Citizenship

To all, it has come to my attention that this thread has deviated from the original intention of the Outer Court, which is not to discuss science, but to give outsiders a change to learn about our faith. In respect to that I have decided to discontinue all discussions here. Thanks everyone for an interesting exchange. I wish you all the best. /Citizenship.

Hi Viole, yes Swedish is a beautiful language, not my native tongue, but the language that I most often use since I have lived in Sweden most of my life. The reason that there are immune systems and viruses is little too prone to speculation for my taste so I don't want to delve too deply into things that I for one have on way of knowing. But I will say this. The function of a virus might only need to be distorted, rather than designed, in order for it to turn from benevolent to malevolent. This, in fact, it the way the most powerful and deceptive software viruses work - they exploit weaknesses in existing code. And yes, as a developer I prefer as simple a solution as possible. But just because an explanation is simple doesn't mean that it is correct, especially in a world where nothing seems to be simple. what is the simple evolutionary explanation as to how a catapillar forms a cocoon, melts into goo, and then emerges as a buterfly? Simple whiteboard sketches of hierarchies are one thing, but reality with all its variations are another. Now I posed the question as to how intelligent behaviour could have developed in organisms such as cells and viruses, and rather than answer the question, you turn it around with things that you consider inconsistent from a theological point of view. But what is your answer to the question? What then is the "simple" explanation that you consider outweighs that of a designer? Or am I suppose to be so knocked over by the fact that there are hierarchies in the animal kingdom that I shouldn't concern myself with such details?

Well, first of all, happy new year! This is an interesting point, althought I am not sure we analyzed the logical consequences of it. Let's suppose, for sake of argument, that the natural design recursion stops at our world. That is, design of living beings and viruses on earth are due to supernatural intervention and not aliens. The question is: who designed such a complex and intelligent virus? I can only see the following alternatives: 1) it is the same designer of human beings, e.g. God. But that would mean that God had active hand in making this world (with things like smallpox) a fallen world. I think we can agree that this is theologically untenable, if we are the sole responsibles of our misery. 2) it is another designer in competition with God. I doubt this is is acceptable. It would mean that there are two creative forces with more or less the same power and we and viruses are the results of an arm race between these two designers. For starters, it is not clear why God does not simply remove the virus from creation instead of complicating our design with countermeasures (antibodies). As a sofware designer, what would you do? Create countermeasures for a bug in your programs, or remove the bug? On top of that, that would be indistinguishable from dualism (two equally powerful gods, one good and the other evil, in the style of Zoroastrianism). To make things even worse, good and evil would be design dependent. God is good for us, but His competion is good for the virus; i.e. goodness would be anthropocentric. 3) Nobody designed the virus. But that would mean that complex and "intelligent" entities can arise undesigned. Which of the three cases (assuming I did not forget other cases) is more plausible? Ciao - viole Hej Viole, och god fortsättning på det nya året till dig också! Weell... should I pick door number 1, or door number 2 (door number 3 is of course out of the question ) Actually I think door number 1 is closest, although the conclusion that God had an active hand in the fall assumes that God originally designed viruses to behave the way they do now, which is incorrect. The biblical acount teaches that everything in creation deteriorated when sin came into the world, and agents such as viruses that would have had functions that were exclusively beneficial from the beginning were distorted from that time onward.

Creationists are usually criticized for making such comparisons and here you are doing the same thing. Life is vastly different than rocks and cars, and evidence of design and order does not need to be ubiquitous in order for it to be considered designed. Hierarchies might not be needed, but they are convenient for us in that they make it easier for us to understand and learn about the various forms of life around us. It also makes sense from a design perspective that organisms sharing the same environment and so on would have a similar genetic make-up. If the twin nested hierarchy was a prediction made by evolutionists then you wouldn't have any trouble at all showing me an older document where this tree was originally mapped out. Now you can easily sit and look at a modern document that has been edited down through the years and get all impressed with how everything "just seems to fit" and tell me that you think that it is evidence of descent with modification, but the fact remains that there is not a shred of scientific evidence that any modifications have the power of doing what evolutionists so badly want them to do. The fossil record is full of huge gaps and the theory of punctuated equilibrium testifies to that. You will most likely find a whole lot of ideas floating around, so have I, but just trowing out a couple of them like this proves nothing. And just because someone does an experiment to show how layers separate by density, does not mean that they are explaining the entire flood by their experiment. Why on earth would I want to view it as a transitional fossil? I don't even know why you mentioned it in the first place. It is a fossil of a lobe-finned fish. As usual, there is nothing in the fossil record showing a smooth transition from or to any other fish, tetrapod or anything else. Describing gravity or its effects does not mean that we know what it is, and I'm not trying to get you to interpret gravity as supernatural, I just want you to tell me how you determine what is supernatural and what isn't.

Who said anything about conspriracy? I thought I had been fairly clear in stating that I don't believe in a conspiracy, and that a conspiracy isn't even necessary, so what's the story? There is no need to have a conspiracy in a world where people are being indoctrinated from childbirth that certain things are true, despite the fact that no one knows these things. So do you acknowledge my position regarding this, or are you going to continue to ignore it and try to portray me as some kind of conspiriacy geek? This discussion has very little to do with your opinions about how the scientific community supposedly reacts. Are you a spokesman for that community? Have you gone around measuring their level of "amazement"? You see how weak this theory is? You don't have any facts to show that evolution has the ability to do what evolutionists assert it does, so you have to resort to the "reaction" of the scientific community. Has the reaction of the scientific community has always been correct? Of course not! So by your own admission we can see that you are basing your belief in evolution on a faulty standard. How many articles do you expect to get published given the level of opposition? You have already made the point that the consensus of the scientific community is strongly opposed to creationism, and yet you are trying to argue that there should be more papers published! Well, to be fair, evolutionists are known for hoaxes in science. Here are a few: *** removed video ... videos are to be posted in teh video section only. *** Piltdown man: Found in a gravel pit in Sussex England in 1912, this fossil was considered by some sources to be the second most important fossil proving the evolution of man—until it was found to be a complete forgery 41 years later. The skull was found to be of modern age. The fragments had been chemically stained to give the appearance of age, and the teeth had been filed down! Nebraska man: A single tooth, discovered in Nebraska in 1922 grew an entire evolutionary link between man and monkey, until another identical tooth was found which was protruding from the jawbone of a wild pig. Java man: Initially discovered by Dutchman Eugene Dubois in 1891, all that was found of this claimed originator of humans was a skullcap, three teeth and a femur. The femur was found 50 feet away from the original skullcap a full year later. For almost 30 years Dubois downplayed the Wadjak skulls (two undoubtedly human skulls found very close to his "missing link"). (source: Hank Hanegraaff, The Face That Demonstrates The Farce Of Evolution, [Word Publishing, Nashville, 1998], pp.50-52) Orce man: Found in the southern Spanish town of Orce in 1982, and hailed as the oldest fossilized human remains ever found in Europe. One year later officials admitted the skull fragment was not human but probably came from a 4 month old donkey. Scientists had said the skull belonged to a 17 year old man who lived 900,000 to 1.6 million years ago, and even had very detail drawings done to represent what he would have looked like. (source: "Skull fragment may not be human", Knoxville News-Sentinel, 1983) Neanderthal: Still synonymous with brutishness, the first Neanderthal remains were found in France in 1908. Considered to be ignorant, ape-like, stooped and knuckle-dragging, much of the evidence now suggests that Neanderthal was just as human as us, and his stooped appearance was because of arthritis and rickets. Neanderthals are now recognized as skilled hunters, believers in an after-life, and even skilled surgeons, as seen in one skeleton whose withered right arm had been amputated above the elbow. (source: "Upgrading Neanderthal Man", Time Magazine, May 17, 1971, Vol. 97, No. 20) The theory of embryonic recapitulation asserts that the human fetus goes through various stages of its evolutionary history as it develops. Ernst Haeckel proposed this theory in the late 1860’s, promoting Darwin’s theory of evolution in Germany. He made detailed drawings of the embryonic development of eight different embryos in three stages of development, to bolster his claim. His work was hailed as a great development in the understanding of human evolution. A few years later his drawings were shown to have been fabricated, and the data manufactured. He blamed the artist for the discrepancies, without admitting that he was the artist. The peppered moth experiment is still taught as proving evolution. Apart from the mind numbingly obvious fact that there were both light and dark variants of the moth biston betularia before the changes in tree bark colour discussed in the work, and that therefore it was merely a cyclical variation in slightly different varieties of the same species, it is now established that he researcher Kettlewell faked his results. Of course she does! She is an evolutionist! And although you claimed earlier on that "if the evidence doesn't fit with creationism, it is invalid according to creation scientists", we can clearly see that this is exactly what evolutionists do. Are you making things up? Please show me one shred of evidence that supports that idea. Mary Schweitzer wasn't a lone wolf, she was working under Jack Horner, one of the America's best-known paleontologists. Don't you think he would know if he had a creationist working for him? If it was a creationist hoax it would have been cleared up almost immediately. Both this, and Schweitzers opinions about YEC are distractions from the point at hand which concerned the eagerness of scientists to have their precious theories challenged. Jack Horner was offered $23,000 to have the bones carbon dated, which he refused to do. But since you brought it up, lets talk about dating. Where did you read about the amino racemization dating of these bones? TalkOrigins? What TalkOrigins won't tell you is that amino racemization dating is unreliable: http://www.detecting...aciddating.html "Because of these problems AAR dating of bone and teeth (teeth in different locations in the same mouth have been shown to have very different AAR ages) is considered to be an extremely unreliable practice even by mainstream scientists. " What they also won't tell you is that C14 is being found in places it should not be found: http://kgov.com/dating-a-dinosaur "Yet 14C is everywhere it shouldn't be. Unless from a secondary source, like contamination or neutron capture (described below), anything millions of years old should have NO Carbon-14. However, scientists are consistently finding C-14, as reported in 2011 in the journal PLoS One for an allegedly 80-million year old mosasaur, and as reported elsewhere in natural gas, limestone, fossil wood, coal, oil, graphite, marble, the ten dinosaurs (described above), and even in supposedly billion-year-old diamonds. A secondary assumption by old-earth scientists proposes that the C-14 in diamonds (coal, etc.) must have come from N-14 (or C-13, etc.) and neutron capture. Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss (emphasis on the theoretical) told RSF that 14C in allegedly million-year-old specimens is an "anomaly." However, an anomaly is something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected. Because modern carbon exists in significant quantities, far above the reliability threshold of the AMS labs doing the tests, these results can no longer be called anomalies! It is now expected that organic specimens supposedly millions of years old will yield maximum C-14 ages of only thousands of years!" (Nature, vol.352, August 1, 1991, p.381) Nothing that disagrees with the ToE is going to be considered "fully understood". The rate at which DNA breaks down was determined in the lab, under controlled conditions, not in the soil or anywhere else where the rate would be even faster. That is totally incorrect. Fossilization occurs rapidly, the entire process of mineralization must occur before the organism can decay. In other words, the time for fossilization must be shorter than the decay time. Most biologic materials decay quickly. Decay can start within a few hours or less, and rarely takes more than a few weeks. Even bones suffer complete dissolution in a few years.

The fact that we can process information is one thing. We have a brain consisting of billions of cells with which we can process that information. But there are organisms that don’t have a brain and yet do things that require intelligence. A cell for example has the ability to process huge amounts of information and carry out detailed instructions according to the information that it reads. There is a virus that has the ability to imitate behavior in order to deceive antibodies. None of these things could possibly work without an incredible amount of logic being in place. So approaching this from a scientific point of view we can only come to the conclusion that it has been designed. Programs do not program themselves. If they did I would be out of business, since I work as a software developer. That would only be a “big problem” if it could be established that the designer had a beginning. In that case we would not need to involve aliens. I made the claim that creationists are doing what anyone would do. What historical background did you give that demonstrates that to be false? And what creationist do you think hasn’t already done that? Do you think popularity isn’t hard to achieve? Given the snowballing effect the “popularity amongst scientist” argument has, the difficulty involved in going against the stream, the head-start that evolutionists already have in indoctrinating people’s minds from childhood, what the media apparatus feeds the public, and so on, I don’t find it all surprising that there are theistic evolutionists. Well, here’s your chance to convert me. Show me what I don’t understand. I have challenged evolutionists to do so for years and years, but so far all have failed. Obviously you are taking the opportunity to answer this question by sneaking in a few ad hominems. I have plainly pointed out that there is no need for a conspiracy. And do I seem angry or upset? If I was that kind of person then I would have given up years ago. You are repeatedly claiming that creationists don’t turn to the scientific community with these kinds of things, but I have already shown you that this is not true: http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

Well if we look at the Biblical account we see that it doesn’t describe the creation of life in an unorganized and unstructured manner. God created life organized in groups according to their environments and traits and reproducing after their kinds, which is exactly what we see today. Of course, he could have created one huge group and just called it “life”, or even created each animal individually with totally unique traits and using separate mechanisms to reproduce those traits in their offspring. However, the perspective we see in Genesis, and one that I think is reasonable, is that of a designer with a sense of organization. And the reason I think it makes sense is because it benefits mankind to live in an orderly environment, if it turns out that mankind is important to the creator. Evolutionists, as I pointed out, did not predict nested hierarchies, but have observed their existence, adjusted the theory accordingly and then, just as you do, proclaim evolution to be a “powerful explanation”. The only power involved is the power of suggestion. The fact that you are so ill-informed about the creationists position testifies to the fact that you have spent most of your time saturating your mind with only one side of this debate. Having a predisposition towards something can cause you to quickly filter out and reject what you don't want to hear and eagerly swallow what you do. The same goes for creationists. However, being in the minority, and given the large number of scientists that support evolution, anyone would be prompted to carefully study what their opponents were saying before putting themselves in a position where they are going to be called "backward-striving flat earthers" (to pick out one of the nicer ones). Proponents of evolution are less likely to take such care, because they can just relax in the comfort of knowing that “most scientists support evolution”. I suggest however that if you are going to debate this then follow this advice: Know your enemy, not just what your enemy's enemy says about your enemy. Having said that, I don’t think you will find many creationists explain the fossil record as being simply “jumbled up in the flood”, and saying that the fossils should appear as a “hodgepodge of random organisms thrown in together” gives me the impression that you compare the global flood with a big vat of water and just mix and swirl and let everything sink to the bottom. Explanations are rarely as simple as we would like them to be. The general pattern that we see in the fossil record reflects the different environments we find on earth: organisms that live on the ocean floor are followed by those that dwell higher up in the oceans, then come those that dwell in areas between land and sea, and then those that live on land. That means that if, for example, the Cambrian was an environment at the bottom of the pre-flood oceans then you are not likely to find any rabbits there. Also, not all animals would fossilize, but only those trapped in the rapid flow of sediments spreading over the earth, which makes it an issue to be taken into consideration. And then you would have to put the abundance of organisms in the equation, because, given the rarity of fossils, an animal such as the trilobite might come “before” a rarer organism that is found higher up. I’m glad you brought up the Tiktaalik, not to be cheeky and arrogant, but because I think it shows how scientists do not objectively study data when presenting evidence. When the Tiktaalik was first discovered it was proudly touted as being a missing link, and since the place where they found it was where they expected it to be, it looked like they finally had come up with a genuine prediction. I remember watching Ken Miller talk about it and being really impressed with what he said, because it was really convincing, and Ken is very convincing in the “matter-of-fact” way he presents his arguments. Unfortunately for him it was debunked: http://www.examiner....-still-shocking The definition of biological evolution is "any genetic change in a population that is inherited over several generations". How did you arrive at the conclusion that we are using it differently? The fact that there are ideas about what gravity is does not mean that we know what it is, and if we did know what it is then there would not be considered a theory. You also have thrown the words “mysterious” and “supernatural”, but failed to show that they apply to the one and not to the other. Ideas are not enough to make that distinction. That doesn’t make sense. Admittedly the “entity” would have to have “means, power, and intelligence” that greatly exceeds those that we are familiar with, but the sheer magnitude of these qualities are not enough to associate them with anything supernatural. And if there wasn’t a designer, then what do you think had the means, power and intelligence to create the universe? Oh, that’s right… nothing… You have misunderstood me. I’m not saying that I agree with everything Ruse says about the ToE, but that there is a part of it that is scientific (observable, repeatable and testable) and a part that is religious. If you disagree then please tell me how to you interpret him when he says “evolution is a religion”?

Viole, first you claim that you don't believe in interpretation by "conspiracy" (as though that was the creationists belief), and then you go on to show how interpretation is biased towards what it "admits". Who needs a conspiracy???

Yeah.. sparks are flying everywhere. You'd better ... ... if you don't want to get scorched.

I am only saying what scripture says. If anyone believes that Jesus is the Son of God and has come in the flesh then there is no way that satan has led you to believe that. This is something I have demonstrated using scripture, not my own interpretation or opinion. Does that mean that any and everything that a denomination or church teaches is of the Holy Spirit? No, of course not. Please keep things in perspective. I have already addressed this. The context of 1 Corrinthians is Paul's instructions to a church that wasn't going beyond the basic elements of faith and needed to grow in knowledge. At that time they did not have the resources that we do today - not only in the form of microphones, but also in the form of resources to edifying themselves. I have attended churches where interpretation of tongues has been practiced and yet put very little focus on instruction. I have attended other churches where praying in tongues without interpretation is always practiced, followed by instruction or a sermon directed at edifying the mind. I also find it surprising that the same people object to me saying that we have to take things in context and compare the time we live in with what was written during Paul's day, are the same people who are saying that tongues are not for today! Now if you think that everything that Paul wrote to the Corrinthians apply today exactly as they were written then, then please tell me how your church obeys 1 Cor 11:5.

Who said I'm not using God's Word? Neither the first two words nor the rest of the sentence make sense as far as I can see because one again I don't see what they have to do with what I posted. If that is all you know about tongues with complete certainty then I think you need to study the Word of God a little more I still don't understand what this has to do with what I posted. And you still haven't answered whether or not the women in your church wear veils.

That's nice to know, but I fail to see what that have to do with what I wrote. That's also nice to know, but I don't remember trying to defend the use of emotions and feelings, so again, what does that have to do with what I wrote? If that is all you know about tongues then I think you need to study the Word of God a little more. Again with the emotions and feelings... You show me where satan uses emotions and feelings to deceive people and I will show you where he uses scripture to deceive. He does so by getting them to add things to scripture that are not there, such as the idea that tongues would be replaced by cannonization. This is not scriptural. I was never mentioned in scripture. So why do people try so hard to pretend that they have scripture as their one guiding light in life, all the while they feel they need to add extra-biblical conclusions to scripture?

Which is exactly what I do: "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God" and "No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also." So where have I written anything that disagrees with the above? What on earth are you talking about? Are you writing in tongues? Or in latin? Please take the time to make your points understandable and show how they relate to the post you are referring to. Look, I don't "discount scripture" by any technology so don't twist my words. Every Christian has an obligation to correctly divide the word, which involves taking things in context. Listen, do the women in your congregation wear veils? Why? Why not?

Of course we are! I would venture to say that hardly anyone here knows that more than I do. My own mother was a member of a Christian church. She sat at home one day and look across the room at my father and saw the face of Christ superimposed over my father's face. Later that night she heard an audible voice that said to her "That was the Christ, you know" Following that voice led both her and my father down a spiralling path into occultism, New Age and away from the belief that Christ was the Son of God. The Word of God teaches us exactly how to test the spirits. So what in my post gives you the impression that I have failed to do so? It is my experience that deceptive spirits do not lead people to worship Jesus as the Son of God. What do they do, according to your experience in the matter? None of that has any relevance to what I have written, so I still don't see your point. This obviously has nothing to do with obeying God's word and more to do with defending your theology. If you don't know how to test the spirits then how on earth do you test the spirits in your own church?

I have no idea what you are trying to say here, other than that we are susceptable to carnality and sin? Is that your point? I don't think that while being led by the Holy Spirit that it is possible to give ourselves over to carnality and sin. If you think it is possible then that is yours to believe. Steven, the NT is not a updated version of the OT where everything written in the epistles are to be considered laws. If it was then you had better make sure that all the women in your church wear veils and so on. Paul's letter to the Corinthians was addressed to that Church and what he wrote to them were his recommendations as to how they were to tackle the problems that existed at that time. The Corrinthian church came under the administration of Paul and his assessment of them was that they were carnal and in serious need of developing their understanding - which does not come from praying in tongues. The judgement of whether a modern church is carnal or not is up to the person administering that church, not Paul, nor you, or anyone else. Let me ask you someting. When your church gets together, do they practice speaking in tongues, and when they do is there always an interpretation?

Thanks Butero! Not only does practicing spiritual gifts effect what we say, it effects what we do. When King Saul sent his men to capture David so that he could kill him they failed to do so, and started prophesying instead: "But when they saw a group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came upon Saul's men and they also prophesied. Saul was told about it, and he sent more men, and they prophesied too. Saul sent men a third time, and they also prophesied. Finally, he himself left for Ramah and went to the great cistern at Secu. And he asked, "Where are Samuel and David?" "Over in Naioth at Ramah," they said. So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even upon him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth. He stripped off his robes and also prophesied in Samuel's presence. He lay that way all that day and night. This is why people say, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" 1 Sam 19: 20-24. Wow, talk about contageous behaviour!

Hi Leaf! Yes, it truly is interesting, and it is also interesting that you bring up the fact that some Christians "mix" tongues with plain english. There are some people who claim that speaking in tongues is fake and satanic and to get their point across they claim that even heathen witch doctors and so on also "speak in tongues" as though that even remotely settled the matter. Let's take a look at what Paul wrote about how we know whether what comes out of our mouths is of the Holy Spirit or not: "Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit." 1 Cor 12:3 In my experience, when people mix tongues with plain english they are not cursing Jesus, but rather praising and worshiping him as Lord and King. So perhaps they are switching very quickly back and forth between satanic utterances and utterances inspired by the Holy Spirit. But that leads to the question: "Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?" James 3:11 Now obviously a Christian can say things that are not inspired by the Holy Spirit and I would even go as far as admitting that they can say things that are satanic, but not at the same time. Many Christians today are making the same mistakes as Jesus disciples did when they caught someone doing something by the Spirit of God, but who they did not consider "one of us": "Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." Mark 9:38 And what was Jesus response to this? "Do not stop him, no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us." Obviously, the words "in the next moment" has significance, or else they would not be there. This is an argument that is often used against churches that practice praying in tongues, but I think it is important to consider the context that prevailed during the time that the Bible made this warning. At that time the problem of noisy, disorderly services would have been much worse. Anyone trying to lead a service or who recieved a message directed toward the congregation would have to constantly raise his voice above the noisy din. Today we have microphones and other electronic devices that give us a means of enforcing order in a service that just wasn't possible back then.

Didn't make it where? Glen Morton has a long history of making and repeating fallacious arguments against creationist scientists: http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_jw_02.asp Excuse me for being blunt but this is utter hogwash. You are simply parroting what other uninformed anti-creationists are saying, and here is some of the work that they have been very successful in convincing others does not exist: PEER-REVIEWED & PEER-EDITED SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING THE THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN http://www.discovery.org/a/2640 No they don't. If they did then they would have rejoiced when Schweitzer made her discovery rather than attack her, and they would also allow the soft tissue that she found to be dated, but they refuse. If the tissue dated to only a few thousand years then that would definietly challenge and overthrow their sacred ideas, so if they "like" this kind of thing, then why are they not doing it? What has "forced" scientists to revise their ideas about degradation rather than time scales? Science shows that DNA cannot be preserved longer than 10, 000 years. So what is forcing scientists to ignore it? You see what is going on? Scientists don't just go around cracking open dinosaur bones to see if there is any soft tissue inside. For obvious reasons, they are very reluctant to dissect fossilized bones. In fact, the only reason that this tissue was discovered was becaue the dinosaur bones in question were too large and heavy to be tranported by helicopter from where they were found. The discovery of soft tissue in fossilized bones has been repeated in various dinosaurs. I am not aware of how many dinosaur bones that have been disected without finding soft tissue, or if there are any at all, but you seem to be claiming that "most" do not. What do you base that claim on?

Similarities, patterns and hierarchies are also traits of design, and so I don't think they "speak" themselves, but that someone else is doing the speaking for them. "Transitional" is also something that is spoken into the picture. If you took all the creatures that are alive today, in all their variations, and burried them under layers of sediment for a future generation to discover then they would also find "transitional" fossils, if that was what they were looking for. Something more. Biological evolution is hardly a point of contention in this debate. The context of what you quoted was strictly an argument for ID, so what Jesus said about flesh and spirit is irrelevant, as is what we traditionally label "supernatural". But even if we did bring flesh and spirit into the discussion, and assuming that the spiritual exists, we know as little about what spirit actually is as we do about gravity. It is assumed that gravity is an invisible force and has an effect on the physical universe. Spirit would, from an ID perspective would be the same thing with the difference that spirit would have an additional attribute that gravity seems to lack, namely intelligence. So is intelligence "religious"? Is it "supernatural"? If, as you pointed out, the physical realm does not have an effect on spirit then perhaps you could say that it is "supernatural", but from an ID perspective, we don't know whether that is true or not. And how did you reach the conclusion that I misunderstand Ruse? On the contrary, I not only understand him, I also agree with him. The "scientific" part of the ToE is not religion. What people do with the rest of it, and how much of it is exploited "religiously" is up to the individual. It is a very broad spectrum. I am also not so foolish as to believe that evolutionary scientists start off their day by lighting candles, kneeling before the alter of evolution and trying to cleverly figure out how to manipulate data so that it conforms to the ToE. However, most people reach a point in their lives where they decide to reject belief in a creator, which can grow to be more and more uncomfortable, and adopt the idea that everything develops over time, which similarly, can appear to be more appealing. It is from that point on that, consciously or subconsciously, they will interpret things in the light of the worldview they have adopted. I don't think it is as much a question of "design" as it is "intelligence". There creation of something that has the ability to process information and make decisions based on that information has never been observed in nature other than by procreation, whereas it has always been observed as the result of a higher intelligence. That doesn't address my point at all. Beating the drum for evolution and proclaiming its victories has absolutetly no value as long as we know that the religious motivations for opting one explanation against the other is stronger in this issue than any other scientific theory that mankind has ever known. What I asked you is what you would do if you were a creationist. What would you do if you saw that the foundations of the reigning paradigm, as "victorious" as it may seem, was predominately based on faith but being presented to the public as a scientific fact? What if all your attempts to question this theory only result in the same, worn-out "well, everyone else believes in it" kind of arguments and contemptuous ad-hominem remarks?

Remind me never to buy a Mayan calender again. The darn things don't work.

Your approach here is that sin is exclusively involved in doing, but the real problem is not one so much of doing but rather being. Yes, you should not do acts of sin, but the real problem is the make-up of a person's core inner being. Humans are spirits having a temporary physical experience. However they are fallen spirits, and by virtue of the fallen spirit being separated from God, when the spirit leaves the body, if still separated from God by its fallen nature, goes to the realm of fallen spirits. Since spirit is eternal, the fallen spirit stays in this realm forever. While people should do good and not commit acts of sin, this alone does not change a person's inner fallen nature. The solution involves removing the inner fallen nature and replacing it with a new inner nature that is connected with God. Then when the spirit leaves the body, the person goes to be with God, since she no longer is a fallen spirit. Think of sin not so much as what a person does, but rather something that a person is. ( I know that sin is also an action, but stems from a person's nature) Forgive please my ignorance on spiritual issues, but I have a technical question: - What happens when the temporary physical experience lasts, say, three months? I can see, logically, only three alternatives: 1) Children, who die when they are three months old, will always be separated from God 2) They will not be eternally separated from God, but then they did not have a fallen nature to start with. 3) Having a fallen nature is not a sufficient condition to be eternally separated from God Ciao - viole The answer to that question can be found here: Romans 2- 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. So this basically means that "gentiles" meaning ppl with a good heart, do the things in the law (which are the basics of the 10 Commandments), which basically is to love, forgive, not steal, not lie etc.. Without having knowledge of the law of God, (Such as babies, kids, or even tribes in the amazons who never were exposed to God's law), are judged by their own morals by their conscience bearing witness to themselves. Meaning that if they were to steal something and felt in their heart it was wrong, and then regret it and try to make up for it, it would show that they have redeemed their own sin by their own conscience bearing witness. Babies are pure of heart so they definitely go to heaven when they pass . So then you may ask yourself why become a Christian then? We become Christians to help the ones who aren't "gentiles in heart" to find the light and to spread God's light upon this world to make it a better world. Excellent! The preceding verses in Romans 2 spell it out quite clearly: "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. These verses are not a gospel of works, but rather the simple truth that anyone who has faith in Christ and in fact lives by faith, will also persist in dong good and seeking glory, honor and immortality.

D-9 You seem to have read and responded to an older post I made a day or so ago and missed my latest one... It's an easy thing to do. I haven't read your latest reply, because it would be tedious to try to reply to things we have already discussed, so please take a look at my latest post and I will wait for you to respond.. in you own time, because understandably this is Christmas and all. So Merry Christmas, I will get back to you later.

Evolution maintains that every living thing is descended from a universal common ancestor by means of random mutation and natural selection. What observable, testable and repeatable evidence can you provide that this has happened? I don't have any "problems" other than those I have pointed out. My question was not directed towards finding out what the "conventional definition" of anything is and I don't think I have been asserting that the designer in this case is the Biblical God, although of course this is my belief. The "creator" merely would have to have sufficient intelligence to be able to design the universe and life on earth and would not need to be any more visible than gravity. Furthermore, there is nothing more religious in that belief than there is in the belief in evolution. Even Michael Ruse, a leading anti-creationalist philosopher admits that evolution is a religion (1.Ruse, M., How evolution became a religion: creationists correct? National Post, pp. B1,B3,B7 May 13, 2000.) Both believing in a creator, or disbelieving in a creator can let religious motivation effect the way they interpret scientific data. I don't know what you're referring to when you talk about unobservable explanations in science. What part of God is unobservable? Gravity is a theory - it has an effect that we can observe. The big bang has never been observed. All we can do is observe what we consider to be its effects. What excludes a designers effect from being considered science? Creationists are simply doing what anyone would do. Quite obviously you don't object to the fact that Darwin, despite the fact that he could not convince the scientific community of his time about what he believed, persevered and followed his convictions. You also don't object to the fact that evolutionists have similarly pushed their way into the public school system and are constantly broadcasting evolution is being factual to the "average person that doesn't know squat about science." Creationist ARE trying to do that, against strong opposition, but what exactly do you think the prospects are when evolutionists constantly ignore any evidence, even secular evidence, that contradicts the precious paradigm that no one wants to abandon - for obvious reasons! Think about it! Who in the scientific communitity is going to throw up a flag and suddenly announce that evolution is wrong and that the past 150 years of reseach has been based on a lie? There is way too much at stake for anything like that to happen. And what exactly is a creationist supposed to find? A cambrian rabbit??? Get real! Brian Sykes, a secular Oxford geneticist writing in Nature indicated that according to the rate at which DNA is shown to break down in the laboratory, there should be none left after 10,000 years. Mind you, this was DNA isolated under strict clinical conditions in the lab. Well, shouldn't that, in the name of science in which you so firmly believe, prove that 80 million year old DNA cannot be preserved? And should that mean that it would be impossible to revive bacteria after supposedly being burried for 250 million years? So if secular scientists are finding these kinds of things then what are creationists supposed to do? And obviously, even trying to convince people who "don't know squat about science" is difficult when they claim that "there simply is no scientific opposition to evolution". Yeah, sure!! Actually you are doing one of two things. Either you listen to what I already have said about this, or you ignore it and reapeat what you already have said, which you cannot back up with any evidence.

Thanks, I am very pleased with mine!

Technical answer: We need computers because we have fallen short of the glory of God. If Adam needed a computer then God would have planted a computer tree in the garden of Eden.