A slightly biased attempt to discredit evolutio...

Originally posted by whodey
Ok, I guess we can only agree that it is accurate enough to base a scienctific discipline such as Biblical archaeology and leave it at that.

I'm not sure that I can completely agree with that at all.

I'm not sure how scientific "biblical archaeology" is.

If they are just trying to investigate things in the bible then that's just science and not really a separate scientific discipline.

My real question about it is if and when they find evidence that contradicts the words in the bible, do they make apologetics to make it fit the bible or do they ask why the bible got it wrong?

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I'm not sure that I can completely agree with that at all.

I'm not sure how scientific "biblical archaeology" is.

If they are just trying to investigate things in the bible then that's just science and not really a separate scientific discipline.

My real question about it is if and when they find evidence that contradicts the words in the bibl ...[text shortened]... o they make apologetics to make it fit the bible or do they ask why the bible got it wrong?

These scientists are in no way religious zealots. For example, the archeologists I talked about that found evidence for the Israelite presence in ancient Egypt and subsequent exodus then turned right around and tried to find naturalistic causes for the supernatural phenomenon described in the Bible such as the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea etc etc. In addition, some Biblical archaeologists have even said that some of the evidence on certain digs contradict the Biblical account in various ways. However, inevitably there are others who disagree.

Just try to google Biblical archaeology and you will find out what I am talking about. All the Bible is to many of them is a road map to digs as well as valuable information from the culture within that time.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
I'm pretty sure they also didn't think Jesus was the son of god too though.[/b]

Interestingly enough, Miamonides conceeded that Daniel 9:24-27 was a calendar that pointed to the coming of the Messiah which happened to be during the time Christ walked the earth. He writes, "Daniel has elucidated to us the knowledge of the end times. However, since they are secret, the wise rabbis have barred the calculation of the days of Messiah's coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the End Times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah." (Igeret Teiman, chapter 3 p.24)

Since they rejected Christ as the Messiah they simply said that the prophesy has been delayed because of the sin of Israel.

Originally posted by whodey
These scientists are in no way religious zealots. For example, the archeologists I talked about that found evidence for the Israelite presence in ancient Egypt and subsequent exodus then turned right around and tried to find naturalistic causes for the supernatural phenomenon described in the Bible such as the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea etc etc. ...[text shortened]... of them is a road map to digs as well as valuable information from the culture within that time.

I did google it and I looked at some things. None of it was conclusive, but then I didn't put much time into it so I'm not really drawing any conclusions.

As I've said before, there are things in the bible that can be scientifically verified and if they are trying to do that then that's fine. I wouldn't consider it all that impressive that it was established by it.

I was just concerned that it was something like Ken Ham's Answers in genesis organization that says to "put your bible glasses on" before you investigate anything scientific - meaning that he says we should always interpret everything to verify the bible and if it doesn't verify the bible then either ignore it or twist it to fit.

The odd thing I find about finding naturalistic reasons for things like the parting of the red sea and the plagues is that it makes god somewhat less impressive..after all, he then wouldn't have been intervening on anyone's part. It just removes the miraculous aspect of the story.

Originally posted by MattP
You are using the fact that we cant explain everything in the universe, and suggesting that is proof for God - [b]clear negative proof being used there as you are implying "unless you can prove that it wasn't god, it must be have been him".

As I mentioned in my previous post, scientific knowledge is independent of humans - in fact if there were no human ...[text shortened]... the Earth is flat.They simply cannot be reasoned logically or arrived at independently[/b]

I'm saying explaining everything with God makes as much or more
sense as saying everything can be explained without God, you want to
argue we will just split hairs. I'm implying that seeing the universe,
and the life within it is evidence God, as much or more so than saying
that seeing the universe and life within it is evidence that there is no
God; as a matter of fact I believe it speaks more for God being real
than it does against God being being real. The argument that
there isn’t any evidence for God can only be made by those
that do not want to acknowledge God certainly can be in the details
even more so than anything or one else.
🙂
Kelly

Originally posted by MattP
You are using the fact that we cant explain everything in the universe, and suggesting that is proof for God - [b]clear negative proof being used there as you are implying "unless you can prove that it wasn't god, it must be have been him".

As I mentioned in my previous post, scientific knowledge is independent of humans - in fact if there were no human ...[text shortened]... the Earth is flat.They simply cannot be reasoned logically or arrived at independently[/b]

"As I mentioned in my previous post, scientific knowledge is independent of humans..."

The only way that could be true, was if science and humans did not
require one another. Now reality, does not depend on humans to be
what it is, but science without a doubt does.
Kelly

Originally posted by MattP
Kelly,

Thank you for addressing my points - you have clearly taken time to read and understand my points and your reply has addressed them properly. This is very much appreciated 🙂

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but please read it as it contains reasoned responses to the views you have set out.

However, you are still using negat ...[text shortened]... are simply made up, they are the local/cultural superstitions. Nothing more.[/b]

"Moreover, because you have an existing set of beliefs BEFORE looking at an unexplained phenomenon, you are predisposed to fabricate an explanation which fits them. Science does not do this, as conclusions are formed AFTER observations. In other words, religion sets out with the answers and looks for the questions which support them; science starts with questions and finds the answers. "

I was under the impression that science was filled with predictions,
and that was one of the strong points of science, if that is so, than
seeing and looking for something to verify ones beliefs is indeed part
of the picture within science as well. It does not mean that what you
were looking for means what you think it does, only that you could
be looking for something and find it. Science starts with people
and ends with people, reality is the only thing that does not require
our beliefs about it, it will be what it will be.
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…There was no before, uh right. You have a start of a process, the
big bang, and there was nothing, null, na da BEFORE the big bang and
that is, science? …(my emphasis)

What is “na da”? -I cannot find it in the dictionary.

There was no “BEFORE” the big bang. To extrapolation from observation that the universe is expanding as well as rse began with a big bang and time started at this big bang is not “faith”, it is just science.[/b]

Kelly "…I'd say you have stepped in a huge pile of faith here … "

Andrew "You are wrong. Extrapolation from observation that the universe is expanding as well as extrapolation from relativity and quantum mechanics and certain mathematical equations that the universe began with a big bang and time started at this big bang is not “faith”, it is just science."

I have to ask you, "...and time started at this big bang..."
You observed this, you measured this, or is that just something you
believe to be true? I can see a model being put forward that starts
with a big bang time started, but that does not mean that time did,
only that you model does. Our beliefs do not always reflect reality.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Kelly "…I'd say you have stepped in a huge pile of faith here … "

Andrew "You are wrong. Extrapolation from observation that the universe is expanding as well as extrapolation from relativity and quantum mechanics and certain mathematical equations that the universe began with a big bang and time started at this big bang is not “faith”, it is just scienc at time did,
only that you model does. Our beliefs do not always reflect reality.
Kelly

Hey Kelly,

I dont really understand your issue with the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory (BBT) is acknowledged as not accounting for the "creation" of the universe. It is simply a theory for how the universe developed immediately after it "began".

More to the point, scientists realise that the BBT does not account for everything we can observe and several modifications have been made to it (such as Inflation Theory), however, and this is the important bit, scientists know that BBT is not complete, they recognise it's short fallings and are researching to try and find a better version. This is not the way religion works! Religion gets an idea and sticks with it no matter what, religion is closed minded and ignorant of facts as it does not readily change. The point of science is it readily changes and is not simply based on traditions.

Also, I must stress that BBT does NOT claim to provide an answer for "where the something came from". It mealy describes the behaviour of "the something" once it had come into existence.

Think of it like this:
Picture a balloon. Now imagine the universe is the surface of the balloon. The BBT lets us know how the balloon inflated, it is perhaps analogous to understanding the gas/pressure laws that are responsible for inflating a balloon when you pump air in. IT DOES NOT try and explain the origin of the balloon.

SO you cannot criticize it with "Where did the dense object come from? where did it come from, you cant get something from nothing" - as it does not try and explain that DUE TO NO EVIDENCE BEING AVAILABLE.

[b]This is not evidence for the existence of God. As I mentioned in my previous posts, just because we dont know the explanation of something does not mean that a god did it. It does not make sense to assume it was God in the absence of evidence otherwise, as to do so assumes that God exists, for which there is no evidence.[\b]

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm saying explaining everything with God makes as much or more
sense as saying everything can be explained without God, you want to
argue we will just split hairs. I'm implying that seeing the universe,
and the life within it is evidence God, as much or more so than saying
that seeing the universe and life within it is evidence that there is no
God; a ...[text shortened]... edge God certainly can be in the details
even more so than anything or one else.
🙂
Kelly

I can see your point, but it is not logical. It starts from the assumption that there is a god - this has no evidence.

Your argument starts with the assumption that there is a god, then observes things and decides that there must be a god afterall - it is circular and depends entirely on your original assumption. If you had originally assumed there were 100 gods, each responsible for a different thing, you would then observe the universe and come to conclusion that there are 100 gods. If you had originally assumed that there was a Magic Mother Earth Sprint, or a Powerful Elvish Overlord, you would have come to the conclusions that they existed!

Do you see my point? Why is your religion the correct one?

There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER for god, because to see the evidence for him you need to have already come up with the fact that he exists. This is not true of science - people had no idea that light was quantised into photons until it was observed in experimentation (photo-electric effects etc...).

Originally posted by KellyJay
"As I mentioned in my previous post, scientific knowledge is independent of humans..."

The only way that could be true, was if science and humans did not
require one another. Now reality, does not depend on humans to be
what it is, but science without a doubt does.
Kelly

No Kelly, if there were no humans (or life of any kind for that matter), the universe would still work in the same way.

This is not true of religion, if there were no humans (or life), then there would be no religion.

My point about "science being independent of humans" is that we arrive at the same scientific conclusions whoever does the experiment. If people with totally different personal beliefs did the same experiments, they would come to the same conclusions. If we had to "re-learn" all our scientific knowledge after some disaster, we would come to the same conclusions. If life on a different planet - with a different (or even no) religion preformed experiments they would come to the same conclusions as us.

This is because science is based on repeatable, corroborated evidence. Science is dependant only on the laws of nature - it does not matter who does the science, or what the person doing the science personally thinks. Science is removed from humans as it is a measure of how the universe works and is done in a repeatable way.

Originally posted by KellyJay
"Moreover, because you have an existing set of beliefs BEFORE looking at an unexplained phenomenon, you are predisposed to fabricate an explanation which fits them. Science does not do this, as conclusions are formed AFTER observations. In other words, religion sets out with the answers and looks for the questions which support them; science starts with que the only thing that does not require
our beliefs about it, it will be what it will be.
Kelly

You misunderstand me - but I was not very clear to let me explain it in more detail.

Science is based on repeatable, observable evidence. A scientist will come up with a hypothesis and then test the hypothesis with experiment.

The hypothesis is usual based on some observations/evidence already available, it has not simply been "made up" like religious ideas have.

However, sometime a scientist will have a moment of genius and come up with a hypothesis that is not based directly on existing evidence (like Einstein or Plank). BUT, The hypothesis is acknowledged as not being confirmed and efforts are made to test it. The hypothesis is NOT assumed to be correct until proven otherwise - if evidence does not back it up it is scraped. This is NOT true of religion, where ideas are simply made up out of thin air, no attempt (or sometimes flawed attempts) are made to prove them correct and negative proof is relied on (the "if you cant prove it wrong it must be right!" argument is used.)

Yes predictions are important in science. But predictions are made based on evidence, the predictions are not simply made up because someone wants it to be like that - they are based on observed evidence and on the understanding that has been obtained from previous experiments. The predictions are not assumed to be correct - they are then tested experimentally to gather observations which either back them up of refute them.

So, to make it clearer then I did last time, this is what I meant when I said " Moreover, because you have an existing set of beliefs BEFORE looking at an unexplained phenomenon, you are predisposed to fabricate an explanation which fits them. Science does not do this, as conclusions are formed AFTER observations. In other words, religion sets out with the answers and looks for the questions which support them; science starts with questions and finds the answers. ":

Religion ASSUMES it's ideas are correct, and asks people to disprove them. Science does not assume it's hypothesis or ideas or predictions are correct, it acknowledges that they have not been confirmed and then actively tries to get evidence to prove OR DISPROVE THEM.

Religion gets unfounded, irrational ideas from out of thin air. Then insists that they are 100% correct unless they can be proven to be 100% wrong.

Science starts from the default position of "We dont understand this phenomenon - perhaps it works like this......" where the "this" is arrived at based on existing knowledge. Science then tests the idea and is perfectly happy to have it disproved - for then science just moves on to another hypothesis and repeats the process. Religion on the other hand does not move on - it blindly keeps claiming to be correct - even when proved wrong, because religion has assumed from the beginning that it is correct.

I hope this clarifies things. I would like to point out that I am not having a dig at you personally - just pointing out the differences between religion and science generally. I am interested to hear your response to this, as other religious people I have spoken to about this subject often refuse to accept it and try to claim that religion works in the same way as science but just "gets different answers" - a notion which, I hope you agree, is just plain silly!

Originally posted by KellyJay
Kelly "…I'd say you have stepped in a huge pile of faith here … "

Andrew "You are wrong. Extrapolation from observation that the universe is expanding as well as extrapolation from relativity and quantum mechanics and certain mathematical equations that the universe began with a big bang and time started at this big bang is not “faith”, it is just scienc at time did,
only that you model does. Our beliefs do not always reflect reality.
Kelly

…I have to ask you, "...and time started at this big bang..." You observed this, you measured this, or is that just something you believe to be true? .…

As you must already well know, I have already answered this more than once. I wasn’t there in person to observe the big bang. And, as I already clearly indicated, the fact that the big bang happened comes is deduce from extrapolation which is indirect observation. So it isn’t merely just I “just something I believe to be true” as you said but it is something I believe to be true because it is based on evidence. I answer all your questions but you deliberately don’t answer some of my questions in order to just deliberately put me on an endless circular argument where I endlessness answer your questions so that you don’t have to answer any of my questions that you don’t want to answer.

Earlier in this thread, I asked you some questions on this that you still refuse to answer. In one of my previous posts I said:

“Are you questioning the validity of “indirect observations” in science?
If so, then if you lived back in the time before man-made space satellites that can take pictures of the round Earth but when finally scientist came to the inescapable concluded from various observations that the Earth must be round and not flat, then if there was a layman back then who claimed the Earth is round as a result of knowing scientists have come to such an inescapable concluded from their observations, would you have criticise such a claim from that layman by asking him: “You have observed the Earth is round, just checking?”

If indirect observations are invalid then quantum mechanics is invalid because knowbody has ever directly seen an atom or a photon etc -which means if indirect observations are invalid then the transistors in microchips shouldn’t work and modern computers should never work.”

-there are two questions there in the first paragraph in the above you still haven’t answered.
If you will never answer some my questions, I hope you would at least have the decency just to tell me which ones.

… I can see a model being put forward that starts with a big bang time started, but that does not mean that time did, only that you model does.…

No. It does not mean that time did started then. The start of time is PART of the model because both time and space are mathematically modelled by the model -time isn’t merely a side-thought here.

…Our beliefs do not always reflect reality. …

-and they would be less likely to reflect reality if they are based on blind faith.

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
The odd thing I find about finding naturalistic reasons for things like the parting of the red sea and the plagues is that it makes god somewhat less impressive..after all, he then wouldn't have been intervening on anyone's part. It just removes the miraculous aspect of the story.[/b]

As do I. However, if you are faced with the truth that the stories in the Bible are based in truth via digs and objective analysis but approach the whole affair from a perspective of unbelief then what choice do you have?

Originally posted by MattP
Hey Kelly,

I dont really understand your issue with the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory (BBT) is acknowledged as not accounting for the "creation" of the universe. It is simply a theory for how the universe developed immediately after it "began".

More to the point, scientists realise that the BBT does not account for everything we can observe a otherwise, as to do so assumes that God exists, for which there is no evidence.[\b]

My point is that to compare apples to apples you have to give an
account when comparing anything to creation to how and why did
it begun since that is all creation is. It isn't very fair at all to say
that there isn't any evidence for creation when 'science' it now
seems avoids that topic completely. Evolution is a process, the Big
Bang it now seems is also a process, both processes are only looked
at with very full intent, but in an extremely limited fashion which
is to say only as they occurring, not how they could have begun with
out finding your way into the realm of a story that faces the same
verification issues as creation which is again faith.

The point that creation cannot be look upon that way does not at
all mean it is any less of a possibility; it by its nature suggests that
we cannot with science verify it, but there is nothing that science can
do about the beginning at all; it can look at processes that are on
going events when it comes to things of that nature, but dies there
as soon as you step back and take at look at the why and how. If
you were to tell me that all matter and energy are eternal there isn’t
any beginning as I tell you when speaking about God, I’d have to
ask why do we date them as something less than eternal than, if
they are eternal what are you doing that for, then another can of
worms is opened as soon as you start your justification.

The way religion works? It is the way man works, if you were told a
story and you experienced events, those are part of your life, if you
believe the story and the things in your life actually occurred. You are
treating religion as if it were a process like evolution, something
that people came up with and used, and they would come up with
something different if the events were just a little different, which
fails to see that may not be case; mankind may not be alone in the
universe, that there may really be other powers at work here for
good and evil. You are automatically rejecting all possibilities and
you use a methodology to view the universe that has built in blinders
to see such things as well.
Kelly