Does anyone else find creationism insulting to God?

[cxsx]

zorn, God said he made man from dust. i guess it takes a scientist in some lab to tell you that the human body is basically just water and dirt.

Isaiah 40:22 tells us the earth is not flat but a round sphere. The prophet states God “sits above the circle on the face of the earth.” The word for circle in Hebrew, is translated sphere or roundness. The Bible had refuted the flat earth theory long before scientists actually disproved it. The atmosphere is a terrestrial blanket making the earth inhabitable -- retaining heat, spreading light, providing air.(Job.26:10) Only someone who could see it from off the planet would be able to know this.

there's more examples here:
http://www.letusreason.org/Apolo6.htm

but i'm sure they wont be the right kind of examples, i'm sure they'll be flawed. cos like i have a deaf ear to evolution, y'all have a dear ear to creation. there will never be a meeting of the minds, and i'm content with that.

man, i read one of the best essays about evolution vs. creation last night and today i'm going to read part 2.
if anyone's interested :
http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/apologetics/evolve1.html
and
http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/apologetics/evolve2.html

 

[PGTips]

there's more examples here:
http://www.letusreason.org/Apolo6.htm

Boy, oh boy, where to start with the errors in that one. That page either claims "Science says....." then says something either dubious, incorrect or something science once said because the Church deemed it so.

Science tells us the speed of light is decaying, the magnetic field is collapsing, the earth is slowly beginning to wobble on its axis, the protective ozone layer is thinning....God predicted the earth would wear out

Light's speed is not considered to be decay except by very very few, and the evidence is extremely tenious. The magnetic field and rotation wobble are not the result of the Earth "wearing out", they are natural cyclic behaviour. The Earth's magnetic field disappears, then reappears every 200,000 years or so. Its happened thousands of time. The ozone layer is thinning due to Man. Infact, it naturally repairs itself, the Earth regenerates it.

So that kills the "The Earth is wearing out" claim.

when it does speak on nature or physics it is absolutely accurate

If you cannot see the incorrectness in that, then you're blind. The Bible claims Pi is 3. Thats wrong. Numerous other incorrect claims are below ....

The word for circle in Hebrew, is translated sphere or roundness.

So the Bible claimed the Earth was a sphere, but people thought otherwise? Bollocks. How convenient that once people discovered the Earth was a sphere suddenly it becomes "Oh, you can translate that word as sphere, as well as round".

“And He walks above the circle of heaven.”
the word meaning circle, circuit, compass that is our atmosphere around the earth

That passage says nothing about the atmosphere.

If the earth was 10% larger or smaller all would die.

Wrong. Flies have been discovered at altitudes exceeding 5miles, so they can live at thin atmospheres.

We are in a fragile balance before the sun between frying and freezing.

While the atmosphere plays a part in moving heat around the globe, its thickness does not imply that we'd burn up or freeze if it was 90% its current thickness. That is wrong.

“The wind blows to the south and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits with wind returns.” This was unknown to man, today science has documented the direction of wind currents and wind paths.

Plenty of winds don't go just south to north. So there's another error in nature's description.

Ancient science taught a geocentric view of the universe

Can someone remind me, I forgot what the Church's view on the Earth's place compared to the Sun was up until about 1900? I had the crazy notion that the Church used to lock people up for saying that the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe. Perhaps I'm just confused about why Gallelio spent the last years of his life under house arrest?

Job 38:22 mentions the treasures of the snow. Each flake is of perfect dimensions and all are different. The snow is beneficial for nitrogen for fertilizer.

Pray tell, how exactly does the Bible tell you snow is good for nitrogen?

Job 38:31 explains the solar system. The Hebrew speaks of a pivot or hinge. In the South-Southwest is the Pleiades, 7 stars making up the center of the solar system. Amos 5:8 states the Pleiades consists of 7 stars but it was only discovered in this last century because with the naked eye one can see only 6.

Crazy me, I thought our solar system only had one star, that big ball of light in the sky we call the Sun. Besides, I'm still confused on what the Church's view of the Earth and Sun's position in the solar system was. I thought they locked people up who challenged the vierw the Earth was the centre of the universe?

Besides, at last count, I thought there were 9 planets? Sounds like the Bible fucked that one up too.

Job 40:15-24 speaks of the Bohemoth and Leviathan, are what we would know as dinosaurs at the living in the same time as man

Shame you can carbon date human remains from 6000 years ago, but dinosaur remains are so old you cannot carbon date them. Dinosaurs and Man didn't coexist.

Psalm 139:13-16 poetically describes the value of the DNA molecule in the formation of the unborn child

Can you quote this passage for me, somehow I don't beleive the claim.

'the wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course' is an accurate and astonishing description of the circular flow of air around the earth, called the 'jet stream,

Jet streams blow east/west. Not particularly astonishing a description then.

Today knowledge doubles every two weeks.

Evidence?

Rom.1:20 explains Atoms. Tells us that things seen are made from the invisible things

Please quote the passage, I don't think it does explain atoms.

A good portion of our modern science was founded by creationists

Because the majority of people they list were born into eras where religious belief was near total. Does this invalidate their discoveries?

Every single one of those "The Bible describes..." is a matter of hindsight. Science has discovered something, and someone finds a passage in the bible which sounds like it and claims it always knew about the new discovery. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and in that case the passages are so vague or lacking in any kind of detail that its quite clear its hindsight at work, and the Bible is not describing anything.

man, i read one of the best essays about evolution vs. creation last night and today i'm going to read part 2.
if anyone's interested :
http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/apologetics/evolve1.html
and
http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/apologetics/evolve2.html

You probably call it "one of the best essays" because it is quite clearly written by someone with exactly the same view as you, with no intention of arguing both sides properly, instead just recycling the same all flawed arguments about "OMG Evolution is crap" that Creatonists have. Doesn't the fact the second article ends with "May the Gracious Lord give us all the wisdom to discern the Truth of His Holy Word." suggest just the tiniest hint of bias from the author? If you haven't got that far yet, then surely the website its hosted on tells you its going to have an agenda?

The wonderful thing about evidence for evolution is its scienfitic. If you want to, you can travel to a part of the world, dig up fossils yourself and reconstruct a vague picture of development yourself. Reading the Bible relies on you accepting the person who translated it's choice of translation. The very fact the article I just ripped apart says things like "..which can be translated as sphere or round" tells you any English translation can be biased.

What always makes me chuckle is when I'm in a library or bookshop and I see "New Revised Edition Bible" and I think "Why is it revised? Surely it was correct before? Have they noticed a few mistakes they have edited out?" The numerous versions of the Bible tells you there's huge ambiguity in it. Hence my original statement about how little I consider the Bible a proper source of information.

 

[Jert]

Why are you guys bothering to try to change cxsx's mind? You are not going to be successful. He's not going to finally say: "Oh you, know , you guys are right, you've changed my mind with your well thought out, rational arguments."

cxsx is happy with his self-delusional world view. If you believe in the stupidity of creationism, it is a faith thing, not a logical/intelligent understanding of existence.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Absolutely. Read my conception of what God is in Sylvan Wanderer's recent thread about drugs and religious belief.

I think Creationism:
* perpetuates faulty notions about what God is and how God works
* does a great disservice to mankind by hindering scientific advances that could ease a lot of human suffering
* preys upon the gullible and uneducated, so that they'll be putty in the hands of greedy leaders
* gives believers an excuse to be arrogant and self-righteous

That said, I think the ancient Middle Eastern creation myths have great value, as a tool for understanding how Middle Easterners (and Westerners, who borrowed a lot of their culture from the ancient Middle East!) see the world and their place in it. I think a lot of these stories contain hidden references to real historical people and events long forgotten, so they have value to historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists too.

For example, I am convinced that the Garden of Eden was the once-lush eastern Sahara. The Tree of Knowledge is a reference to the discovery of farming. And getting cast out of the garden was accomplished by ruining the thin soil there with primitive and inefficiant farming techniques, forcing humans to leave Africa and settle the Middle East.

 

[Hyperion]

I honestly don't care about changing his mind regarding his religious beliefs, I just have a serious problem with him slandering scientific discovery by saying that it's just a "faith."

If he believes that science is just based on faith, that it's just a religion, then he shouldn't be using a computer, television, cell phone, airplane, etc.

 

[michael]

Why are you guys bothering to try to change cxsx's mind? You are not going to be successful. He's not going to finally say: "Oh you, know , you guys are right, you've changed my mind with your well thought out, rational arguments."

oh, no doubt; however someone else 'on the fence' so to speak may read it and see how silly an idea creationism really is.

 

[elemenohpee]

I think Creationism:
* perpetuates faulty notions about what God is and how God works
* does a great disservice to mankind by hindering scientific advances that could ease a lot of human suffering
* preys upon the gullible and uneducated, so that they'll be putty in the hands of greedy leaders
* gives believers an excuse to be arrogant and self-righteous

That said, I can;t sit by and say nothing. If we didn't challenge these ideas they would stay around forever. I'm hoping that if just one person can read what we're saying and see the logic in it, then we're headed in the right direction. If it happens one person at a time then so be it.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

 

[PGTips]

Why are you guys bothering to try to change cxsx's mind? You are not going to be successful.

This is true, but as Micheal says, this should not preclude us from at least offering up reliable information contradicting his view, should there be people reading who are not sure of their view. Perhaps in some time in the future Cxsx's faith will be shaken somehow, and remembering things like this, where it was put infront of him information contradicting his views, then perhaps that will plant the seed of doubt about his Creatonist view.

I'm not trying to get him to throw aside his faith, to denounce God and put it all down to a stupid idea, far from it. Many people find their faith aids them, but there comes a point where the benefit "God's love gives me strength to continue" is marred by the ignorance caused by "And I believe every single word of the Bible literally, and think Evolution has no evidence at all", because it is a case of closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears and humming real loud, like a child who has lost an argument but doesn't want to acknowledge it.

 

[Christian Soldier]

Why it's pointless to try to argue this with Christians:

- We know that you cannot limit God.



Revelation 22:13  · I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

- We know Satan will try to deceive us from God's true Word (hey, he even tried to deceive Jesus by misquoting scripture, like some do in here).



Matthew 4:6  · And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

- We know you will mock us for our beliefs.

Job 12:4  · "I have become a laughingstock to my friends, though I called upon God and he answered, a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless!

Hey cxsx, welcome to Bluelight, nice to see more Christians around

 

[recreational loser]

I see intelligence in the way nature behaves. And we are all part of it.

 

[elemenohpee]

Why it's pointless to try to argue this with Christians:

We know Satan will try to deceive us from God's true Word.

How do you know he hasn;t already done that? The Bible was written by men, how do you know that they weren't influenced by Satan?

 

[Christian Soldier]

We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

And the answer to your next question is, Faith.

 

[Raw Evil]

Which would make it incredibly funny if the Bible did indeed turn out to be the work of Satan and not G_d...

 

[Christian Soldier]

Yeah, boy my face would be red %)

 

[elemenohpee]

So why take the risk of worshiping Satan when you could just be an agnostic? Surely God couldn;t punish you for being cautious?

 

[PGTips]

^ I've had that discussion with Christians on other forums. Jesus said ""I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." therefore if you don't accept Jesus as your saviour when you're about to die, then you don't get into Heaven. The people I spoke to said (after I hammered it out of their vague Bible quotes) that it doesn't matter how nice a person you were, if you don't truely believe in God when you die, you ain't getting pass those Pearly Gates.

Of course if you've been a serial rapist, but have repented and accepted Jesus you stroll right in, which I couldn't accept as "just", but they said it was because God had a higher perspective on things than me.....

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^^^ Exactly, alpha. That "only way" bullshit is the oldest trick known to merchants. Ever been told by a salesman, "Go ahead, walk away. But I guarantee you'll never find what I'm offering you anywhere else!"?

Islam, Christianity, and Hinayana Buddhism (in that order) have historically had THE BEST marketing teams of any belief systems.

I have deepest respect for any faith or philosophy that isn't into proselytizing at all. There's something more genuine about the community -- I get the sense that more of the people are there for the right reasons. Wicca is like this, although it's not really my cup o' joe. In some of the bigger religions, it's easy to point out some poor schmuck and say, "Yep, he sure bought the party line!"

By the way, happy 8000th post, AlphaNumeric!

 

[Hyperion]

I love being lectured by people regarding a book written by my ancestors in a language that I have spent more time studying than most people would to get an undergrad degree, about how they have the unvarnished true interpretation. It's hilarious.

But regardless, faith is an individual thing, and people are free to believe whatever they want. Science, on the other hand, operates under the idea that ideas should match up to observed facts, and that observation and experimentation are the best method for determining the validity of a hypothesis. "I believe this, therefore it is true," is not a valid scientific explanation. It certainly works from a faith-based perspective, but in science, one requires proof, evidence, observed phenomena, testable hypotheses, experiments, etc. When the fossil record has disagreed with a scientific hypothesis, the hypothesis is revised. Evolution, as a theory, agrees with the observed fossil record. New discoveries are of course causing scientists to observe different methods by which evolution occurs (ie gradualism vs. puncuated equilibria), but that's how science works. No theory or hypothesis is considered divinely inspired or accepted solely on faith. Scientists are always questioning everything. It was Einstein questioning the current theories on gravity and light that brought him to Relativity. It was Gallileo and Copernicus questioning the status quo that showed us how the planets revolve around the sun. But the thing was, they had evidence to back up their theories and hypotheses. Scientists are always questioning theories, and evolution is no different, but so far none of the questioning that they have done has radically disproved evolutionary theory. If it did, scientists would be very excited, because such findings would make a scientist's career if they were true. They'd be printed in the most prestigious journals, prizes would be awarded, etc. But the thing is, most of these creationist "scientists" haven't ever been published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal, because they don't actually do science. Most of them just do politics, like lobbying school boards to change their education standards.

 

[PGTips]

I love being lectured by people regarding a book written by my ancestors in a language that I have spent more time studying than most people would to get an undergrad degree, about how they have the unvarnished true interpretation. It's hilarious.

Just to be clear, my previous post was pretty much a "copy and paste" of other peoples views from another forum, who consider themselves very religious and that was their group opinion/interpretation of the Bible. I've not read it, so I asked them loads of questions about their take on getting into Heaven and that was a summary of what they said. "Don't believe in Jesus, don't get in, no ifs, no buts"

Scientists are always questioning theories, and evolution is no different, but so far none of the questioning that they have done has radically disproved evolutionary theory. If it did, scientists would be very excited, because such findings would make a scientist's career if they were true. They'd be printed in the most prestigious journals, prizes would be awarded, etc.

I think this is what many people who don't "trust" science or believe a wholy (no pun intended ) different thing to the scientific community don't realise. If someone did show, with repeatable evidence, that a large chunk of science was wrong, it would mean that enormous quantities of research would be done in this new area, people would delve into the new ideas with great expectations. As I said to someone in another thread, if someone proved the existance of telepathy, he or she would go down in history and be remembered forever! Noone would cover it up, if they had proof they'd be shouting it from the roof tops.

But then you get into some peoples paranoid conspiracy theories, and its all kept under wraps by the Illuminati, and science is just a big conjob 8(

I have deepest respect for any faith or philosophy that isn't into proselytizing at all.

I have no problem at all with religions who say "If you're a nice person, you'll be rewarded when you die". I don't actually believe we go anywhere when we die, but its a nice sentiment. To say "We're the only way you're getting to go anywhere nice, everyone else gets torrment" smacks of setting out to cause tension between groups of people, and hardly seems like a good way to coexist with other religions (the coexisting of some of the major religions has almost never been amicable ).

By the way, happy 8000th post, AlphaNumeric!

If it wasn't obvious already, I offically have too much time on my hands :D

 

[elemenohpee]

I have no problem at all with religions who say "If you're a nice person, you'll be rewarded when you die". I don't actually believe we go anywhere when we die, but its a nice sentiment.

I have a problem with religions who say this, and I find it sad that people need this promise of a reward at the end to make it worth living a good life. I mean I guess it helps people get by, if you really believe in it then at least you're a good person, not killing anyone or anything. But its something I'd like to see humanity rise above.

To say "We're the only way you're getting to go anywhere nice, everyone else gets torrment" smacks of setting out to cause tension between groups of people, and hardly seems like a good way to coexist with other religions (the coexisting of some of the major religions has almost never been amicable ).

And we're never gonna rise above that with the religions that teach this, which is why I have a problem with them. I completely agree with you on that.