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Author Topic:   Book -THE EVOLUTION OF A CREATIONIST
winston123180
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 17 (157461)
11-08-2004 10:14 PM


I've been told a couple times that I should start a new topic with questions about some books that I"ve read, one of them is here:
http://www.present-truth.org/...Creationist/Chapter%2001.htm
and there are a few more including "Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel and "And God Created Darwin" by Duane Arthur Schmidt. I can copy and paste the chapters that I"ve posted in another thread if necessary.

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 17 (157478)
11-08-2004 10:53 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
I've promoted this rather quickly as a special case. I will also change the topic title to reflect the particular book.
This is a chance for those interested to list the problems with this book. Some have been show already.
This message has been edited by AdminNosy, 11-08-2004 10:55 PM

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 3 of 17 (157498)
11-08-2004 11:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by winston123180
11-08-2004 10:14 PM


Chapter 1
Let's have a look at this chapter by chapter.
Besides all sorts of personal stuff there seem to be only two points in the first chapter.
1)
quote:
My university science professors had not told me that I was making some significant assumptions by believing in the Big Bang model. The Big Bang is the belief that the universe and all it contains is the result of matter, so dense that the matter was invisible, suddenly exploding in a mega-explosion labelled by evolutionary scientists as the Big Bang.[1] Many scientists believe that this explosion occurred between eight and twenty billion years ago. To accept the Big Bang, one must assume the existence of matter and energy to be eternal. The Big Bang model only attempts to explain the ordering of matter and energy, not their origin. Matter had to be eternally present before the Big Bang or there would have been nothing there to go BOOM! We discover here that everyone on earth believes in something eternal by faith. It is either faith in eternal matter and energy or faith in eternal God.
and
2)
quote:
When I am addressing the issue of creation with maturity (or the appearance of age) with a class of college students, invariably a hand will go up at that point of the discussion. The student will say, Then God is a liar. He created something that is not what it appears to be if He created Adam, Eve, and dinosaurs full grown. They looked old, but were not old. No, God is not a liar. He told us exactly what He did in Genesis l and 2. Our problem is that we do not think we can believe it. Instead of believing the Bible, we have accepted the speculative theories of evolution.
The first one about the big bang is simply God of the gaps theology. Since we don't know what came before there is a gap in our knowledge. Not knowing something is not a reason for making up an untestable explanation. Over and over again in history there have been gaps in knowledge into which God has been pushed as an explanation. Thunder, disease and life on earth. Over and over theose gaps have closed. Sophisticated theologians understand how poor this arugment is.
The big bang itself, of course, has excellent observations in support of it. It has been observed.
The second one is not complete. The issue is that God, if he formed everything, has left unnecessary appearances of age. This is a form of lying. It isn't any necessary appearances of age that, it might be argued, are required to make things work.
Additionally, if that is all the creationists want, that is for everyone to say "God made it appear that...." in front of every scientific finding then ok. If that is done then all the science stays as it is and the people who keep saying this will look a bit silly if the phrase is completed to say "God made it appear that ... even though it isn't really". Eventually it gets harder and harder to explain why God would do such a thing.
This usually reduces to the "God is mysterious, we can't know Him". In which case, shut up! Since you know nothing about what you talk about stop acting as if you do.

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pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6022 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 4 of 17 (157504)
11-08-2004 11:37 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by winston123180
11-08-2004 10:14 PM


How to start?
Is there a particular passage or chapter of the book you'd like to discuss? Something that seems to challenge evolution more than the others?

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 5 of 17 (157520)
11-09-2004 1:05 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by winston123180
11-08-2004 10:14 PM


Chapter 2
This is the bombadier beetle and has already been discussed here a number of times.
Someone may, for completeness, feel like gathering the arguements here.
Sorry, there are futher discussions. I'll edit them in here later.
This message has been edited by NosyNed, 11-09-2004 01:08 AM

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winston123180
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 17 (157545)
11-09-2004 3:18 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by NosyNed
11-08-2004 11:35 PM


Re: Chapter 1
quote:
The big bang itself, of course, has excellent observations in support of it. It has been observed.
Do you have a reference or something for this?
This message has been edited by winston123180, 11-09-2004 07:21 AM

This message is a reply to:
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pink sasquatch
Member (Idle past 6022 days)
Posts: 1567
Joined: 06-10-2004


Message 7 of 17 (157548)
11-09-2004 3:29 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by winston123180
11-09-2004 3:18 AM


style note
Hey winston,
Click on the raw text button under any message to see how it was formatted - using quote boxes makes it clear who's words are being used, and makes messages easier to follow.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 8 of 17 (157599)
11-09-2004 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by NosyNed
11-08-2004 11:35 PM


Re: Chapter 1
NosyNed writes:
The big bang itself, of course, has excellent observations in support of it. It has been observed.
The observational evidence for the Big Bang is strong, but I don't think direct observation is part of the evidence. I think for the first two or three hundred thousand years matter was ionized and the universe was opaque, only becoming transparent after the ionized hydrogen atoms picked up electrons. I might be off on the timescale and the details, but I'm pretty sure I've got the general sense of things right. It might be interesting to find the furthest back we've observed so far. My guess would be about 13 billion years.
--Percy

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 9 of 17 (157619)
11-09-2004 11:58 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by winston123180
11-09-2004 3:18 AM


Re: Chapter 1
Winston - for evidence of the Big Bang, you might start with
Universe: Cosmology 101
or any recent astronomy textbook. This NASA site presents it clearly and in a better organized fashion than I could. There are a great variety of observations that are terribly difficult to explain in any other (non-magickal) way.

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 17 (157621)
11-09-2004 12:00 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by NosyNed
11-08-2004 11:35 PM


Re: Chapter 1
quote:
The Big Bang is the belief that the universe and all it contains is the result of matter, so dense that the matter was invisible, suddenly exploding in a mega-explosion labelled by evolutionary scientists as the Big Bang.
This has it all wrong. First, matter condensed from energy after the start of expansion. Second, there was no explosion. Rather, it was an expansion of space/time. The "Big Bang" was originally a derisive term coined by an opponent of the theory, and somehow the name stuck. There was no "explosion" nor a "big bang". One of the few times that physicists have displayed a sense of humor.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 11 of 17 (157622)
11-09-2004 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Percy
11-09-2004 10:37 AM


Observing the big bang
You are, of course, correct Percy. But what that is saying is that our observations are imperfect. They are like a telescope with limited resolving power. It doesn't mean they aren't observations it just means that we can't see all the way back or all the details.
A parallel is the "observation" of extra-solar planets. I would claim that we are observing them. However, the nature of the observations are of poor "resolution" and not the last word on the subject.
For Winston:
Try googling "microwave background radiation".
Another "observation" is the current ratio of elements in the universe. This has, apparently (since I'm not able to do the calculations myself) been calculated from theory regarding the initial state of the universe.
An additional "observation" is the current rate of recession of other galaxies and the tie from this to the current temperature of the background radiation.

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 12 of 17 (157623)
11-09-2004 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Loudmouth
11-09-2004 12:00 PM


Humour
One of the few times that physicists have displayed a sense of humor.
Have you looked at the name of the different particles? There is a lot of whismy in physics. Not all of it accessible to someone not "in the know".

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 17 (157628)
11-09-2004 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by AdminNosy
11-09-2004 12:06 PM


Re: Humour
quote:
Have you looked at the name of the different particles? There is a lot of whismy in physics. Not all of it accessible to someone not "in the know".
Hehe, I thought about including the name of quarks as another example. It's funny that you mention them as well. For those who are wondering, quarks have "flavors" which are named: up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange. I believe there may be other theoretical particles with even stranger names, but I can't remember them now. Anyway, back to the topic.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 14 of 17 (157640)
11-09-2004 12:56 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Loudmouth
11-09-2004 12:13 PM


Re: Humour
One of the very early papers on the Big Bang was written in the 1940's by Richard(?) Alpher and Hans Bethe. Before they submitted it, though, they got George Gamow to sign on as a coauthor. That way, the paper was "Alpher, Bethe, Gamow." They intended this to be compared with the start of the Hebrew alphabet (and the start of everything?) - "aleph, beth, gimel..."

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 17 (157680)
11-09-2004 3:00 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Coragyps
11-09-2004 12:56 PM


Re: Humour
quote:
One of the very early papers on the Big Bang was written in the 1940's by Richard(?) Alpher and Hans Bethe. Before they submitted it, though, they got George Gamow to sign on as a coauthor. That way, the paper was "Alpher, Bethe, Gamow." They intended this to be compared with the start of the Hebrew alphabet (and the start of everything?) - "aleph, beth, gimel..."
Very interesting, I didn't know that. It is also close the the Greek alphabet of 'alpha, beta, gamma'.

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