LuftWaffle

What does that mean though. If we really don't actually know all the conditions prior to the fall what does that mean? I was thinking about something after asking a question in another thread. So I will ask you here. When God said you shall surely die ( my emphasis on surely) what die do you believe He meaned with the addition of that Word? He didn't just say you will die, but surely die. Nothing big, or that I want to attempt to build something else on. But that word just stands out to me. Almost like saying you can die, but if you eat this you will definitely die. Look forward to your answer brother, or anyone else who wants to chime in. Perhaps Shiloh can help out here, but I understand that the text in Hebrew reads, "Dying you shall surely die". I think this makes a difference because it means we will live our lives with death chasing and eventually overtaking all. As some say, we're all dying, slowly but surely.

Ok, fair enough, but I'm sure you can understand why I made the connection since your opening post reads, "I was doing an experiment this week in which I was looking at cell death and was reminded of some of the creationist positions regarding the genome and death after the fall." No problem, I just thought it interesting. Logic generally isn't flippable. The problem with saying there is a command to multiply therefore the reality of the command obtained pre-fall, makes certain hidden assumptions: 1. The command was obeyed. 2. The command was limited in scope to the pre-fall world. In other words it expired post-fall and therefore had to happen pre-fall in order to be useful. I'm not at all suggesting that the "command is irrelevant, and had no relation to anything or would not be useful". Where do you get that from my post/s? What God commanded is a reality today, as we live in a world with 6.8 billion people (as at 2009). It wasn't a useless command at all, it just didn't come to fruition pre-fall, and there's no need for it. The reason why the ToE seems incompatible with God declaring creation "Good" has nothing to do with mutations, but has everything to do with the amount of death required for mankind to emerge. I'm not aware of any creationist having a moral problem with mutations and if there are any, I don't think they're represented on this forum. Natural selection selects for death. Using a lot of natural selection in the creative process and then calling death 'the last enemy' seems incompatible. 1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. This implies that God used the last enemy to produce a "good creation". "Paradise" as it were, would have been built on the corpses and decaying bones of the hopeful monsters that came before. In terms of everybody looking pretty similar, it depends on how diverse the genome is that you begin with, isn't it. I believe Adam and Eve would have contained the genetic info for every race, colour and creed that we see today. They would have been a mixture of all of them, having likely had mid-brown complexion, wavy hair, brown eyes(but with the recessive alleles to produce blue and green eyes) And yes, I think humans would have looked rather similar up until the point where God confused the languages at babel. From there you would have had genetic isolation and certain traits racial traits would have emerged.

I not really arguing anything. You're arguing that without mortality there'll be overpopulation. All I'm saying is that that's not a necessary conclusion. If you say it's not possible in the natural world, then you'd be right only in terms of the natural world as we know. Paradise was not the same as this world. To say that scripture doesn't suggest such as thing, isn't true. Scripture suggests exactly that, and not only for paradise but for the world to come. I'm confused, I thought we were talking about death, now it seems the discussion has shifted to vegetarianism in paradise. I'm fine with discussing that, but lets atleast acknowlegde the change in the direction of the discussion. Pandas have canines yet they eat plants. Surely nasty teeth in and of themselves don't necessarily mean predator. There's the story of a lioness called Little Tyke that refused to eat meat as another example. Here's skull of a fruit bat: Now I won't say any of this is conclusive, but I think the idea of a vegetarian world isn't as preposterous and you might believe. Well that's precisely it. We're saying that Adam and Eve's bodies before the fall weren't the same either, that the curse changed us.

I probably won't be able to answer in any useful manner, but I am interested in why you say this. The bible distinguishes between nephesh(soully) life and non-nephesh(having no soul) life. Plants, bacteria, insects from a Biblical perspective are biological machines, and not really living, sentient beings.

Hi Don, I'd like to ask a couple of questions about some of the points you've made in the above: 1. When you say cell-death, are you not committing a non-sequitur by applied what's true for the part to the whole? A dying cell doesn't necessarily prove an organism dies, just like a flat tire doesn't mean your car is flat. 2. What kind of cell-death are you referring to? As far as I know there's controlled cell death and uncontrolled cell death. Controlled cell-death is essential for life and this isn't necessarily precluded in the pre-fall world. Cell-death is merely the anthropomorphic term for deletions of spent cells. 3. The only genomes that are available to study are post-fall genomes. Adam's genome isn't available, so based on what do you say that "old age must have occurred"? Thanks You are referring to apoptosis. I wasn't thinking of that. Generally I started thing about death as a result of what I was working on, not in relation to it. More specifically, I was thinking of aging, as in not being immortal, which is what the state of biological orgainsims would have been in if there was not death. Yes, I was referring to apoptosis... I understand that apoptosis could play a role in longgevity. Do you know anything about that? Something else that's interesting, and you'll know more about this than me, is that apoptosis is a very complicated cascade and the mechanisms behind it are quite fascinating. YEC scientists say that this is evidence for intelligent design not only because of it complication, but also because all organisms have it. It seems more likely that a Clever Designer created everything and built this countdown-deletion system in into everything rather than having such a complex system evolving so early in biological history that everything today has it. Either way, I'm not sure I follow the connection you've made between cell death and pre-fall immortality, which is why I asked if you're assuming cell death implies organism death. Perhaps you can clarify it? Just because God gave a command in paradise doesn't necessarily mean it must be fulfilled in paradise, so I don't think it's valid to conclude that Adam and Eve were fruitful and multiplied in paradise. Also because a command exists, it doesn't make sense to conclude that the command was followed. For instance God commanded "Thou shalt not commit adultery", now if we use the same logic, we have to conclude that there is no adultery in the world, because why would God command something and not have it fulfilled. See the problem? Lastly scripturally there is no evidence for Adam and Eve having had many children prior to Cain. Especially not male children since her statement "I have gotten a man from the Lord"(Gen 4:1) would make no sense if she'd had any boys before him. The fact that God claimed creation was very good is only one of a number of reasons why we conclude that and not the only one, so it's not entirely correct saying that we believe genomes were perfect because God called creation good.

But extinction would only happen if you had death, which is exactly what we're saying didn't happen in paradise. Populations depend on births versus deaths. If you have no deaths and you have no births your current population remains the same size. Are you saying that the physical death and resurrection has no importance other than being demonstrative of spiritual rebirth? I'd also like to know how you see everlasting life. Will our glorified bodies still die in heaven, but our spirits will live on. Will we go through numerous physical bodies in heaven as they age and deplete, as in a sort of reincarnation? If not then why will an immortal body work in heaven but not in paradise?

Hi Don, I'd like to ask a couple of questions about some of the points you've made in the above: 1. When you say cell-death, are you not committing a non-sequitur by applied what's true for the part to the whole? A dying cell doesn't necessarily prove an organism dies, just like a flat tire doesn't mean your car is flat. 2. What kind of cell-death are you referring to? As far as I know there's controlled cell death and uncontrolled cell death. Controlled cell-death is essential for life and this isn't necessarily precluded in the pre-fall world. Cell-death is merely the anthropomorphic term for deletions of spent cells. 3. The only genomes that are available to study are post-fall genomes. Adam's genome isn't available, so based on what do you say that "old age must have occurred"? Thanks

Don, it seems that your argument is that if things multiply without limits the world will run out of space. I think it's a fair point, a check of some sort is needed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there must have been death, since death isn't the only way to curb population growth. Infertility would be another option, especially when one looks at the role God plays in terms of fertility of the land, animals and people throughout scripture. I once saw a study on TV with rats, where scientists created optimal conditions for the rats and they multiplied rapidly up to a point where overcrowding became an issue and then the whole population stopped mating. One sees a similar trend in humans. Families living in densely populated areas have less children than families living in rural areas, though there might be other factors for this. So instead of using death to balance out the births, God could easily have a check built in whereby births slow-down or stop once population levels reach a certain size, remember God actively maintained the garden of Eden. Furthermore, God being omniscient would have known the fall would happen and that overpopulation wouldn't be a problem on this earth. So the garden of Eden wouldn't have needed to be eternally sustainable, but only long enough to serve God's divine plan. I also agree with Shiloh that the Genesis has theological implications looking ahead. If the fall was only spiritual, then one has to ask why Jesus had to die physically to reverse the curse? Couldn't He just suffer a spiritual death for us? Likewise the promise of everlasting life, sealed with His resurrection, is that merely in a spiritual sense, or will our glorified bodies literally live forever? The Bible seems clear that we will have real physical bodies in heaven and these bodies will not die. It is appointed for a man to die once.

I find these sorts of statements to be self-refuting. By saying that cooking an animal is the same as cooking a human, they're saying that humans and animals are equal, that we have the same value. But then in another sense, inconsistent with the first, they're appealing to humans to value the life of an animal, but yet they don't expect the same from other 'animals'. They certainly don't expect lions to be responsible for the conservation of Impala and they don't expect whales to consider the lives of krill. They also don't expect Japanese Giant hornets to conserve European honey bees and neither do they expect polar bears to feel bad about eating seal babies. So, if we are the same as animals why do we have a moral responsibility to conservation that animals don't? Conversely if we're not the same, then the comparison fails... Conservation can only really make sense from a worldview that has man as a moral entity and custodian of nature, such as described in the Bible.

Well said!

When you say "To me, this seems improbable..." it seems as though you have a personal problem with the flood, but then you rattle off a list of questions copied from http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/flood-problems.html You've asked about large wooden ships collapsing under their own weight and we answered that question, to which you responded with "Interesting". Do you acknowledge that the question on wooden ships has been answered or are you instead ignoring the answer and moving on to other supposed problems, which are not your own but which you copy. And once we've answered those are you going to ignore them as well and copy more questions from more sources? I'm asking this because if you have a question regarding the flood then it's fine, but if you're just going to copy anti-creationist propaganda and expect us to answer that (and ignore the answers) then the exercise would be a waste of time. If you can search for questions on google (because you can't come up with your own, then surely you can search for answers as well, yes?) I also have to say that I find it rather interesting that you'd accuse FresnoJoe of not being able to think for himself and yet, it seems you can't come up with a question of your own regarding the flood, but instead must rely on other people to ask the questions for you.

This is from a post I did on another forums regarding this: There are many false claims that enormous wooden ships cannot be built, and unfortunately modern sceptics in general rely on the misconception that ancient man was less intelligent and less capable than us. This couldn't be further from the truth and there are quite a number of historical accounts of wooden ships nearly as big as the Ark. Here are some excerpts from a article on CMI's website www.creation.com describing some of these unfathomably large vessels. The Leontifera There was a naval battle in the Aegean Sea in 280 bc. The following is Ussher

Yes!

Hi D-9, I'm curious, what does "D-9" stand for? While you may choose to downplay Christianity's role in the flowering of science, even some evolutionists admit that modern science was founded upon the belief that the universe was ordered and rational: "The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation … . It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption." - L. Eiseley: Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It You cannot argue that an overwhelming number of the pioneers of science were creationists such as Newton, Kepler, Tesla, Pasteur etc. Either way, we're digressing from the point. Note what it is that I'm arguing here: I'm not saying that ALL science comes from Christianity, and neither am I saying that Christian belief is necessary for science. I'm responding to the claim that belief in creation will hamper science and I think history clearly shows that such a claim is unfounded. The rest of my response is directly at both your and Don Fanucci's post as both posts seem to overlap. It is a caricaturisation to say that faith cannot be subjected to scientific study, for the simple reason that we're not arguing that faith be subjected to scientific study. The Bible makes claims about nature and these claims can be investigated scientifically as they relate to nature. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Geology professor Steve Austin is currently conducting research around the dead sea and I'm very excited to see what he finds. What he is investigating are Biblical earthquakes. Here's how it works: The dead sea lays down salt layers continually. Seasonal pollen is also layed down in these layers, so it becomes possible to derive a sort of timeline from core samples. Now whenever an earthquake happens in the vicinity of the dead sea, the top layer which is currently forming becomes disrupted (pollen and salt and mud mix together forming a messy layer) So in short Steve Austin's assumption based on his creationist worldview, is that one should be able to match up earthquakes mentioned in the Bible and the age in which it occured with it's representative age in the core samples. I understand he's already been able to match up some layers with historical earthquakes as well as two earthquakes mentioned in the Bible. He believes that he may be able to find the massive earthquake that happened when Jesus died on the cross using this method. Time will tell. What is my point? Steve Austin's research may be inspired by faith and one could say that the end goal is a faith concept, but he is using science in his investigation not faith. I don't think you or Don would have a problem with his general methodology, would you? Creationism is branded as unscientific because its conclusion is religious, but as with Steve Austin's research, it is possible to conduct a proper scientific investigation into a religious claim. That's why it's a caricaturisation to state that creationism isn't scientific by pointing only to the underlying worldview and ignoring the science. Where origins science is concerned there are two competing worldviews, creationism and materialism. Neither of these are scientific, both of these are philosophical. You cannot test materialism in a lab and neither can you verify creationism in a lab. Now as I said to Sam Vimes, in a scientific investigation three things come together 1) facts/data 2) interpretation upon 3) worldview. Methodological naturalism is a guideline on how to interpret facts. In other words methodological naturalism deals with 1 and 2 only. It says nothing about 3, it cannot because the underlying worldview lies beyond the scope of what methodological naturalism governs. The scientific status quo is currently misusing methodological naturalism to exclude an 'unwelcome' worldview, which is a philosophical decision and, as I said, a religious move. In this light can you see what is wrong with your statement that, "science is about testability and we cannot test the supernatural" as well as Don's statement, "...you can't claim faith should be incoporated into science but not have any way to measure an outcome that occurs because of faith..." We're not arguing that the supernatural be tested directly, but rather that materialism not be the only worldview against which scientific facts are interpreted.

Hi Sam, I want to thank you for straightforward and sincere response. I prefer this type of open and honest dialogue and whether we agree or not, if we can walk away from this discussion having learnt a little about each other's views then progress has been made. Something I mentioned in an earlier post: Sometimes the impression exists that creationists believe that there is a general deliberate conspiracy to remove the supernatural from science, and by your response to my points 1 and 2 I think it may be necessary to explain this a little better. I, don't think there's a large scale conspiracy. Yes, there are certain organisations that are deliberately pushing evolution and deliberately attempting to undermine and cast doubt on the supernatural. NCSE, Scientific American and even NatGeo comes to mind. There are also science heros such as Dawkins, Hawking, Hubble, Gould etc. that are trying to push a philosophy along with doing science. However, I don't believe your run of the mill scientist is consciously part of any scheme. I do, however, believe there is a spirit of the age which is anti-god at its core and which impacts on everything we do, whether we're conscious of it or not. Even Christianity has changed through the years and has become more secular. To illustrate my point I always refer to the divorce rate in Western culture. It's not that there's a deliberate plot by certain covert individuals or organisations to devalue marriage, it's just that people in general don't value it as much anymore. It's the consequence of ideas promoted through philosophies, pop culture, the media, the arts, music, consumerism etc. that originated in the 1800s and is coming to fruition. What I'm trying to say is that I don't hate scientists and I don't believe that they're generally bad people playing games. So in terms of what you said about me confusing personal belief systems with the scientific method, it's not a personal belief system as much as a philosophical bias, and I sincerely believe that most scientists aren't even aware of this because the bias is ambient. It's all around, and it does affect the way we do science. The quotes from scientists I posted is the manifestation of precisely that. In my point 1 I addressed the idea that believing in the supernatural and approaching science from within that belief will hamper scientific progress and I still haven't seen a valid argument against this. In my point 2 I gave examples of where science in practise is anti-supernatural. My explanation at the beginning of this post explains why. Pointing to the scientific method doesn't change what happens in practise. The scientific method is a set of rules regarding science, but the scientific method cannot by it's mere existence remove bias. In every country in the world (as far as I know) murder is against the law, shall we then conclude that because such a law exists murder doesn't happen anywhere in the world? No, murders happen because laws and rules and guidelines alone don't stand in a causal relationship to anything. That's why you need law enforcement. But what law enforcement exists where the scientific method is concerned? Peer Review? The problem with peer review is that it doesn't test so much for truth as it tests for acceptability. What's acceptable is not necessarily what is true and vice verse. Where creationism is concerned it's even worse because anything hinting at creationism is excluded from peer review because it's considered unscientific, and then considered as unscientific because it's not peer reviewed. My third point was that allocating science as the tool to tell us about origins assumes naturalistic origins. This assumption is not scientific but philosophical. The scientific method cannot tell you what things can be determined scientifically and what would need another epistomological tool. The scientific method can only tell you how to conduct research once you've determined that whatever you're studying is within the scientific realm. I'm labouring the point because it's a valid one where it comes to origins science. You are absolutely right, my friend. The divide goes right down to the base assumptions. But there is common ground, its the data. To come to any conclusion regarding science three things come together 1) data and 2) an interpretation of the data. The interpretation depends on 3) a base worldview. I think evolutionists tend to call us stupid and ignorant because they think we reject data, but we don't, and that's why it sucks when we're ridiculed as if we believe in a flat earth or we reject gravity and such. Our differences don't lie with the facts, but with our worldviews, and our interpretations differ because our worldviews differ, which leads to different conclusions. In order to understand creation, you cannot look at it through evolutionary glasses. Which is why scientists can spend years believing in evolution and then suddenly become creationists, when they recognise the 3 things that conclusions are built on and they scrutinise not only the data, but the foundations as well. If you don't mind I'd rather not. My time is rather limited lately. Blessings

I missed this point in my previous post: But again lets ask which category of science is the one that improves our day to day lives, origins science or operational science? Consider this excerpt of a paper published by Philip Skell: Despite this and other difficulties, the modern form of Darwin's theory has been raised to its present high status because it's said to be the cornerstone of modern experimental biology. But is that correct? "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,' most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas," A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000 "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one." I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word

Well if you want biologists, then Richard Dawkins and Stephen J Gould would certainly qualify, but bear in mind we're talking about science and the philosophical bias behind it in general and not biology in particular. Perhaps that's the problem. Simply telling me that I'm wrong and ridiculing and demeaning creationists are no substitute for a well reasoned response. As I've noted, creation science isn't science, so no, I'm not familiar with the terms "origins science and operational science" since they are not scientific terms, they are religious terms. There is nothing religious about the terms or their definitions. Science does not get to decide whether or not a term is valid or acceptable in a discussion. There is a clear distinction between origins and operational science as per the definitions I gave, and this distinction is where the crux of the issue lies. There is no reason whatsoever compelling me to submit to only using terms or distinctions that are acceptable by evolutionists, in fact, such a demand belies your inability to even try to see things from any other perspective and the perspective you already hold.

Hi D-9, Thank you for your calm and peaceable response, it is refreshing. Indeed religion is fairly ubiquitous, but is still just pagan cultures or the Eastern cultures that produced this flowering of science. It is the Christian culture in particular and the reason for this is simply because Christianity believes in a rational God of order and therefore believes that the created universe must be rational and orderly. The very foundation of science is a logical outflow of the Christian worldview. This is why I'm saying that the objection, that allowing for supernatural explanation in terms of origins will not affect the progress of science because historically science was born from precisely that idea. Again note the distinction we make between origins and operational science. Methodological naturalism is a good rule to apply to operational science, but applying it to origins rules out anything but natural origins, but bring it into the world of religion, whether one admits it or not. I do distinguish between the methodology and the scientists personal stances, but as I said to Sam Vimes, science is practised by people, not by methodologies. Many philosophers of science have written about how bias is unavoidable, and moreso when respected scientists and scientific institutions send a bold and clear message. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it is the case with all scientists that there's a deliberate conspiracy or a 'kabal of evil' and some often accuse. But there is a philosophical bias undergirding modern science especially in origins science. A spirit of the age, if you will. Again, we must distinguish between origins and operational science. Allowing only natural explanations for origins is a religious move, especially when one considers that origins science is for the most part unobservable and not repeatable, but is instead relies on deductions made by interpreting evidence against a particular philosphical worldview. As evolutionary biologist Richard Dickens points out, "Science is fundamentally a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Rule #1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural" While the chemicals bubbling in a lab or the electrons flowing through a conductor may be agnostic in terms of religions, there is a philosophical bias at work and it affects how the evidence is interpreted long before the scientists enters the lab. Note, however that I'm not talking about science itself but the allocation of science, as I also pointed out to Sam Vimes. The choice to burden science, and excluding any intelligent causation in answering origins questions is not a scientific choice but a philosophical one and by implication a religious one. If a man puts a "Whites Only" sign above the door of a public restroom then that man isn't saying anything about black people, yet by exclusion that man is making a very strong political statement. Likewise, where it comes to origins, allowing only material causes, makes a strong religious statement.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he meant "evidence", but yes the "data" comment is rather strange. Perhaps he can clarify for us. "Kilophilosophies", haha. I owned a non-sequitrailer once...Towed it down to the coast for my holiday, but when I got there it was gone. It seems it did not follow.

Again this points back to my question on the lack of predictive power of evolution. What behavior does evolution predict? 'Further, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressiveexcept when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seedexcept when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.' - Philip Skell

I have provided examples so the statement that we have no data is demonstrably false. If I listed some obscure backyard scientists then you might have a point, but some of the names are highly respected scientists that are making irresponsible statements. Stephen Hawking and Edwin Hubble are representatives of their fields. Then you have Scientific American making a clear statement when they refused to hire an experienced science writer, not because of merit or lack thereof, but because he believed in creation. Again this isn't some obscure example but a very popular and highly esteemed scientific magazine making decisions based on an anti-religious bias instead of sticking to doing science. I find it interesting that you'd pick an operational science such as medicine and not an origins science in your example. Are you aware that we make a distinction between origins science and operational science? Let me make a declaration so that I can refer to it, in future. Declaration S1 We YECs (if any YECs here object let me know) distinguish between origins science and operational science. We define origins science as the speculations about the unobservable and untestable past that attempt to explain how natural phenomena and processes came about, (macroevolution, abiogenesis, big bang theory etc). We define operational science as the study of processes that is observable, repeatable, testable, falsifiable in the present (chemistry, medicine, physics, information science etc) We do not have any objections to proper repeatable, testable, falsifiable operational science, however we do object to naturalistic origins science. Given declaration A above, I trust you understand that we do not have a problem with medicine, as it is testable and repeatable in the present.

Not true. As I pointed out the belief in creation hasn't hampered the progress of science at all. Quite the contrary. The notion that if a divine explanation is allowed then scientists will make ad hoc reliances to the divine, is historically false. Science is practised by individuals, is it not? Also you're assuming that origins science is purely experimental and objective, but that begs the question. I'm saying it isn't and I provided examples to prove my point. You haven't really addressed my point. I'll copy it and highlight the salient point, "Science's allocation as only tool for explaining origins is a positive and deliberate philosophical choice in favour of materialism and against the divine." Also, OldEnglish asked you the same question that I asked D-9 in terms of the predictive power of evolution. Can you answer?

Define what you mean by "right".

I'm fine with all the theories being connected, they should be if they are all about the same universe, but at the same time much of the overall validity of theories doesn't rest on how X got there to set up what the theory explains. If it's all based on science, no God needed, and that is a problem for the faith, than the faith has a fundamental problem with the methodology of science. Science doesn't include God in anything (and at the same token it doesn't discount God, science just says it cannot be tested therefore it's essentially ignored) and works with what is testable, and if that is a problem (I suspect it is as I've seen several members here complain about the godlessness of scientific theory/model/hypothesis/law X more than once) than science should be seen (by whoever has a problem) as a godless philosophy/methodology that is at odds with Christianity. Either science is a valid methodology and you need to accept its silence on theological issues, or it isn't a valid way as it doesn't allow God, or even one foot in the doorway of the supernatural. Chance is an integral part, but look at it this way. Each human has about 6 billion base pairs of DNA per cell (all your cells have the same DNA). Each human has about 100 mutations before they're born. There is about 6 billion people in the world today, which means that has been enough mutations just from the people living today to completely redo the DNA sequence about 100 times. Now obviously this hasn't happened and neither evolution nor population genetics would allow such to happen, but I think it demonstrates how many mutations there can be in a population from generation to generation. A more realistic way of looking at it would be to think of each human as an "experiment" with about 100 mutations, have any sizable population (say even 10,000) and after a few generations you're bound to get a beneficial mutation or two. I could not find the thread, I went through hundreds of pages on our original agreement on the term we decided fit. I wasn't referring to any thread or previous conversation, sorry if it sounded like I was. My issue with the dogs thing is that it is very vague. A dog is a subspecies of wolf, so taking your statement literally would mean that demonstrating speciation would dispel your issue. However I know many creationists are fine with speciation, and you seem like the type to be of that persuasion. If that is the case, than it needs to be narrowed down otherwise it's open season on de facto moving the goal post until we can logically say that all life is of the same variety/kind. I could not find the thread we first started debating, where you said that you did not belive the Genesis account, I looked but I distinctly remember you stating just that. I am only stating what you have said. You stated that since I don't believe the Genesis account I must believe in a Godless processes that is at the whims of chance and everything lasted forever. That is a false dichotomy, not because of my stance on Genesis (I don't believe the account is literal) but because the alternative presented is not the only option. I like to see myself as defending science, not evolution specifically or the whole cascade of evolutionary theories from multiple disciplines. As I've taken various courses in a hodgepodge of sciences in high school and college as well as did a little reading on my own, I've found that I agree with mainstream science and that includes accepting the big bang, cosmological and stellar evolution, some things about abiogenesis, biological evolution, plate tectonics, an old Earth and so on. That is the science side of things, now as science doesn't say anything about God I'm free to believe or not believe as I see fit (coming from a purely scientific view). As a believer in God I have 3 basic options. I can forgo either science or God, or I can accept both; and as someone who has found truth in both I've decided to accept both. This isn't a scientific stance but a personal, metaphysical stance. When on the topic of scientific theories and such I try not to bring God into the equation because God simply isn't part of the equation. To add God in will take us out of science, and while I find such topics interesting it isn't science and I see no reason to go there when talking about science unless someone brings it up (not to mention theological arguments of this magnitude are much less concrete than science, or that me talking about it would probably have little to no meaning seeing as how I and almost everyone else here differs on more concrete matters let alone more esoteric conversations). Another way to look at is that I see a thread about how evolution doesn't work and it is usually trying to use some sort of scientific argument against it. To go against what is said logically I need to address it scientifically which means I need to leave God at the door so to speak; whether God was involved in the process or not doesn't change what science has uncovered, only if we are willing to have an extra metaphysical layer of ideas about it that isn't related to scientific methodology. Hi D-9 I'd like to make a few comments your post and highlight where I believe you're not perhaps seeing the full picture. Science flowered in the West, due to the fact that the Christian worldview leads a person to believe in an orderly universe. We worship a God of order and it is this belief that drive the pioneers of science, people such as Tesla, Newton, etc. To say that science has nothing to do with religion complete ignores the history of science. There 's this misplaced fear that introducing religion thinking into the sphere of science will allow superstition and appeals to magic and miracles to take hold of science. This, I believe is an unfounded and perhaps deliberately inflated objection. It is precisely those pioneers of science, who believed in a creator and believed that they were following the thoughts of God, that eliminated the pagan superstitions that abounded before. History proves that belief in a creator isn't a science stopper, but quite the contrary, science was born and raised in the Christian West. I also think that you're confusing what science is, with what it ought to be. I totally agree that scientists should follow the evidence and that objectivity should rule, but the problem is this simply doesn't happen in reality. To say that science isn't concerned with debunking theism flies in the face of all the historical cases where precisely this happened. I think the latest example is Hawking's recent publication wherein he declares philosophy to be dead and God not needed. In the 1920s you had J Harlan Bretz who was ridiculed for claiming the Channeled Scablands were produced by a flood. Edwin Hubble admitted that redshifts are evidence for a privileged planet but that such an idea is unwelcome. To say that science has no bias for- or against God is simply naive. Lastly I think a fundamental question is the philosophical bias, not just within science itself, but in choosing science as the tool for investigating origins in the first place. As I said in an earlier post there are various types of truths and there are various tools for finding a truth. I'm not going to use science to determine the beauty of a painting because science isn't the right tool for determining that kind of truth. Likewise I'm not going to use science to determine the value of a certain moral action, because science isn't the tool for that. The tool you choose greatly affects what you're looking for and also greatly demonstrates what you think you're looking for. Therefore the very fact that the burden of explaining origins is loaded onto science's shoulders, shows the assumption that science is the tool that can answer these questions. Since science is only concerned with material, by that very fact betrays the strong philosophical bias toward materialism. So in summary: 1. The idea that the practising science in the context of a supernatural creation, and taking that into account will somehow hamper science is false based on the history of science. 2. The idea that science is neutral where theism is only conceptually true, but in practise this is demonstrably false. 3. Science's allocation as only tool for explaining origins is a positive and deliberate philosophical choice in favour of materialism and against the divine.

Indeed