Wed 15 Aug 2007
Lately I’ve been listening to the back catalog of the radio show “Way of the Master” with Todd Friel, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. No, not because I have turned a new leaf and now believe in a horribly unjust, ruler of the universe! And no, not because I like to torture myself (although if I did, this would be the intellectual equivalent of self mutilation)! I plan on addressing some of the major flaws within the arguments presented on their show in the near future.
That being said, one of their major pet peeves on “Way of the Master” is evolutionary theory and evolutionary science. Man, do they hate evolution! Sadly, when they discuss the topic of evolution, there is never a segment that includes a single response from anyone in the scientific community. Their arguments are very, very weak and are actually arguments that have been refuted in depth. Why do I bring this up? Lately I have heard many Christians that I have had discussions with use these same types of arguments, thinking they are rock solid and waterproof.
If you are the type of person who engages in intellectual discourse on religion, and you take on the topic of origins and evolution, it would do you well to check out Talk Origins.org.
Talk Origins is an archive that has collected articles and essays giving mainstream scientific responses to many of the questions and issues we face about origins, evolution, creationism, intelligent design and much more. It has been a handy resource for many of the arguments that I have been a part of and would be an invaluable tool for anyone that may not know what the current scientific responses to such ideas are.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Whether you are a Christian, Agnostic, Athiest or whatever else… you are a person of Faith whether you want to be or not. You have a belief system. Proof? Do you believe in the creation account of Genesis? Your answer is yes or no. Do you believe in evolution? Same thing, the answer is, either way, I BELIEVE ____.You believe something, kinda like Bob Dylan sang “You gotta serve somebody”. I proved this by randomly, out of the blue, asking one of my professors (a science profesor)one day if he “believed” in Evolution. With out hesitation he answered “yes, I believe in it”. He admitted to identify with a belief system.
Evolution and Creation are intelectually on the same playing field. They are not factual SCIENCE. Science has to be OBSERVABLE, then it has to be tested. Unless science can produce a time machine we are out of luck on producing FACT in this matter.
Until then we will both have to… believe.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:47 am
Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not.
I’m not a person with faith in a higher being.
With evolution, we have theories and hypothesis that we can test. We can observe variation and mutation in species that create adaptations to environmental stresses. That’s evoltuion. I don’t need a spiritual or supernatural faith to believe that the processes of evolution are at work.
Now for a belief in creation, I would need a spiritual or supernatural faith to claim the existence of an intangible, invisible, supposedly omnipotent, creator entity.
Do you see how these are absolutely NOT on the same intellectual playing field? I’m sure you would like them to be, but they are not. Are you really going to tell me that the most rational answer to life in the universe is an invisible magic man in the sky did it?
Please.
Thanks for the comment!
Going Churching
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:02 am
“Are you really going to tell me that the most rational answer to life in the universe is an invisible magic man in the sky did it?”
Yep
Are you going to tell me that thousands of species evolved by chance? Males and Females in EXACT syncronation, considering the complexities of Sexual intercourse (though the vital sexual organs were meandering about on seperate gendered animals) had to have developed all in perfect syncronation for procreation to be viable?
If that’s not hard enough to believe think about this. How would have premordial life have ever even gotten to the point of procreation without the development of the EYE, the sense of smell, the ability to hear, to sense or to feel… and how long would it have taken those to evolve?
Whether you want to believe it or not you are in fact … A PERSON OF FAITH !
And you seem to be a fundamentalist at that !
Welcome to the club, friend.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
Sorry about the double post.
I would like to add that the simple act of boarding a plane makes one a person of faith. You probably don’t know the physics of flight, the design/ engineering principles of aeronautics… and even if you know the above you don’t know the structural flaws in the aged bird, the age of the engines or how many drinks the pilots had. You trust, you believe by faith that you will arrive safely at your destination of choice, then you fly.
You seem to believe that Christians are fools. Ironically your position is supported by the Bible.
“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the FOOLISHNESS of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom”
1 Corinthians 1:20-22
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Variation and mutation for the sake of adaptation and survial is an observable scientific fact.
You’ve already answered this, but let me reconfirm. Instead of a process of adaptation and mutation of species over time, you think that a more viable, rational option, is that an invisible, magical, deity on another plane of untestable existence just poofed everything into existence? You’re free to say yep again, if you like.
When I board a plane, I don’t completely understand the physics involved. I do have a friend who is a pilot, so I have a decent understanding, but no, I couldn’t go out and build you an airplane. That being said, I don’t have the kind of “faith” in that plane or in the pilot or the engineers or whatever that you have in your god.
I know that pilots go through enormous amounts of training to be skilled in their profession. That is the same for the airplane builders and engineers, etc. I know this from the many, many years that pilots have been trained and mechanics and engineers have gone to school, and the ratio of successful flights to unsuccessful flights. I have an amount of hope that I will arrive safely based on the odds. Yet, we can’t even begin to attribute any type of observable system of knowing to your god.
Now, if I had never seen an airplane before, and didn’t know what a pilot was, or had never heard of aeronautic engineering before… and the plane, the pilot, and all laws of physics were unavailable to the experience of human observance, and I chose to “fly in an airplane,” then I would be operating in a type of faith that is close to yours.
So you can say that I have faith all day long, but readers who have any commen sense about them will be able to tell the differnce between our “faiths.” You have faith in something that doesn’t exist. I just like to ride in airplanes.
Thanks again for reading GoingChurching.com!
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:14 pm
yep
The more you try to prove that the God of the Bible doesn’t exhist the more you are proving that he does. ?You can’t deny that you are a person of Faith. There are a heck of a lot of Christians I know that don’t have the reigious ferver to create and daily monitor web blogs to espose their beliefs…
You have that Religious fervor.
If you truely did’nt believe anything I would’nt be typing this reponse to you right now.
Back to my point. You are proving God’s word to be true by your hatred of Christians and what they stand for. If what we believe does’nt exhist you are spending day after day blogging about NOTHING. Why waste your life?
No, it is just as the Bible says. You are in rebelion against a righteous and Holy God. He does exhist and your vitriol proves it with every word you type.
The biggest thing Evolution can’t expalin is Love. The God you hate so much is pursueing you with a love that defies any human reason. Explain how Love could come from evolution.How compassion could come from Evolution. Both are completely foriegn from such a process.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:12 am
So if I were to use your logic, then the more I would try to prove that say, leprechauns or the tooth fairy didn’t exist, then I would really be helping to prove that they did, in fact exist? I don’t understand. If I see a flawed train of thought, and I protest it, how am I reinforcing it? I think you’re just being silly.
I may have fervor, but I have no dogmatic system of religious thought backing it. I embrace science and reason. Reason is the direct opposite of something like religious dogma. You should probably just say I’m enthusiastic and stop trying to create a lie. Just because you say something, doesn’t make it so. You should think about what you say, it will do you well.
I don’t believe in a god, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything. I believe in the cause of the downfall of spiritually religious mindsets like yours. That I can get behind.
I don’t hate Christians, but I don’t really enjoy what they stand for. You see, you Christians like to use words like hate and evil to describe what is unpleasant to you. I may not trust a Christian mindset, or accept it, or think that it’s valid in any sense, but to go as far as to say that I hate it? Well, I can tell you that I don’t hate it, but you probably won’t believe me, because it’s much easier for you to operate with me as an enemy of your god, so that you can try to twist what I say and never get around to having a decent rational discussion about any of this. If I can help to turn that around, just a bit, then I don’t feel like I’m wasting my life at all. People like you need to wake up.
If you can prove to me that your God exists, then I will wholeheartedly accept his existence and stop being so “rebellious.” Right now, it doesn’t exist. I’m protesting an idea. I’m protesting a mindset. Let me tell you again. I don’t think that your god exists! How can I be rebellious to something that doesn’t exist? That’s a very flawed argument you are using. You haven’t even shown me yet that your god truly exists. How do you expect this argument to do any good whatsoever? Am I the first atheist you’ve ever encountered? If not, has this argument ever worked on any other atheist before? I’d bet not!
The concepts of love and compassion are products of a conscious human experience. We have labelled a set of emotional responses to certain stimuli as “love.” When we are sympathetic to a certain situation, or feel as though we should help, we act in ways we have deemed “compassionate.” Have you ever read any intro Psychology books or anything like that? In fact, evoltuion can explain things like love and compassion much better than your fake god can. If you love your family and friends, you keep them close. You watch after each other. You protect each other. You provide for each other. Compassion for your fellow man, and even those you “love” is a trait that benefits all of mankind. If we all ran around with no compassion for one another, the world would truly be dog-eat-dog and we would still operate at a simplistic survival of the fittest sense. Thankfully it benefits all of humanity to embrace ideals like love and compassion, and to operate in those mindset, because over time, this builds a strong, protected species.
Thanks again for commenting. Feel free to respond. I’ll be watching.
Going Churching
August 24th, 2007 at 6:56 am
“If we all ran around with no compassion for one another, the world would truly be dog-eat-dog and we would still operate at a simplistic survival of the fittest sense.”
And that would be Evolution.
Again, you have created a web blog and monitor it daily to argue against something you do not believe to exhist. Fascinating. And you want to bring up Psychology? Jousting with windmills is it not?
Small children have imaginary friends and hear monsters in the closet… such whimsical ideas are of course silly and unsupportable and fade as quickly as a few months or years. Christianity goes back thousands of years (it’s Judaic roots a few thousand more) Why? Billions of lives have been changed forever by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Drug addicts radically changed, dead have been raised, blind given sight, deaf hear, lame walk, old worn out Hearts made new. If you don’t believe that God can be proven you likely never will. It’s about Faith. You have no problem with faith however… you probably have more faith than I do.
You believe the eyeball formed itself, vast number of nerve bundles PERFECTLY connected in Billions of people and other species and all, in conjunction and in compliance with the brain that operates it and an array of other complex systems of the Human body, just one human body. Please in you’re next response state the second law of thermodynamics and explain how such complexity came from primordial soup, considering that scientific principal. I don’t have that kind or volume of faith, but in some ways I admire that you do.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:07 am
I believe I have contested your points adequately enough to establish which of our sides is the more rational. You keep falling back on an argument of my posession of “faith.” It’s very weak. I’ve shown that.
You are arguing against evolution because of complexity, yet you establish an infinitely more complex, incomprehensible being as the origin. You have to see the flaw in this type of thinking. Here is something from Ironchariots.org that I think you should read:
“In the case of the Christian god, we are asked to explain the existence of a vast, complex, incomprehensible universe by inventing an even more vast, complex, incomprehensible being, which also happens to be intelligent enough to “plan” the entire history of the universe and still micromanage the details enough to answer prayers, account for who will go to heaven and hell, and deal with minutiae like how people deal with seemingly arbitrary rules about sex.”
“Treated purely as an explanatory device, introducing a god into the universe raises far more questions than it answers. It brings up the obvious question of who created God. Science tends to reason from the complex to the simple, finding explanations of natural phenomena by breaking them down into basic rules. Of all the things we know of in the universe, intelligence in particular is one of the most complex and mysterious phenomena observed. To suppose that we could “explain” the universe by introducing a universe-spanning intelligence is completely backwards from the way science normally operates. ”
“All this would be strictly academic nitpicking if there were any positive evidence for the existence of a god. Yet when pressed for evidence, apologists are notoriously vague. Rather than pointing to specific reasons why anyone should believe in such an improbable being, they point to the Bible as a historically accurate text; they bring up philosophical vagaries such as the first cause argument and the argument from design, and they threaten hell by means of Pascal’s wager. No test is ever proposed to demonstrate or falsify the existence of God.”
If you’d like to contine, I’ll keep monitoring, because I’m faithfully devoted to my website! lol. But I would request that you focus your arguments away from rhetoric.
As always, thanks for commenting. It feels good to have an active reader!
Going Churching
August 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I’ve proven my point.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:06 am
You can believe that if you like, but then again, if you believe in an invisible, omnipotent, magic man in the sky, you can probably believe anything!
August 27th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Well at least I don’t believe there were consistant births across the vast spectrum of organisms/ species before a reproductive system had time to evolve!!!
HELLO ?!?!?
And you think you have REASON on your side.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I’m not sure how you think disproving evolution will make a stronger case for an untestable, invisible god. Disproving evolution does not prove god-breathed creation. For the sake of argument, I’ll just give it to you. OK.. evolution is completely wrong. I have no idea how the universe of life or anything formed. Now tell me why I should believe that your god just magically spoke everything into existence. Show me one shred of evidence that can prove that your god spoke anything into existence. You can battle scientific theory all you like but it doesn’t make up for the fact that you believe in magic.
Stop being silly if you want to have a real discussion.
August 28th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Faith (period)
I’ve already stated numerous times that I can’t prove God exhists. I know he exhists by Faith, the TANGIBLE things he’s done in my life and others. Answered prayers. Unanswered prayers… that TOTALLY make since in hindsoght and reflection. I see my savior in the order of Creation and in the order of my life (good and even the BAD times) when I am faithful to his Word.
August 28th, 2007 at 5:15 am
You can’t KNOW anything by faith. You can trust in something by faith, but you can never know that your trust is placed correctly. You see your savior in the order of creation and in the order of your life because that is what you expect to see. You have a premise established for your entire life, that you cannot back up with any type of proof, yet when someone tries to argue their case with scientific ideas that are ever-growing and strengthening, you fight to the teeth to hold on to that thing which you don’t even KNOW truly exists.
If all of the scientific ideas of evolution and abiogenesis somehow become completely falsified tomorrow, it makes no difference, because the processes of science march on. There would be new ideas, new experimentation, new development, and progress.
Your faith presents none of this. For your faith to persist, dogmatic, obviously false assumptions have to be made and promoted for all time. You indeed have no proof for the existence of your god, and I’m glad you admit to that. I don’t think that, by your own admission, you can continue to tell people you KNOW that your god exists without consciously attempting to deceive them.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:15 am
“because that is what you expect to see”
Uh huh.
So I expected to see loved ones and close friends get cancer an other terminal diseases. See, your condecending tone aside, that’s not the “premise” I “established for my life”. You abviously have no understanding whatsoever of what faith even is. Faith is extremely complex and challenging and at the same time it is simple. You ONLY see it as simple , thus that shades the way you view Christians (hence your constant condescending tone).
I will state once more that you are devoting a huge chunk of your life to try and prove God does’nt exhist. The fact that your doing this proves that you are wasting as much time and effort as you believe any person who professes Faith in Christ is.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:02 am
No, you don’t expect loved ones to get terminal illnesses, but you assume that it is still in your god’s ultimate will. THAT is the premise you have established for your life.
You said earlier: “I see my savior in the order of Creation and in the order of my life (good and even the BAD times) when I am faithful to his Word.”
So do you see what I mean? Everything, in your perception, is skewed by the influence of an almighty director. When my loved ones die of terminal illness, I see only that. I don’t need to make it seem right because of a just, all-knowing creator. Death is a part of life. Illness is just a part of living. It’s the struggle of the ecosystem.
As for my condescending tone… you posted on this site, labelling me as a man of faith and then tried to justify your argument. I am condescending because that is a weak, misused fallacy. It wasn’t even a real argument. You were just trying to make my stance seem foolish. I think I’m justified in a bit of condescencion, given your tactics. It seems to me that you’re really just bringing that up to try and once again make my stance seem foolish, instead of trying to truly reinforce your stance with something valid.
I don’t think that people of faith are wasting their time and effort. People are free to use their time in any way they see fit. I just think that people of faith in a higher being that they have no proof of, yet still claim exists, are using their time in a way that is invalid. I am protesting an invalid system of thought.
And really, you’re exaggerating. This website doesn’t eat up a “huge” chunk of my life. I enjoy monitoring this website. I enjoy refuting the ideas of Christian dogma. I don’t have to work that hard to show that a god doesn’t exist. The fact that people like you can’t give any decently strong evidence for it’s existence makes it pretty easy, in fact. (not trying to be condescending)
August 28th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
“I just think that people of faith in a higher being that they have no proof of, yet still claim exists, are using their time in a way that is invalid”
Stated by a guy that, despite the lack of proof believes primordial life spent millions of years evolving it’s own system of procreation, and somehow precreated for millions of years before the systems evolved…. in otherwords, slime figured out how to become an egg… and that egg decided to hatch… even though it’s contents had’nt evolved a beak yet. So, in fact, you believe the slime came before the chicken or the egg? That stlll does’nt explain why we still have slime… was it just not motivated? Same thing for those monkeys at the zoo… how come they did’nt evolve yet survived?
Keep the faith brother.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:59 am
My argument in all of this isn’t FOR evolution. My argument is AGAINST your god.
The current thoughts on evolution, abiogenesis and everything that goes along with that field of study could be absolutely false. I don’t dictate my life based around those ideas. Abiogensis and evolution don’t dictate my morality or how I live my life. Those are the current scientific ideas on the matter of origin and adaptation, and I am more willing to embrace scientific research and progress, than I am an invisible deity that has absolutely no proof whatsoever. I am giving you the point that everything I “believe” could be false. That still doesn’t make your god real.
The fields of evolution and abiogensis are scientific endeavours, designed to test and study the world around us, dedicated to exploring and discovering answers to the mysteries of biology. I don’t have to BELIEVE in that. That is a process, and while the answers may not be 100% complete yet, we should all hope to aide the process towards progress.
You on the other hand, have faith in a deity who just spoke everything into existence. Your god is a filler answer for those mysteries. There is no room for exploration, discovery or progress within the confines of your dogmatic ideas of creation. And, you have no proof that the root of your ideas (god) even exists. So do you see how our 2 “beliefs” are entirely different? Do you see how yours is based in mysticism, while mine is based in reality?
The blog post that this comment thread is related to is about a website called talkorigins.org. Have you even read any of the texts on that website about evolution and abiogenesis? You have a very “back woods” idea of evolution and abiogenesis. At least that’s how it sounds from your last comment. You should check some of that information out. It would do you well.
Thank again for commenting!
Going Churching
August 30th, 2007 at 8:20 am
My belief in the magical tooth fairy disproves your theory of evolution, the theory of gravity AND can turn water into wine.
And what have you got?
HELLO!
A bunch of cohesive, succinct arguments, that are logically sound and and follow suit of reason?
LOL! You suck!
August 30th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I have to agree with Going Churching. My biggest complaint about religion in general is that it casts society into two different groups: good and bad. And then says that if you sin then your bad, but if you ask for forgiveness then your good…again. So in theory, and if I “believe in a god,” I can do whatever I want/told and get good again as long as I ask for forgiveness. The worst people in this world preach religion and practice its opposites.
I was raised in a Seventh Day Adventist home, went to private church school for the first 8 grades and study the bible (King James and Revised Editions) from the day I could read to about age 15; and then I started reading it again, albeit more critically, by age 20. I BELIEVE it another book like many others. It has many ideas and quotes that contradict each other. While some of it is historically correct; very little of it can be proven and most is just rhetoric. Further the Bible has changed many times over its life time - I mentioned two versions above. To say or think that the origins have not been adulterated would be naive.
So Jud; before you start condemning what other people agree with maybe you should take a long, unbiased, look at what you yourself believe in and how those beliefs affect your decisions and life styles. Remember if god loves everyone, then why don’t you?
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:11 am
It’s known that money can make us free. But what to do if somebody has no cash? The only one way is to receive the personal loans and short term loan.