Posted on 09/29/2003 7:09:06 AM PDT by DittoJed2
No, after satellites started collecting space dust directly, they adjusted their "presuppositions" down to 1/50th the size of Pettersson's original wild guess which YEC's still throw around as an authoritative figure. I'm truly surprised, after all the times this bogus argument has been beaten to death here and elsewhere on the net (even AiG publically renounced it!), that you still use it.
It's a similar set of presuppositions that suffered when the lost squadron was found. Now all we need to do is wait for the "adjustment."
But it's you who need to change your "presuppositions". You think it snows 5' per year in Greenland's interior, where they take the ice cores from. Didn't you read any of those posts today?
Our consciousness, yes. Our universe "coming from mindlessness"? Well, I have no evidence that the universe as a whole is anything but mindless anyway. If you mean it in the sense that there was no "mind" behind the existence of either the universe or our conscious selves, then no: I have no reason to think there was any.
When I say that the atheist believes the part is greater than the whole, I am basically saying that the atheist should believe himself or herself greater than where they believe they came from… Now back to point, it is incumbent on the atheist to prove that all came from mindlessness just as it is for a theist to prove ID. For the record, I am for letting science advance but my problem is the motive science currently has… aka prove mindlessness only.
But the claim that there is some unseen, undetectable person behind it all is the extraordinary positive claim. The mundane, default claim is that there is no such thing, because we don't detect any such overarching supernatural person in the course of our normal existence. So I have no burden to prove my negative, mundane claim. The burden's on you to support your non-obvious, positive claim.
I'm truly surprised, after all the times this bogus argument has been beaten to death here and elsewhere on the net (even AiG publically renounced it!), that you still use it.
Guess what? I didn't use it. We weren't discussing the age of the moon based on the amount of dust. We were talking about calibrating, as you put it, a "wild guess."
I would appreciate if you'd either cut back on the caffeine take some time off before you post to me again. Your nerves are shot.
When are evolutionists - wiccans - liberals ... going to find their own country --- lesser america !
separate post ... link !
To: Hermann the Cherusker
**Your claiming of those Deists as Protestants proves my point that Protestantism doesn't really care what a man believes, and certainly not if he believes in Christ or not, so long as it is not Catholicism. **
Thank you for the opportunity to post this. Note only one Catholic..
Denominational Affiliations of the Framers of the Constitution
Dr. Miles Bradford of the University of Dallas did a study on the denominational classifications that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention accepted for themselves. Contrary to myth, the following list, published by Bradford, indicates that only 3 out of 55 of the framers classified themselves as Deists.
Note: only those Denominations whose Confessions of Faith were expressly Calvinistic at this time have been identified as "Calvinist" denominations. While many "Old-School" Lutherans and "Whitfield" Methodists at this time would have identified themselves with a Calvinistic view of Predestination, their affiliation has for the sake of charity been assumed to be non-Calvinist.
New Hampshire
* John Langdon, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nicholas Gilman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
Massachusetts
* Elbridge Gerry, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Rufus King, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Caleb Strong, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nathaniel Gorham, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist Connecticut
* Roger Sherman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Johnson, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Oliver Ellsworth, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
New York
* Alexander Hamilton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* John Lansing, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
* Robert Yates, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
New Jersey
* William Patterson, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* William Livingston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jonathan Dayton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* David Brearly, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Churchill Houston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
Pennsylvania
* Benjamin Franklin, DEIST
* Robert Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Wilson, DEIST
* Gouverneur Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Thomas Mifflin, QUAKER
* George Clymer, QUAKER
* Thomas FitzSimmons, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* Jared Ingersoll, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
Delaware
* John Dickinson, QUAKER
* George Read, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Bassett, METHODIST
* Gunning Beford, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jacod Broom, LUTHERAN
Maryland
* Luther Martin, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Carroll, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* John Mercer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McHenry, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Jennifer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Virginia
* George Washington, EPISCOPALIAN (Non-Communicant)
* James Madison, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* George Mason, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Edmund Randolph, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Blair, Jr., EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McClung, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* George Wythe, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
North Carolina
* William Davie, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Hugh Williamson, DEIST
* William Blount, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Alexander Martin, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Spaight, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
South Carolina
* John Rutledge, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist * Pierce Butler, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, III, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Georgia
* Abraham Baldwin, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Leigh Pierce, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Houstoun, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Few, METHODIST
327 posted on 09/30/2003 9:47 PM PDT by RnMomof7
Aw, Creationist tactic 103, he changed the subject again.
Too bad, I was hoping he was about to learn something about snow and ice layers in Greenland and finally quit posting those foolish lies about the dating methods.
see, you are already accusing me of something that I have not done. Your bias is showing. As a Christian, and as a student of the Word of God, agnosticism is incomprehensible to me. I'm just trying to understand how you can be an agnostic Christian, because I have never heard of anyone , other than people pretending to be Christian, say, for the perks of belonging to a church or something, socially, or because their family expects them to be. I'm just perplexed
Really? The Design Theory has been around for quite a long time. A majority of the people believed that life came from intelligence because it was self evident and obvious to them. Pssst… and a majority still do. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that science rejected an ‘undetectable person behind it all’. ID was self evident to science as well as societies in general. Science rejects ID – not people.
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
Scott Todd, 'Nature" 401(6752):423 9-30-99
Let me explain:
Let us say the universe is truly mindless and life is springing up left and right all around us without reason. A race of people from another galaxy invade our planet, destroy, devour, and leave. This race is void of emotion due to their mindless evolutionary process. Now, explain to me why and how what they did was wrong or evil. What truth could you offer this race? Do you think they would call you an ‘emotional creationist’ for believing in morality, truth, free will, and joy?
You see, in a mindless universe, you are the ‘emotional creationist’ because… hey, where else does it exist? Why would you expect it to exist anywhere else? Obviously you should be amazed that these things seem to exist at all – heck, for that matter, that you exist.
Let’s say that in some distant galaxy, due to some bizarre chemical reaction (mindless mind you) that rock-like creatures develop consciousness. They can’t reproduce, move, see, or communicate with each other to even know they are surrounded by others just like them – but they are conscious and don’t die. After billions of years, they want to die but they can’t. Hey, it’s just another creation from a mindless universe. It is not right or wrong – it just is… They do get to ponder ‘stuff’ longer than we do though…
So, lets get back to what the atheist and ‘current’ science is spreading as the gospel:
…. and on the 3 billionth day, nature accidentally puked forth chemicals, looked upon it and said, “this is neither good or bad, it’s just chemicals, and I shall form these chemicals in no specific image and without intelligence”.Now, the atheist knows this is only an allegorical story because… hey, nature doesn’t speak. That would just be ridiculous because nature is mindless. Yes, and since this is purely allegorical, one must look beyond the text and discover its inner meanings and lessons to us all – whatever that means in the whole scheme of things.
Then plants, insects, fish, and man evolved from this puke without intelligence, each according to its own inane kind.
So if you believe this burden of proof is on me to prove to you what the majority see as obvious, you are wrong. You are responsible for your own beliefs. I cannot make you see or believe anything and never thought I could.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
I believe you have your choice and right to believe that there is no ID behind it all. But if you are stating that my claim is ‘extraordinary’ and yours’ isn’t – you prove it.
But the claim that there is some unseen, undetectable person behind it all is the extraordinary positive claim. The mundane, default claim is that there is no such thing, because we don't detect any such overarching supernatural person in the course of our normal existence. So I have no burden to prove my negative, mundane claim. The burden's on you to support your non-obvious, positive claim.
Really? The Design Theory has been around for quite a long time. A majority of the people believed that life came from intelligence because it was self evident and obvious to them. Pssst… and a majority still do. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that science rejected an ‘undetectable person behind it all’. ID was self evident to science as well as societies in general. Science rejects ID – not people.
But personal incredulity stemming from ignorance of the subject matter does not equal self-evidence! Two hundred years ago ID was still a live possibility. Heck, a young Earth was a live possibility! Until Mendelian genetics was successfully married to evolutionary theory, Lamarckianism was still a live possibility.
Even today, millions of people play the Lotto because the "obvious" conclusion is that their number is due.
While many may have a hard time wrapping their minds around this concept: it does make quite a lot of sense as it would eliminate the assertion of creation ad infinitum, which is not really a very feasable notion since the notion of creation ad infinitum would not be a plausable explaination. But if the Source or God himself is a non linear being, then there would exist a point of creation & infinitum all at once. Since God is "eternal" while the universe appears to be finite: this sheds light on the nature of His creation as contrated with His own nature. To further illustrate this: imagine God's life span as going in a constant circle ( ie: non linear ) while creating the universe with a life span which goes in a straight line ie: linear. God's own point of creation is obscured by the non linear nature of his existence which in essense is suplanted by eternal natuer of his continued existence. Just as when one paints a circle on a canvass with a brush: the point of origin is obscured by the painting over of the continuated motion of the brush following the same pattern.
While human life & the universe in general follows a straight linear path where origin & demise can be measured. This would expain how God's origin can not be measured or acertained as it would have been suplanted by his own continued existence. Similar to recording over the same cassette tape over & over.
OK: What "other way" would that be? Let's hear them. Evidence for the Creator lies in the fact that His creation exists -& with midboggling mathematic prescision.
Maybe it's a causality loop -- thus it started itself (and will start itself again and again).
This is not a plausable explanation as the universe is demonstably linear. Thus heading towards an ultimate demise of which its ability to start again would be most unlikely. The universe has a finite life span.
There are two problems with this. First, you're asserting intelligence without demonstrating it;
The universe demonsrates it itself. The fact that the design of sacred geometry is present in just about everything is one powerful demonstration of intelligence.
Sacred geometry is based on pure mathematical principles. It is beyond religion and doctrine, yet many of its principles have been adopted by different religions in their architecture and art. Through the centuries, architects around the world have used the same geometric principles to build their temples, monuments, cathedrals and other sacred structures, intended as symbolic models of the universe and the self. The art of Islamic mosaics, the Eastern and Western mandalas, the basket weaving patterns of the Pacific Islands... all describe various processes of creation, expressing them according to the cultural influences involved. We live in a mathematically ordered world. All actions on the physical plane obey distinct mathematical laws. All existence exteriorizes itself through harmonic economy. From the dance of atoms to spiraling galaxies, every type of growth and motion is governed by the same set of laws. Sacred geometry describes these laws through a language of number, angle, shape, form and ratio (relationship). It is a universal language of pure mathematical truths based upon the inner workings of nature and the inherent qualities of the circle and sphere.
Sacred geometry is a blueprint of creation. It graphically describes the self-organizing processes of nature. It gives evidence of an inherent order that pervades the universe. In certain respects it may be contemplated as a mathematical representation of the Mindset of the Creator.
second, you're assuming that the intelligence -- yet to be demonstrated
It is demonstrated every single moment. It is certainly demonstrated through sacred geometry & the mathemoatical prescision of the universe.
-- is the result of a "god" rather than a perfectly "natural" entity.
The problem is that you act as if these are two separate things. The fact of the matter is that God IS a perfectly natural entity! Seems you believe in the atheist's faulty paradigm which claims that God & nature are supposedly part of a zero sum equation. God is not some distant aloof "extra-natural" isolated enclosure. God is a natural entity who is a part of every molecule of the universe as well.
First of all: I am not "asuming a gender". God for one: does not have a gender. Since there is no neutral pronoun in the English language: scholars are stuck with using He. Note also the He is capitalized. Signifying the elevated status of it refering to an entity that would natually be above human based pronouns. I would have used a neuter or neutral pronoun if there existed such in the English language as there does in fact exist neutral pronouns in other languages.
Also:
One likely explanation for why the masculine pronoun He is used in referance to God is probably due to the fact that man is once removed from God while woman was purportedly twice removed -at least according to the Bible (ie: Adam was fromed from the Earth while Eve was formed from Adam). Thus the referance to God as He was likely started even before there was more than one gender. IE: when there was still only a he: Adam.
Therefore it is not a matter of "asuming a gender" but simply the risidual reality of the original nomenclature.
So you have such complete knowledge of the working of the universe to make such a proclamation? Perhaps you could share your monumental insights with the rest of us.
No. The fact that the universe is linear is a matter of pure obsevation. Are you claiming that there exists some areas of the universe that are non-linear? Perhaps you could share that information with the rest of us. Though I suppose Black Holes might indeed qualify as such.
When did geometry become "sacred"? Because people can find where patterns emerge?
Ha ha ha ha ha. No. Geometry is not "sacred". What I was refering to was Sacred Geomerty. The word sacred is not being used as an ajective but as a noun. Geometry & Sacred Geometry are two very different things. Sacred Geometry is not ordinary one-dimensional geometry, but rather the notion of predictable designs within designs (& multi-demensional ) which are complex but consitant formulas & (purportedly) tend to promote energy feilds which were formerly the domain of "esoteric" knowledge.
Your website
It is not "my" website.
assumes its conclusion and uses geometry to prop up this assumed conclusion.
Wrong. In fact it relates the prevelance of Sacred Geometry within the design of the universe. Which itself is a dead giveaway to intelligent design of the said universe.
It doesn't work when speaking to someone who hasn't already assumed the conclusion, though.
So did the universe intricately design itself all by itself complete with the use of complex formulae? That sounds more absurd than the notion of intelligent design.
Okay, but this definition conflicts with the definitions of "God" (or "god") that I've been given by other theists.
Theists are simply the gatekeepers of a theology. The true defintion of God can be found through natural forces & observations of the nature of the universe. The theists seem to be doing their best in perpetuating a false conception which tends to be somewhat antithetical to the true nature of God.
Why should I accept yours over theirs?
Well it is not "mine" per se. But simply the conclusions reached from observations.
There is no specific "atheist paradigm".
Except for the notion that God does not fit anywhere in it.
Atheism is a lack of theism; a lack of belief in a god or gods.
Though atheism can defintely be theistic in its approach & notably when they put their faith in the false god of one-dimensional & limited scientific data.
You have once again imposed your specific definition of a "God" onto atheism, assuming that yours is already established as the "real" deity and that all others can be disregarded.
What "others" are you refering to? The Annunaki of Sumer? The flying serpants of India? The Great Spirit of the Amerindian cultures? The Dragons of China? The "descending gods" of the Voleros of Mayan culute? The mythological gods of Rome & Greece?
It doesn't work that way,
Indeed. It doesn't work to impose an atheistic opinion in the face of contradictory evidence & that it be given special consideration above all other theories.
it's incredibly arrogant for you to insist that your "God" be given special consideration above all others without cause.
"My" God? God would logically be everyone's God. I nor any individual has a monopoly on the relationship with or understanding of God.
That begs the question then -- how did it all get here? Your God couldn't have created the entirety of the natural universe if God himself is a completely bound within the natural universe.
God could indeed have done so when considering the fact that the universe is essentially part of Him. The universe afterall would have to have been created out of his own essence & being. Furthermore: He is not "my" God. (as you are implying multiple realities that everyone has their "own" god). God would naturally be the God & Creator of all. Since God would have had to have created the universe out of Himself: everything & everyone would have to logically be part of God as the source of the creation.
I've only met one atheist who claimed to be so and really was so, he was a very gentle, kind and good man. He would only mention that he was an atheist if it was relevant to the subject being discussed. He was an atheist to his core, but he acted like a Christian should act, and I always thought the world of him.
All the other atheists I met were just a bunch of losers who were mad at God for one reason or another, and in the end could be judged to be bigger believers than professed ones.
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