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Author | Topic: Genesis: is it to be taken literally? | |||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
citing hovind will get you torn to pieces here, and well, just about anywhere else. he's so bad that scientists just laugh and creationists are ashamed. answersingenesis even says he's full of it.
mostly, we've gotten tired and just send people here: How Good are those Young-Earth Arguments if you want, i'll find a few other places that also refute every argument he's ever made, point by point. but that's a good place to start.
How does one explain "the conservation of angular momentum" not having adverse effects on the evolution theory? i don't see what one has to do with the other. one is physics, and one is biology. that's a fundamental flaw with hovind: he doesn't understand which area of study which, let alone individual fields. if he's debating, well, gravity this time, perhaps he should go read some newton or einstein.
why do entire solar systems spin in reverse if there was a big bag? why do drains swirl the opposite way south of the equator?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
many of his arguments continue to be flawed, even after it's pointed out to him. the idea in creationist circles is that belief comes first, facts come second. in fact, i used to have a nice quote by him that said something like "when facts contradict what we believe to be true, the facts must be in error."
he's great on debating high schoolers, i'll agree. but why does he refuse serious written and moderated debate with educated scientists? i've heard of a few who've wanted to take him on, and none have gotten a chance. the man is hiding. he knows he's wrong, he just doesn't want to admit it. as a side note, i once thought about issuing a challenge to hovind personally: double or nothing on his challenge. if he can demonstrate creation in a lab setting, by creating at will a universe out of nothing, i will personally and gladly pay him twice his current offer.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
What of his arguments that are not flawed? I am sure there are some. no, there are not. i have never seen a good creationist argument. behe came the closest, but he's still pretty far off. hovind... is off the deep end. he's a crackpot among crackpots. if you don't believe me, well, see what you can dig up on answersingenesis about his arguments. even THEY refute him.
His take is that he has debated with many proffessors and many refuse to debate him. he's not interested in debate, he's interested in preaching. from what i hear those infamous debates he HAS had with legitimate professionals were circuses. that's why the request came for a written, moderated, and juried/checked debate. a request which he probably still refuses.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
The day/night cycle is set up in Genesis 1:3-5, so there is no problem of how long a day is. yes, well, there are very old midrashim that interpret this as the literal days it took god to tell moses about the creation. personally, i don't think that's what it's about at all. but people have been reading it in other (literal) ways for thousands of years.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I think this is a good example of what scientific argument requires and serves as a contrast to what Hovind does, and why I find Hovind irresponsible. yes, well, that's also very inaccessible to ordinary person. hovind is a preacher, not a scientist, and i think it's best that we (and his followers) remember that simple distinction. i think hovind himself may be a tad confused on the matter.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Can light accelerate under certain conditions? (that's an honest, not leading, question ~ I would think it could) no, it cannot. the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant. it can however be slowed down by traveling through a medium.
Are you assuming that the Creator of light cannot do things with the light that we do not see it do now that He is done setting the system up? we assume that creator has created a system that operates under natural laws, and that he would not be out to decieve us.
I do not see the Creator bound by ANY laws of physics. no, but his creations ARE.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Insects, like bees, which are necessary for pollenation of plants are created on day 6, the 3rd day after the plants were created (it would be kinda rough on "them" plants, waiting thru one typical evolutionary epoch, let alone two or three, for a bee to come pollenate them). well, hey, god can do anything, right? seriously, this brings up a good point. short the sun/moon being created after light and dark, everything is set up in a hierarchical order in genesis 1. we start with everything being water, and god. god makes light with which to see. then god makes a little bubble in the water, separating the waters. this allows for dry land, which allows for plants, which allows for animals, which allows for man. the problem comes in at genesis 2. man is made first, before plants and before animals. and everything is made on a sort of trial and error basis: first man has plants to grow, but he needs something else. so god makes him animals. but that's not quite right. so god makes him a woman. now, i don't mean to debate these two here. we have another thread for that here: http://EvC Forum: Genesis Creation Stories: Sequence Contradictions? -->EvC Forum: Genesis Creation Stories: Sequence Contradictions? but it does present a problem. while neither jives with evolution, it does suggest that the person who put both stories in the same book, NEXT TO EACH OTHER, didn't care that there problems between the two. so, in short, i do see reason not to take genesis literally. and my evidence is the book of genesis.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
If we can conceive that God is not bound by physical laws, then we have no logical reason to charge Him with lying just because it appears He may have operated outside those laws during creation or any other time. Miracles ~ e.g., the healings Jesus performed ~ would be examples of the Creator operating outside the laws of the creation after the creation event. why bother making physical laws in the first place then? if the universe were mine to create, i would first set up basic rules of its operation; laws it has to follow. this way, i wouldn't have to personally and miraculously intervene everytime an apple falls from a tree: it would be able to happen on its own. in fact, the definition of miracle involves operating outside of natural law. i think it is far more meaningful and powerful to see god as operating USING those laws instead of just breaking them randomly at will. in the book of exodus, god doesn't come down, step into the sea of reeds, and push the water aside with his great big hands. what separates the water? a strong east wind. even the book of exodus indicates that god miracle happen naturally. so the question is not "why can't an all-powerful god break his own rules?" but "why would he NEED to?"
I would consider it most logical to operate outside the laws of the creation during the creation process. That would seem the only way to do the job. no, we have entirely naturalistic explanations, some of which can be currently observed elsewhere in the universe. it is much more sensible to direct logical natural processes than to set up rules, break them, and cover your tracks so that it LOOKS LIKE it was the natural processes all along. why would god decieve us with his creation?
Why lock yourself up in that line of thinking? why lock up god in the book of genesis?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I am certainly interested in exploring this issue, but will have to take it up later. take it up with the people who put both accounts into the book of genesis, because they apperently weren't reading both too literally...
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Is Ford Motor Company lying to its consumers because it doesn't leave wrenches and machining equipment in the engine compartments of its vehicles? No, the tools used to create the vehicle, but which have nothing to do with the operation of the vehicle, are left at the plant! yes, but a custom 2004 ford mustang (sorry, i couldn't resist.) seriously, if you take apart and look the engine block of a car, you can tell what sort of tools were used to make it. the bolts have a hexagon shape, and we can infer that the tool used to tighten them had a hexagon hole. we can tell if the tools were metric or english, with a simple measurement. we can tell how old the engine is by wear and tear, rust, and various other factors. sometimes, we can evem tell the composition and age of the tools used to make it. so we can look at a car and tell with reasonable study if it was assembled in a factory, or hand built. what you are proposing is that this mustang was hand built, brand new, to look exactly like a factory 67 chevelle, including 27 years of wear and tear, with bolts hand-tightened to factory specs, and a thick layer of greese to add to authenticity. now, presented with this car, i'd say it's someone's old pile of junk: a 67 chevelle, factory assembled. not a custom 2004 mustang convertible. hell, it's not even the same company's parts. if ford did do this, well, not only would they be lying to their customers, they'd probably get sued for copyright infringement. (unless they're owned by the same company, which they probably are) This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 11-30-2004 04:37 PM
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
The district manager owns a really sweet 2004 Ford Mustang. Joe and Bob are admiring it one day after the breakfast shift. Both fellows realize that the car was designed by experts and built in a factory under highly managed circumstances. But now Joe starts telling Bob how he would have designed the car and the manufacturing processes. Should Bob be impressed and have Joe build him a 2004 Ford Mustang? ok, now suppose joe is a mechanic. and he presents a problem to bob with placement of the fuel tank and lines, and explains how he would have done it better had he worked for ford. it doesn't neccessarily take a genius to find problems with things. for instance, i routinely break computer software. i should be a beta tester, because i have this innate ability to mess things up beyond repair, very, very quickly. give me a new piece of software, i'll destroy it within half an hour. i've even done this to security software. i'm not a hacker. i'm not a programer. i wouldn't have the first idea how to go about writing some of these programs. but i can find problems with them.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
In the universe, what is the 27 years of wear and tear or the thick layer of grease equivalent to? If it's light speed and star distances...well, I know I'm tired of that subject, too . Are there other lines of evidence? well, the fossil record is one i'm pretty familiar with. it sure looks old to me, and well, just about everyone else. but like someone else said, take that up in the dating forum.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Well, you haven't changed my mind, of course, about Arachnaphilia's qualifications for universe building, but you have succeeded in making me regret that I ever mentioned my opinions on the matter. i may not be qualified to build or repair cars, but given a 67 chevelle and a custom 2004 ford mustang convertible, i can tell you which is which without any doubt in my mind. do i need to be qualified to MAKE a universe to make observations about one?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
So if I write a book and in it claim it's The Truth that makes it, in reality, The Truth. Yeah. personally, i like to claim that i am inspired by god in my refutations of their points. it really bugs the christians, because either i am inspired by god, and i'm right, or god's wrong, or saying "i'm inspired is meaningless" and i'm still right. any which way they lose.
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