A simple case for intelligent design

[BilliardsBall]

At best, Adam and Eve are a claim without corroboration. Along with the rest of Genesis, they are metaphorical.

Jesus claimed to have know Adam and other patriarchs and matriarchs personally. Paul claimed as Adam killed all, Jesus brought all life (Romans 5). If Adam isn't literal, neither is Jesus's salvation from His cross.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Jesus claimed to have know Adam and other patriarchs and matriarchs personally.

Where did He claim this? You were quick to give book and chapter about Paul, but not so quick to provide something to back up your first claim. Is that because Jesus never said that about Adam. Christ was familiar with Genesis, Adam and Eve, to be sure. He was raised on those teachings, but I know that Christ only mentions Adam and Eve one time in the Bible.

Paul claimed as Adam killed all, Jesus brought all life (Romans 5). If Adam isn't literal, neither is Jesus's salvation from His cross.

I disagree. One does not necessarily follow the other.

We are both Christians, but unlike you, I do not ignore the real world or the questions and challenges that arise from observation and reasoning. From what I have seen of your efforts, you are steadfast in making every attempt to get the evidence from observation of the real world to fit your beliefs. Where this does not work--as is more and more the case these days--you impugn or deny the observations and logical inference and conclusions. The observations and evidence threaten your view of Christianity, so you must try to tame them or discard them without further thought.

On the other hand, I recognize these things and see the contradictions when related to my belief. Rather than lie to myself or create some fantasy version of my beliefs, I search for reasons that my beliefs fit with what I see. Everyday, more and more evidence develops that show us that we cannot accept the idea that all human life arose from a single couple--Adam and Eve--a few thousand years ago. When viewed in a symbolic and metaphorical context, there is no problem and theology, learning and wisdom remain intact.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Where did He claim this? You were quick to give book and chapter about Paul, but not so quick to provide something to back up your first claim. Is that because Jesus never said that about Adam. Christ was familiar with Genesis, Adam and Eve, to be sure. He was raised on those teachings, but I know that Christ only mentions Adam and Eve one time in the Bible.

I disagree. One does not necessarily follow the other.

We are both Christians, but unlike you, I do not ignore the real world or the questions and challenges that arise from observation and reasoning. From what I have seen of your efforts, you are steadfast in making every attempt to get the evidence from observation of the real world to fit your beliefs. Where this does not work--as is more and more the case these days--you impugn or deny the observations and logical inference and conclusions. The observations and evidence threaten your view of Christianity, so you must try to tame them or discard them without further thought.

On the other hand, I recognize these things and see the contradictions when related to my belief. Rather than lie to myself or create some fantasy version of my beliefs, I search for reasons that my beliefs fit with what I see. Everyday, more and more evidence develops that show us that we cannot accept the idea that all human life arose from a single couple--Adam and Eve--a few thousand years ago. When viewed in a symbolic and metaphorical context, there is no problem and theology, learning and wisdom remain intact.

You are unfamiliar with OT hierophany claims? Adam is referenced in multiple passages as is Adam/Christ typeology: Romans 1, 5, 8, 1 Cor 15, Phil 2 & 3, etc. Jude regards Adam as THE first man (verse 14), Luke calls Adam "Son of God" (3:38, echoing Jesus as beloved son in 3:22). 1 Timothy explores teaching roles as dependent on a literal Adam and Eve.

Jesus said He personally knew some of the patriarchs. Jesus also said, "No one has seen the Father!" so who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden? Jesus also built a bedrock of marriage teaching as a man, a woman and God--Adam and Eve wed by God in the Garden.

Whether our doctrines are literalist or more subjective, we should hold to doctrines that are fully evidenced in scripture.

Thank you.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You are unfamiliar with OT hierophany claims? Adam is referenced in multiple passages as is Adam/Christ typeology: Romans 1, 5, 8, 1 Cor 15, Phil 2 & 3, etc. Jude regards Adam as THE first man (verse 14), Luke calls Adam "Son of God" (3:38, echoing Jesus as beloved son in 3:22). 1 Timothy explores teaching roles as dependent on a literal Adam and Eve.

Jesus said He personally knew some of the patriarchs. Jesus also said, "No one has seen the Father!" so who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden? Jesus also built a bedrock of marriage teaching as a man, a woman and God--Adam and Eve wed by God in the Garden.

Whether our doctrines are literalist or more subjective, we should hold to doctrines that are fully evidenced in scripture.

Thank you.

Where is it that Jesus claims to have known Adam? That was your original claim.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You are unfamiliar with OT hierophany claims? Adam is referenced in multiple passages as is Adam/Christ typeology: Romans 1, 5, 8, 1 Cor 15, Phil 2 & 3, etc. Jude regards Adam as THE first man (verse 14), Luke calls Adam "Son of God" (3:38, echoing Jesus as beloved son in 3:22). 1 Timothy explores teaching roles as dependent on a literal Adam and Eve.

Jesus said He personally knew some of the patriarchs. Jesus also said, "No one has seen the Father!" so who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden? Jesus also built a bedrock of marriage teaching as a man, a woman and God--Adam and Eve wed by God in the Garden.

Whether our doctrines are literalist or more subjective, we should hold to doctrines that are fully evidenced in scripture.

Thank you.

My belief in God and acceptance of Christ does not require that everything in the Bible be literally true. Even if I were to believe it all happened the way it is described--I know could not, but if--there is no known way to objectively verify that. Functionally, it is as if it is allegorical and metaphorical.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

But there isn't "less diversity", there is MORE, because each of those 100 variations can produce numerous variations. That's an INCREASE in biological diversity.


You do realize that there is more than one type of wolf too, right? In the future, you could say "we got 1000 different breeds of early dogs, but their descendants can only produce 10 different variations of what they are!".


I asked you to drop your prior arguments and disagreements on every level just to objectively assess your own argument on a simple, logical level.

Clearly, you are not capable of doing that.

His entire argument is hogwash. Nothing in it is valid.

This nonsense about 100 breeds of dogs is useless in supporting his point. Dogs actually refute his claims. He is another that believes and cannot bring his beliefs in line with the evidence, so he has to force the evidence to fit his beliefs.

You are correct. There is greater diversity in dogs than their was in the ancestral population of wolves from which they sprang. This is obvious, considering the variety of traits expressed in dogs and the very different behaviors, environments and conditions that dogs exist in that wolves could not.

The choice of dogs as his example falls flat on its face no matter how doggedly he hangs onto that bone. Dogs are artificially selected and those that do not meet the requirements of the selection are not reproduced. So there is a lots of variety that is not apparent due to the goals of the breeding program. Dogs have traits that no wolf has. He makes his claims based on the appearance of dogs, without review of other characters unrelated to how they look.

I doubt he is capable of doing more than what he has shown us here.

 

[gnostic]

You are unfamiliar with OT hierophany claims? Adam is referenced in multiple passages as is Adam/Christ typeology: Romans 1, 5, 8, 1 Cor 15, Phil 2 & 3, etc. Jude regards Adam as THE first man (verse 14), Luke calls Adam "Son of God" (3:38, echoing Jesus as beloved son in 3:22). 1 Timothy explores teaching roles as dependent on a literal Adam and Eve.

Dan was talking about what Jesus said about Adam, not Paul and other authors of the epistles said about Adam.

You have said nothing about Jesus actually knowing about Adam and Eve.

And as to Luke 3:22, Jesus didn’t write this gospel. And beside that, God creating Adam was general knowledge of Jews and Christians.

 

[tas8831]

Hilarious stuff, as usual.

A lot of truly crazy, asinine garbage in here, but I will only mention one thing for now -

Except in a court of law the genomes are compared side by side, loci by loci, not by matching by algorithms.

I mean...

Wow...

I link to a paper indicating that courts use primarily RFLP, in which only a handful of comparison are made, and this YEC non-scientist thinks that courts actually use ENTIRE GENOMES....

Lets see.... The original consortium to sequence the human genome took more than a decade and a couple of billion dollars*, but sure - you want to know if you have to pay child support? Take it to court and they will pay to have not only YOUR genome, but the genome of the kid in question sequenced...

I am truly at a loss of words for the sheer desperate stupidity this Christian 'truthseeker' exudes at every turn....

Wow... maybe I will rebut the other dopey lies in this post at some point, but do I really need to at this point?


*it is much cheaper and less time consuming now, but that is BECAUSE of the heavy reliance on algorithms to assemble the data...

 

[tas8831]

Reading only your reply, I know that this is in reference to the flat earther, electric universe, 'increased diversity via inbreeding' superstar himself.. Asians,...huskies... blah blah...

His entire argument is hogwash. Nothing in it is valid.

This nonsense about 100 breeds of dogs is useless in supporting his point. Dogs actually refute his claims. He is another that believes and cannot bring his beliefs in line with the evidence, so he has to force the evidence to fit his beliefs.

You are correct. There is greater diversity in dogs than their was in the ancestral population of wolves from which they sprang. This is obvious, considering the variety of traits expressed in dogs and the very different behaviors, environments and conditions that dogs exist in that wolves could not.

The choice of dogs as his example falls flat on its face no matter how doggedly he hangs onto that bone. Dogs are artificially selected and those that do not meet the requirements of the selection are not reproduced. So there is a lots of variety that is not apparent due to the goals of the breeding program. Dogs have traits that no wolf has. He makes his claims based on the appearance of dogs, without review of other characters unrelated to how they look.

I doubt he is capable of doing more than what he has shown us here.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Going by your standard of evidence:

There are no documents that Adam and Eve "even existed"? (Hint: OT.)

You have a story. A claim.

There are no witnesses claiming to have known Adam and Eve, and reported on their movements? (Hint: See the NT.)

Yep. No witnesses. No bodies. No bones. No DNA. No anything.

Of course there are! Your REAL issue is you don't believe the biblical documents are reliable.

Biblical documents contain claims that need verification via some sort of evidence.

Please be clearer next time with your skeptical inference.

I was as clear as can be. There is no evidence that Adam and Eve existed as the first two people, at all. You have claims in the form of old stories. A claim that many Christian themselves do not take literally.

If you have evidence that Adam and Eve existed as the first two people, please feel free to provide the evidence.

Have you given up on the claim that Judaism/Christianity are the world's oldest religions?

 

[tas8831]

I would expect as Noah’s sons and their families separated and interbred, that those with Asian features would breed only with those with Asian features and so those features would become set.

Where did Asian features come from in the first place, since you say that Asian mates with Asian and only Asian features are produced (or whatever circular gibberish it is)? Obviously, Noah's sons all had only middle eastern features, are you claiming that one of their wives was Asian? If so, where did she come from? How did she get Asian features in the first place? In only 9 or 10 generations? Who begat these Asian women when the ONLY people alive at the time were all descendants of the clones Adam and Eve?

I find it stunningly hilarious that despite all of your unwarranted confidence in your ignorance, you cannot even meld your bible tales and your naive pseudo-science sufficiently to cover up the glaring internal inconsistencies and self-refutations.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Where is it that Jesus claims to have known Adam? That was your original claim.

Since you didn't read my post with care, I will spell it out for you, the pre-existent creator, Jesus Christ (do you want verses on his pre-incarnate creation acts and existence?), created Adam, and since Jesus claimed no one has seen the Father, Jesus was the one in the Garden interacting visibly with Adam and Eve, and many others throughout scripture.

 

[BilliardsBall]

My belief in God and acceptance of Christ does not require that everything in the Bible be literally true. Even if I were to believe it all happened the way it is described--I know could not, but if--there is no known way to objectively verify that. Functionally, it is as if it is allegorical and metaphorical.

There is no known way to determine if document authors were factual, literal and honest? I disagree.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Since you didn't read my post with care, I will spell it out for you, the pre-existent creator, Jesus Christ (do you want verses on his pre-incarnate creation acts and existence?), created Adam, and since Jesus claimed no one has seen the Father, Jesus was the one in the Garden interacting visibly with Adam and Eve, and many others throughout scripture.

That is merely reinterpretation. One has to ignore what Jesus said about himself to believe that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There is no known way to determine if document authors were factual, literal and honest? I disagree.

Wow! You are correct. There are many ways to know that parts of the Bible are wrong. But calling it a "document"?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Since you didn't read my post with care, I will spell it out for you, the pre-existent creator, Jesus Christ (do you want verses on his pre-incarnate creation acts and existence?), created Adam, and since Jesus claimed no one has seen the Father, Jesus was the one in the Garden interacting visibly with Adam and Eve, and many others throughout scripture.

That is stretching interpretation and does not answer the question. The correct answer is, Christ did not make the claim you assert.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There is no known way to determine if document authors were factual, literal and honest? I disagree.

You really like falling on straw man arguments. It is no wonder your credibility is constantly in question. I spoke of content and did not mention the authors. I do accept that there were authors.

You can disagree with my statement or your own straw man all you wish, but that is not evidence against my statement or in support of biblical infallibility. I know what you believe. I also know you cannot demonstrate that belief objectively.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That is merely reinterpretation. One has to ignore what Jesus said about himself to believe that.

It is a trick. He has a problem with honesty.

 

[tas8831]

LOL! This guy...

Of course - why would it be? The only people that use BLAST to assess genome-wide % identity that I am aware of are creationists in their desperation.

Lol, creationists use BLAST because that is what evolutionists use.

Really? For analyses?
Then it should be easy for you to provide a real paper in which evolutionists use BLAST as their sole program in assessing % identities in phylogenetic studies. As I explained to you before, The only times I use BLAST are in looking for Primer sites or to look for 'new' sequences in databases to use in analyses. All of the phylogenetics analytical packages I know of have their own pairwise sequence outputs. But sure, you keep thinking that Tomkins and pals did just what real scientists do.

They just use more realistic numbers.

How do they use these numbers you speak of? What makes them more realistic? Do you mean when Tomkins had to retract his initial low numbers because he had used a buggy version of BLAST? Or are you referring to the script he wrote to constrain returns to only 100% matches in his little chopped up bits of sequence?

At least Jay Wile had the sense to update his blog post adoring Tomkins with this:

NOTE: Based on comments below by Glenn (who is mentioned in the article) and Aceofspades25, there are questions regarding the analysis used in Dr. Tomkins’s study, upon which this article is based. Until Dr. Tomkins addresses these questions, it is best to be skeptical of his 88% similarity figure.​

Aren’t you tired of spreading PR junk yet?

Projecting already? Amazing...

Better question - why do you think that BLAST is the only thing ever used in the study of evolution?

Oh it’s not, you got other random matching algorithms that are just as pseudoscientific.

Really? Tell us all about them. Pick 3 - explain to us what in these phylogeny programs use "random matching algorithms".

Try these first:

https://www.geneious.com/academic/#1545182810291-c00b8530-87f6
Alignment and Tree Building
Perform pairwise and multiple alignments using trusted algorithms, including MAFFT and ClustalW. View and edit alignments with real-time translation and highlighting.
Build phylogenetic trees using peer-reviewed algorithms, including RAxML and PAUP*.​

You see, you cannot get SEQUENCES to compare using little chopped up bits like Tomkins did.

But how would you even know?

Where did you get the 2% margin of error?
What "proven test" are you referring to?

You just said you were aware BLAST wasn’t used in a court of law to prove relationship. Now you don’t know what is suddenly????

What does your statement about a 2% margin of error or "proven test" have to do with BLAST and courts of law?
Courts do not use BLAST, so what is the 2% margin of error you wrote referring to? Don't you even know?
Or is that just another one of your made-up things that you are trying to avoid addressing?

Except in a court of law the genomes are compared side by side, loci by loci, not by matching by algorithms. You should be ashamed of yourself for intentionally trying to mislead people.

That is the more absurd, naive, ignorant, uninformed thing I have ever seen you write. Maybe, hard to tell any more.

I knew you were clueless about science - your every post screams it - but to claim that courts use WHOLE GENOMES in their assessments of evidence.... I mean... absurd, naive, ignorant, uninformed doesn't begin to truly describe it.

You don't know what RFLP is? I shouldn't be surprised, I guess - you thought "continuous variation" referred to the accumulation of mutations.... LOL!

In reality, the DNA testing methods admissible in court HAVE been used to assess phylogeny and guess what - same results!

Phylogenetic relationships among Homo sapiens and related species based on restriction site variations in rDNA spacers

"We mapped restriction sites in “the external and internal spacer regions and compared the arrangements of sites. The estimated sequence divergence betweenHomo sapiens andPan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo pygmaeus, Hylobates lar, H. agilis, andMacaca fuscata was 2.7, 2.3, 3.8, 7.3, 6.8, 7.8, and 14.1%, respectively. The genetic relationships inferred from these distances generally correspond to those inferred from analyses of other mHelp with a genetics claim...olecular markers in the literature."

The thing is, these court-approved tests are not quite as informative as are other means of assessing phylogeny, and they utilize relatively little data.
Projection - one of your more endearing qualities.

Yes, matched using algorithms.

And? I thought you were some kind of computer technicians or something - do you not know what an algorithm is or something?

Then they only used restriction site variations, I.e. they cut up the genome and only used portions of it.....

Oh FFS....

THAT IS WHAT IS USED IN COURT!!!!!!

The example I gave was to show that the methods used in court - that you seem oddly both 100% ignorant of and totally in support of - CAN be used to look at phylogeny!

But thanks for proving even more that you are totally ignorant of the very things you pretend to be able to assess and argue about. Chopping things up is what RFLP is all about - it is what is used in courts- the F refers to "FRAGMENT". Ugh...

I really suggest that in order to stop making yourself look like a 50 year old baby all the time, you start actually reading TO LEARN about these things, rather than just reading YEC websites and pretending and pontificating. On second thought - keep it up!

Aren’t you tired of misleading people yet just to spread your PR???

And out comes the projection.

Do evolutionists have no shame?

What do we have to be ashamed of?

We are not the ones that use 'algorithms' in ways they were not intended to in order to prop up silly middle eastern myths.
We are not the ones that pretend to understand science but make it clear on a near daily basis that we do not, by writing things like "allie" instead of allele, or claiming that "genetic strand" is a real scientific term, etc.
And we are not the ones on the one hand praising the techniques used by courts to test genetics (RFLP) and then dismissing them when an example is shown in which those same 'approved' techniques were used to assess phylogeny.

Not quite as informative? They seem to be informative enough to show relationship and guilt of a suspect, without having to use algorithms to randomly match portions....

Ah, so you ACCEPT the results of the study I provided in which the same technique was used to assess phylogeny of primates.
Or are you going to make a fool of yourself again by saying otherwise?

without having to use algorithms to randomly match portions....

Oh, never mind.
It is so precious how you keep repeating that lie as if it means something. Well, it does - it means that you are happy to embarrass yourself as a liar for Jesus, but I mean a man shouldn't do that sort of thing,.

What you meant to say was they would show chimps weren’t even rated at all..... so we will downplay their importance....

I cannot parse that gibberish - the same technique used in court showed chimps related to humans, so you have just shot yourself in the foot yet again, ala 'the genetic strand' (among others).

But keep it up - by your fruits we know you creationists.

 

[BilliardsBall]

You really like falling on straw man arguments. It is no wonder your credibility is constantly in question. I spoke of content and did not mention the authors. I do accept that there were authors.

You can disagree with my statement or your own straw man all you wish, but that is not evidence against my statement or in support of biblical infallibility. I know what you believe. I also know you cannot demonstrate that belief objectively.

The authors of the Bible were factual, honest. They make large claims. You also make large claims--that you can personally discern where they speak literally or allegorically. If I understood how you critically read the Bible, I could begin to address your questions for me regarding infallibility.