Hold on...

[WayneB]

Just for the record...

The heading, "Faith vs. Science", does not reflect an opinion that the two are at odds with one another but a category for discussions relating to Faith and Science. I know. I was one of the ones who came up with it.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are not putting the two at odds with one another. We simply realize that most people, believer and unbeliever alike, perceive the two to be at odds when they aren't actually.

WarMonkeyMan (I gotta know where you came up with that name ) said it well when he wrote, "Science is about the natural world. God made that world, so inevitably, there's going to be some fingerprints." Actually, the Apostle Paul said the very same thing, which is why he wrote that none of us will have an excuse not to know God.

It is quite simple actually....for ALL of us, it comes down to FAITH. Actually, the label "unbeliever" is a misnomer since we all have to believe in something. Either we lean on God's revelations to man or we lean on our own understanding. Either way, we all believe in one or the other. Since there will always be limits to our knowledge and understanding, it will take FAITH to bridge the gap between known verifiable fact and suppositions. That is where FAITH steps in. The question for each of us is where we choose to place our FAITH. What context do we place our critical thought? Do we choose the Creator God or opt for the science of the created?

I am not a biology major. My thing was math and physics. BUT my wife has a Masters in Nursing and my son is a Biochemist. We have discussed Intelligent Design around the dinner table. It beats talking politics. Sure there may be some holes in the theories and the interpretations of those theories but all ID is stating is that organisms are too complex to have simply evolved happenstance...such as the flagella of bacteria.

ID does not disprove evolution. What it attempts to show is that there is an intelligence in the design of the world around us.

Regardless, we all have to place our FAITH somewhere. I choose Christ.

[Joshua-777]

I wasn't trying to explain away god, just show that creationism and ID are NOT science.

1. but it isn't exaclty consistent with anything else is it. and is complete unchange a good thing? Doesn't that violate no. 7?

Creationism, and ID are both the same by the way, ID isn't different from Creation, I would have to say that complete unchange, would be a good thing if it where truth, and it hasn't changed, and will not change, it will be fulfilled, One thing I have learned, is that there is one truth for a million lies. Now, you can look at it as false because it doesn't change, but in the case it is what it is, and it is truth, it shouldn't change and can't change. For example, If I have a rock, it will remain a rock,

2. I don't know what you mean by this but I will say that of all the new things that could be invoked (usually extra dimensions these days) God has got to be by far the most complex. Heard of Occam's razor? It says that if two theories do the same job, the simpler one should be used because it will be easier to handle (and is more likley to be true). So if creationism and ID do just as well as evolution and, dare i say, abiogenesis, shouldn't we naturally use the one that's easier?

I have heard of Occams razor, which actualy, the fact God is so complex, it is simpler for a Complex creator to create all life, then for a natural process of change, evolving into each species from nonlife, So if your going to use the one thats easier, Creator, or the one thats more complex, creator, depends what angel you look at it, simple logic. For life starting from nonlife, and the universe forming from chance, would be more complex to occure by chance, One thing I do apreciate about creation, is that it explains the big picture, rather than separating each process by connecting theorys. If your talking about evolution, people get mad if you mention somthing about the big bang, kind of funny cause if you sit back and look at the big picture and count it all as one, and use each part, it should make more sence, this is where theory fails in my opinion.

3. no it doesn't actually explain the data. does it explain why we have a vestigal tail? We aren't the only animals with useless by products of evolution.

vestigal tail, did ya know that that the tail bone is proven to actualy help us to keep balance? and if we are nothing more than animals, what is the point of logic and reason? or where does the passion come from to desire truth?

4. BAHAHAHA Since when?!?! Isn't that pretty much the main argument given as to why science hasn't discovered god yet? Are you sure everyone on your side is going to agree with that?

Yup I'm sure, lol evidence is in the Holy Spirit, ya see, as for me I can say I have seen many healed by the Holy Spirit, and seen many things, the Holy SPirit is a discerner of spiritual matters, now how can a scientist who doesn't believe we have a spirit discern spiritual matters? take the blindfold off, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

5. What observations? Unless you count the bible, there aren't any that support creationism and ID over evolution.

There are actualy many, Whats funny is the bible has been ahead of science many times, such as a round earth thousands of years before the earth was discovered to be round Job 26:10, Prov 8:27, Isaiah 40:22, Amos 9:6) and the water cycle (Eccl 1:6-7; 11:3; Job 26:8; Amos 9:6), Nothing has been found to disprove the bible yet. Just skeptic speculation, and more so, the observations are all around you. You want evidence? look around and think, I'm sure you can see, this world was created for a reason, not evolved. everything, as far as food cycle, to sexual reproduction, as far as the oceans to the earth, everything is in too perfect condition to sustain life, to be by chance. Ya know this can be another topic if you wish.

6. Your response raises an interesting point. That is precicely the thing that no. 9 is talking about. Your explaination for why you can't experiment on god assumes his existence.

I just know God, I know the miracles he's done in my life, I know his helping hand, and I know he called me when I was against him, experiment on God, well question, if God is real, which he is, how would you experiement on him?

7. if the hypothesis isn't maleable it will not stand the test of time. As new evidence arises, it needs to be able to adapt to fit it. And you're also assuming his existence.

Ahh no I'm not assuming his existence, and 2000 years after the bible was created, still doesn't have evidence against it, as new data collects, it is important to separate the opinion of man, and come to own opinion on the evidence, Also as I mentioned before God explains the big picture, so how can you observe God looking at the little segmented theorys? the evidence is interprited differently depending on the motives of the one interpriting it, if someone doesn't believe in God, they will interprit the evidence at hand against the possibility of God. and the bible isn't a hypothesis, and it has stood alot longer than this realm of science has.

8. I don't think you've properly understood this one. And your also assuming his existence again

Progressive by achieving everything that previous theories did and more? I did, but let me reword it for ya

Progressive by achieving everything that was a previous prophecy and more, and once again I am not assuming his existence.

9. Now, I didn't say you had to assume he didn't exist. A scientist needs to be skeptical of new hypotheses, but also be open to them. If these hypotheses are going to ever be accepted as science they need to be examined without any assumptions. We can't assume that god exists or that he doesn't if we are going to try to treat creationism and ID as science

if science isn't based on truth, then it should be treated as it exists or doesn't, basicly, what you are saying is the truth behind science relates to there is no truth? Now, I honestly cannot assume there is a God, to put God to a assumption would be to denie all he's shown me, and all he's done in my life. I know he is the absolute truth, and there is no denying or assuming for me, you however are free to assume, or not, But for me to assume, or treat it as he does or doesn't exist would be to make me a liar.

So god created us in his image and we are much better than all the rest of the animals you say? Well if god did design us he did a pretty terrible job. 85% of people will get lower back problems during your lives (our species only just started standing up strait), 16% will suffer clinical depression, on average, everyone will get a cold 2-4 times a year, and up to 50% of people will have Alzheimer

[GeneV]

Now lets have a look at science and the great things we have to thank for this marvel of human ingenuity emot-think.gif

[Guest lovinghim4ever]

To me, this is worth repeating . . .

God created them both Faith and Science, so how can we keep them apart?

However, we must remember that . . .

Faith can do many things that Science can never explain.

But, there is nothing Science can do that Faith cannot account for.

[GeneV]

To me, this is worth repeating . . .

God created them both Faith and Science, so how can we keep them apart?

However, we must remember that . . .

Faith can do many things that Science can never explain.

But, there is nothing Science can do that Faith cannot account for.

[Joshua-777]

To me, this is worth repeating . . .

God created them both Faith and Science, so how can we keep them apart?

However, we must remember that . . .

Faith can do many things that Science can never explain.

But, there is nothing Science can do that Faith cannot account for.

I agree

[Floatingaxe]

Now that that's out of the way, heres a few more things that god could have given us (along with the things you didn't account for).

Wings

Gills

Pressure sensors

Magnetic feild sensors

electric field sensors

echolocation

More sensitive hearing

More sensitive eyes

Night vision

Stronger muscles

extra arms/legs

more than two ears (two ears means you can hear only left and right instead of left, right, up, down, back, front)

Teloscopic (magnifiable) vision

360 degree vision

More sensitive taste

Faster reflexes

More sensitive touch

i could do this for ages...

How typical. Not satisfied with the excellence we already have, and gotta have more. How ungrateful is that?

When we receive our perfection in the resurrection, we wil lnot even need those things! We will already have most of those abilities.

[Joshua-777]

If science is based on falible material that is falible, then No he isn't science, if science is what the word science means, knowledge, then yes God is science.

The goal of science is to explain the supernatural in terms of the natural. These rules help it to achieve that goal. In fact forget that, these rules don't even have to make sense. If someone came along one day and said that they were making a new study called schlience and said that one of the rules of being a schlientific theory was that it had to include the phrase 'purple mahogany' somewhere in it, then anyone wanting to contribute to schlientific knowlege would HAVE to follow this rule, even if it is silly. The same goes for science. It doesn't matter how you think these rules limit it to the observable, if you want your theory to be accepted as science you have to follow these rules. Almost your entire post was based on either your personal experience or the assumtion that I'm attacking your faith. I'm not. I'm just saying that you can't call it science (or schlience for that matter ).

1. "I would have to say that complete unchange, would be a good thing if it where truth"

That's beside the point. The fact is that it doesn't follow the rule. If you think it's better that it doesn't change, whatever, but the hypothesis is no longer science as it doesn't follow the rule.

2. "So if your going to use the one thats easier, Creator, or the one thats more complex, creator, depends what angel you look at it, simple logic."

If you look at it in terms of the origional rule I posted, it should be quite obvious what I mean. I'm going to step through this slowly and if you disagree, I want to know exactly where so I can explain that bit in more detail. Let's call god an extra force that must be assumed to exist for creation to work. I'm going to compare creation to abiogenesis, but I'm not saying abiogenesis is right, I'm just using it as an example to make my point. Now, abiogenesis uses only the 4 fundamental forces of nature (strong, weak, electromagnetism and gravity) as it it just chemistry. Creation, however, invokes this 5th force which already casts it in bad light as far as occam's razor goes. But it gets worse. While the other 4 forces are simple and explainable by relitively simple physics, God is in no way simple. He is the most complex force imaginable, and completely unpredictable. That is why occam's razor would favour abiogenesis over creation if both did an equally good job of explaining the data. Therefore the hypothesis doesn't pass this rule either.

3. "vestigal tail, did ya know that that the tail bone is proven to actualy help us to keep balance?" whatever, that was just an example of the kind of thing I mean. What about the lower back problems I spoke about which evolution attributes to us only just begining to stand up strait? Creation's explaination of our origins requires that everything has a point. Does it explain this data? If you can find a way to explain it away I will find something else on my list of things that are badly designed in us and in animals.

"and if we are nothing more than animals, what is the point of logic and reason? or where does the passion come from to desire truth?"

This is a silly question. You miss the point. Evolution and creation have both explained this. Evolution says we have highly evolved brains. It doesn't matter what your common sense says.

4. Sorry, but personal experience won't stand up to peer review. Now, for creation to be falsifiable, we would need to be able to disprove god with an experiment. Do you believe this is possible? To meet the criteria for this rule you need to find a way to falsify god, do the experiment, and show that he has not been falsified (of course this won't prove it, only make it more accepted). But that's my point. The main argument to try to seperate religion and science is that you can't falsify god. This is fine because religion is keeping to itself and not claiming to be science, so it doesn't have to follow this rule. But creation however, has the same problem, but no scapegoat. How could I falsify god by experiment?

5. "You want evidence? look around and think, I'm sure you can see, this world was created for a reason, not evolved." Firstly, if it was that self evident, why would I be arguing about it? Secondly, 'common sense' is not hard evidence in the eyes of science. Don't like it? Well too bed, your the one trying to push creationism as science, therefore, you have to follow our rules.

6. More personal experience. (I'm not insulting your faith, just stoping you from calling it science)

7. "and it has stood alot longer than this realm of science has" Clearly, the god hypothesis doesn't change. It therefore doesn't follow this rule of science.

8. Either your assuming the existence of god, or your assuming the innerancy of the bible. Either way, creationism is requiring assumptions to be made before it can work. Even if you don't like this rule because you just KNOW that god is real and you just KNOW that the bible is true, if you want to call creationism science, you have to follow this rule.

9. "Now, I honestly cannot assume there is a God, to put God to a assumption would be to denie all he's shown me, and all he's done in my life"

Lucky you're not a scientist then because that means you're not following this rule. It doesn't matter what your opinions are, if your hypothesis doesn't follow these rules it's not science.

bats can hear 500 times higher, yes, but would that be useful in a discussion

It would be if we could talk 500x higher and anyway, wouldn't it be useful, at least occasionally, to be able to hear those sort of tones?

can you really talk to someone with a high pitched screach in your ears

Are you serious? I'm going to assume you're just having trouble getting your head around this one. All of these traits were just a few examples. If we were given ears like that, wouldn't we also have slightly different brains that would interperet this sound as not so high? if we can hear tones 500x higher would a tone 10x higher seem high pitched? And couldn't god just modify our brains so that the sound of high pitched notes didn't hurt our ears? Why put a cap at 500x? Why not be able to hear absolutely any note no matter how high or low? That would be usefull is SOME situations and god could presumably engineer it so it didn't have any detrimental affects. So why not?

are they not a bigger species

So? We're the best species and so we should be able to do at least everything that all other species can.

Dogs have noses 1 million times more sensitive than ours, now, they like the smell of cat poop for some reason, hmm would you rather be drawn to eating a baby diper

It's not their sensitive noses that makes them like to eat what they do, it's their brains. Surely god could find some way, with his infinite power, to give us better noses without this 'sideaffect'

Now infared, ya that would be cool, but I much would rather see how I do see, I would rather enjoy the colors that are in this world then to strike at anything that is not red.

Seeing infra-red won't necessarily make everything else look bad. I don't know about you, but I for one would have no problem with the extra range of electromagnetic waves. It's not like it creates any real problems (the ones you've made up are just plain dumb, no offence) and it would certainly be useful as infra-red radiation is still around even when visible light is not (ie when it's dark). Same with ultra-violet. And what did you mean by "strike at anything that is not red"? Is this another one of your 'side affects'? Is god that limited in his power that he can't even give us this without sideaffects?

Now all this sin stuff. I wasn't blaming god. I was just wondering why he did such a bad job of designing us. Let's leave it at that as arguments about sin are so cliche. Otherwise, make a new topic.

if we where a million times smarter, if we had minds like einstein, lets see, we'd create an adam bomb a whole lot quiker, through the sin in humanity, we are a destructive race

Oh please, now your just making up excuses. If we were smarter, we never would have invented the dang things in the first place. And just about everything else intelligence has given us is good.

Now that that's out of the way, heres a few more things that god could have given us (along with the things you didn't account for).

Wings

Gills

Pressure sensors

Magnetic feild sensors

electric field sensors

echolocation

More sensitive hearing

More sensitive eyes

Night vision

Stronger muscles

extra arms/legs

more than two ears (two ears means you can hear only left and right instead of left, right, up, down, back, front)

Teloscopic (magnifiable) vision

360 degree vision

More sensitive taste

Faster reflexes

More sensitive touch

i could do this for ages...

If you can explain away all these I'll give you some more. Good Luck (by the way, if you don't explain ALL of them, then the debate is mine, fair? )

Wings

Gills

Pressure sensors

Magnetic feild sensors

electric field sensors

echolocation

More sensitive hearing

More sensitive eyes

Night vision

Stronger muscles

extra arms/legs

more than two ears (two ears means you can hear only left and right instead of left, right, up, down, back, front)

Teloscopic (magnifiable) vision

360 degree vision

More sensitive taste

Faster reflexes

More sensitive touch

i could do this for ages...

If you can explain away all these I'll give you some more. Good Luck (by the way, if you don't explain ALL of them, then the debate is mine, fair?

Ok, ready, Cause God didn't. We have what we need to survive. And I would admit it would be awesome to have some of these things, like night vision, but God didn't, and I don't have a problem with that.

lol I'll get back to this post in a little bit, By the way, this is an enjoyable convo, ya bring up some good points and challange me to search deeper, right on

[Joshua-777]

Ok, ready, Cause God didn't. We have what we need to survive.

Which, curiously enough, is EXACTLY what evolution theory predicts.

QED. Gotcha!

PS I'd really like to get rid of this useless appendix, and to put my vision receptors the right way around, like the birds have got theirs.

Hmm, so what your saying, same evidence, interprited differently? thats what I've been saying all along, but evolution theory doesn't exactly predicts it, it's already there.

And the bird vision,

kind of reminds me of widescreen, ya can see more but the movie has black on top and bottom.

[WarMonkeyMan]

Now that that's out of the way, heres a few more things that god could have given us (along with the things you didn't account for).

Wings

Gills

Pressure sensors

Magnetic feild sensors

electric field sensors

echolocation

More sensitive hearing

More sensitive eyes

Night vision

Stronger muscles

extra arms/legs

more than two ears (two ears means you can hear only left and right instead of left, right, up, down, back, front)

Teloscopic (magnifiable) vision

360 degree vision

More sensitive taste

Faster reflexes

More sensitive touch

i could do this for ages...

If you can explain away all these I'll give you some more. Good Luck (by the way, if you don't explain ALL of them, then the debate is mine, fair? wink.gif

Well, think about it this way: We're made to do the best we can without sacrificing something important.

It's like building a laptop. We can go off on the Mac (not really, Mac's are God's gift to Geek-kind) and say that it needs a bigger screen, faster processor, and better speakers. Well, if you give it a bigger screen, it becomes too big. If you get a faster processor, you take up more room and power. If you get better speakers, you can sacrifice your limited space.

The body is like that. If we had wings, we'd have to have hollow bones and more muscles around them to be able to get us off the ground.

If our ears or eyes were more sensitive the city sounds and lights that we've gotten used to would jump out at us and smother us.

Sure, it'd be cool if we naturally came with abilities like that, but I'd rather be intelligent enough to be able to recreate those effects than just have it on my own in the mind of a bat.