Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.

Has it yet? Has any evidence been unconvered which definatively shows that a supernatural creator exists?I am sure there are many theistic scientists who would, in a heart beat, produce evidence for a supernatural creator. How as of yet this has not been the case. Yes, but your Buick is not the subject of naturally-occuring biological evolution. Rubber, plastic, and metal do not naturally bond to each other over time to form a car.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

And flesh-destroying bacteria.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Please do not presume what I do or do not believe. I don't believe or disbelieve this. I have no knowledge of abiogenesis. In this realm we are equally ignorant. Which is why I am still an agnostic.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

That is like saying a psycopathic and deranged father is saddened after after dousing his house with gasoline and then who then gives his 4 year old a match. The father then tells his child not to light the match and that the child would be given a reward if he obeyed him. The father then steps out of the house. The inevitable happens and the house goes up in flames with the child inside. The parent then shakes his head and says "I told him not to do it", "I even offered him a reward and said that he would not die if he did not light the match". Now who is the evil bastard in this story? According to Christians, it is the child.If one is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (all powerful or unlimited/infinite power) and omniscient (all being or the ability to be everywhere at once) than he has no moral excuse to create something like flesh-eating bacteria, leporasy, polio, AIDS, small pox, malaria that literaly have killed hundreds of millions of men, women and children. All because Adam and Eve ate a fruit. Wow, talk about overkill. That would be like you punishing your unborn grandchildren to death because your 4 year old spelt a glass of milk on your new cashmere sweater. Wow, what a pretty insensitive and cruel thing to say. So basically you are saying it is ok that God in his foreknowledge and the ability to prevent this disease/ailmant from occuring in the first place, does nothing to prevent the incruciating pain and literal physical torture of innocent children because in the end they will have new bodies in heaven. The supposed promise of a new body in no way takes away the physical/emotional/and psychological pain, agony and outright torture these people and the families endure when they are stricken with these diseases/ailmants.You ever here the term "The end does not justify the means"? I think that is pretty apropos here.So it is ok these kids are stricken with the below ailmants since they will get new bodies.There are worse pictures of diseases and ailmants I could post of children and adults, however for the sake of preserving their dignity I won't. These are some pretty horrible and gruesome diseases designed and created by your "loving" god.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

You really don't think anyone is doing this? There are a lot of scientists out there who are religious and believe in God. In fact, many famous scientists used this very rationale to learn about the world around them in the last several thousand years of scientific investiigation. However, the existence of God cannot be assumed scientifically, when one does not provide emperical evidence that supports this hypothesis. Wishful thinking does not make good scientific evidence, though it may make a good reason for conducting science. Even gravitons lie in the realm of hypothsesis, not grounded theory, until solid evidence is provided of their existence.Furthermore, the very definition of God existing outside of our dimension of spacetime, aka his supernatural existance vs our existence in a natural universe, presupposes that he can remove any evidence of his existance at will from our physical universe and thus mask himself from our scientific query thus making this point moot.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Because your answer to why God creating this disease in the first place is that God could possibly give him a new body (only to those who believe in him) in no way alleviates the pain and agony this child (and billions of other human beings) felt. To me that is a cop out and constitutes as cruel and insensitive. This would equivalent to saying to the family of a child badly burned in a car accident cause by a druck driver: "It isn't too tragic that your son has been horribly scared in the fire caused by the drunk driver because the doctors can perhaps patch him up." Go tell that to the family and tell my what their reaction to you is. That is the equivalent of what you said. Yet God doesn't alleviate any of this suffering. Hypocritical much? Poppycock. That is like saying your child can't love or appreciate you until you burn their hand on the stove first. My daughter love's me even though I do not beat or abuse her. That is a purely subjective statement with no tether in reality.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

No, this is just evidence that we are sentient, have emotions and percieve beauty (however subjective that may be). Your entirely right that it is not scientific. In fact it isn't even logical. Evidence of A (sentient humans who have emotions about the world they live in aka perception of beauty) does not equate to evidence of B (existence of God) unless you can in someway equate A to B.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Thanks for the honest and sincere reply GDR. Yes, well put, if this were the case than why not worship Baal or Zeus. They are pretty powerful gods in their own mythology as well. If the god of the Bible were not omnibenevolent as he supposed to be, than why should we worship him? Be in awe of and fear, yes, perhaps. But to worship such a being would be to "sell your soul to the devil" so to speak. Yes, I understand what you are saying with contrasting emotions. However, does one need to beat abuse their kids in order for them to love them? I think not. Death and excrutiating pain are not required for joy and love to exist. That is fine on a personal level, whatever floats your boat. But to expect everyone to believe in the same god that you believe in without any evidence to back up your claims is ludicrous. And you don't think the non-religious do this? You don't think we teach our children not to think of themselves all the time, and to not be selfish? I say it almost on a daily basis to my daughter. CS Lewis was a great Christian apologist. I admire his work and have many of his books in my library upstairs. It is the inconsistency and hypocracy of the Bible that I lothe (the irrational, unloving, unforgiving, unjust, arrogant, vengeful, egomaniacal control freak and murder of the Old and New Testament), not the original intent of Jesus message of love for fellow man. In some ways, I often relate alot to Thomas Jefferson in his views of the Bible (though I am not in favor of his owning slaves). I guess in the end I am a humanist and liberatarian (which is not the same as the US liberarian politcal party) above all things.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Your stage of belief sounds alot like mine before I steped off the Christian bandwagon. At that time I had migrated to a C.S. Lewis than more of a Thomas Jeffersonian view of Christianity and religion in general. That is the belief that the Bible was not as litteral and contrived as it came off to be. In other words, the Bible, I believed, was as you say more of a loose narrative from a human perspective rather than a innerant God inspired work and all-encompassing ideological tome of Christian doctrine.Here is another interesting quote from C.S. Lewis: also C.S. Lewis, because of his honesty, keen intelect and his ability to cut to the quick of things; I think if he lived long enough, may have become more estranged to the fundamental-conservative Christian faith seen in some churches today. JMHO. And I have no problem with this rationally or philosophically. The difference between you and God is that you did not create the various cruel and malicious vices that plague us today. In addition you are not omnipresent and omnipowerful and thus you physically are unable to always protect your child from being hurt. Also, you do protect your child from actions that will cause permanent physical, emotional and psychological damage whenever possible I assume. God does not do this. Or why would over hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children die of malnutrion and other terrible diseases every day. I think this is very relavent to why Creationists think the way they do, and why there is a moral, rational/logical and philosophical disconnect between the ways people think about each other (esp Creationists and Scientists). Pure conjecture as no one has come back to prove this is so. Yet, we are supposed to side with the people who are less moral than us who believe in a supernatural entity that they have no emperical evidence exists? I don't get it. I don't doubt at all your passion, zeal and love for God and your faith. I question the irrational basis that underlies it. That is not intended as a personal attack on you (though you may think it is), it is a healthy skeptism of the logic underlying your belief.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

You are a breath of fresh air to us non-believers. Most fundamentalists would say you are a sell-out and sacreligious for stating that the Earth and the Universe is older than 6000 years old. I think Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggart, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Oral Roberts and others of their ilk merit their own category called religious raging lunatics, chronic liars and swindlers. They should not even be mentioned in the same sentance as intellectuals such as C.S. Lewis. I am not that familiar with Timothy Keller and N T Wright, though I have heard there names before. Great book. Not sure if you have seen it, but the movie Shadowlands is a biographical movie depicting his life right before meeting Joy Greshem to after their marriage and then her death. Very touching movie. It has been a while since I have seen it but your mentioning "The Problem of Pain" reminded me of it.I have read through most of his books both non-fictional and fictional including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Peralandra, and The Hideous Planet) and of course the Chronicles of Narnia. I am happy for you. Just be patient with us who are not able to overcome our justified skeptism for all religion, including Christianity. Hmm, this makes no sense if God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenovelent. If he knew all this from the start why would he create humans in the first place, knowing that the vast majority of them are doomed to spending eternity being tormented in hell? Hearsay even from a 2000 year old religious book does not constitute as emperical evidence. Why do you believe the Bible over any other religious book? Or what if a stranger came up to you and told you he died, went to heaven and then came back to life would you believe him? Why or why not? I am, of course, open to discussing this in another thread if you wish. As do most other rational and open minded human beings. Love a human contrived word describing a state of mind subject to emotion and the human intellect while interacting with other humans. So actually you can be provided many different evidences that your wife loves you i.e. she listens to you, she cares for you, she sometimes puts your needs and desires above her own, etc and vice versa. This is debatable and would require an entire other thread to discuss, which I am also open to. It is only evidence that Jesus existed either as the real person described in the Bible, as a real person but not deity, as a montage of religious/historical inter-and extra-biblical figures or as a totally fabricated and fictional Biblical figure with no historical basis. Again this would have to be discussed in another thread. Why? I think you are mixing up theism with deism. Christianity and most organized religions are a subset of theism. Again, whatever floats your boat. However, I suspect you are on this board to help convince some of us non-believers that Christianity is true and accurately depicts reality. To do so, you need to provide rational and logical reasons and emperical evidence why you think this is so. If you cannot than it is mere groundless assumptions and blind belief.Thank you again for your honesty and your ability to rationally discuss these issues. I look forward to our future philosophical, scientific and religious discussions.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

That is an interesting concept of God that I can grasp. So in essense God is not omniscient under the randomality of free will. Makes sense. Also, nowhere in the Bible are the specific words omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent ever used. These are all implied and sometimes very weakly.However, what I do take issue with especially is the morally contradictory and hypocritical nature of God in the Bible. To me he comes off as an irrational, selfish, vengeful, ego-maniacal, cruel tyrant who commands murders, infanticide and ethnicide of entire civilizations and groups of human beings. It is as if the the concept of god evolves throughout the Bible along with the civilization that conceives him in the first place. To me the god of the Bible is too contrived and too morally and philosophically dynamic in his nature, especially after having claimed himself to never-change. Will have to go back and read it. It has been a while. This is also similar to John Bunyon's allegory "Pilgrim's Progress" when he finds the man in the iron cage. No one is keeping him physically and mentally in the cage but himself. I think the truth of this goes beyond religion and explains more of the human condition that even when acknowledging their own plight many people choose to remain in dispair and misery due to fear of the unknown and the mental inability to take themselves out of that situation. Ok, I am using the term 'historical evidence' as a subset of emperical evidence. Historians and other people who study the validity of various claims and historical accuracy of stories throughout our human evolution must abide by some of the same guidelines that scientists do. That is they must find various independent historical sources which corroborate each other. Sources from within the same book i.e. Mark, Luke, John, etc. cannot do that; as we have no way of knowing that who(m)ever cannonized the NT did not modify or even fabricate the original author(s) words to make it more believable. Independent verification from a convergence of corroborating and coherent sources (i.e. eyewitness testimony, writen documantion, paintings, etc, etc) is the key to historical accuracy.That is the test of the validity of Jesus being a real human being has to stand up to. Now for the validity of Jesus being the Son of God mentioned in the Bible requires even a greater amount of evidence, none of which can be corroborated due to the supernatural nature of this claim. The only evidence that can be provided is the Bible itself and hearsay from those who already believe the Bible and thus are suseptible to self-dillusion and religious bias. Key phrase: "I sincerely believe". Belief does not constitute evidence. That is fine and dandy but what differentiates your beliefs from those of Budhists, Muslims, Mormans, Christian Scientists, or any other religious denomination or cult?In other words, where is the evidence for your belief? What skeptical scholars? What evidence are they using to justify this claim?All I see is conjecture and assumptions not evidence. I am sure many crazy people can say the same thing (no, I am not saying you are crazy or anything like these other people) i.e. Islamic radical terrorists, Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, Sun Myung Moon, Pat Robertson, David Koresh, Jerry Fallwell, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Jones, etc, etc, etc. Agreed. I like two-way discussion more than one-sided debate. This is a whole other ball of wax which would require another thread to discuss. By the way all our human views/beliefs are subjective to one degree or another. That is why me must independently verify them and not take them at face value. The real question is do we have evidence to back up what we believe or claim. Technically by the the litteral translations of the terms, probably yes.
However, you were equating deist views of god to all theists which is not the case. Yes. If I were going to believe in God it would probably be a quasi-deist meaning that I would believe God only intervened when he felt necessary after creation and like you said above, let free-will and the unpredictable randomness of cosmic, biological and human evolution run its course. However at this time I see no substantive evidence proving this to be so. Me too. Me too. Do realize that many of the non-believers on this board on this board were at sometime in their lives Bible-thumping and studying, hymn-singing, church-going, praying and repenting Christians themselves (including myself). That will help in understanding where we are coming from. Agreed. Try getting schooled in physics and cosmology by CaveDiver. That is a humbling experience. Not a problem.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Than I take it you are not looking at the Bible as the all inclusive God-inspired inerrent word of God it (and fundamentalist Christians) make itself to be.Sure I dig it. I don't have any problems looking at the Bible as just another man made religious text.The question than become why should I believe anything in it concerning the very existence of God as a real entity, salvation, the resurrection of Christ, or any other Christian theology?If this is the case than the Bible is good literature but not entirely credible. There are still moral axioms that are good to learn from it just like any other ancient literature i.e. the Golden Rule, self-sacrifice, etc but you have to pick and choose and sift through the crap to find the good moral stories. This is akin to Thomas Jefferson's version of the Bible, centered around 'The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth'.I have no problem with that at all. In fact that is what I currently do.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Yes, but that is just wishful thinking. There is no conclusive evidence that God exists in the first place, so why make the leap of faith that God exists but not as the Bible depicts him to be. Why believe anything in the Bible at all if this were the case? If so, than the Bible is just a loose collection of the history of the Jewish culture and early Christianity with many fictionalized stories. I think most of us non-believers already see the Bible in such light. Nothing new.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

So you do not believe the Bible is the unbiased, innerant (without error), Word of God as most fundamentalists do? Isn't all like what? Not following. But where does goodness come from? Is what is morally 'good' commanded by God because it is inherently morally good? Or is it morally 'good' solely because it is commanded by God? This is a rather interesting dilema when supernatural entities who are the sole source of goodness are brought into play. If you want to read more on the subject of absolute morality look up the Euthyphro dilemma. I am not saying someone fabricated the whole account. IMHO it sounds like a historical figure named Jesus may have actually existed, but that the story of his life, miracles, etc was greatly embilleshed. I agree with everything you have written above. You sound more like a deist than a tride and true theist. I think we have more in common than what you have with the fundamentalists. As much as I admire Lewis, that is still a statement of belief, nothing more. Love, beauty, longing, fear, etc are human derived concepts used to describe our feelings and emotions. You can't compare that to evidence for God. They are apples and oranges. Unless you are saying believing in God is soley a feeling or an emotion and has no basis in reality. In that case belief in God is like belief in Buddha or Nirvana. Yet your take on Christianity is not in line with the majority of fundamental Christians out there. In otherwords everyone has a different take on what Christianity is. So basically Christianity in its present form, with tens of thousands of beliefs and denominations, is very incoherent in answering the big questions. Some believe in the trinity, some don't. Some believe God is going to allow non-believers into heaven, many don't. Some believe you have to be baptised to be saved, some don't, etc, etc, etc. As all of us may be. We are all human and thus have a limited understanding of the universe we live in. Maybe you are right. The real question is, where does the evidence lead us. Unfortunately, personal experience is too subjective and prone to bias or even outright fabrication and self-deception to be considered as credible evidence (otherwise why should we not believe that Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism is correct since billions of people believe that to be so).

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

I understand what your getting at, I am not saying that you said or implied that I should believe in the God of the Bible. My questions were mainly retorical.Basically, I already read the Bible to be like what you say, a historical evolution of the concept of the Jewish and Christian god, who may or may not exist.My question about the inconsistent moral nature of God was mainly aimed a GDR. It was a question of why should we not only believe but worship the god of the Bible who is morally inconsistent and downright 'evil' by today's moral standards.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World