The evolution of an atheist.

When i Use the term deigned it is on the assumption that there is a designer. I get your point though. I think it's closing some gaps and opening up new ones. That doesn't mean though that science won't at some point, if it hasn't already, close those gaps which may well up more new ones, which may at some point be closed which may open....... It's to do with science though and not religion. To be frank the text books include calculus and I have never even had the most basic course on the subject. All my education after high school, (which was a good long time ago), was aviation related. I think that you are making an assumption that is wrong. If I were in his shoes, (and after reading him I think he would think the same way), I would be keen to see what could be discovered. If a natural explanation was found, my response would be an excited - so that's how God did it. That was his response to the study of evolution and genetics. Let's forget religion for a minute. Let's compare science and philosophy. Science requires one standard of evidence and philosophy another. Will Durant wrote: "the sciences are the windows through which philosophy views the world".I assume that there are people trained both in the scientific field as well as in philosophy. There is no reason to assume he/she as a scientist can't work to a rigorous standard of scientific evidence while at the same time working to a rigorous standard of philosophical evidence as a philosopher.You might argue that only empirical or scientific evidence exists but that in itself isn't scientific because it can't be scientifically proven.I think that what holds true in this argument for philosophy also holds true for theology.

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I'm not saying Tacitus made it up. But it's clear that he's merely reporting the claims of early Christians, not corroborating them.

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But I don't think he is. I think he is using other sources as I said. We know that there is a lot that got lost over time, including the Roman records of the time (the Romans were pretty beaurocratic and there would have been records of crucifixions. I'm suggesting that the style of comment from Tacitus makes it much more likely that he is referring to Roman source than Christian. At the time he is writing the Christians are only just getting their act together - circa 115 CE and a lot of the legend is still under construction...

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Josephus did write on Jesus though and also on His brother James. The court is out on whether or not he wrote about the crucifixion, but we can't definitively say that he didn't.

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We can't definitively say anything about anything so that argument leads nowhere.
Even apologists accept that the crucifixion reference is just too pat and is almost certainly a later addition.
For example:
The Jewish Roman World of Jesus - Under Construction
The Logos: Examining Ehteshaam Gulam's Deceptive Use of Josephus
http://www.christianorigins.com/zeitlin.htmlAll sympathetic sources and all clear about the later forgery...there are many more if you need convincing..

The designer has never been relegated to the natural force pile. I'm sure that some people have had to adjust their thinking, but as a Christian I've done that many times in my life. I'd say that most of my views have evolved and changed since the time I became a Christian in my 30's. I'm sure that they will continue to evolve.Let's say that scientists can come up with a natural explanation for how abiogenesis occurred. It would be fascinating but it wouldn't eliminate the possibility of there being a designer. It can just as easily be an explanation for how the designer did it. I certainly didn't mean to suggest it was a problem. I completely agree with your statement. Thank you but I'm not sure just how it is that you are using the term creationist. I think most of us on this board assume a creationist believes in a 6 day creation 6000 or so years ago. I don't fall into that category. I'm a creationist to the extent that I believe that God created this world and all that is in it, but I don't believe that the Bible is to be read like a science text.I agree that science and religion are 2 separate fields.

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I believe that God created this world and all that is in it, but I don't believe that the Bible is to be read like a science text.

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Directly? It seems to me that you accept evolution and the age of the universe/earth (13.7 and 4.55 by) - or have I misread?

Agreed. The link that I posted though, did give both sides of the argument

You have read me correctly. That's what I meant by not reading the Bible like a science text.That's why I queried him calling me a creationist.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

You referenced a biologist, so I was speaking of the scientists in the past who alluded to a creator when their knowledge was exhausted. I did not mean you in particular. In the scientists sense (as I referenced Galileo and Newton), the creator very much has been relegated to the natural cause pile. I stand corrected. Forgive me. I have not read every one of your posts, but you speak of an intelligent designer or creator, so I immediately think creationist as I do not see much of a difference. I did not mean to offend.

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I don't think that either Galileo or Newton thought that the creator was relegated to the natural cause pile as they were both Christian. I sure wish that creationist was the worst thing I've ever been called. To be honest it never occured to me that there was any reason to take offence.

Not what I meant. Both Galileo and Newton attributed the workings of the universe to a creator once they were at the limit of their knowledge of it. Then, once new knowledge was gained, the bits they attributed to a creator WAS put in the natural pile.Here: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the God of the GapsFor an IDist with your level of intellect and reasoning, it is rather offensive.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

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I think the wiki article leans too far over in an attempt to be impartial, and ends up implying that the case is evenly split. It really isn't. Very few actual scholars think that

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for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him

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could possibly be genuine. Why would Josephus, not a Christian himself, talk in such flowery terms...doesn't scan, even to someone like me who is no scholar of texts of that period. I don't think you will find many genuine scholars (as opposed to apologists) who would say it was genuine...Pines case is very tenuous, and Goldberg even more so (and even if you believe Goldberg, his conclusion is not really helpful to those hoping for some confirmation of the resurrection:

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The conclusion is that the account in the Antiquities is almost entirely the work of Josephus, based on a Christian proselytizing document that was in circulation circa the year 90.

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OK. I see what you mean. Well thank you. This may be the first time anyone has spoken highly of my intellect. (Maybe you don't get out enough. )About ID. Certainly I believe in an Intelligent Designer but I'm not a huge fan of the ID movement, as I understand it. I never encounter it here in Canada so I'm not as familiar with it as I could be. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

It's all conjecture but the following from the wiki site makes the most sense to me.

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In 1971, Shlomo Pines, a Jewish professor, published a translation of a different version of the Testimonium, quoted in an Arabic manuscript of the tenth century. The manuscript in question appears in the Book of the Title written by Agapius the historian, a 10th-century Arabic Christian and Melkite bishop of Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij). Agapius' version of the Testimonium reads:

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For he says in the treatises that he has written in the governance of the Jews: "At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders"

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It isn't up to me to disprove your hypothesis. The Burden of proof is on the claimant. The reason it is a false dichotomy is that there could be a non intelligent designer or the creationist view could be true. there are not only 2 possibilities. You are stating that its either your view or mine with no other point.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

I think it's still a gap even if we don't know we don't know it. Science is illuminating the gaps, and closing them; I don't think it's opening any new ones. Not so much in the biological sciences. And, you know, you can largely skip the math and get the general gist of it. Philosophy has no standard of evidence whatsoever, because philosophy isn't a process where explanatory models are generated from evidence. Are you aware of that? Philosophy is a process where certain premises are assumed, and then statements are derived from those assumed premises by a series of transformations that are known to preserve truth values. But ultimately all philosophical reasoning is circular - your conclusions are only true if you assume your premises are, as well. It's much like mathematics in this regard. But the result is that philosophy is a way to arrive at statements that are valid, not necessarily ones that are likely to be true.In philosophy there's no rigor. There's no way to determine a false proposition from a true one, there are only ways to distinguish valid propositions from invalid ones. (An invalid argument is one that can't actually be derived from its premises.) I believe that both philosophy and theology are fields with no rigor whatsoever, and therefore the conclusions made in the fields of philosophy and theology can't in any sense be said to be true. Ultimately they're nothing more than a form of text criticism, not a field that generates any reliable knowledge.