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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: mpdeveloper_B]
#66626
04/08/06 04:26
04/08/06 04:26
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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 2,185
mpdeveloper_B
OP
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OP
Expert
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 2,185
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it seems harsh but it is honest, however as i have said before i am not fighting, i am quite calm, if it sounds to anyone that i'm lashing out, i'm sorry  .
- aka Manslayer101
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: mpdeveloper_B]
#66627
04/08/06 07:57
04/08/06 07:57
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 54
AndersA
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 54
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Quote:
[...]these "viewpoints" of evolution and all have not been proven, as someone said earlier on its a THEORY not a LAW there is a major difference.
What is your definition of a theory and a law? What is your definition of a proof?
There are a lot of famous theories: Maxwell's Equations, The Special and General Relativity, The Standard Model, The theory of Evolution...
Would you say that some of them are more proved than others? Fair enough, but which is the more reliable and which is the less reliable and why is that?
Quote:
A law would be something like the world being round
This is not a law. This is merely an empirical fact. A law has to be more general than that. You have to be able to make general predictions from it, at least.
Quote:
Evolution is just another way that a scientist is trying to use to help explain why we are here and how we got here,
This is not the case. Evolution is an observable phenomena. This is what we see if we observe the nature without prejudice. Because of this it's sound to form a theory based on this phenomena; a theory useful for making predictions.
What's behind this theory, whether it is the Christian God or it is The Famous Turtle, science really don't care about as long as it works better than any other theory.
Quote:
Scientists can prove things with their God-given talents
And this is where you got it all wrong. Scientists can't prove anything, at least not in the name of science. Science isn't about proof!
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: mpdeveloper_B]
#66628
04/10/06 23:15
04/10/06 23:15
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Marco_Grubert
Expert
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
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It's too bad that this is not really taught outside of college, but there are a lot of misconceptions about how science works and what terms are being used. Let me clear up a few. Quote:
is that these "viewpoints" of evolution and all have not been proven, as someone said earlier on its a THEORY not a LAW there is a major difference.
Natural sciences do not "prove" things. Proofs only exist in mathematics and related disciplines. What you do in other fields is you postulate a theory/model/hypothesis. If any physical evidence is found that is contrary to the theory then this theory is said to be "falsified". The obvious step then is to adjust or replace the theory so that the new evidence can be explained as well. With this said, the theory of evolution has not been falsified because all evidence found so far is compatible with it or non-ad-hoc modification have been made to adjust for new evidence (e.g. additions by Mayer, Watson/Crick).
It was customary to call good theories "laws" prior to the 20th century. Nowadays scientists no longer call their theories "laws" because any new evidence could shatter them. Thus you won't find a "law of evolution" or a "law of superconductivity" or a "law of quantum gravity". If you want to make a distinction between a theory that has been around for a long time and a spur-of-the-moment idea the right terms would be "theory" and "hypothesis". Note that it's "theory of evolution" and not "hypothesis of evolution".
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people should not be stupid enough to make a theory part of their every-day belief, of course you will try and say to this that "God is nothing but a theory himself and that a christian is foolish for believing this way"
I would recommend you make the theory of gravity part of your life or else it might be rather brief. You don't have to make the theory of evolution part of your life since for the most part it won't affect you (though you better hope it's part of your M.D.'s life).
God is not a "theory" since there is no universally accepted definition of god. A god that is as general as possible would not qualify as theory either since it could not be falsified.
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How can you disprove that there is a stronger power that helps a man keep his wits about him and make his decisions, how can you disprove that this power
This falls under the category of "bait-and-switch". The previous posts were not about god in general but about god creating organisms. The former is a philosophical issue, the later is a scientific one. The hypothesis that god created organisms has been falsified. The hypothesis that there is some kind of god can not be falsified, but as soon as you claim god's involvement (natural effects) you start moving it into the testable (scientific) realm. As an example of the later: researchers tried to see if prayer helps recovering patients. A few weeks ago they announced the results that (blind) prayer does not help- this would be an example of falsifying a claim such as "there is a god which heals people when they are being prayed for".
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Marco_Grubert]
#66629
04/11/06 12:53
04/11/06 12:53
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 51
Neonotso
Junior Member
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Junior Member
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Posts: 51
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In response to your prayer comment, Marco, I'd like to say that God can't (or doesn't) listen to the prayers of un-believers except for a prayer that you are praying because you want to be saved (like a saving prayer: whatever you call it). If you wanted a real test, you'd have to have real Christians praying, and make sure they're serious about what they're praying for. Praying is basically like "talking" to God. If you lie to God, he's probably not going to answer your prayer. So, if you just say "O Lord, please help ___" but you don't really mean it, there's quite a possiblity He won't help ___.
I was praying for Guardian and his family, just about every day, sincerely. And, Guardian's sister made it through. That's the power of prayer - though to just a small percent. God can do a lot more than that. Even if you say... well, Guardian's sister had good doctors operating on her: Well, who decided those doctors would be there? God!
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Marco_Grubert]
#66631
04/11/06 19:30
04/11/06 19:30
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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nothings wrong with telling them, only after something good happens 
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Neonotso]
#66633
04/13/06 04:45
04/13/06 04:45
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
User
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User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
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Quote:
In response to your prayer comment, Marco, I'd like to say that God can't (or doesn't) listen to the prayers of un-believers except for a prayer that you are praying because you want to be saved (like a saving prayer: whatever you call it). If you wanted a real test, you'd have to have real Christians praying, and make sure they're serious about what they're praying for. Praying is basically like "talking" to God. If you lie to God, he's probably not going to answer your prayer. So, if you just say "O Lord, please help ___" but you don't really mean it, there's quite a possiblity He won't help ___.
I was praying for Guardian and his family, just about every day, sincerely. And, Guardian's sister made it through. That's the power of prayer - though to just a small percent. God can do a lot more than that. Even if you say... well, Guardian's sister had good doctors operating on her: Well, who decided those doctors would be there? God!
Number one, its not up to us to determine if its good or bad for someone to be ill, or even die. That's God's domain. Its only by his mercy that we're alive in the first place, so each day is borrowed time. That's not to say its not a bad thing to be ill or die, but its not our place to try and take control over these events. We brought this on ourselves in the first place, though time and again I believe God does step in on our behalf to cause miraculous cures, etc. Anyway...
That's why Jesus said something along these lines:
God already knows the desires that are on your heart, so when you pray, pray like this (at which point he goes on to recite the lord's prayer).
In other words, its not our purpose to petition God to do 'good'. How can we, with our limited scope of understanding, truly know what's good or bad? Think about David Pelzer (the author of a Child Called It). What happened to him was horrible, no one will argue that, but if it hadn't happened, he wouldn't have been able to bring so much attention to the good of foster care, and to bring to the forefront the rather controversial topic of child abuse. Good can come from bad, and we mock God by assuming we know what's best, even if its with prayer.
That doesn't mean that healing doesn't come from God, it simply means it definately does not come from man's desires. I also don't mean to downplay the power of prayer, but our desires do not replace the ultimate will of God. Its actually a really complicated topic that I'm not going to expand on here.
However, claiming God does not listen to atheists is rather absurd. If an atheist is sincerely (not mockingly) talking to God, why should he not listen? In fact, would that not then negate the atheist status of said atheist? An atheist will not sincerely pray to God unless s/he believes that God is listening. In fact, I would go as far as to say that God pays more attention to those prayers than to those who are already saved, seeing as an atheist would be akin to a prodigal son or however you spell it. But I have no specific backing in the scripture so I don't really stand by that last statement.
But to test prayer, you're really saying we need to test God because we have no power except to petition or just plain 'talk.' If God has decided to use the bad for a good purpose, why should he listen to us if we try and intervene? In fact, these little games or tests might seem to be rather 'bad' of us for lack of a better term. Who are we to test God for our own purposes? Didn't satan try to do that in the desert with Jesus?
No offense, I just wanted to voice my opinion. I'm not really an expert either, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm just trying to be fair.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#66634
04/13/06 05:36
04/13/06 05:36
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
User
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User
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
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Okay, I'm going to go through those examples one by one. Quote:
1.) Adaptation to High and Low Temperatures by E. coli.
A single clone of E. coli was cultured at 37 C (that is 37 degrees Celsius) for 2000 generations. A single clone was then extracted from this population and divided into replicates that were then cultured at either 32 C , 37 C, or 42 C for a total of another 2000 generations. Adaptation of the new lines was periodically measured by competing these selection lines against the ancestor population. By the end of the experiment, the lines cultured at 32 C were shown to be 10% fitter that the ancestor population (at 32 C), and the line cultured at 42 C was shown to be 20% more fit than the ancestor population. The replicate line that was cultured at 37 C showed little improvement over the ancestral line.
Does this prove evolution?
I'll start with the easiest one. The line recultured at 37* was just as fit. This is to be expected, and goes to show nothing. The one cultured at 32* as expected were a bit more fit (or able to reproduce).
Where I think they're getting the idea that this is evolution is at the line cultured at 42*. Its 20% fitter than the other lines. This is evolution?
Well, it reproduced at a greater rate when introduced to an even higher temperature. However, this site has deceptively very little information on what exactly happened to the bacteria to allow it to propogate better.
However, this can still fall under the general category of natural selection. The variance of data that allows certain copies of the bacteria to survive better in different temperatures already existed. The higher temperatures just cleaved off the bacteria that couldn't survive as well in higher temperatures, allowing the bacteria that already existed to survive in higher temperature to breed on, and as such this is useless.
Here's another possible answer, in e coli there is a palindromic structure around the ribosome binding site (I'll include some links to definitions) that can be eliminated to allow it to live better in heat. So if this was a mutation to live better in heat, we can assume on past experience that it was a mutation of elimination, which doesn't prove progressive evolution. In fact, the data to thrive in warm temperatures already exists in e coli, it just isn't expressed unless this mutation of loss occurs. Showing you still haven't proved how new data was created.
That's only if you want to take it that far, this can still be easily explained within the framework of the e coli's original genetics which vary and show that when you change the environment and rid the creature of some of the other genetic material, you can end up with something fitter relative to the new environment, though less variant. But not something that has progressed genetically speaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome (this will semi-explain the palindromic structure mentioned, although you have to kind of understand the bare basics of genetics and you have to wade through some of the examples that have no bearing on this discussion, but the genetic definition is in there)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome
Next!
Actually, I'll have to do one or two a day because I don't have that much time for this stuff. Not like it matters anyway, I can disprove every single one of your so called 'good mutations' and you'll still find some excuse to believe evolution. And its not really a matter of good mutations which both creationists and evolutionists agree exist, it might be better described as disproving progressive mutations which evolutionists believe either based on lies or faith, and creationists know do not exist.
I'll give you another lesson tomorrow.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#66635
04/13/06 09:07
04/13/06 09:07
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,986
Frankfurt
jcl
Chief Engineer
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Chief Engineer
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,986
Frankfurt
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Quote:
Where I think they're getting the idea that this is evolution is at the line cultured at 42*.
Actually I think the interesting fact is that both lines - at lower and at higher temperature - were fitter than the 37° line. Apparently, different modifications to the DNA are necessary to adapt to lower, and to higher temperature.
Of course, this result can be explained both by natural selection and by mutation. In order to decide whether it's selection or mutation, you need to analyze the modified parts of the DNA. Once you find the mechanisms for both low-temperature tolerance and high-temperature tolerance you know whether it's mutation or just selection. If it's a real mutation we'll again have one more piece of evidence for evolution. And of course, again one more piece to be be ignored by creationists. If it's not mutation however, both mechanisms must have been already in place in the DNA, just deactivated.
There are hundreds of such examples. I find it hard to believe to explain all of this with just selection, and not evolution. It all comes down again to if we accept that a) selection exists and b) mutations happen, it's a matter of time and probability to get evolution. The question is just how great the probability is. You just need to do the math. An "it will never happen" approach is never a good scientific argument.
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I have it posted in the "prayers for my sister" topic (or whatever it was called). 
