question is to deny that it makes sense - on the assumption that God does not exist.
quote: THe skeptic can assume that God does not exist. If your argument were correct that would render the question meaningless which solves the problem. And if you can't figure out how it is contradictory to assume that God exists and doesn't exist then your ability to understand logic is even worse than I thought.
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