Don't have time for a complete response. Historical timeframe means within the written or oral history of mankind. Depending on who you believe this spans roughly the last 3000 - 7000 years. Times before that are prehistoric. Creationism, as I understand it, assumes a historic timeframe. Science clearly shows prehistoric activity. Thus the contradiction.
And no, the evidence does not lean towards a young earth. The preponderance of evidence shows an universe that is billions of years old. There may be specific exceptions that need explanation, but they don't invalidate the theory of an older earth - they simply are things that need explaining.
Something can be made into nothing...the decay of vacuum into particles is a known event if there is enough potential energy.
And yes, God creating himself is a circular argument. It is only non-circular if you grant God special exemption, which is exactly what begging the question means - assuming the existence of God proves his special properties.
And yes, information can be created from simple rules applied to randomness. Human DNA is not stable - that should be obvious even in a short time frame.
Anyway, I will continue later when I can give your arguments the thought and energy they deserve. I appreciate your responses, though I suspect that given that we are arguing from different axioms and definitions that agreement will be tough.
And BTW, I am also a proponent of ID - and evolution. And really, I have no problem with a Creationist perspective. Just the incorrect statement that it is a scientific (as opposed to faith based) belief.
Creation vs. Evolution: Comparing Apples to Orange Soda
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Adtz
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trashtalkr
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QUOTESomething can be made into nothing...the decay of vacuum into particles is a known event if there is enough potential energy.
I said something cannot come from nothing - not that something cannot become nothing. There is a difference.
QUOTEAnd yes, God creating himself is a circular argument. It is only non-circular if you grant God special exemption, which is exactly what begging the question means - assuming the existence of God proves his special properties.
God didn't create Himself, you're right. So that means he doesn't get a special exemption. You've just got to know the definition of God. God is a supremely perfect being. So, according to Descartes, that would mean that God would exist because a supremely perfect being cannot not exist - or He wouldn't be perfect. God has always been and will always exist. He didn't have to come into existence - He was already there.
QUOTEAnd yes, information can be created from simple rules applied to randomness. Human DNA is not stable - that should be obvious even in a short time frame.
Certain rules applied to randomness? Then wouldn't that mean that it isn't random? If you can apply rules to it, then it is not random. Thanks for proving my point.
QUOTEAnd BTW, I am also a proponent of ID - and evolution. And really, I have no problem with a Creationist perspective. Just the incorrect statement that it is a scientific (as opposed to faith based) belief.
You make it seem like an ID or Creationist position is based soley on faith. It has plenty of science to back it up.
I know I have some texts that support a young earth. I'll bring those to you soon
I said something cannot come from nothing - not that something cannot become nothing. There is a difference.
QUOTEAnd yes, God creating himself is a circular argument. It is only non-circular if you grant God special exemption, which is exactly what begging the question means - assuming the existence of God proves his special properties.
God didn't create Himself, you're right. So that means he doesn't get a special exemption. You've just got to know the definition of God. God is a supremely perfect being. So, according to Descartes, that would mean that God would exist because a supremely perfect being cannot not exist - or He wouldn't be perfect. God has always been and will always exist. He didn't have to come into existence - He was already there.
QUOTEAnd yes, information can be created from simple rules applied to randomness. Human DNA is not stable - that should be obvious even in a short time frame.
Certain rules applied to randomness? Then wouldn't that mean that it isn't random? If you can apply rules to it, then it is not random. Thanks for proving my point.
QUOTEAnd BTW, I am also a proponent of ID - and evolution. And really, I have no problem with a Creationist perspective. Just the incorrect statement that it is a scientific (as opposed to faith based) belief.
You make it seem like an ID or Creationist position is based soley on faith. It has plenty of science to back it up.
I know I have some texts that support a young earth. I'll bring those to you soon
"If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?"
Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard
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Adtz
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QUOTE(trashtalkr @ Apr 17 2007, 01:21 AM) I said something cannot come from nothing - not that something cannot become nothing. There is a difference.
Read what I wrote - vacuum decays into particles - that is in fact something from nothing.
QUOTEGod didn't create Himself, you're right. So that means he doesn't get a special exemption. You've just got to know the definition of God. God is a supremely perfect being. So, according to Descartes, that would mean that God would exist because a supremely perfect being cannot not exist - or He wouldn't be perfect. God has always been and will always exist. He didn't have to come into existence - He was already there.
I assume you meant that a supremely perfect being can not come into existence - he was already there. That logic is based on a specific definition of perfect.
QUOTECertain rules applied to randomness? Then wouldn't that mean that it isn't random? If you can apply rules to it, then it is not random. Thanks for proving my point.
This statement is plain wrong. All sorts of rules apply to randomness. The entire branch of statistics is based on analyzing randomness. No one said the world or evolution is based completely on randomness - simply that there is a random component. Combining that random component with an environmental skew can lead to non-randomness. Let me try a thought experiment for randomness combined with a skew.
Let's say you roll a million dice. Every time you roll a 6, you stop rolling that particular die. Eventually all of your dice will say '6'. Completely non-random. However, the path to get there *was* random and quite unpredictable. It might take you 1 roll (highly unlikely) or a million rolls (also unlikely). In point of fact, it will probably take less than 30 or so rolls to get you there or pretty close.
That's how evolution works. Roll lots of dice. The few that fit well hang around. The rest don't. Occasionally things change, so what's 'fit' changes and lots of dice get rolled again. The randomness is in the process. The results come from the rules, not the individual events. In this case, the rules are a complex interplay of physical laws.
QUOTEYou make it seem like an ID or Creationist position is based soley on faith. It has plenty of science to back it up.
I know I have some texts that support a young earth. I'll bring those to you soon
I don't say it is based completely on faith, but that there is a faith based component at its root. The assumption of God is where things start. From the point of view of science God fails Occam's Razor. He isn't the simplest explanation because He simply can not be handled by science and is thus outside the system of experimentation. Science does not accept anything outside that system until all other explanations have been exhausted. That doesn't mean there is no evidence - just that the evidence can not be claimed to be scientific. A similar statement could be made about Christian doctrine. Buddhist texts talk about not killing. Such could be used as evidence that killing is wrong, certainly. However, such a text would have no weight in a Christian context because the text is not accepted as Canon. The reverse is similarly true. Quoting Christ's teachings to a Buddhist might spark a conversation about similarities and differences, but is unlikely to change his mind about the doctrine of Buddhism.
The same argument applies about Christian doctrine as a basis for scientific theory. Science is *not* about what is true - simply what is observable and can be tested. That's why it's so useful - it is based on the shared observable reality. That is also it's limitation. It can only handle things that fall in that context.
Men's views of God are *clearly* not shared, nor readily observable. All religions require that you accept the context of the religion as a basis and then work from there. There is enormous power in faith, for good and evil. It allows men to accomplish things they simply could not do other ways. However, it does not have a universal shared reality - in reality, that is the whole point. If it did, it would not allow us to unleash the unique components that make up our souls.
That's why I find Creationism so offensive. It attempts to fit Christian doctrine into a scientific context which limits it, because it is so much more than that - and by limiting it, cuts it off from its true power. I find it offensive scientifically because it ignores the shared observation basis that makes science so effective at dealing with the natural world.
The simple fact is that there is no one who believes the young earth theory who didn't start from a religious basis to begin with. I am sure there are certain facts that can not be explained completely by modern scientific theory...but that makes the theories incomplete, not necessarily wrong. Presupposing what you are going to find has the facts being warped to fit the theory as opposed to the other way round. By selective choosing of facts you can make almost any theory work - but that isn't science. However, observations that contradict established theory need considerable proof (i.e. many observers) before a proven theory needs to be revised because all of the prior proof must be considered as well. You can say the process is stupid or flawed - I wouldn't agree, but certainly that is a valid opinion. However, you can't say it isn't science. Also, something that doesn't follow scientific process simply isn't science any more than a book that isn't in the Old or New Testament is Canon.
Listing a set of facts together and calling it a theory is not science. In order for it to be science, it has to be able to be challenged and potentially proven wrong. One can not simply ignore observations that don't fit the theory - one has to explain them - in the context of observation, measurement and Occam's Razor. That's where creationism fails.
And on a personal note - I feel like you are not reading my arguments carefully. Please do so before responding. I could be wrong about this. I understand, perhaps, that you are attempting to enlighten the ignorant - but if you ignore what I say, then I just end up saying it again in a different way, because I assume you didn't understand the first time.
Read what I wrote - vacuum decays into particles - that is in fact something from nothing.
QUOTEGod didn't create Himself, you're right. So that means he doesn't get a special exemption. You've just got to know the definition of God. God is a supremely perfect being. So, according to Descartes, that would mean that God would exist because a supremely perfect being cannot not exist - or He wouldn't be perfect. God has always been and will always exist. He didn't have to come into existence - He was already there.
I assume you meant that a supremely perfect being can not come into existence - he was already there. That logic is based on a specific definition of perfect.
QUOTECertain rules applied to randomness? Then wouldn't that mean that it isn't random? If you can apply rules to it, then it is not random. Thanks for proving my point.
This statement is plain wrong. All sorts of rules apply to randomness. The entire branch of statistics is based on analyzing randomness. No one said the world or evolution is based completely on randomness - simply that there is a random component. Combining that random component with an environmental skew can lead to non-randomness. Let me try a thought experiment for randomness combined with a skew.
Let's say you roll a million dice. Every time you roll a 6, you stop rolling that particular die. Eventually all of your dice will say '6'. Completely non-random. However, the path to get there *was* random and quite unpredictable. It might take you 1 roll (highly unlikely) or a million rolls (also unlikely). In point of fact, it will probably take less than 30 or so rolls to get you there or pretty close.
That's how evolution works. Roll lots of dice. The few that fit well hang around. The rest don't. Occasionally things change, so what's 'fit' changes and lots of dice get rolled again. The randomness is in the process. The results come from the rules, not the individual events. In this case, the rules are a complex interplay of physical laws.
QUOTEYou make it seem like an ID or Creationist position is based soley on faith. It has plenty of science to back it up.
I know I have some texts that support a young earth. I'll bring those to you soon
I don't say it is based completely on faith, but that there is a faith based component at its root. The assumption of God is where things start. From the point of view of science God fails Occam's Razor. He isn't the simplest explanation because He simply can not be handled by science and is thus outside the system of experimentation. Science does not accept anything outside that system until all other explanations have been exhausted. That doesn't mean there is no evidence - just that the evidence can not be claimed to be scientific. A similar statement could be made about Christian doctrine. Buddhist texts talk about not killing. Such could be used as evidence that killing is wrong, certainly. However, such a text would have no weight in a Christian context because the text is not accepted as Canon. The reverse is similarly true. Quoting Christ's teachings to a Buddhist might spark a conversation about similarities and differences, but is unlikely to change his mind about the doctrine of Buddhism.
The same argument applies about Christian doctrine as a basis for scientific theory. Science is *not* about what is true - simply what is observable and can be tested. That's why it's so useful - it is based on the shared observable reality. That is also it's limitation. It can only handle things that fall in that context.
Men's views of God are *clearly* not shared, nor readily observable. All religions require that you accept the context of the religion as a basis and then work from there. There is enormous power in faith, for good and evil. It allows men to accomplish things they simply could not do other ways. However, it does not have a universal shared reality - in reality, that is the whole point. If it did, it would not allow us to unleash the unique components that make up our souls.
That's why I find Creationism so offensive. It attempts to fit Christian doctrine into a scientific context which limits it, because it is so much more than that - and by limiting it, cuts it off from its true power. I find it offensive scientifically because it ignores the shared observation basis that makes science so effective at dealing with the natural world.
The simple fact is that there is no one who believes the young earth theory who didn't start from a religious basis to begin with. I am sure there are certain facts that can not be explained completely by modern scientific theory...but that makes the theories incomplete, not necessarily wrong. Presupposing what you are going to find has the facts being warped to fit the theory as opposed to the other way round. By selective choosing of facts you can make almost any theory work - but that isn't science. However, observations that contradict established theory need considerable proof (i.e. many observers) before a proven theory needs to be revised because all of the prior proof must be considered as well. You can say the process is stupid or flawed - I wouldn't agree, but certainly that is a valid opinion. However, you can't say it isn't science. Also, something that doesn't follow scientific process simply isn't science any more than a book that isn't in the Old or New Testament is Canon.
Listing a set of facts together and calling it a theory is not science. In order for it to be science, it has to be able to be challenged and potentially proven wrong. One can not simply ignore observations that don't fit the theory - one has to explain them - in the context of observation, measurement and Occam's Razor. That's where creationism fails.
And on a personal note - I feel like you are not reading my arguments carefully. Please do so before responding. I could be wrong about this. I understand, perhaps, that you are attempting to enlighten the ignorant - but if you ignore what I say, then I just end up saying it again in a different way, because I assume you didn't understand the first time.
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