Life From Dirt?

[Brian2]

This was in response to, "The world is full of so called 'revelations', they can't all be real because they contradict each other. Why would I believe that a sane, just, and fair god would play silly games of hide-and-seek by hiding its revelation so it looks exactly like a baseless superstition?"

How do you think your response addresses the point being made?

The Bible does not look like a baseless superstition to me, it has history and fulfilled prophecy on it's side.
You work it out.

Irrational people do, yes. Some people are concerned about actually holding rational views, and will weigh out the evidence before drawing conclusions.

Skeptics don't seem to care about the Biblical evidence and ignore it.

You've yet to tell anyone what that evidence is. Is it just Bible prophecies, or something more substantial than "It looks designed to me so the god I already believe in must have done it" ... ? (Logical fallacy)

Design and existence of the universe and life are both evidence, as is the Bible story in it's multiple books.

The "fulfilled propechy" that you've given us from the Bible in the past have been wholly inadequate in making your case.
You still have all your work ahead of you in showing that the god you believe in had anything to do with it.

What "fulfilled prophecy" have I given in the past? There are so many.

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
Found nothing.

What did you expect to find?

 

[Brian2]

The arguments you present for your "beyond reasonable doubt" belief in the god you believe in are riddled with logical fallacies.
And so there is nothing reasonable or rational about the position you have presented to us.
It should be of no surprise to you that people who are trying to be as rational and reasonable as possible would reject an argument built upon logical fallacies (i.e. errors in thinking).

It is not really about thinking and the so called rules of logic that some like to place onto others.
If you want me to obey your rules of logic I won't,,,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe I can't,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe believing in God and Jesus is just not logical.
We should agree to disagree.

 

[Brian2]

Thank you for once again, demonstrating that anything can be believed on faith, and therefore faith cannot be a reliable pathway to truth. Faith is unjustified belief.
You've demonstrated this so many times in this thread, you've pretty much done all my work for me.

It is good to combine faith with reason and look at the evidence for each belief.
People justify their own beliefs, as do you. Neither you nor I have verifiable beliefs about God however.

 

[Brian2]

Such as?

I said something about that in this post.

• #3,291

 

[Brian2]

I really have a hard time attempting to put myself in the place of people who find it "necessary" for life to have been intentionally created.

It is the only reasonable answer imo.

 

[ratiocinator]

The Bible does not look like a baseless superstition to me, it has history and fulfilled prophecy on it's side.

Inaccurate history and claims of 'fulfilled prophecy' have comedy value only. Exactly like baseless superstition.

Skeptics don't seem to care about the Biblical evidence and ignore it.

We don't ignore the supposed evidence, it's just so pitifully inadequate that it doesn't stand up as evidence at all.

Design and existence of the universe and life are both evidence, as is the Bible story in it's multiple books.

What design and how is the existence of the universe and the incoherent, disjointed, self-contradictory mess that is the bible, evidence?

What did you expect to find?

If the result of an investigation depends on what one expects to find, it cannot be an objective exercise.

 

[Brian2]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, but I do understand the theory. I do not ascribe to it any longer in its vast diversion. Meaning I do not believe God created malformations but rather did enable the life process.

For me it is at least plain that God designed the system that enabled adaptation to the various environments. Just what happened after that, I don't know exactly, but it happened as the Bible tells us imo but also imo that does not have to me special creation of each life form or type of plant or animal all the way through.

 

[Brian2]

Because it is so... well, so clearly wishful thinking.

Life is so patently a chaotic thing, arisen out of chaos and ample opportunity for random attempts at reproduction of molecules. And it is all so well evidenced at this point.

If I had any doubts, I would only need to remember things such as progeria and anencephaly to be reminded.

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

 

[ratiocinator]

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

And there is a very good reason why they look designed. It's called 'evolution'. You could actually call it a 'design process' without being technically wrong. It's just algorithmic, so no designer is required.

 

[LuisDantas]

To me life forms look designed and even simple life forms, cells have things in them that are molecular machines with jobs to do and which would have had to exist fully functional from the beginning.

Well, that is just neither what the evidence indicates nor what sounds reasonable.

 

[shunyadragon]

I was referring to irreducible complexity. Sometimes things in biology will not work unless fully functional in a human body.

I gave a detailed description why the claim of irreducible complexity is not a falsifiable claim, and you failed to respond. Science has provided complete falsifiable answers for ALL claims of the Discovery Institute claims for irreducible complexity. and explained how they evolved from simpler forms. This includes everything in the human body, which is not that much different from the rest of the mammals. The Discovery Institute makes this claim concerning the eye. The following gives a detailed description of the evolution of the eye from a simple light sensitive cell which has the sample basic genetics as the complex eye, but simpler.

Evolution of the Eye

Scientists now have a clear vision of how our notoriously complex eye came to be

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Valjean]

According to the evidence the gospels were written not long enough after Jesus to account for the addition of embellishments. Witnesses of the events would still have been alive when the synoptic gospels were written.
Most agree that the resurrection story was proclaimed from the start of the preaching of the gospel.

The additions and embellishments were an ongoing and continuing process. The four canonical gospels were picked by church fathers of a specific sect, from many other accounts. They were highly edited over the centuries .

There are four different stories just in the gospels we have. I believe the Gnostics don't even believe in a physical resurrection.

Perceived by me and possibly the majority of the world's population. IOW God is generally accepted.

An ad pop? An argument from popularity isn't reasonable. Moreover, the "gods" of other cultures vary considerably, many are just invisible people with some superpower. The omniscient, omnipotent, judgemental creator and lawgiver of the Abrahamic faiths is a very unusual take on God, historically.
So this argument is both irrational and incorrect.

Everyone can see evidence for God but some people seem to think that it has been shown by science that God was not necessary in the design and creation of the universe, or just prefer to just say that we don't know and should not believe things that we don't know for sure. But these people believe many things that they don't know for sure.

OK, what is this evidence that everyone can see?
It seems to me people "see" these things mostly in retrospect. They believe what they were taught, usually before the age of reason. They then surround themselves with those similarly indoctrinated. There is no critical analysis involved in their beliefs. It's only when it's challenged that they begin flailing about trying to defend their familiar world-view -- usually badly.

You and others keep talking about evidence. We skeptics keep asking for some, but in the rare instance you actually proffer some, it's NOT EVIDENCE! It's either factually or logically flawed.
Then you go on to complain that we keep rejecting, or refusing to accept your evidence. You're correct here -- because IT'S NOT EVIDENCE!

Their view that God was not necessary is subjective, just like my view that God would have been necessary

No, this conclusion is usually based on the fact that the actions and things attributed to God have actual, known, natural explanations. Rejecting magic and an intentional magician is not subjective. It follows logically.
I challenge you to show me the necessity of a god.

.Evidence for Jesus is part of the evidence for God of course.
Witnesses wrote down their stories and Luke collected stories from witnesses.
So there is evidence from many witnesses and not just someone writing a story.
This is good evidence imo and confirms the prophecies and so that the God of the Bible is real, and the resurrection confirmations show also that Jesus is the one sent by this God.

Even if these legends were true, the stories are apocryphal and the collection hearsay.

Police interviewing first-person, eyewitnesses to a crime or accident, only minutes after, will famously get wildly varying accounts. Witnessed accounts are unreliable. Second hand -- many times -- repetition of hearsay tends to become hopelessly embellished and misrepresented.
Collated collections of 'stories' tend to be edited over the years, especially when there's a strong social or religious motivation.

So no. Biblical scripture is not good evidence. Moreover, many other religions can make similar claims, with more unified scripture.

So there is evidence from many witnesses and not just someone writing a story.
This is good evidence imo and confirms the prophecies and so that the God of the Bible is real, and the resurrection confirmations show also that Jesus is the one sent by this God.
Belief is of course a faith but is faith that you can be rational about. The evidence is there.
But of course it would be irrational to believe every written legend.

Bible stories and interpretations are not good evidence.

 

[Valjean]

The people who became the ones we know as Hebrews existed back then.



No, Moses would not have known the language of the Hebrews as an infant.



I don't think that is known.



The book of Maat came from around 3000 BC and hopefully any laws made by humans would reflect something of what humans are.



It looks like Arkenatan reigned while Israel was conquering and settling down in Canaan in 2nd half of 14th cent BC. (1350-1335)



Why would I want to say Abraham was Egyptian when the story says he came from Ur of the Chaldeans, Mesopotamia.
Why would to circumcision of one family and it's servants by known in history? Even by the time they went into Egypt with Jacob there were only about 70 people.



Moses son had not been circumcised and it is not known if Moses was or not.



So?

Don't most biblical scholars doubt the historicity of Moses?
And the whole Egyptian captivity and exodus stories are demonstrably pure bunk.

 

[Valjean]

Interesting presumption or faith.

What would evidence for ID involve?
What would evidence against ID involve?

An observable mechanic and mechanism. No alternative mechanisms.

Known, familiar, observable, alternative mechanisms. Lack of need for an intentional mechanic. Lack of evidence for same. Lack of proposed mechanism, ie: proposed magic.

 

[Valjean]

False. The Bible is evidence of God and nature in all it's wonder and grandeur is evidence of God.
Science cannot use that sort of evidence or even if miracles happen through prayer.
Science has to ignore any hypothesis that God was involved unless the evidence is such that it can be tested and falsified.
If people want to take it past that and say that there was no God involved that is a faith statement. Science as such does not do that, but skeptics and atheists do it seems, even if they deny it.

The Bible is known even by biblical scholars to be to be riddled with historical falsehoods, factual errors, contradictions, and edits, as well as numerous stories of magical and highly unlikely events.

 

[shunyadragon]

The Bible does not look like a baseless superstition to me, it has history and fulfilled prophecy on it's side.
You work it out.

The fulfillment of prophecy is a subjective claim and to inconsistent. Again the Torah with the prophecies is their book and the Jews reject your interpretation of prophecies. No evidence here of anything.

The extreme subjectivity of the contradictory interpretations makes them "opinions" by definition.

Skeptics don't seem to care about the Biblical evidence and ignore it.

One cannot care or ignore evidence that is nonexistent.

Design and existence of the universe and life are both evidence, as is the Bible story in it's multiple books.

Yes the universe exists naturally, and there is no evidence for design or the Designer.

What "fulfilled prophecy" have I given in the past? There are so many.

None that are consistent and contradictory by different interpretations. Any one interpretation is subjective and unreliable by the evidence. No different than using Crystal Balls, Tarot Cards or Palm Reading,

 

[SkepticThinker]

What I am not saying is that since evolution has not been shown to be factual, that therefore God did it. I am saying that since evolution has not been shown to be factual all the way through therefore if you believe that it is factual all the way through, then it is a form of faith that is not justified except in your own imagination and world view.

Evolution has been shown to be factual. Like, with actual demonstrable facts that are verifiable by anyone, unlike your personal God claims. There is no faith required in accepting evolution. It is a fact of life and the backbone of biology.
No faith required.
Another false equivocation.
Do you have anything to offer besides logical fallacies?

 

[SkepticThinker]

The Bible does not look like a baseless superstition to me, it has history and fulfilled prophecy on it's side.
You work it out.

You've yet to demonstrate any fulfilled prophecy and as far as I can see.

Skeptics don't seem to care about the Biblical evidence and ignore it.

Again, the Bible is filled with claims, not evidence.
I'm more than happy to look at evidence for anything. Because as I keep saying, I want to believe in as many true things as possible, while not believing in as many false things as possible. When I ask you for evidence, I get claims of being able to detect undetectable things and ... faith.

Why don't you care about "evidence" from the Qur'an? Or the Bhagavad Gita?

Bhagavad Gita - Wikipedia​

Design and existence of the universe and life are both evidence, as is the Bible story in it's multiple books.

That's not evidence. Those are CLAIMS.

What "fulfilled prophecy" have I given in the past? There are so many.

Tyre.

What did you expect to find?

I didn't find any god(s).

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is not really about thinking and the so called rules of logic that some like to place onto others.

What is it about then?
Just believing what you want to believe because you want to believe it?

If you want me to obey your rules of logic I won't,,,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe I can't,,,,,,,,,,, or maybe believing in God and Jesus is just not logical.
We should agree to disagree.

They're not MY rules of logic. They're just the rules of logic.

What you're telling me here is that you don't care if your beliefs are rational and reasonable. Great, then there's no reason for anyone else to accept them. And you shouldn't be surprised when they are rejected.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is good to combine faith with reason and look at the evidence for each belief.

You've just demonstrated that it isn't.

People justify their own beliefs, as do you. Neither you nor I have verifiable beliefs about God however.

I justify my beliefs with evidence, reason and logic. The best tools we have available for discerning fact from fiction.