Zoo,

My son had a question and a reply to your latest:

You said this.  Notice the highlighted. 

Have him explain the parts in bold from the quote above. 

He wrote a very unscientific statement.  While experimental data is very objective, the interpretation(s) of data is highly subjective. Any active research scientist knows this. 

To say that there's only one way to interpret data doesn't even make any sense. To further illustrate the point, here's a good example from the scientific literature: a phenomenon called "mossy fiber sprouting" occurs in the hippocampus of patients and animal models of temporal lobe epilepsy. Some scientist believe that mossy fiber sprouting causes the development of seizures (i.e. sprouting plays a causitive role) while other scientists believe that the development of seizures causes mossy fiber sprouting (i.e., sprouting plays a compensatory role).  You have one piece of data (i.e. mossy fiber sprouting in seizure patients) and two separate and opposite but equally valid interpretations of that data.

Which group of scientists are correct?  Both groups claim that the entirety of the "evidence" favors their interpretation. How can this be?  It is because each person interprets the data according to his or her previously held bias and presupposition. This is the same idea in the evolution/ creation debate: the data stands alone as objective truth. The interpretations of the data are subjective.   Based on bias and personal presuppositions one will interpret the data as evidence for evolution or one will interpret it as evidence for creation. 

This really isn't a difficult concept to grasp, so I don't know why he doesn't get it yet.

exactly Lula, but we don't really want to go there now do we if we are out to criticize the NT? 

The NT evidence is overwhelming.  There are over 5,000 manuscripts (5,366 to be exact)  to compare and draw information from, and some of these date from the second or third centuries.  To put that in perspective, there are only 643 copies of Homer's "Iliad" and that is the most famous book of ancient Greece.  No one doubts the text of Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars", but we only have 10 copies of it and the earliest one was made 1,000 years after it was written.  To have such an abundance of copies for the NT from dates within 70 years of their writing is amazing. 

no because the men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit said so....and they were able to prove it with not only their very changed lives in service for God but also the gifts that God had enabled them with.  The bible is just a group of history, writings and letters bound together and called a "bible" 

Also Jesus said so.  He spoke of the whle OT, its central division, its individual books and even its letters and parts of letters as having divine authority.  He called the Scriptures the Word of God.  He said they had been written by men moved by the Spirit when he said, "David himself said in the Holy Spirit" and refers to events "spoken of through Daniel the prophet."  Prophet of who?  In such statements He confirms the authorship of the most often disputed books like Moses writings, Daniel, Isaiah and the Psalms.  He also refers to the very miracles which critics reject as historical events.  He cites the Creation, Adam and Eve, the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and Jonah etc.  Jesus also promised the NT would come by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.   So, in effect Jesus did write the bible.  He used men as instruments much like we use pens as our instruments.  Different colors and styles of pens give us a different flavor but the author is always the same. 

Paul at one time severely rebuked Peter because his beliefs weren't matching up with his actions.  Yet later Peter quite honestly wrote (guided by the HS) that Paul's writings were to be included with the other scriptures.  He said specifically:

"As also in all his (Paul's) epistles speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrestle, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction."  2 Peter 3:16

There is a great deal of evidence that suggests that the Bibles we read today are extremely close to the original, inspired manuscripts that the prophets and apostles wrote.  This evidence is seen in the accuracy of the copies that we have.  Such reliability helps support the claim that the Bible is valuable as a historical account as well as a revelation from God. 

Sorry, KFC, this is a false assumption and a dodge.  And your analogy about competing scientific theories does not support your argument.  Evolution & intelligent design (creationism) are not competing scientific theories.  Only one of the two is a valid scientific theory, the other a set of beliefs based on an unprovable document.  Such attempts to baldly elevate creationism to something it isn't are common, as if the logical fallacy in those attempts didn't exist.  It is an intellectual blind spot the size of the Earth, frankly.

We have had this argument before.

The difference between Darwinism and Creationism is that Darwinism can be demonstrated in a lab and Creationism cannot.

And all the denial and lies of Creationists cannot change that fact.

of course they are when it comes to origins.  There are two views of origins.  One says that everything came about by natural causes; the other looks to a supernatural cause.  In the case of the universe either the universe had a beginning or it did not.  If it did, then it was either caused or uncaused.  If it was caused then what kind of cause could be responsible for bringing all things into being?

Evolutionary scientists have told us that the universe either came from nothing by nothing or that it was always here.  As a Creationist I don't have to tell you how we believe.  But it would most definitely compete with what  Evolutionary Science believes to be true. 

Two competing theories.  Here's a list of Creationists who Founded Modern Science showing that both Science and Religion are NOT polar opposites.

Kepler-Astronomy

Pascal-Hydronstatics

Boyle-Chemistry

Newton-Physics

Steno-Stratigraphy

Faraday-Magnetic Theory

Babbage-Computers

Agassiz-Ichthyology

Simpson-Gynecology

Mendel-Genetics

Pasteur-Bacteriology

Kelvin-Thermodynamics

Lister-Antiseptic surgery

Maxwell-Electrodynamics

Ramsay-Isotopic Chemistry

not when it comes to origins...you can't. 

Evidence for Intelligent Design:

"When I entered the office this morning I noticed a strange construction (I thought), which looked like two rooms with double doors that opened when I pressed a button. The rooms were not immediately obvious to me since the doors failed to open until quite some time after I pressed what looked like the doorbell."

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/322411/Evidence_for_Intelligent_Design

Creationism lab experiment:

"2. A big or mid-sized all-powerful god. (You can use a Greek or Roman god or a Semitic god, I don't care; please refrain from using Hindu or native American gods if possible to make the experiment easier to reproduce. Darwinists use fruit flies because they are easily obtained and well-understood. But I don't know much about Hindu gods.)"

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/314483/Experimental_Creationism

Difference between scientific theories and fairy tales:

"Let's use a different example, with a real world and a lab. We are trying to find an explanation (a "theory", if you will) for the facts we observe.

Our fact: In our real world in this thought experiment we observe that the smurfs are born in the basement of the house (there is only this one house in our thought experiment real world) but that some of them live in the first and second floors of the building.

Two explanations for how they get from the basement to floors 1 and 2 come to mind:

1. They use the stairs.

2. They are moved from the basement to the first and second floors by a creator or some such person."

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/312059/Theories_and_Fairy_Tales

You are absolutely and completely right there.

But it's unimportant because Darwinism doesn't claim to explain the origins of life, only the origins of species (i.e. why life consists of many different species).

There is no scientific theory that I know of that tries to explains the origins of life and what hypotheses there are are not _theories_ and cannot be demonstrated or verified in labs.

(And the same is true for any mythological explanations for the origins of life.)

KFC, seriously, that is a _lie_.

Evolution and darwinism make no statements about the origin of the universe or life. And I told you that so often, I cannot imagine that you really don't remember that whenever you make such a statement!

Those people are hardly "Creationists". Most of them lived before Darwin, before there was any scientific theory on the origin of species to object to.

Science and religion are not polar opposites, but Creationism and science are.

Many, many religious people, including the vast majority of American rabbis, the Pope, Lutheran leaders, Church of England leaders and so on understand and promote the theory of evolution. Only Islamic fundamentalists and some Christian fundamentalists promote Creationism (and Scientologists, as far as I understand their "myth" about where we come from).

Is it a "myth" if it's only 50 years old?

Scientology proves that atheists can be just as irrational and unscientific as (and more so than) any theistic fundamentalist.

The theory of evolution has nothing to do with and makes no claims about how life originated, only how it evolved.  Another dodge - continuing to talk about apples and oranges as if they were the same thing does not make them so.

And no matter how many times you claim otherwise, the Bible does not constitute scientific evidence for anything, not even origins.

yes and no.  But one goes with the other.  In fact you know the title of Darwin's book right?  Origin of what?  How about Carl Sagan who said "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." Isn't that origins?   Evolutionists also teach that life first began as a result of chemical reactions in what Darwin called a "warm little pool." 

oh yes they were.   Some lived before Darwin and some after and evolution was hardly new with Darwin.  He just made it popular.  Evolution is really a very old view that has naturalistic philisophical roots coming from the ancient Greeks.  Charles Darwin entered the picture and provided a mechanism to make evolution work beginning with matter alone.  He called it natural selection.  Much of what Darwin taught has been rejected and surpassed by modern evolutionists but the doctrine of natural selection has been maintained. 

No, it would be more correct to say Creation and Evolution when you're speaking of origins are polar opposites.  I'd agree with that.  I have no problem with evolution when it speaks of man evolving within their own species. 

I agree and would consider them quite liberal in their thinking changing with the wind (tumbleweed comes to mind).  I say, truth doesn't change and creation is the same today as it was back thousands of years ago.  These leaders believe in what is called Theistic Evolution which is, they have tried to marry Darwin with Moses and it just doesn't work.  It's contradictary. 

to some extent you're right but it does come into play because there are those evolutionists believing in what they believe do try to throw origins in the mix like I quoted Sagan and Darwin above.  You can't have one without the other. 

There is science in the bible.  What we don't have is Scientific detail.  The scriptures are very clear that God is behind the Science and it leaves man to try and figure it out.  As I listed above many Scientists have, with their many discoveries, still keeping their Creationist beliefs intact. 

No, to every extent I am right (about this).  Darwin chose a term (On the Origin of Species) and used it in a context totally different than the one you imply.  He did not write a book on the origin of life.  And Sagan never 'threw origin into the mix' either.  The 'how' of the universe & evolution on Earth may be knowable, but the 'why' is unlikely to ever be 'known' - we can absolutely have one without the other.  This is another dodge commonly employed - insisting that both the how & why must, as a condition of discussion, be intextricably connected as a way of conferring legitimacy on an argument where no legitimacy exists (scientifically speaking only).  'Why?' can't be scientifically tested and will forever remain a matter of faith.

Daiwa

 Darwin didn't write a book titled "On the Evolution of Man" but one titled " On the ORIGIN of species," Darwinian evolution technically does not explain the origin of life.   It begins after the formation of the first living cell. Darwin intentionally remained publicly silent on this subject.

for example,

First addition of the book contained this statement:

"I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

Second addition of the book added this to the end of that statement: "by the Creator"

Third addition of the book removed the whole statement.

It's almost like Darwin was going back and forth about whether he should "throw the Christians a bone." but for the most part he tried to keep out of this controversy. He wrote: "In what manner the mental powers were first developed in the lowest organisms, is as hopeless as how life itself first originated. These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by man." (Descent of Man, chapter 2, 1871).

HOWEVER, evolution is intrinsically connected to the origin of life. You can go back and back and back in the ancestrial lineage, but you eventually need to come to the begining- life from non-life. thus, Darwinism forms the basis by which modern science theoreticizes the origin of life from non-life. for this reason RICHARD DAWKINS wrote: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (The Blind Watchmaker, 1996 p.6)

AND

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe." (Forward to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith, 2000 p.xv)

Darwin definately understood that the evolution of species was connected to the origin of species. He wrote the following in a letter to Joeseph Dalton Hooker, 1871:

"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine (sic) compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were found."


Abiogenesis (term coined by TH Huxley in 1870) is the study of life from non-life. it is technically separate from evolution but completely connected to it at the same time.   Evolutionists separate the origin from evolution.   Creationist tend to combine the two ideas.

In the end, evolution is one part of a naturalistic worldview.  Every worldview answers five fundamental questions:

1) Where did life come from? (origins)

2) What does it mean to be human? (identity)

3) What is the purpose of life? (meaning)

4) How should I live? (morality) 

5) What happens after I die? (mortality).

Evolution is part of a worldview that attempts to answer these questions through a purely naturalistic point of view. Evolution and creationism as hypotheses are either equally scientific or equally unscientific.

Richard Dawkins understands why the origins debate is vital to both of these two worldviews. For this reason he wrote: "A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims." (You can't have it both ways: Irreconcilable differences? Skeptical Inquirer July 1999).

Neither view (evolution or creationism) has been scientifically proven. There are scientists who represent both sides of the argument.   You can't refer to one as faith and the other as science.   And the debate is decided at the level of origins- both sides agree on natural selection.  Either God created life or he didn't.   For this reason, evolutionists typically explain that the first step in the descent into atheism is to believe that there is no Creator.    Thus, this issue is deeply rooted in one's personal worldview.

Lying to yourself is never healthy.

But as you have taken a nice vacation, I guess that means from information in general - or you would not be spouting discredited talking points (you really dont need to call yourself senile - unless you are, but then how would you know you are?).