Creation, Evolution, and faith

Neither of which were contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth. Because Galileo left instructions on how to build one, and upon building one you can observe the very same things that Galileo reported observing. You know, objective evidence, that very thing we lack for the existence of God or the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth.Do you really think that the existence of telescopes is on par with the existence of supernatural deities?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Fair enough. Let me put it this way. There are probably certain things that you believe about science that you have never actually proven yourself. You have probably never measured the speed of light yourself but you believe it to be true because of the first person who did hundreds of years ago. This information was passed on to one person, onto a next, written down, ect and we read about it today. I never measured it myself, but read about it in a book. I believe it to be true...I have no reason to believe it not to be.Justin was a First century church leader. He was one generation away from being taught from the eyewitnesses who wrote the NT. I don't need all these independent sources. The Bible is sufficient for me. I could go into all the thousands of manuscripts that have been found, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ect but I won't for sake of brevity. The letters of Justin or whoever they might be, only solidify what I believe, but it's not their letters I put my faith in, it's the Bible.

Again another appallingly stupid argument. Contemporary corroborating evidence. We have the writings of Galileo, we have a multitude of writings by contemporaries, we have church history. For Jesus Christ we have nothing. There is NOTHING contemporary. Nothing in the Roman archives, nothing in the histories written during the period. No writings of Jesus or anyone that knew him. Nothing.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

It burns.You truly think these are actual arguments. We are not going to get anywhere. You truly think the speed of light is analogous to the dead sea scrolls?
There is a difference. If you can not see there is a difference then it isn't worth wasting my time.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

But we do have the methodologies that other scientists used to produce this data. Therefore we can verify it ourselves if we want to. Again, this is very bad argument you are making here.Have you ever read a real scientific paper in a peer reviewed journal? Every article includes a section called "Methodology" or something to that effect. In that section it tells the reader how to duplicate their experiments. The point being that we don't have to believe it. We can test for it ourselves. No faith required. Also, if the speed of light were wrong GPS wouldn't work. Millions of people test the speed of light every day. Of course not, which is why it is called blind faith. You believe it because you want to believe it, not because of the evidence.

I think we are getting closer to what passes for "logic and reasoning" in the theistic argument. It's a combination of an appeal to authority and an appeal to emotion.

I think at this point we're going in circles. I know that Tacitus and Josephus were not contemporaries of Jesus. I have the Bible, written by his contemporaries for that evidence, which leads us right back to square one in that logically I use other evidences for the Bible which is where this all started. You guys, which I refer to those posting in here, want me to scientifically prove my faith which I admitted numerous times cannot be done. I am saying that there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, of which adds up to a totality of circumstances for me, to believe the Bible. That is not blind faith. If it is, then we have a ton of people in jail now days based on blind faith of the jury.Again, and sorry beating this like a dead horse but I'm not trying to debate the spiritual aspects of the Bible at this point. The Bible has many many evidences supporting it. Again, not Adam and Eve, ect. The Bible was written by 40 authors of 66 books over a 1,500 year period. The date range is really not in debate as even non believe scholars will tell us this. I get the feeling that some feel it's a grand conspiracy written by one author, or somehow 40 authors over 1500 years and lives on to this day. Is that a scientific proof? No.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Not only is it not scientific proof, it's not even objective evidence. It's exactly what we've been saying it is all along, an appeal to authority.It also doesn't begin to approach the mountains of objective evidence that there is for the theory of evolution. It's this difference in the type of evidence that evolution and creationism rely on that makes one scientific and one faith reliant.Will you ever address this? If not, what's the point in your being here? This is a debate forum, not an ignore-the-opposition forum.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas JeffersonFor we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

No, I do not believe that Galileo invented the telescope. Who Invented the Telescope?
No webpage found at provided URL: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/question37.html
History of the telescope - Wikipedia

No it wasn't. When was the first gospel written? Post 70 CE. When was the supposed crucifixion? Ca 30 CE. Unless you have a different definition than that is not contemporary.In your world Barack Obama is a contemporary of JFK.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Great point. I was so caught up in the lame argument I missed that important part.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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I wasn't referring to the Quaran...I was addressing Huntard's question about the Illiad.

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I am perfectly aware of that. I was simply pointing out the fact that the Quran DID claim to be the word of God, unlike the Bible.

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By your post I get the impression that for the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, it probably should have said so in every single verse????

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Then you should have considered more carefully. I would have been more than happy if each book of the Bible had made such a claim. But in fact NONE of them do. Even a claim in one book that covered the entire Bible would have been adequate. If it had unambiguously identified those books as the word of God. 2 Timothey 3:16 does neither.

Hi Flyer75,This one has been addressed already, but this is just so far out there: One of the important qualities of science is replicability. Anyone who doubts the scientifically established speed of light is free to follow any of the many measurement experiments described in the literature.The replicable nature of science is a key quality that differentiates it from the revealed beliefs of religion. If you're skeptical then you can measure for yourself the speed of light or the acceleration of gravity or the period of rotation of the Earth or anything scientific. This contrasts sharply with religion whose tenets and beliefs cannot be replicated.There may be some things you wish to prove scientifically true for yourself, but measuring the speed of light would be a big waste of time. Beyond that it's been measured out the kazoo experimentally, there are many things you come in contact with or hear about in your daily life that tell you about the speed of light. Someone already mentioned GPS, but any global voice communication using satellites in stationary orbit 26,000 miles above the Earth's surface experiences a latency of about .28 seconds due to the speed of light (there's additional latency from other sources, some is additional electrical propagation and some is digital processing). Communication with the Martian rovers takes about 12 minutes in each direction because of the speed of light (the precise delay depends on where Earth and Mars are in their respective orbits).But even more important than the experimental and practical ways the speed of light has been established is the theoretical. The speed of light is a fundamental constant of the universe. The speed of light falls naturally out of the Maxwell equations (electric field theory). It is fundamental to relativity. It is the maximum speed at which influence can travel. If the speed of light did not have the value it did the universe as we know it could not exist.Still boggled anyone could say something like this...--Percy

I'm currently 20. If I write a book about Obama when I'm 60, will it be contemporary or not ?I'm just trying to get a clear understanding of what you mean by contemporary.PS and of course, the gospels aren't the earliest reference to Jesus and specifically, to his ressurection. Thessalonians is dated at 50AD. That is only 20 years after his death, which means there were a least at that time a community that not only thought Jesus lived and existed, but though that he rose from the dead.

Hi Flyer, but Theo is right; the New Testament was not written by contemporaries of Jesus. None of the authors ever met him. Okay, let's go with that and try to get the conversation back on course.We all agree that some of the information in the Bible has been historically verified. I suspect that it may well be a good deal less than you think, but that's by the by. Historical evidence is not that best comparison here. History is not a science.Let's look at a concrete example; the divinity of Christ. How can we test the truth of this statement?By straightforward appeal to scripture? That would simply be an appeal to authority, a clear logical fallacy. Clearly no scientist would ever claim "X is true because Y says it is!".By appeal to the historical accuracy of scripture? Well, it is obviously possible for scripture to be accurate on some issues and wrong on others. You can't provide logical evidence for one part of the Bible by appealing to another. If there is no way of historically verifying a claim (a as for the divinity of Jesus), the general accuracy that you ascribe to the Bible is not relevant.By appeal to the evidence for the historicity of Jesus? Not really. We might prove that Jesus was a real man, who really lived, but that leaves us no wiser as to whether he was divine or not.By appeal to worshippers' personal experiences of "feeling the love of Christ" and suchlike? No. These experiences, though powerful and profound, are entirely subjective. They cannot be replicated.By appeal to revelation? Hardly. Again, these experiences cannot be replicated and are wholly subjective.So how can we test the divinity of Jesus? Can you show me how? Because if not, it looks very much as though this central tenet of Christian belief is to be taken entirely on faith. Perhaps you're okay with that. If so, good luck to you. Still, you should recognise that it contrasts starkly with the scientific method. Certainly, you should be honest and admit that you have no reason for this belief other than blind faith.Whilst some of the historical ideas associated with Christianity might well be based upon solid historical evidence (again, far fewer than you seem to think), many important beliefs are not. The divinity of Jesus, the existence of heaven, the soul, the existence of God himself; these things are all taken on faith. Science on the other hand, takes nothing on faith. There is no equivalence. If you want to base your beliefs on faith, go ahead. I would discourage it, but it is your right to believe as you see fit. Just please be honest about why you believe what you do.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod