Hi Terry48420
Have had a little trouble finding you after my thread was closed, but your response was so amazing that I wanted to continue the dialog. To review:
In response to my assertion
But then, either the Creator established a world in which bad things happen such as cancer, heart disease, etc., or the Creator is creating them at this time.
You responded
God created things to be perfect. No sickness, death and etc. Sickness and death were introduced into the world at the fall of man when he ate of the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3.
In response to my assertion
2. A similar set of arguments applies to the Intelligent Designer concept.
You responded
I will refer you to a book that may help:
Apologetics Press has a book called "Signs of Intelligence" by William Dembski and James Kushiner. I don't personally have the book, but have heard that it is very good.
In response to my assertion
3. The question of why the explanation of the world in a book written over 2,000 is superior to the accumulated knowledge of some of the greatest minds who have ever lived.
You responded
Because it is the word of God and He should know about these things. Our scientific theories change all the time as new data is found. God does not change
I must say that I find your responses truly amazing.
Re item 1. I would be most interested in a little more detail re how the eating of an apple in the Garden of Eden has led to all of the afflictions affecting humans. Did God just get pissed off and change everything — adding disease, etc.? While I'm not a Bible Scholar, I don't recall anything like that in the Bible
Re item 2, I haven’t read the book, but, if I get a chance I will try as I find irrational arguments interesting (I once read a book by an eminent scientist who argued that the Special Theory of Relativity was wrong because it didn’t make sense — there have been hundreds of experiments testing the theory and none have shown it wrong). But back to ID. The subject of ID made the pages of the Wall Street Journal recently. In response to an article mentioning the first peer reviewed article supporting ID, one respondent wrote
The reason most scientists reject ID is that it fails to add anything to our understanding [of the world in which we live]. Placing any kind of ‘super intelligence in our explanation chain of origins of life simply puts to final question off. If one proposes that some kind of intelligence is behind it all, then one must, in all fairness, inquire into the origin of that intelligence and so on, an infinite regression
I couldn’t have put it better. I would be interested in your explanation of what an ID brings to the party. Given an ID, which we cannot know, we still must figure out how the world works if we wish to make any progress — unless of course we really shouldn’t tamper with the ID’s work
Re item3 — your response here is what I really find most amazing. I find it difficult to believe that you don’t understand that Because it is the word of God isn’t an answer as you have zero proof that he did — it’s the old because is because argument. But, if you really believe that Genesis trumps libraries full of learned books, then you imply that thousands of people are wasting, have wasted their time; that they have been duped by their data, e.g., that the indication of the millions of years of earth’s existence as indicated by radiometric dating is all wrong and those who claim it to be true are either lying are deluded; that the red shifts which show the universe to be immensely large and old are figments of peoples imaginations. Please enlighten this poor scientist as to why the knowledge base that has been accumulated over the past few hundred years is all wrong -- I think this the ultimate hubris. While you are at it, tell me how the book of Genesis explains, for example, the fossil record as I don't think it's mentioned -- not surprising as I don’t think the writers were aware of fossils at the time (but God must have been).
I await your replay
Regards,
Soplar
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