Bonky

Tristen just so I understand, your alternative explanation is that my son was outside in the rain...hosing my dog down...then my son dried quick and came into the house to let me know he was going to a friends house? I do get where you are coming from however, we can't leave out other possibilities when drawing conclusions.

Tristen while I agree that we may not have mathematical certainty about scientific claims of the past, I don't know that all claims are then necessarily affirming the consequent. You used two wonderful examples of affirming the consequent and I see the clear pattern. Someone is coming to a conclusion where there are obvious alternative causes. Let me provide two scenarios that are similar but show where I'm coming from. Scenario A. One afternoon, my son comes home from work waking me up from a nap. He says to me "Hey dad I'm heading out to a friends, I let the dog in by the way....he was outside begging to come back inside". My son leaves the house and I soon see my dog shaking water off his coat. I notice that my son wasn't wet but my dog is. I say to myself "Hey someone hosed my dog down!". Scenario B. One afternoon, my son comes home from work waking me up from a nap. He says to me "Hey dad I'm heading out to a friends, I let the dog in by the way....he was outside begging to come back inside". My son leaves the house and I soon see my dog shaking water off his coat. I notice that my son wasn't wet but my dog is. While I'm puzzled by this I decide to head to the store in town to get groceries. As I get outside I notice everything is wet outside. The whole car ride to the store I notice everything is wet. Conclusion, it rained recently and my son was sheltered from the rain while my dog was not. Is scenario B affirming the consequent? This is why I said it depends on the scenario, how many data points do we have? If you're making a conclusion on one small data point and ignoring other LIKELY possibilities then yeah you're committing a fallacy. I don't think we can whitewash all scientific claims about the past and say they're affirming the consequent. I realize my example wasn't about the deep past but I think the principle stands. Regarding your statement of the supernatural, would you say that the big bang has just as much going for it as the case for the existence of demons? Another words because we don't have direct observable of either therefore they are both on par with each other in terms of support? I currently believe that evolution by natural selection is the best explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. I do not hold this as an unshakable truth no. I don't reject that a creator was involved but at the same time I don't affirm one either. I'm sure Richard Dawkins would speak differently on this but then I don't have his training and background. You asked about the Big Bang, as far as I know there are still competing models of our Universe and it's origin so yeah I see room for skepticism or criticism etc.

Tristen: Thanks for your input. I agree 100% that science deals with levels of confidence not absolute proofs etc. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the scientific method not giving us confidence about things that happened in the past. I think there are probably varying levels of confidence given the specific circumstance or case. Also of course it doesn't shed light on supernatural events but then what does? With regard to your list I've tried to read it carefully and I agree it is a large topic as you state. I personally find myself unmoved by prophecy and the logically self-consistent argument. To me prophecy should be quite clear and I whenever I try to get to the bottom of a prophecy claim there is often just so much wiggle room either way to say it's fulfilled or not fulfilled. Just like you state why didn't God just come out and say he used evolution, I could say why didn't God just come out in Isaiah 7:14 and refer to the child as "Yeshua son of Mary"? There are other prophecies I've seen where you have a location that will be desolate or destroyed or a place that will "dry up" etc but no details on when or how etc. I happen to think those details are pretty important. I myself don't bother with biblical "contradictions" because i think it's hard to really nail down something as a contradiction or confirm a suggested remedy. I just find the whole subject matter to be of little interest. I don't dismiss the points you've made, I just personally don't see enough to warrant your initial premise [infallibility etc]. Perhaps I'm more comfortable with doubt than certainty.

Luftwaffle you said Wouldn't a scientific response to this be something akin to: - How do we know rising from the dead proves or demonstrates that one is trustworthy, divine, etc? - If we assume the item above is a given, Thomas touching the spear hole in Christ is evidence for Thomas...how is it evidence for us?

To the OP, I'm willing to discuss the topic as long as we're looking to share thoughts, ideas etc. You refer to evolution as a "lie" and I'm not sure if you mean Satan is behind it or if you think scientists are trying to propagate lies etc. I did a google search on "are creationists racist" and found an article that talks about the "curse of Ham" and what that might imply for some. The author actually makes a comment that they don't view creationists as racist by default. So what is it that you want to discuss? To Tristen: It's been a long time, nice to read your comments. I think you do such a good job of providing an eloquent layout of the modern day creationist worldview. I would like to look at one statement that you made that caught my eye more than others. So when we get into science and creation type discussions we often hear about how flawed humanity is. Based on this we can take secular scientific claims with a grain of salt so to speak. Why though, does this not seem to apply to humans that have decided that holy scripture should be placed into the infallible category? How do flawed human beings who can't be trusted to be 100% positive about natural earthly matters...be trusted to examine ancient scripture and declare it infallible? I just wanted to start with this. I hope to have a thought provoking discussion.

How is evolution poisoning our youth?

Luftwaffle: Ok so you're saying faith isn't a method of figuring out what is true, it's holding onto what you believe to be true. This also sounds like something that isn't advisable. This sounds a lot like "I trust that I can't ever be wrong about X". Why is that a good thing? I don't have faith that what I believe to be true is unshakable. Anything should be up to scrutiny and review. This is why we have people [and organizations] saying "No matter what you put in front of me, I'll never change my view". What is the difference between faith as you've defined it and dogma? Or am I misunderstanding? I still find this idea of faith to be overall to be risky business. With regard to your questions, I'm an agnostic atheist, I don't think there's a way to figure out if there is a God or not. I have bones to pick with theism for sure but the idea that our Universe may have been created, on purpose, by a sentient being is completely possible. I'm afraid I don't know how to quantify what I would need in order to believe in a creator. I can try to put it this way, it would need to be something that I could defend. I'd like to wrap up by saying that I don't look down on Christians for believing in the gospel accounts. I don't view them as crazy or stupid. What I do have concern over is how the rest of the contents of the Bible can shape a persons mind. The bible has wonderful things to say but it also contains very polarizing language that I feel gets in the way of our social discourse. It's not good enough to just look at someone like me and say "Ok this guy isn't convinced". I hear that I'm a liar, lost, blind, not REALLY trying to find truth etc etc. What drives this? Isn't it faith?

Good morning Luftwaffle and thanks for offering your thoughts. Even after reading what you have responded with I feel that my view is still valid and here's why. Walking on water, turning water into wine, rising from the dead, being born of a virgin does NOT prove what scripture claims it proves. Nevermind the fact that these claims are just that, claims. We weren't there to see these things happen. Some of many of these claims are written about by people who weren't even there! There are claims today that people make [Lourdes in France comes to mind] by the dozens or hundreds and we wouldn't necessarily be impressed by them. So what I'm saying is that we don't have direct access to these claims and even if we did I'm not sure where we'd go from there. Eye witness testimony is not exactly a solid way to determine what happened, studies and real life experience have shown us that much. Paul may [or may not have] seen Jesus but what should that mean to me? Can you really apply someone's personal subjective supernatural experience to people almost 2000 years later? So while I might see what you're saying for folks back then, I don't know that it applies to us today.

Bingo!

What system does the 2nd law of thermo apply to, closed or open?

Sister, after reading your post, it almost sounds as if God purposely created a being that would gather the most souls possible to be damned to hell. Now this same being, I'm told, is also supposed to be the most loving, merciful benign being possible. I can only assume you are a Calvinist, where people are preselected to be either "wicked" or children of God. I can't express enough what a twisted view this is of people in general. You can't possibly claim that God wants us all in heaven and yet hold this belief that he created Satan to be a magnet for lost souls on earth. Steven Weinberg made a famous quote about this, religion can make good people believe and do wicked things.

The only reason why evolution isn't a law is because it can't be expressed mathematically. A theory in science is quite different from it's normal use in society. A scientific theory is actually a well established explanation of something in nature.

Right, so a more accurate way to put it is that faith can be or is useful, but just not necessarily useful in determining what is actually true. Hebrews 11:1 pretty much comes out and tells us that faith is substance of things hoped for and [somehow] the evidence of things unseen. As a skeptic and a rationalist, I obviously reject what that verse is implying.

Wouldn't we all agree that as a mechanism, faith is an insecure way of discovering truth in our lives? I'm talking on a global scale. Another way of putting it, has faith, overall served humanity well?

I don't think Siegi was trying to make a comprehensive list of possibilities, I think he/she was trying to make a point. Your last comment is actually what comes to my mind when theists regularly assume that if our Universe is created by an intelligence it must be a God who deeply cares about human affairs. The honest answer is, "we don't know". We don't know why the Universe is here or why it has the physical laws that it has. We don't know how life started exactly. We need to keep searching for what answers/clues we can. To me, anyone demanding that this is all the cause of a God is just making the same mistake Isaac Newton did with his celestial mechanics error.

Butero, I'm not trying to demonize your opinion. I'm showing you what your opinion means if you're consistent. If the Muslim God Allah is the creator, then beheading non-believers may be the moral thing to do. Who are we to judge right? The things you are saying to protect the Judeo Christian God also apply to all other Gods.

Butero, you said What you are describing is called Divine Command theory. Unfortunately this kind of thinking validates all the Muslim terrorists. They are merely doing what they think "God" is asking of them. If you can't criticize "God" then it's quite possible the Muslims are acting morally correct. I'd like to add that I find it confusing that theists want us to investigate their religion and it's beliefs in the hopes that we find the same truth they did. This really can't be done w/o evaluating what the religion is saying and asking people to do. Yet if we find the religion, the holy book or beliefs to be immoral or unappealing we are told who are we to judge. You can't have it both ways, you can't say evaluate the claims of the Bible...but if you find them faulty in any way...who are you to make that judgment?

Ezra I'm afraid I don't follow. You are shoehorning in a creation event to something "significant" 6000 years ago. I also don't know what you mean by wakeup call....wakeup call to what?

I'm sorry but I don't see how I'm changing any topic. The OP was acting like Jesus would high five us for behaving so well in the 40s and 50s and that we're so lost today because gays and sex in general has made it's way to our TV's. I guess that's the difference with folks who believe in sin as a theistic concept and those who don't. I'm more offended by the mistreatment of people [blacks and women] than the idea that gays are allowed to be on TV. I'm truly struggling with how I'm changing any topic or derailing anything. I'm specifically challenging the idea that the 40s or 50s were so wonderful. Now having said that there are things from that era that were positive of course, every generation is going to have good parts and bad parts. I think the problem is that this topic doesn't belong in apologetics, if you don't agree with the OP you are "derailing" the thread.

I was throwing that out there because it's completely relevant. You guys are so concerned about how society has eased up their views of gays and are willing to brush aside a time when blacks had to ride in the back of a bus! Did women have the voice then that they have now? How were divorced women treated back then, refresh my mind a bit. I'm not trashing the 40s or 50s, but I want to be realistic and include the very bad parts of that era, not just ignore them. Do you think The Andy Griffith show really represented the average household in America?

If God knew in advance that Lucifer and 1/3 of the angels would rebel then I'd say he has some culpability in allowing sin to enter into the equation [reality]. I'm not sure how anyone would suggest otherwise. What I find truly mind boggling is how any creature could exist in heaven and be tempted to turn away and go the other direction.

I'm sure a black person would have the same view that the 40's and 50's were such a splendid time.

So God created a perfect spirit being who was perfectly perfect until the day he wasn't perfect anymore. I think someone is being a bit liberal with the use of the word "perfect".

Aside from the 6000 year marker there's nothing from the article that points to a creation event. Now if the article was talking about an explosion of life 6000 years ago I'd see the connection.

Who was Paul speaking to in Romans 1:18? I'll bet it wasn't atheists.