Two Questions for Christians

[Voter]

Voter, can you please start presenting us with something solid which could be at least remotely considered evidence for ID... Or whatever it is you're trying to prove?  

See my first entry to this thread, post #39.

[Voter]

I already mentioned, and you agreed to, loss of ability to synthesize vitamin c, a vitamin which is essential for survival.

Man, you sure do love bearing false witness.

I said if there's no explanation for the above, it's a strike against natural selection. You informed me that there is. So it's no longer a strike against natural selection.

I said that natural selection is either falsified, or non-falsifiable, which is true. If you don't find it a "strike against" that one of the primary mechanisms of evolution isn't falsifiable, then there's nothing more to be said on that prediction.

There's plenty of trees and land invertebrates around ostriches and several other species of flightless bird.

Still not very intelligently designed. God is pretty stupid.

An opinion against intelligent design is not evidence for evolution. This is a sign of desperation.

What's the matter? You Christians can dish out the desperate arguments but you can't take em?

So you still have no substantive response to the point that birds apparently lost flight in an environment that favors flight. This is evidence against evolution.

You should have stuck to examples which can be explained by change of habitat, like whale hip bones. If you're done trying to claim that deleterious changes aren't deleterious, I'll move on to those.

What claim are you referring to?

Loss of flight in birds, for one. You quoted my last response on this subject above, but then made an unrelated response. Seems you were projecting your own shortcomings on me when you said, "Voter's one of those people who thinks he's engaged his opponent as long as he can keep coming up with any response at all." It's typical of internet evolutionists to resort to insults, or attempts to change the subject to creationism, when they can't support their claims on evolution.

[Asmodean]

So you still have no substantive response to the point that birds apparently lost flight in an environment that favors flight. This is evidence against evolution.

A: It most certainly is not evidence against evolution.

B: Which birds are you refering to exactly? And how would flight benefit them in their habitat? Please give me some sort of a biologically correct analysis.

[Asmodean]

Voter, can you please start presenting us with something solid which could be at least remotely considered evidence for ID... Or whatever it is you're trying to prove?  

[jcm]

Interesting that you'd try to divert me from the discussion of evidence for evolution.

it is just a couple of questions. i am not trying to divert you at all. you can continue the discussion with the others, i won't stop you.
 
if you don't want to answer questions that are asked, then what are you doing here?

[Dickson]

Sure, the Bible states that stuff, but that doesn't make it true.  This is actually the view a majority of Christians have.  

isn't the bible the word of god and that is what makes it true? if you don't believe the bible, then how can you call yourself christian.

I believe some of the Bible.  The Gospels, for instance, are redundant enough for there to be some accuracy to them.  Some of the books of the Old Testament are obviously historical documents, so I give them some validity.  Most of the New Testament, though, is commentary from human beings (mostly one human being, actually) and I don't agree with everything they say.  Since God did not write the Bible, some things are bound to get lost in translation.  Besides, if I worship the Bible as an infallible object, aren't I creating an idol for myself?

[Whitney]

Everyone,

Voter is on a one day ban for not only ignoring my warning but for not showing significant improvement in his/her behavior.  The ban will automatically lift on Monday, July 28th around 12:30p central standard time.  

[Loffler]

I said that natural selection is either falsified, or non-falsifiable, which is true.

And as I explained to my own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of all intelligent readers of this thread, but not to your satisfaction, it is not true.  

So you still have no substantive response to the point that birds apparently lost flight in an environment that favors flight. This is evidence against evolution.

I'll explain it to you again: if science doesn't have an explanation for a deleterious trait (regardless of whether I myself am aware of it), it's a strike against evolution. One strike against a million. You seem to be under the very false impression that one strike refutes evolution; it doesn't, because evolution has no shortage of points for it. There are plenty of traits scientists had no explanation for yet. But the day they learned to look not just at how a trait might benefit a species but also how that trait might have benefited the species' ancestors, thousands of those mysteries were solved.

Loss of flight in birds, for one.

It's not entirely accurate to say loss of flight isn't deleterious. It's more accurate to say flight might have come in handy, but it might have had to be sacrificed for the ability to swim in the Antarctic, the ability to run and kick for ostriches, or the ability to forage on the floor in heavily canopied woods for kiwis. I'm not familiar with the lineage of birds, perhaps the flight-nonflight split occurred very early in their history and modern flightless birds are descended from birds that never properly flew, so rather than losing the ability to fly they never had it in the first place.

You quoted my last response on this subject above, but then made an unrelated response. Seems you were projecting your own shortcomings on me when you said, "Voter's one of those people who thinks he's engaged his opponent as long as he can keep coming up with any response at all." It's typical of internet evolutionists to resort to insults, or attempts to change the subject to creationism, when they can't support their claims on evolution.

You guys make it so damn easy. You don't really apply yourselves to evolution. How you Christians ever got in such positions of power to kill the millions of people you killed I'll never know.

[jcm]

I believe some of the Bible. The Gospels, for instance, are redundant enough for there to be some accuracy to them. Some of the books of the Old Testament are obviously historical documents, so I give them some validity. Most of the New Testament, though, is commentary from human beings (mostly one human being, actually) and I don't agree with everything they say. Since God did not write the Bible, some things are bound to get lost in translation. Besides, if I worship the Bible as an infallible object, aren't I creating an idol for myself?

if the bible was not written by god and the idea of god was also created by man, then isn't just another theory among others that is not yet tested or proven to be true. so why not just say you don't know if there is a god or not, since you are only trusting someone else's delusion?
 
i have no problem with some of the bible's teachings on how to live your life and live in society. The golden rule is something I try to live by. But these are apart of experiences humans have had in societies. These ideas were also created by man. Saying god will punish you if you do not live a moral life or by the bible only drives in home.
 
the predictions about the way the universe was created is flat wrong. the bible took a stab at it and it is wrong. all the bible needed to say was god created the universe, but it didn't. It said it took 6 days and spoke about the order of events. Science has shown many errors in bible, so this leads me to believe that all of the bible was just made up. People 1000 years ago had no problem with a universe created in 6 days. It is only after science came along and proved it wrong, did people say "well we must have misinterpreted the bible"

[Dickson]

if the bible was not written by god and the idea of god was also created by man, then isn't just another theory among others that is not yet tested or proven to be true. so why not just say you don't know if there is a god or not, since you are only trusting someone else's delusion?
 

We differ on "the idea of god [being] created by man" because I see God as the source from which all things came into being (and, no I'm not talking about the creation stories in Genesis.  I'm not a literalist as far as creation goes).  If I had never had experiences in which I felt God's presence, then yes, I would be just "trusting someone else's delusion."  However, since I've felt God's presence (some occasions stronger than others) I've got my own experiences to base my faith on and not rely entirely on scripture, which is often shaky.

[Loffler]

if the bible was not written by god and the idea of god was also created by man, then isn't just another theory among others that is not yet tested or proven to be true. so why not just say you don't know if there is a god or not, since you are only trusting someone else's delusion?

We differ on "the idea of god [being] created by man" because I see God as the source from which all things came into being (and, no I'm not talking about the creation stories in Genesis.  I'm not a literalist as far as creation goes).  If I had never had experiences in which I felt God's presence, then yes, I would be just "trusting someone else's delusion."  However, since I've felt God's presence (some occasions stronger than others) I've got my own experiences to base my faith on and not rely entirely on scripture, which is often shaky.

What about the sensation makes you think it was God?

[Dickson]

We differ on "the idea of god [being] created by man" because I see God as the source from which all things came into being (and, no I'm not talking about the creation stories in Genesis.  I'm not a literalist as far as creation goes).  If I had never had experiences in which I felt God's presence, then yes, I would be just "trusting someone else's delusion."  However, since I've felt God's presence (some occasions stronger than others) I've got my own experiences to base my faith on and not rely entirely on scripture, which is often shaky.

What about the sensation makes you think it was God?

I just knew.  Yeah, I know most of you probably won't buy that, but that's the only way I can describe it.  The feeling is more intense than "man, this sofa is comfortable."  It's just a quiet, a calm, that goes beyond my vocabulary.  Of course, I know that not all unexplainable things aren't God.  But some things are, in my mind, only explainable as God's presence.

[jcm]

We differ on "the idea of god [being] created by man" because I see God as the source from which all things came into being (and, no I'm not talking about the creation stories in Genesis. I'm not a literalist as far as creation goes). If I had never had experiences in which I felt God's presence, then yes, I would be just "trusting someone else's delusion." However, since I've felt God's presence (some occasions stronger than others) I've got my own experiences to base my faith on and not rely entirely on scripture, which is often shaky.

I am interested in your experience. How do you know the difference between god and your own delusion?

Again, if you think the bible is wrong, why do you call yourself Christian?

[Dickson]

We differ on "the idea of god [being] created by man" because I see God as the source from which all things came into being (and, no I'm not talking about the creation stories in Genesis. I'm not a literalist as far as creation goes). If I had never had experiences in which I felt God's presence, then yes, I would be just "trusting someone else's delusion." However, since I've felt God's presence (some occasions stronger than others) I've got my own experiences to base my faith on and not rely entirely on scripture, which is often shaky.

I am interested in your experience. How do you know the difference between god and your own delusion?

Again, if you think the bible is wrong, why do you call yourself Christian?

Having deluded myself in many ways (girls, drugs, trying to talk myself into shitty jobs, etc) I can tell the difference between an internal and external influence.  Here's a specific example:

After a very dear friend of mine died, I was pissed at God, the universe, everything.  She died in a boating accident, body wasn't recovered for 10 days, just fucking awful.  The only time during the entire ordeal I wasn't angry was during her funeral, during which I was just emotionally numb.  I tried to feel something, but nothing was there.  

A few days later I went to the grave to set some flowers and a note by the headstone.  The anger had bubbled back up again, and I collapsed in a fury of tears.  Without warning I stopped crying and was covered in one of the deepest senses of peace I've ever tasted.  It was pervasive.  Now, I'm sure this feeling wasn't from inside me because I was entirely too angry/drained to muster it up on my own.  

About the Bible:  I don't think it's all wrong, just some of it.  And maybe "wrong" isn't the right word--inapplicable is a better term.  Like all writings, the Bible was aimed at a specific audience (Jews during the time of the Egyptian enslavement, give or take a few decades).  I view the Bible like I view any book of theology--it's a mortal's take on God.  Sometimes I agree with what's being said.  Sometimes I don't.  I'm not so bivalent in my logic that I reject everything in a book (or a person, or a meal) because I dislike one component.

[Loffler]

I just knew.

I consider that a dangerous phrase.

A few days later I went to the grave to set some flowers and a note by the headstone. The anger had bubbled back up again, and I collapsed in a fury of tears. Without warning I stopped crying and was covered in one of the deepest senses of peace I've ever tasted. It was pervasive. Now, I'm sure this feeling wasn't from inside me because I was entirely too angry/drained to muster it up on my own.

That could have been a dopamine or serotonin release following the extreme stress of your sorrow. Also, some scientists think the function of crying is to release stress hormones, since tears released while crying (as opposed to other tears) contain significantly greater quantities of hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, Leu-enkephalin, and elements potassium and manganese. So the sense of peace and calm might've been the biological relief of your body having successfully purged a lot of stress.