Bonky

Enoch, if you really want to debate someone about the theory of evolution then talk to a biologist. Trying to get arguments started over it on a Christian forum isn't exactly brave. When I started to leave Christianity I didn't try to debate new Christians or every day folks I talked to Pastors. People who really knew the topic well and would be a good test to see if I really considered all the relevant angles. Also your depiction of science and it's use seems a bit odd. Based on the way you talk we would need to chuck out forensic science all together all because we don't have time machines with make/model/serial numbers. Black holes can't be reproduced in a lab or test tube but there's sound reason to believe they exist. I used to want to debate years ago too and then I realized the value in sincere dialogue and trying to understand someone else's view. You might want to try it some time.

I don't think there are many folks who would argue that this isn't "life", but whether this is a human being at this stage. For instance, how many funerals have you gone to for a miscarriage?

It's not the gods we worry about, it's their followers.

Luftwaffle, I'm good for one more post but I've got so much going on right now. I'll try to address what I can with the time I have. You said "Really? So, show me where you've criticised Lawrence Krauss, Sean Carrol and Stephen Hawking recently... I would love to see your forum posts against their certainty. The multiverse theory, it's a materialistic explanation for the fine tuning, which is why atheists almost without fail, reach for it when confronted with the question of the universe appearing finely tuned for life. But you've ignored a very important point I've made in this regard, which is, if atheists' claims of multiverses are on par with Christian's claims about God, then what does it do for atheists' claim that atheism is supposedly rational? If rational people only believe what the evidence shows, then what is your rational objection to the fine tuning of the universe? So instead of merely imagining an explanation for it, what does the evidence currently show us in that regard?" I'm not aware that the scientists you mention are confident in a multiverse, or if so, to what degree. If they are then I publicly criticize them for being too confident. I will bet you that Krauss doesn't have the same confidence in a multiverse that a theist has in their God concept. I've heard quite a few lectures from Krauss and I don't remember him pushing a multiverse theory often. It's just an idea, just like Gods are. "I'm not sure what your point is? Is there some logical contradiction between God being strict regarding the sabbath the Torah and what I said about the Law being an imperfect system leading to a perfect system of grace? Or are you now just running through lists of what seems to be bizarre laws for rhetorical effect?" You made it sound like God had to ease us into his new perfect system. I tried to show you that he didn't feel the need to ease other things so your intended point didn't float well. It just seems like such a sloppy mess fooling around with lost Jews in a desert to finally get to what he wanted in the first place. Why not just get to the point from the beginning? "I don't think I follow your reasoning here, Bonky. In many companies assaulting a fellow employee will result in legal action being taken. Does the existence of the legal rule somehow imply that people are punching each other in offices all the time? Isn't the point of the law to actually prevent things? So if you were a slave in Egypt at the time who heard about this law would the logical conclusion be, "Hey, they must be treating their slaves real bad there if they need a law telling to not beat their slaves. Better to stay here in Egypt where there is no such law?" That's fine, but let's not pretend that things were so swell back then. Remember these are the same people that, under certain guidance killed children and then took their sisters as wives. I'm sure they were capable of mistreating their slaves as well. It's not like it was Leave it to Beaver 2000 BC. "In the in the Bible the law says that if a slave liked working for his master and wished to remain a slave (surely by your logic this must mean slaves were treated exceptionally well) the slave could get an earring showing allegiance to their master, and they'd be permanently bonded to that master. Deut 15:17 So if the slaves wished to extend the contract indefinitely, the master and the slave would agree to it and the slave would get an earring thereby sealing the contract." Do you think these same rules apply for slaves that aren't Israelites? I wouldn't begin to suggest that all slave relationships were bad. I'm sure there were wonderful slave masters that treated their people well. Isn't one of the reasons why we don't allow slavery in developed nations is because of the propensity for abuse and mistreatment? Why would we think the Iraelites were somehow immune to this? These were the same people who would turn their back on God at almost every turn remember? "Conversly in the Christian worldview God made man in His image and imbued man with agency. With free will and thus, the ability to act accordance with one's own volition. This is why we hold people responsible for their actions, whether good or bad because we believe that people are the originators of their own actions. When people are in a position where they cannot do otherwise, then that mitigates accountability, such events, we call accidents because the person couldn't help it. On atheism all human actions are accidental because they're all determined and the person could not have done otherwise. What are your thoughts on this?" As stated before I'm no expert on morality or free will but I can give you my thoughts on the matter. I don't equate freedom with free will by the way, they are two different things are they not? Anyway, I would think we don't have perfect free will because we have cultural biases we may or may not adopt, we have prejudices etc. Regarding God making man in his image, I personally believe that is 100% the other way around. Take a note of the people who talk about their God and also pay attention to who THEY are. You'll see the "God" they speak of is the same person they see in the mirror. We all live in and obey the physical laws of nature, but I don't see why everything is deterministic. We're not chairs, we are able to assess our environment and consider our actions. "I'm still waiting for you to let me know what your stance on morality is, by the way. Do you believe moral 'oughts' are objectively true, or are they simply individual or cultural conventions subjectively based? With all your references to the old testament one would think that unlike most atheists you're a moral objectivist, but what is your grounding for morality? Do you believe like Kagan that morality can be grounding in what one imagines a perfectly rational being's decisions would be like? By the way, how is that different from a kind of "what would Jesus do ethic?" I don't need to judge the old testament by my standards, heck I can do that with the much advertised Christian morality that is all around me. By their own standards God wasn't always rational nor did he seem to hold the same values. I don't believe in any ultimate morality. We could all live in complete anarchy killing each other and so forth but it seems to me that working together and choosing to live peacefully has significant benefits. In the US for the past several decades we've been imprisoning people for smoking pot. Now the tide is changing, people are and have been upset that our government would imprison people over something so silly. What would you blame this shift on? God? Or people considering the consequence of putting people in jail over something rather benign? Who told us to stop allowing slavery? That was US. WE decided that. So no I don't have a stamp of approval from a supreme being, but then I don't think you do either.

Luftwaffle You said "No, the arguments are theistic, it would be a strange form of atheism that believes in a time-less, space-less, immaterial, personal, law giver and mind that created the universe." Your arguments are theistic, is it not possible that the creator of our Universe does not care about the affairs of humans? Isn't that what Dawkins was talking about when you quoted him? You are forgetting the creator as deists define it. "I would say they're not on par. The multiverse is an ad hoc explanation to explain away the incredible fine tuning of the universe. The God hypothesis is not ad hoc, it's been around long before the fine tuning was even discovered. It has explanatory power and scope to not only explain the fine tuning but many other things that appear to be beyond the reach of science, as I've mentioned before. Lastly if you claim that atheists' beliefs are on par with Christian's "faith" then why do so many atheists disparage theists for being irrational, while atheism is presented as rational? Surely if you admit that atheism is just as faith based as theism then all atheism's intellectual pretences fly out the window?" I'm not aware that the multiverse hypothesis is an atheistic only view. Secondly if anyone shows the same confidence in a multiverse as others show in their God concepts then I would criticize them accordingly. "I don't know, but I see no contradiction here. Sometimes when Gordon Ramsey goes to fix a restaurant in that show of his, he lets the owner hit rock bottom first before he begins to work with them. I believe it's to strip away any arrogance that the person might have. Have you ever watched "Kitchen Nightmares"? Maybe it's like that, but I don't know." It strikes me as odd that God allowed for people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath but in other ways he had to take his time with is people slowly moving them toward a system of grace. "Not at all, because the slavery that was regulated in the Bible isn't the sort of slavery that we're familiar with etc. It was a bond-servantship, and not the cruel dehumanising stuff that we think of in terms of what the Roman's did to slaves or the American South. These permanent servant were from conquered nations, so if you unhappy that conquered nations were killed and you're unhappy that they were put to work, what should they have done? Make them full citizens?" Ahhh, the slavery in the Bible was so different was it. The slaves were treated so well they had to have a law that said you can't kill your slave by beating them to death. Surely slaves were beating, but how much was too much was the question. Are you so sure that slaves couldn't merely be purchased? I'll bet you they were. So are you telling me that owning another human as property is ok then? Because here in the States you're not allowed to own someone EVEN IF you treat them well. FREEDOM is a key concept here that you're missing. I personally value freedom myself. I also reject this idea that the Israelites were not to treat each other so harshly but the same rule didn't apply to outsiders. I guess I view everyone, no matter what their skin color, nationality, background, origin as people worthy of respect and good treatment. I don't doubt that there were slaves that loved their "master", but the idea that they all sat around a campfire singing songs at night is just fantasy.

Howdy Luftwaffle, You said "Fair enough, but this is a different case. Arguments for theism aren't meant to be arguments for a specific theistic religion like Christianity. You cannot fault arguments for theism for not being arguments for Christianity too. The idea that "god" hasn't been defined seems to me like you've bought into something called Logical Positivism. It's the notion that things that cannot be empirically verified, or deductively proven are meaningless. Is this what you're getting at?" Right and I guess arguments for a creator aren't necessarily theistic at all. What I mean about defining "god" I mean what qualifies as "god"? Anything that was responsible for the creation of our Universe? Could our Universe be caused by something and it wouldn't necessarily be a "god"? "In terms of defining God, I believe in the God as described in the Bible. Surely that statement has meaning to you? The God that's consistent with the "Moral Law Giver" of the moral argument, "The fine tuner" of the fine tuning argument, "The timeless, spaceless, immaterial, primary cause" of the cosmological argument, "The original designer" of the design argument and so on." This is fine, what I don't know is if this being that you're describing is the only explanation. I find the mutliverse hypothesis to be on par with the one you offer, both take a leap of faith. "I think that the philosophical arguments for God, provide a reasonable case for the necessity of God in explaining our world. In terms of the eye-witnesses for Jesus, I think the fact that they were willing to die at least shows that they were utterly convinced that they saw the risen Jesus." The point I think I'm trying to make with that analogy is that when it comes to aliens or bigfoot, we're open to believe it or not believe it...no big deal. You're allowed to say "I don't know". Early in our discussion you weren't satisfied with my stance that I'm not convinced but I'm open to the possibilities. "I'm not really seeing where I quoted Dawkins out of context? What's the difference between saying that the universe has the properties of "no evil, no good" and saying "there is no evil, no good in the universe?" Because in context Dawkins was speaking against the claims that this Universe was created by a loving father figure God. "Are you arguing that Christians don't have a right to denounce Muslim attacks because of Canaan? Aren't you assuming that both cases are equal? What if Canaan really was a judgement by God, whereas Muslim terrorism are cases of misguided terrorism?" I'm saying it's ironic when they denounce them yes. I'm not even suggesting that the Christian God is anything like that of the Muslims. I'm saying that the same principles [defenses] that I hear from Christians about their God can be applied to any God. "While the Law of Moses looks brutal to us, during it's time it was a huge step in the right direction. I've read somewhere that a historian can draw a direct line from Sinai to the civilisation of the West. A systematic change of the human heart step by painful step. The Bible is very clear that the Law of Moses wasn't intended to be a perfect utopian system, but to introduce the perfect system, which is what Jesus brought about. If you want to take on Christian morality, you have to deal with Jesus and not just cherry-pick certain Old Testament laws and descriptions of events, thus casting the baby out with the bathwater." Didn't God start things off in a garden with two people? If God felt that he had to bring humanity back from a brutal way of life why would he let it get there to begin with? God also had edicts that if broken people were stoned to death, so it's not like he wasn't able to be firm. Does it not make you wonder that the Israelites were only to be slaves for 7 years but non-jews were allowed to be enslaved indefinitely? Regarding Jesus, didn't the trinity exist in the old testament? Jesus spoke of a place of eternal torment for non-believers. Which brings up another moment when defend the concept of hell, they defend a God who sounds pretty horrible to me. So yes when I see Christians appalled at Muslims I can't help but feel irony. Although I do recognize that there are plenty of Christians that believe the non-believing soul is destroyed at death.

Luftwaffle I think i've identified something that is causing us some confusion and a bit of frustration. We seem to be addressing two key things [or at least I am]: A possible creator of our Universe and the Judeo Christian concept of this creator. I have plenty of arguments and thoughts on the latter but less so on the former. Consider the fact that we haven't really defined what we even mean by "god". It's possible our Universe was created by something that doesn't give a rip about us worshiping it. So when it comes to the question, why are we here? Did some intelligence purposely create our Universe? etc. YES I'm stumped! I don't know! And neither does anybody else. I have all kinds of views and opinions about the Bible and it's claims however. I was hoping you would take my UFO/Bigfoot scenario a bit more seriously to help me understand where you are coming from. You used it instead to try to parody what you see from atheists attacking faith. I'm starting to conclude that you see the point I'm making and you're not wanting to admit that. I want to see how you're different from me when you are given a similar scenario by someone else. The reason why I chose UFO's and bigfoot is because those claims don't even deal with the supernatural and people are largely skeptical. Regarding morality, I think Shelly Kagan did a good job defending secular morality against William Lane Craig. My strong suit isn't morality by any means but I think secular morality is grounded on some basic principles but are those principles approved of by a being higher than us? No. I think we see in nature that animals with higher IQ's and who have close knit social structures tend to exhibit behaviors that are similar to us in terms of reciprocation, empathy etc. Like I said already, there are components of my own world view that I struggle to defend, morality would be one thing. You quoted Dawkins and ironically you quoted him out of context where he was criticizing your position. Here's the quote you're referring to: "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” I'm not familiar with the Nietzsche quote, to be honest I couldn't quickly find it to read more about it. Your Canaanite story doesn't change the fact that some Muslims believe they are being told to be an instrument of justice to people who are offensive to their god. Over and over and over again I've heard from Christians that we can't judge God, his ways are higher than ours. It seems to me that these principles would work for any kind of god, one that we agree with and one we don't. I also don't understand this "hard heart" concept, start humanity off in an oppressive law riddled society and work our way to a "better way". Not through humanity as a whole but a special group who had special laws that protected them but not others and later on we'll get to the "better way". I can't say that these stories aren't true or that this can't be how a God would handle things, it would just shock me. I have to run now but I'm enjoying the discussion.

Luftwaffle, You said: "Thank you for clarifying your understanding of "agnostic atheist" to me. Obviously, as I pointed out lexically atheist has nothing to do with belief, but assuming the "new atheist" definition, then I'm afraid it still seems redundant to me. Knowledge and belief goes hand in hand. So much so, that epistomologists will typically define knowledge as "justified true belief", sometimes called JTB for short. The reason why knowledge and belief go together is because it's impossible to know something but not believe it. It would be irrational for me to know there's a tree by my front door, while believing otherwise. To say that you don't know whether or not there's a god, but you believe there isn't a god, means that your belief is at the very least unjustified and at most contradictory to your knowledge." So what do you suggest doing when faced with a claim by someone that may or may not be true and you're not convinced? I brought up the claims of alien and bigfoot encounters and I don't recall you addressing that. Do you believe in alien abduction and bigfoot enounters? If you do, how do you justify that? If not, how do you justify that? Regarding atheistic and theistic world views they both try to make sense of our reality. I don't think anyone has an airtight defense for their worldview. I struggle making sense of things myself, I just don't happen to see how theism fixes those things. You mentioned morality to Seigi and how naturalists struggle explaining that, how is the theist any better off? The irony meter is broken every time I see a Christian gasp in horror at the hostility by the Muslims but when I challenge them on the old testament they OFTEN tell me "God created us he can do what he wants" or "God used the Israelites as a tool of judgment". Euthyphro's dilemma also shows us that the theistic case for morality is not exactly air tight. "I find my own conscience is one way that God communes with me. When I mess up, it's there. I have experienced God's comfort many times in my life. Sometimes though God has felt distant in those times often last wrong and are hard, but I think those strengthen us. So I think there are many ways that God communes with us." Wouldn't you agree though that it's a bit obvious that we humans are easy at deceiving ourselves? I came from a Christian family, I'm no stranger to how Christians think. We could all interpret things that happen in our lives as someone pulling levers behind the curtain and guiding our lives. It's an entirely different thing to really know that our faith is well placed. Notice people will pray to recover from an illness, but who's praying for the motorcyclist on the ground who's been decapitated? How did nonsense like Mormonism and Scientology even take off? So I hear what you're saying, I'm not saying the claims of Christianity are the same as every other religion but I have to be honest and admit that the end result is the same from my perspective. I haven't been shown a mechanism or method to falsify or test to see if the claims are rooted in reality [specifically the spiritual claims].

Luftwaffle, You said "In an earlier post you referred to atheists versed in philosophy and logic, in a way that seemed you also valued such things, so it's surprising to see you now take such a low view of proper philosophical definitions." I think I actually used the term "non-believer", either way I was referring to people who are at least somewhat versed in philosophy and rational arguments. I didn't mean to imply that I'm well versed in logic or philosophy, I'm not. I understand some basics but I'm by no means a philosopher. My understanding of the term "agnostic atheist" is this. The first part says what you "know", the latter half says what you "believe". We could verbalize the label by saying "I don't this for sure, but I don't believe any gods exist." You sound like you are an Agnostic Theist [You believe but you aren't certain]. John Hagee would probably be a Gnostic Theist. Again this is my understanding of the terms, I could be misinformed. You said: "You're misunderstanding my point. "Lacking belief" is not a claim about the way the world is, it's simply an autobiographical claim about the persons psychological state. As such, those claims do not offer anything to the conversation and cannot ever be challenged. My point is that this is so by design because it avoids shouldering a burden of proof. Theism does make claims about the way the world is, so it's not the same thing." Lacking belief is however a response to a claim. An analogy would be a courtroom where you are asserting that God is guilty of existing. Based on the presented evidence, I do NOT find him guilty of existing. This may be frustrating for a theist, but then my solution is to not make hard claims about things we really know nothing or little about. To be honest, I hardly reject the idea of a creator; it's when people start telling me a mountain of details about this alleged creator that I start to raise an eyebrow. You said: "I find this statement somewhat incredible, Bonky. How many Christians would disagree that God created the universe? That Jesus rose from the dead? That Jesus died on a cross for mankind's sin? That there is right or wrong? etc. In fact C.S Lewis' book Mere Christianity is a book length attempt at captured precisely what the core commonalities in Chrisitanity are." Yes I didn't mean to suggest that there aren't key points that most Christians agree on. Ask 500 Christians what they believe about spirits, demons, angels, miracles and the like and we're all over the place. I grew up in the 80s, you weren't allowed to have a Police tape sitting around as it might cause demons to start plaguing your home! I think that era had a name for that, the Satanic Panic. So I'll be more clear, there is NO specific Judeo-Christian view on the supernatural and the spirit world. So someone from a primitive tribe may use the spirit world to explain almost everything. I'm saying that a Christian who is not heavy into the spirit world is still committing the same error when they refer to the spirit world to explain a mystery. One just does it more often. You said: "My logic would have been flawed if I offered the instances where Christianity's claims were consistent with discovery as proof of Christianity, but I did not. In order to evaluate an idea one needs to look at both the positive and the negatives of the idea. I find many atheists will cherry what is negative about Christianity and completely ignore what is positive." I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by positive or negative. I care about what's true. What's true may be something terrible. Even the parts of Christianity that doesn't sound "good" to me is irrelevant if it's actually true. Regarding Religulous, Bill Maher certainly interviewed some folks we'd consider out in left field but he started the film at a truck stop church! They were average American christians getting together at a truck stop. Nothing extreme about that. I would say that there were quite a few folks he spoke to that are "every day" kind of people you'll find on the street [or people that have many followers etc]. How do we know attacking certainty is worthwhile? Given the context of our discussion I thought that was obvious. There are tons of views about the nature/origin of our existence and they can't all be right! They can all be wrong however. I agree that there are atheists who are not very easy going on theists, but keep in mind; historically atheists are one of the most disliked/untrusted groups. We're told often that we're going to burn in hell forever etc. Wasn't it Cruz who recently said that if you don't start your day on your knees in prayer you don't deserve to be President? I think it's safe to say Christianity has components that are logically sound, but for me it's also about the "believability". There are also components to me that come across as legendary [Christ] some sections that just sound like ancient stories that were handed down through generations [flood]. There are also certainly accounts that sound completely believable and logical. One of my major stumbling blocks is trying to grasp that a God would resort to religious belief to commune with it's followers. Knowing what we know of religion here it's not something you think someone would want to emulate or associate with. I don't find it something to encourage or celebrate, it asks people to engage in a way of life that could be completely delusion and yet they wouldn't know the difference. So after saying all that, I have very dear friends and family who are Christians. I just have a hard time hearing people say things like "You know there's a God you just won't admit it" . Anyway I have to get to bed now!

Luftwaffle, technically I never referred to myself as an "atheist", I said I was an "agnostic atheist". I don't believe there are any gods, but I also don't believe it's a question we can have confidence in one way or the other. When engaging in a discussion like this with others I don't go looking at encyclopedias and lexical dictionaries to find out what they believe or should believe based on labels, I talk to them and find out. When someone says they're a "Christian" I have about 10% confidence that I understand what they believe and that's probably a bit high. I also see no reason why we should force people to take dogmatic stances on various claims. I find it rather smart to not do that. For instance, many folks claim that aliens have visited them [even abducted them] and others claim they've encountered bigfoot. So are you saying I should take the position that bigfoot doesn't exist and that aliens haven't abducted people since I'm not convinced by their evidence? I'm sorry but that doesn't seem smart to me at all. I think we should be able to take the position, "I don't know". Perhaps the difference between you and I is that I'm comfortable with that response if I truly don't know, how much does the bible encourage people to doubt it's own claims? Not at all right? You said that the new definition of atheism doesn't really say anything...please define in very exact terms what a "soul" or "spirit" or "God" is. I said in my post that these terms are ill defined to begin with! This whole topic is rife with weakly defined terms, sloppy language etc and for good reason. It's a topic we really don't know much about yet and my view is one of humility and uncertainty. So I'm sorry if my position doesn't say much, neither does my counterpart. Christianity doesn't have many claims, people have claims about what the Bible claims. I'm not aware of any one single Judeo Christian view. I see Christians that disagree on virtually every topic in the Bible. The last time I checked, the scientific community didn't view Genesis as scientifically or historically accurate. Besides, I think the logic you're using is very flawed. An ancient religion that contains many true statements might still be wrong about the things we can't investigate. I don't know if you've seen Bill Maher's movie Religulous but the theme he keeps bringing to the forefront is that one of the fundamental flaws of religion is it's certainty about it's claims. Claims, mind you, about things we can't even properly study to warrant such confidence. We get a fair amount of things wrong about the physical world we can study, doesn't it strike you as odd that some of us have extreme confidence about things that might not even exist?

It's in the makeup of human beings who are willing to believe things w/o solid evidence.

Which believers? I assume specifically the creator you believe in but all others are wrong? I appreciate that you have a view on this, I just don't share your confidence. That is something I find to be a problem in religion in general, so much confidence in something we clearly [humans] know so little about.

Life may have been put here so to speak. But even if we knew that for sure, it's a COMPLETELY different thing to assert you know exactly who did it.

Hazard: I guess I consider myself an agnostic atheist and I'm not sure I quite qualify for the type of person your OP is referring to. That being said, I've been around long enough to know that many many many Bible verses have been misused and/or quoted out of context by both believers and non-believers. If you approach a non-believer who is remotely versed in logic and philosophy and tell them deep down they know there's a God and they just don't admit it, you're probably not going to entice them into a deeper discussion. I get the impression that many folks think "atheist" means someone who says there are no gods and they're sure of that. That definition may be true for a few but it's not the majority of non-believers, at least not in my experience. How can we be sure about something that is not well defined, if exists is beyond our grasp etc? As a non-believer, I consider how many times in human history we have come across a mystery and we were so sure that there MUST be a supernatural explanation, only to find out later that we were wrong. Why is it so impossible that we're not in the same boat right now with explaining our Universe? My honest feeling is that there could be all kinds of bizarre explanations for why we're here. I acknowledge that a creator God could be one explanation, I just disagree that it's the only possible one. So when someone comes to me and essentially says "You really believe in God you just won't admit it", I can be pretty sure that this person isn't on the right track with the greatest question facing humanity.

So when the Bible is describing the flood of Noah and it says the "windows of heaven opened", do you take this literally or do you take it figuratively? If you take it figuratively [which is my guess] did that come from outside of inside of the Bible?

Enoob, WLC actually responded on the Exodus 20:11 verse in a podcast:

There is the rub right, take it in a literal plain sense unless there is a compelling reason not to. For some, there are compelling reasons not to.

Kan, scientific inquiry runs on suspicion, doubt and criticism. The one major appeal that scientific inquiry has over religion [my opinion] is that in science the goal is to discredit or falsify that which you believe to be true. In religion, the goal is keep affirming. So your definition of science makes complete sense considering that you are a theist. I just don't want to confuse your use of that word with how we use it elsewhere in secular society.

William Lane Craig rejects the young earth literal approach to the creation narrative in Genesis. In my opinion his remarks make it evident for me that there is another way to interpret the creation narrative other than with a literal young earth slant. To say either you interpret scripture as advocating a young earth or you are "perverting" scripture is being a bit too confident in your own interpretation.

Fine but we can't deny that there are people like Francis Collins running around that are Theists and yet embrace evolution every bit as much as Richard Dawkins.

I didn't think intelligent design nullified evolution or even common descent. From what I've been reading it's the suggestion that life cannot arise w/o an outside intelligent agent.

Ok so what was enoob trying to convey, in your words?

Enoob, how do you differentiate your statements from a crazy cult that says "Until you accept what we say as true you will never see the light?" I'm not even sure I understand you properly to be honest.

I felt a sense of irony as I skimmed the article. On one hand I was very impressed with their acknowledgement of the weaknesses of the common individual arguments; but then I had to raise an eyebrow at their conclusions. They end with statements that essentially say "It's obvious the Bible is true..." or "Those who say they don't believe in our God are liars". Am I missing something?

Tristen, I do hear what you're saying. I personally feel that the weakness of the young earth camp is that it spends more time on trying to cast doubt on secular views rather than building a case for a young earth/Universe. I know in the past you've stated that bringing doubt to your opponents case is worthwhile and I tend to agree but doing that doesn't necessarily provide any additional strength to your case. I think that's the case here. For example, Dr. Jason Lisle [Astrophysicist for ICR] states that comets obviously can't last forever. At best, he says they'd last maybe 100 or 200K years. So he's attempting to call into question how our solar system [or Universe] can be billions of years old. What he's not doing is supporting a young earth. Who is the young earth version of Neil Degrasse Tyson? Getting people to give fair consideration to alternative views is going to mean actually advertising them.