"Evidence and Faith"

Guys, the op question is very specific, please take it here:
EvC Forum: Santa + God = 1?If they promote it.Get off of my thread now.

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Apparently I know it well enough

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Except for not knowing what they supposedly saw. And not knowing that none of the Gospel authors actually mention it.

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Why, is because it only says it once, then it is not valid?

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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 ?

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You have to respect the fact that a huge religion was started based on those eyewitness accounts, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Since it isn't an established fact, it doesn't deserve a lot of respect.

No it doesn't.You mentioned the two Great Commandments yourself. They focus on what is seen - i.e what we do. Faith is no substitute for action. You can't "make good sense" if you reserve "miraculous power" as the fall-back position on every issue. "Goddidit" is the answer to every question, but it isn't a useful answer to most questions.If your pastor's air-conditioner doesn't work, do you say, "God doesn't want it to work," or do you try to figure out why it doesn't work?If he expects that kind of good sense from you in your professional work, why would he expect less in your spiritual work?

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I think you've already been given your answer, many times and in many ways. You asked: If you're talking about whether the world was created 6000 years ago, then the answer is no, there is absolutely positively no scientific evidence that the world is 6000 years old.If you're talking about whether the world was created by God, then the answer is no, there is absolutely positively no scientific evidence that the world was created by God.If you're talking about whether the universe was created by God, then the answer is no, there is absolutely positively no scientific evidence that the universe was created by God.If you're talking about whether the world was "designed" by someone/something, then the answer is no, there is absolutely positively no scientific evidence that the world was "designed".About the only thread you can grasp onto is if you're talking about whether the universe was "designed", in which case the fundamental constants seem to be well chosen for a universe capable of supporting life.The "evidence" you may be thinking about over at AIG, for instance the Humphreys link, simply misrepresents what we actually know, and none of the evidence or research that Humphreys talks about was gathered or conducted by creationists. They simple weave false stories around real data, or even around made up data, they don't care.This is a Faith and Belief thread and not the place to discuss the specifics of AIG claims, and I don't think that was ever your intention anyway. But if you're not going to believe that there really is no credible evidence for creationist claims, and you're not going to discuss the credibility of the claims over in the science threads, then what is the sense of going forward with this discussion?--PercyPS - And what do the 500 have to do with the topic?

Maybe, but this doesn't mean that one should be wilfully blind to what science does reveal. The fact that the Earth is far more than 6000 years old is something that can be observed.

sorry for the off topic detour, Rat. You originally asked:

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In all the years...that creation science has been around, has there every been any solid (objective) evidence that the world was created?

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I think Percy summed it up rather well. There is no evidence.The church should be focused on helping people come to terms with their belief, but perhaps you should emphasize to them the difference between evidence and belief.Ask them to be unafraid to examine the arguments. Challenge them to debate the conclusions arrived at here. (Only if they insist that Biblical Creationism is an important issue...which I personally think its not. (Except to school teachers)

Yes it does.2 great commandments, God and love.Both are not seen. I wasn;t implying every issue.But some people have experienced what they believe to be miracles, including myself. I am not touching it.However, some guy in kookville USA finding an actual objective gem on his front lawn, is a fraud, and it is not a miracle. Neither are orbs in pictures, and we also cannot "prove God"

There is what we "see and observe."Unfortunately we were not around when Jesus rose from the dead. That is something that seems to defy science, along with walking on water, and the miracles He performed.I see no need to attack that concept in the church.I am only attacking what people are claiming today, and the false religions of today. That is the issue I want to clear up.Again, it is pretty simple, the two commandments, and I just don't see how AiG, and all this other BS fits into that.I get pissed off when someone in my church quotes some preacher saying, "they are finding out and proving God all the time"Tell me something, what do you think of this link:
Page not found – Spirit of Ma'atIt has come up more than once in our church, and I wish to expose the validity of it.I want the people that go to my church to keep it real in there walks of faith, and what we focus our energy on.
I think we should be loving each other, and helping others.It seems like the percentage we spend helping ourselves, over helping those desperatly in need is not right.I want people to know the truth, shit I want to know the truth.I want to find a happy medium between science and religion, but not combine the two.

Yes they are.You love God by loving your neighbour and you love your neighbour by your actions.
If there are no actions to be seen, there is no love. Can you show an objective difference between that fraud and the miracles that you claim to have experienced?

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People believe lots of weird things, what can you do, act like the guardian of the gate telling people what is pseudoscience and what isn't? Even for someone exceptionally familiar with science, it'd be like trying to block a fire hose with your finger, .You're hanging out with people looking for confirmation of their religious beliefs (in other words, you're hanging out with the people from church), and they will take it where they can find it. By and large it's harmless, except that some of those who buy the malarkey come to web sites like this one or get on school boards, and they just end up embarrassing themselves, and sometimes entire states besides, like Kansas. The religious are like a bunch of lemmings just waiting for the next charismatic leader to lead them over the cliff. One minute he's preaching the gospel and the evils of evolution, the next he's going to jail for tax evasion, or going to jail for arson, or getting caught with a prostitute, or going to jail for defrauding his parishioners, etc.I know what you want, and it's the right thing. You want people to place their faith in things of substance like God and love and friendship, and not in the material things of this world like people with enticing tales or science or ridiculous things like proving God. You can't prove God, he just is. One believes in God because of faith, not proof.--Percy

riVeRrat Do a double blind experiment yourselves on water at a remote distance.
Have someone not affiliated with your church in another state train a webcam on a glass of water and then you do the prayers as you will and see if an effect actually occurs.Of course there is always an out as hinted at on the web page since one could always claim the person{s} praying were not "pure" enough or some such rubbish.

I'm posting another reply to your message because I find I have more to say. As do we all, I'm sure. There are issues of faith, where one accepts God because of what one feels inside, and there are issues of the real world, and the two shouldn't be confused.But it is impossible to keep the two apart. The simplest example is prayer, like your water-prayer website. Almost everyone across the entire world who believes in God, regardless of their specific religion, believes in the power of prayer. They believe that an appeal to the God that they feel only through his love and his presence inside their hearts can have an effect on the real world. Most of these people also believe in miracles, another example of the God of our hearts operating in the real world.Once you believe this, the Pandora's box is now opened, releasing every kind of possibility. How do you discredit the water-prayer man, since the same methods that would reveal him a fraud would show all forms of prayer, including those that you and all your fellow parishioners accept, to also be a fraud.Since the water-prayer man's approachh is as valid as your own from a real-world scientific perspective, I think you have to ask yourself why you object to it. The answer to that question is the reason why discussion in this thread continues beyond the point where your original question has already been answered.You see, using scientific arguments to scale back appeals to the fantastical or pseudo-scientific is a slippery slope, because those same arguments argue against most religious beliefs, both those you accept as well as those you don't. If against all odds you persuaded your pastor to assess the scientific merits of what he says, where does it stop? Does it mean he can no longer say, "The Smith family asked me to thank everyone for their prayers as they inform us that our beloved sister in Christ, Mary Beth, is home from the hospital now and doing very well," because he knows that scientific studies of the efficacy of prayer shows no benefit?You want your religion to make sense and not get caught up in fantastical and/or fraudulent claims, but religions are not rational social constructs. Is there a religion in the world based upon fact and rationalism? I don't think so. The best that one can do is accept the beliefs that one finds in one's heart, the ones that were there from the beginning and that no one ever had to tell you, and then find a church compatible with those beliefs. Maybe you're a little too liberal in your religious beliefs for the church you've chosen.--Percy

These are helpful comments.I'd shade one point a bit differently. Religions are not entirely rational constructs. Reason does play a role, though. A functioning religion does not contradict reason, but it often goes beyond it.Religion takes rational knowledge and puts it together with sensory, emotional, and intuitive knowledge. It integrates the finds of reason with, as you put it, 'the beliefs that one finds in one's heart, the ones that were there from the beginning.'Faith in a deity is of a piece with, and one form of, the faith that everything ultimately makes sense. It's a faith that reality exists behind all the phenomena we encounter and that these phenomena do indeed represent part of an overall unity. That's a faith scientists know well._________

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Loving your neighbor, is only one way of loving God.
God is not seen, so we are focusing on Him.If you do not understand this simple concept, then we need not talk about it anymore.Love is also, not always seen. Or is it objective, yet we know it exists. Define miracle.The objective difference is in the evidence. Their evidence (gems/orbs) is objective and easily proven to be false. My evidence is subjective, just like faith, and love, therefor not easily proven false.

I didn't go back and read it, but I think there was some difficulty in reproducing the freezing affect they were using.Otherwise I would.