Dinosaurs or really big chickens

[rossum]

Dinosaurs existed (and maybe some still do). That is a fact.

Agreed to both.

Evolution is a myth.

Disagree. Evolution is a fact - the genomes of interbreeding populations change over time. That is why bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics and so forth. The theory of evolution is the current best explanation of why evolution-as-fact happens.

Radio carbon is not a reliable dating system for very old items.

Agreed. Carbon dating is good for 50,000 to 70,000 thousand years in the past. For anything older you need a different method.

There are many examples of fairly recent pieces being dated 20,000 years old.

You will find that all of these are due to old carbon - usually meaning living in the sea, such as seals or marine molluscs. Also have a look at the datees on the original research, they were mostly in the fifties and sixties when scientists were testing the validity of Carbon dating.

Dates like 65 millions years ago are wild speculations by evolutionists.

Dates like 65 million years ago have been confirmed many times by independent methods. Your sources are misinforming you here. Have a look at Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective for more details.

Look at all the variations in dogs. They didn’t evolve from one another.

Oh yes they did, all dogs are evolved from a few domesticated wolves. Your disbelief in evolution does not have any weight against the mountain of scientific evidence for evolution. The Catholic Church learned a ong time ago that it is unwise to try to contradict science in the arena of natural things. You would do well to follow the Church’s example.

The human race shows variation, some of us have light skin, some dark. Some have blond hair, some black, and some have no hair.

Agreed.

We didn’t evolve.

We did. We even share some errors in our genome (such as the broken Vitamin C synthesis system) as other primates.

We are variations of the same species.

Agreed, and the variations arose through evolution by random mutations and natural selection. If there were no mutations then how come we do not all look like Adam and Eve?

Evolution is behind such racist philosophies as Nazism.

The Nazis used a bad interpretation of Darwin to justify themselves. They also used a bad interpretation of Christianity to the same purpose."My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
Hitler misinterpreted Darwin just as he misinterpreted the Bible. Hitler’s misuse of both is no reason to reject either, though it is correct to reject Hitler’s interpretations.

rossum

 

[edwest2]

I would suggest not ignoring the evidence posted earlier in this thread. A T-Rex bone was broken open and found to have eleastic tissue and evidence of blood.

The current “why can’t Christians believe God used evolution” question is not God but man talking. Jesus turned water into wine, he raised the dead, he calmed the wind, he told the man with the withered arm to stretch forth his arm and it became like the healthy arm instantly.

Prior to current dating methods, it was assumed the earth was old. Rock layers were dated by the fossils found in them. And fossils were used to date other rock layers. I don’t think many of the people who believe the earth is old actualy studied the history of how the current dating methods came to be. They have been adjusted over the years.

If God can turn water into wine, He can create an earth that is ready to inhabit. Manipulated stars, and placed the lights in the heavens, and caused all things to be made in days. Adam is clearly not a baby as described in the Bible. He has an intelligence.

The origin of life, usually referred to as the first cell, is a story, a belief that scientists say “must” have happened. An experiment was tried to create life in the lab, it failed. I used to believe scientists on TV that said, “If we find a planet that has water and amino acids, the building blocks of life, then life should have evolved there.” Really? How do they know? They can’t, of course, say God was involved in any way.

Evolution asks people to believe that out of an infinite number of possible scenarios, life came from non-life and then became you. The goo to you theory makes no scientific sense to me. I don’t think that a 60 or 70 million year old dinosaur bone, not a fossil but a bone, could have survived burial for that long without losing all of its original organic content.

St. George is credited with killing what was called a “dragon” and this is depicted in churches. Most dinosaurs were not that big. Scientists have recently decided that T-Rex was slow, not fast. And is it really that hard to believe that men killed “dragons” (common in most cultures) and ate them?

Oil can be made from organic material in hours, not millions of years.

I contend that the current, constant, daily promotion of the “why can’t you believe that God used evolution” question is designed not to promote truth but to promote the current “evidence” for evolution, which is: You, me, and everybody on earth are here due to purely natural forces - God Not Needed, at all, for None of it.

As a Christian, I believe: God created all things and nothing was created without Him.

God bless,
Ed

 

[Mirdath]

JoeyWarren:

Now come on, a fair telling of the theistic view is that God knew all along exactly the human creatures he wanted to create, and set things in motion to arrive at that exact end, in a way that also demonstrated his creative artistry for all generations who learned to read the signs.

If we’re going from the Torah, well, yes. My tongue is planted firmly in my cheek

But you still have to concede that what they used in the experiments is still only what they think the “primordial soup” consisted of. Nobody knows for sure, because nobody has any samples from the time. It is, at best, an educated guess.

Yes.

You can get into a “chain of mirrors” aspect with any of these debates…take it all the way back to the “primordial soup”, and that’s dandy, but where did the primary elements come from? “Gas and dust as it coalesced in space.” Fine. Where did the gas and dust come from? “Leftover materials from the Big Bang.” Okay. What caused the Big Bang? “We don’t know.” Ah.

Is ignoring all those questions and saying ‘God did it’ any better? I think it’s actually worse, a stifling of human curiosity. A better answer to the Big Bang question would be ‘we don’t know…yet’.

I agree. He could very well have done it that way, even with the inherent problems in Darwinian theory. And there’s nothing to stop any Christian from accepting that viewpoint. But there’s also an equally legitimate viewpoint which looks at the whole rig with a healthy dose of skepticism, for religious, philosophical, and yes, even scientific reasons.

If young-Earth creationism is your ‘equally legitimate viewpoint’, it seems to me to oversimplify religion, ignore philosophy, and denigrate science in its legitimacy.

Now it’s my turn to engage in some speculation. Who’s to say that God didn’t create an entire creation, which, for whatever reason, He later allowed to be destroyed by whatever cataclysm you choose, and then built a new one on top of the ruins of the old? This would fit in with the theory of “mass extinctions” every so often ( Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, and at the present time, Quaternary, as I recall), and would likewise explain why we dig these bones up that obviously did once belong to living creatures.

Interesting idea, but it doesn’t go over too well with ‘and God saw that it was good’.

You’d be better off eating Apaotosaurus…we have always traditionally stuck to consuming plant-eaters (cows, swine, mammoths) instead of predators (wolves, lions, tigers).

Apatosaurs are just giant scaly cows. This is Tyrannosaurus Rex.

 

[rossum]

I would suggest not ignoring the evidence posted earlier in this thread. A T-Rex bone was broken open and found to have eleastic tissue and evidence of blood.

There was no elastic tissue. There were organic fragments that were probably the remains of what had once been elastic tissue and blood. See Tyrannosaurus blood for details and references.

Prior to current dating methods, it was assumed the earth was old. Rock layers were dated by the fossils found in them. And fossils were used to date other rock layers. I don’t think many of the people who believe the earth is old actualy studied the history of how the current dating methods came to be. They have been adjusted over the years.

Prior to modern geology it was assumed that the earth was young, dating from about 4004 BCE. Geologists noticed that certain layers of rock had certain fossils in them, and that these matched across large areas. Rocks above consistently had different fossils and rocks below consistently had a third set of fossils. All this allowed was relative dating: A is older than B, which is older than C. No absolute dates were possible. Absolute dates came in the last century with radiometric dating. Yes dates have been adjusted, but nowhere near enough to turn 4.5 billion years into 6,000 years. I referenced Wein’s article in my previous post - it is well worth reading.

If God can turn water into wine, He can create an earth that is ready to inhabit. Manipulated stars, and placed the lights in the heavens, and caused all things to be made in days. Adam is clearly not a baby as described in the Bible. He has an intelligence.

To quote Theodosius Dobzhansky:One can suppose that the Creator saw fit to play deceitful tricks on geologists and biologists. He carefully arranged to have various rocks provided with isotope ratios just right to mislead us into thinking that certain rocks are 2 billion years old, others 2 million, which in fact they are only some 6,000 years old. This kind of pseudo-explanation is not very new. One of the early antievolutionists, P. H. Gosse, published a book entitled Omphalos (“the Navel”). The gist of this amazing book is that Adam, though he had no mother, was created with a navel, and that fossils were placed by the Creator where we find them now - a deliberate act on His part, to give the appearance of great antiquity and geologic upheaveals. It is easy to see the fatal flaw in all such notions. They are blasphemies, accusing God of absurd deceitfulness. This is as revolting as it is uncalled for.

Also Thomas Aquinas says:In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing.

If you insist on a 6,000 year old earth in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence for a much older earth then that would indeed be an obstacle to my believing.

rossum

 

[Techno2000]

There was no elastic tissue. rossum

Ok, then what is that yellow looking stuff being streched
in the middle of picture (A)

answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0325Dino_tissue.asp

 

[edwest2]

Hello rossum,

You are ignoring the evidence and your sig line: “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” seems to say that Jesus Christ, “the way, the truth and the life” did not give his followers the ultimate truth.

For Catholics, that is the ultimate truth. And there is no forum, Christian, Atheist or General, that I have been on that is not desperately trying to sell evolution to Christians. I say desperately because people are posting the same things about evolution over and over and over again. And when anyone brings up evidence contrary to evolution, it’s ignored and the same exact things are said over and over and over again. Evolution has to be right. It has to be a fact. I would warn my fellow Catholics that “the mountains of evidence” for evolution boils down to one thing: Everyone on planet earth got here through totally natural means- no GOD required, at all, for ANY of it. It’s important for Catholics to realize that this is what’s being sold. Yes, advertised and sold. “Do you believe in evolution yet? No, why not? Are you some sort of Fundamentalist? Filled with hate and willing to fly planes into buildings? Religion is a great evil you know.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus Christ is alive today and is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Evolution takes God completely out of Creation.

God bless,
Ed

 

[rossum]

Ok, then what is that yellow looking stuff being streched
in the middle of picture (A)

answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0325Dino_tissue.asp

Thankyou for the correction, I had not seen the reference before.

The link at reference 3 in the AiG article is broken, I think they were referring to [.

All are agreed that Dr Schweitzer has found some exceptionally well preerved Tyrannosaur bones.

rossum](MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos[/url)

 

[rossum]

You are ignoring the evidence and your sig line: “The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” seems to say that Jesus Christ, “the way, the truth and the life” did not give his followers the ultimate truth.

“The Way that can be spoken is not the true Way”. Words are contingent, changeable and far from ultimate. We do not have any of Jesus’ words directly we only have them indirectly through others and translated into other languages (it is unlikley that he spoke Greek). What we have now cannot be ultimate.

For Catholics, that is the ultimate truth.

I am Buddhist, not Catholic. My sig line is a modern summary of Madhyamika Buddhism.

And there is no forum, Christian, Atheist or General, that I have been on that is not desperately trying to sell evolution to Christians. I say desperately because people are posting the same things about evolution over and over and over again. And when anyone brings up evidence contrary to evolution, it’s ignored and the same exact things are said over and over and over again.

Many of the people trying to “sell” evolution are Catholics or Christians. I can cite Kenneth Miller, author of Finding Darwin’s God as one Catholic who accepts evolution. As I said, if you insist on a young earth then you will drive away anyone who has a knowledge of science. Evolution is not a salvation issue, by overemphasising what is a peripheral issue you are creating unnecessary obstacles.

I would warn my fellow Catholics that “the mountains of evidence” for evolution boils down to one thing: Everyone on planet earth got here through totally natural means- no GOD required, at all, for ANY of it.

All of science has “no GOD required” - why single out evolution? How about atheist meteorology. Meteorology completely ignores GOD - it is atheist science. Yet the Bile saysPsalms 78:26) He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens And by His power He directed the south wind.

(Psalms 107:25) For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind, Which lifted up the waves of the sea.

(Psalms 135:7) He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; Who makes lightnings for the rain, Who brings forth the wind from His treasuries.

(Psalms 148:8) Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;

(Proverbs 30:4) Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name? Surely you know!

(Mark 4:39) And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.
I hope you are not supporting atheist materialist science like meteorology.

Evolution takes God completely out of Creation.

Only for those who wish it so. Others say that evolution is God’s way of creating. God is so powerful that He does not need to make thigs directly, He makes the world so that the things He wants will self-assemble.

rossum

 

[Techno2000]

Thankyou for the correction, I had not seen the reference before.

The link at reference 3 in the AiG article is broken, I think they were referring to [.

All are agreed that Dr Schweitzer has found some exceptionally well preerved Tyrannosaur bones.

rossum](MSN | Outlook, Office, Skype, Bing, Breaking News, and Latest Videos[/url)Thank you for being Honest and up front.

 

[Greg27]

The question has been posed since the time of the Greeks ‘Where does everything come from?’ The fact the world exists makes us have to face a mystery, and Greek scientists and philosophers attempted to provide a rational basis using mathematics and science.

Modern science can be seen as an extension of this, modified by the new methods developed by Descartes, Galileo and Francis Bacon which made mathematical analysis of natural phenomena combined with checking speculations with observations and experiments. This was well codified by Karl Popper, who realised the difference between a science like astronomy and a pseudo-science like Astrology is scientific theories are falsifiable by the evidence.

On the other hand, it is true many atheists and skeptics seized upon science and scientific theories and used it to try and prove metaphysical theories, such as metaphysical naturalism (only the sensible world is real and all reality is encompassed in the sensible world), pantheism (i.e. Spinoza’s all encompassing monistic Being which is nature) and other ideas which are incompatible with Christian thought.

Christians can’t accept ideas which deny things such as providence or the existence of God, or the ability to cognize God (i.e. metaphysical naturalism). Yet this doesn’t logically mean it is necessary for Christians to reject one or more scientific theories.

I reject creationism on the grounds it makes predictions that have been falsified, while other scientific theories explain the evidence. Now the function of a scientific theory is to try and provide a coherent theory which explains a set of phenomena we encounter in the universe or nature. A scientific theory has to be able to be proven wrong. Otherwise, it is basically pseudo-science. Creationist theories were accepted by Darwin in his early work but he rejected it because it could not explain everything he observed. This is why Darwin, like Galileo, developed a new set of ideas he worked into a theory (evolution) just as Galileo arranged his ideas and observations on moving bodies into a general theory of motion, which was in turn expanded and improved on vastly by Isaac Newton.

A theory which is falsified by evidence, observation and experiment is wrong. The ideas of Ptolomey in astronomy were shown to be false. Therefore they had to be replaced with a better explanation. It is the same with creationism. Creationist theories make predictions, which have been falsified again and again by evidence from astronomy, geology, paleontology, and other fields. Creationists have indeed claimed their theories have the same scientific rigor as those of mainstream science, and yet they have failed to stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny. If creationism were true and explained the observed universe than mainstream scientific theories do, and mainstream scientific theories could not conform to our experiments, observations and tests, then I would reject mainstream science for creationism, as it is vital to base one’s beliefs on what is either definitely true, or given the probabilities, most likely to be true. Intellectual integrity demands no less.

But so far as I have seen, creationism has not withstood the tests placed on it, so it is either false, or it is so likely to be false it is much further from the truth than accepted and non-falsified scientific theories are. Since God must be truth itself, I do not see accepting what is true or most likely to be true to be in conflict with my faith.

 

[Wolseley]

And there is no forum, Christian, Atheist or General, that I have been on that is not desperately trying to sell evolution to Christians.

Yup. I have observed that very same thing.

I say desperately because people are posting the same things about evolution over and over and over again. And when anyone brings up evidence contrary to evolution, it’s ignored and the same exact things are said over and over and over again.

Yup again. As I said, they will brook no challenges to their Holy Faith. Observe what happened with Mary Schweitzer:

"I had one reviewer tell me that he didn’t care what the data said, he knew that what I was finding wasn’t possible. I wrote back and said, ‘Well, what data would convince you?’ And he said, ‘None.’ "

You’re not going to get a totally closed mind to question its chereished presuppositions, let alone question hypotheses that have been lovingly nurtured for 150 years.

Evolution has to be right. It has to be a fact. I would warn my fellow Catholics that “the mountains of evidence” for evolution boils down to one thing: Everyone on planet earth got here through totally natural means- no GOD required, at all, for ANY of it.

The Unholy Trinity of the Twentieth Century (Marx, Freud, and Darwin) has been smugly invoked time and again to “prove” Christians are fools for believing in myths. Now, here we are in 2007, and Marx and Freud have both been discredited and dismissed, and Darwin is on his way out…but you won’t get the True Believers (Darwinists) to accept that. If you challenge them on questions they can’t answer, or present new evidence like Mary Schweitzer did, they either trot out the same tired circular arguments they’ve been using for decades, or they get self-righteous and huffy (“How dare you challenge the Absolute Truth of the Divine Prophet Darwin!”).

Which is okay, I guess; I mean, if you are a true believer in a religion—even if the religion in question happens to be atheistic Darwinism—then you should be indignant when somebody challenges it, and you should try to defend it. But, as I have said many times before, Darwinism is just that: a religion. It ain’t science. It is based on guesses, presuppositions, speculation, and wishful thinking. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews, 11 and 1.)

 

[Wolseley]

Greg27:

I reject creationism on the grounds it makes predictions that have been falsified, while other scientific theories explain the evidence.

I haven’t seen a single scientific theory yet which explains for me the origin of the material the universe is made out of. Where did it come from? How did it get there? A vague answer like “Well, it was just ‘always there’” doesn’t cut it. I’m willing to go along with you for the sake of argument that everything we have is built upon this whirling cloud of gas and dust, that coalesced into a planet, that developed into a swamp, that “somehow” gave rise to microscopic life, that then slowly developed from a gob of snot into a human being. Fair enough. But where did the cloud of gas and dust come from? How did it get there? Why was it here to begin with?

Greg27:

But so far as I have seen, creationism has not withstood the tests placed on it, so it is either false, or it is so likely to be false it is much further from the truth than accepted and non-falsified scientific theories are.

I have the same problems with Darwinism. Like I said: it takes just as much faith to believe in the idea that a bunch of random chemicals in a bog somehow “produced life” as it does to believe that a Creator simply stuck out His finger and said, “Let there be light”. And even if you agree that “Okay, this random soup of chemicals did ‘produce life’”, that still doesn’t adequately explain how the chemicals got there in the first place. “They just happened to be there by chance” doesn’t cut it. That’s not science, it’s speculation.

And before I get accused of being a Creationist or a Fundamentalist, I will repeat again: I do not subscribe entirely to any of the currently fashionable Origins explanations, be it evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design, or something else. As I said, it makes no difference to me if God created life by instantaneous creation, by billions of years of evolution, or if He took the contents of the box, added two pinches of salt and a half a cup of water and stirred, then baked in 350-degree oven for two hours. I couldn’t care less.

What annoys me are Darwinists who insist they have all the answers when they don’t. They cannot explain the questions I outlined above, they ignore a great deal of evidence that just plain doesn’t fit their model, and they imperiously ignore legitimate questions that are placed on their pet theories. But until someone addresses these questions to my satisfaction, I will continue to hold that Darwinian evolution is nothing more than a fairy tale for adults.

So: where did the material in the cloud of dust and gas and subatomic particles that just “suddenly appeared” in the Big Bang 15 billion years ago come from?

Your ball.

 

[CarlosG]

I say desperately because people are posting the same things about evolution over and over and over again. And when anyone brings up evidence contrary to evolution, it’s ignored and the same exact things are said over and over and over again. Evolution has to be right. It has to be a fact. I would warn my fellow Catholics that “the mountains of evidence” for evolution boils down to one thing: Everyone on planet earth got here through totally natural means- no GOD required, at all, for ANY of it. It’s important for Catholics to realize that this is what’s being sold. Yes, advertised and sold. “Do you believe in evolution yet? No, why not? Are you some sort of Fundamentalist? Filled with hate and willing to fly planes into buildings? Religion is a great evil you know.”

Your flair for dramatic rhetoric is well noted, but does nothing to address the positive evidence of evolution or even an old earth.

I did not ignore your evidence, I have read the tit-for-tat articles on both sides and I posted some other ones, and I can again if you’d like. AiG is big on the speculation and distortion and small on the facts with Weiland resorting to suggestive language and bad sources. If you would like you can post parts of the article and we can talk about it.

The discovery is amazing no matter what light you look at it in, but to suggest that this disproves all the science of dating techniques and evolution is a bit of a jump to say the least. All systems must live with anomalies because our knowledge of nature will always be incomplete.

My brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus Christ is alive today and is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Amen!
Evolution takes God completely out of Creation.
Non-Sequitur
God bless,
Ed

 

[Mirdath]

You’re not going to get a totally closed mind to question its chereished presuppositions, let alone question hypotheses that have been lovingly nurtured for 150 years.

As opposed to questioning hypotheses that have been lovingly nurtured for, what is it, 3000 or more years since Genesis was written?

The Unholy Trinity of the Twentieth Century (Marx, Freud, and Darwin) has been smugly invoked time and again to “prove” Christians are fools for believing in myths.

You mean the Unholy Trinity of the 19th century? Freud was the only one of those three who lived into the 20th.

But, as I have said many times before, Darwinism is just that: a religion. It ain’t science. It is based on guesses, presuppositions, speculation, and wishful thinking. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews, 11 and 1.)

When the theory becomes an object of worship, I’d say you’re right; but how many people really commit Darwinolatry? The original theory isn’t perfect, but that’s why it’s a theory – it’s still pretty good, and we can improve upon it with our improved capacity for observation. Darwin’s work is still a cornerstone of biology.

So: where did the material in the cloud of dust and gas and subatomic particles that just “suddenly appeared” in the Big Bang 15 billion years ago come from?

We don’t know… yet. I agree that ‘it was just there, okay?’ is bad science, but so is ‘God made it, stop asking questions’. And there are more pressing questions than ‘how did we get here?’ We’re here, let’s stop worrying about why and go do stuff!

 

[rossum]

I haven’t seen a single scientific theory yet which explains for me the origin of the material the universe is made out of.

String Theory: The Myth of the Beginning of Time

Where did it come from? How did it get there? A vague answer like “Well, it was just ‘always there’” doesn’t cut it.

Where did God come from? How did God get there? A vague answer like “Well, God was just ‘always there’” doesn’t cut it. Your answer please.

I have the same problems with Darwinism. Like I said: it takes just as much faith to believe in the idea that a bunch of random chemicals in a bog somehow “produced life” as it does to believe that a Creator simply stuck out His finger and said, “Let there be light”.

Abiogenesis has not yet completely explained the origin of life, though it has made some progress, RNA World and so forth. Creationism has no explanation at all for the origin of life. (Be careful before you respond to that, it does not mean what you might think it means at first glance.)

rossum

 

[VociMike]

String Theory: The Myth of the Beginning of Time

Note that string theory doesn’t explain why string theory is true (if it is true). Like all theories, it describes and predicts, but it doesn’t tell us why the forces and fields and particles and laws of the world are what they are. That is the question that science (rightly) does not claim to be able to answer.

Where did God come from? How did God get there? A vague answer like “Well, God was just ‘always there’” doesn’t cut it. Your answer please.

Ah, but this comparison does not hold up. If you are going to claim the ability to explain the material world, then you cannot simply stop at some point in the explanation and say “everything before this just is.” That is the dilemma science faces if it claims it can explain everything - it will be required to do so.

Whereas, no theist (at least, no Judeo-Christian theist) suggests that they can explain the existence of God.

 

[zian]

Ed, you might know something about this:

Didn’t Darwin himself reject all of his “origin of species” theories in favor of Divine Creation before he died?

No.

The story that Darwin recanted on his deathbed is false. See here and links therein.

 

[zian]

Here, I did some googling too -

newscientist.com/article/dn11591-ityrannosaurus-rexi-fossil-gives-up-precious-protein.html

talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC371_1.html

smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2006/may/dinosaur.php

news.ncsu.edu/releases/2007/april/065.html

Pays to go beyond Answers in Genesis.

 

[Wolseley]

As opposed to questioning hypotheses that have been lovingly nurtured for, what is it, 3000 or more years since Genesis was written?

Genesis is usually figured to have been written around 1440 BC, so you’re in the ballpark. However, religious texts do not claim to be based on hypothetical observation, and open to re-interpretation with new evidence, as do scientific texts.

Unless you’re Bishop Spong, that is.

You mean the Unholy Trinity of the 19th century? Freud was the only one of those three who lived into the 20th.

I mean their ideas and the structures based on those ideas, which were primarily a 20th-century phenomenon, not the men themselves.

When the theory becomes an object of worship, I’d say you’re right; but how many people really commit Darwinolatry?

Judging from a good many of the Darwinists I’ve talked to on the Net over the last eight or nine years, a lot of them.

We don’t know… yet. I agree that ‘it was just there, okay?’ is bad science, but so is ‘God made it, stop asking questions’.

Oh, I never said we need to stop asking questions. All I said was that we need to stop bragging that we know the answers, because we don’t. Try as science might to know everything, there’s still a considerable portion of reality that is way over science’s head.

And there are more pressing questions than ‘how did we get here?’ We’re here, let’s stop worrying about why and go do stuff!

I agree. Arguing about origins is almost as pointless and silly as arguing about eschatology.

 

[Wolseley]

String Theory: The Myth of the Beginning of Time

That’s all very nice, but it still doesn’t explain anything. What was the “pre-existing state” before the Big Bang? What was it composed of? Why did it result in the Bang?

We’re right back to “Well, we don’t know…but it must have happened, because…well, because we think it happened.” And so we go back to Theology By a Different Name again.

Where did God come from? How did God get there? A vague answer like “Well, God was just ‘always there’” doesn’t cut it. Your answer please.

Ah, but my dear fellow, unlike science, Christians do not claim to have all the answers. We specialize in incomprehensible mysteries. (Try explaining transubstantiation, or the Triune Godhead, or the hypostatic union of Christ some time.) So in this light, saying “God was always here, and He’ll always be here” is a perfectly legitimate explanation.

All we really have, at the bottom line, is what God has allowed us to know…not because He wants us to be ignorant, but because we were only created to be able to understand things up to a certain point, beyond which, we simply are not smart enough to figure it out. We don’t like to admit that we are just the dumb goldfish in the tank, being watched by the smart guy outside the tank who gives us this neat environment to live in, who feeds us, and provides for us, but who is vastly more intelligent and superior to us.

We like to think that we can figure this all out, by golly, because we are goldfish! We don’t have any need for Providers Outside the Tank! We’re so smart now, we can tell you anything you want to know about the enviroment inside the tank, right down to the last -nth…except how we got here in this tank to start with. And the guy outside the tank just stands there and watches us swimming around in here, and smiles.

Abiogenesis has not yet completely explained the origin of life, though it has made some progress

When it has it completely figured out beyond the shadow of a doubt, let me know.