Facts don't.
Printable View
Facts don't.
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 origin of the universe, either the universe had a beginning or it did not. If it did have a beginning, 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. One such theory is called the steady state theory and also calls for the universe to be constantly generating hydrogen atoms from nothing. In either case, holding to such beliefs has a high cost for the scientist, for both of these violate a fundamental law of science: the law of causality. Both views require that the scientist believe in events happening without a cause. Even the great skeptic David Hume said, "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.? [David Hume, Letters ed. by J.Y.T. Greig (Oxford: Clarendon, 1932), vol. I, p. 187. Yet this absurd proposition is accepted by men who make their living by the law of causality. If the whole universe is uncaused, why should we believe that the parts are caused? If the parts are all caused, then what evidence could suggest that the whole is uncaused? Nothing in the principle of causality supports this conclusion. The evidence is just not there.
Rather, a great deal of evidence now supports the option that the universe had a beginning. Robert Jastrow, founder and former director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has summarized the evidence in his book God and the Astronomers, saying, "Now three lines of evidence??the motions of the galaxies, the laws of thermodynamics, and the life story of the stars??pointed to one conclusion: all indicated that the Universe had a beginning." [Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Warner Books, 1978), p. Ill.]
Now if we are speaking of a beginning of the universe??a movement from no matter to matter??then we are clearly in the realm of unrepeatable events covered by origin science.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
stem cell research. stem cells: the origins of human life. we only go through the fetal stage once, and then we go through a repetitive cycle of growth until we die.Quote:
Origin science is not just another name for giving evidence to support creationism. It is a different kind of science. Origin science studies past singularities, rather than present normalities. It looks at how things began, not how they work. It studies things that only happened once and, by their nature, don't happen again. It is a different type of study that requires a different approach.
beginnings happen over and over, everything DOES happen again, it is just in cycles of life and death.
THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS
The first law of thermodynamics says that the actual amount or energy in the universe remains constant??it doesn't change. The second law of thermodynamics says that the amount of usable energy in any closed system (which the whole universe is) is decreasing. Everything is tending toward disorder and the universe is running down. Now if the overall amount of energy stays the same, but we are running out of usable energy, then what we started with was not an infinite amount: You can't run out of an infinite amount. This means that the universe is and always has been finite. It could not have existed forever in the past and will not exist forever into the future. So it must have had a beginning.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
It's a balancing act OF infinity.
there is just less infinite usable energy right now than there is infinite energy users.
it could be said that the effect is going from a 50-50 balance to a 40-60 to a 20-80. when the balance is so far off to the extreme, it reverses polarity and heads back to the other direction. when we hit 100% matter and 0% energy, we will suddenly snap back, everyone will die, and we'll be back at ground 0 again, perfect balance of all the infinite elements.
yes, im rambling nonsense here, but think about it.
the first law of thermodynamics is true circumstance, the second law is circumstantially true.
it's not that we are losing energy so much as it is that more energy is being used. when there is no energy left to be used, the users must then convert back into energy.
let's take a life and death approach.
life is energy user, death is energy creator.
but there is never more or less than 100%, it is just where that % is balanced, and how.
THE MOTION OF THE GALAXIES
Scientists argue that the universe is not simply in a holding pattern, maintaining its movement from everlasting to everlasting. It is expanding. It now appears that all of the galaxies are moving outward as if from a central point of origin, and that all things were expanding faster in the past than they are now. Remember that as we look out into space, we are also looking back in time, for we are seeing things not as they are now, but as they were when the light was given off many years ago. So the light from a star 7 million light years away tells us what it was like and where it was 7 million years ago.
??The most complete study made thus far has been carried out on the 200-inch telescope by Allan Sandage [as of 1990]. He compiled information on 42 galaxies, ranging out in space as far as 6 billion light years from us. His measurements indicate that the Universe was expanding more rapidly in the past than it is today. This result lends further support to the belief that the Universe exploded into being.? [Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Warner Books, 1978), p. 95]
This explosion, sometimes called the Big Bang, was a beginning point from which the entire universe has come. Putting an expanding universe in reverse leads us back to the point where the universe gets smaller and smaller until it vanishes into nothing. So the universe, at some point in the distant past, came into being out of nothing.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
Evidence that the universe began is the radiation "echo" which seems to come from everything. It was first thought to be a malfunction or static on the instruments. But research has discovered that the static was coming from everywhere??the universe itself has low-level radiation from some past catastrophe that looks like a giant fireball.
No explanation other than the big bang has been found for the fireball radiation. The clincher, which has convinced almost the last doubting Thomas, is that the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson has exactly the pattern of wavelengths expected for the light and heat produced in a great explosion. Supporters of the Steady State theory have tried desperately to find an alternative explanation, but they have failed. [Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Warner Books, 1978), p. 5]
Again, this evidence must lead one to conclude that there was a beginning of the universe.
The law of causality tells us that whatever happens is caused, so what caused the universe to begin? It is [speculatively] possible that this big bang is simply the latest in a series of explosions that destroy all evidence of what came before. But that only backs the question up a few steps to "What caused the first explosion?" It is also [speculatively] possible that the steady state theory is right, that the universe had no beginning and is creating hydrogen from nothing to maintain energy without running down. But this explanation is contrary to the evidence and the law of causality. Both of these answers are [speculatively] possible; neither is plausible.
Logically, if we are looking for a cause, which existed before the entirety of nature (the universe) existed, we are looking for n supernatural cause. Even ]astrow, a confirmed agnostic, has said as much: "That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact." [Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: Warner Books, 1978), p. 15, 18] Since he is speaking from the viewpoint of operation science, he probably means that there is no secondary cause, which can explain the origin of the universe. But with the recognition of origin science we can posit a supernatural primary cause that seems to be the most plausible answer to the question. Jastrow closes his book God and the Astronomers with these words:
??For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.? [Ibid., pp. 105-106]
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
to the contrary, if this is just a cycle, if this happens repeatedly, we cannot know how long this has been happening, or what initiated the cycle!
all evidence is sucked into a singularity only to explode out again, completely annihilating any evidence of the past, between the last big bang and big crunch.
also assuming there is a big crunch.
Aren't you basing your conclusions on speculation rather that facts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stoner Shadow Wolf
the fact is im not a scientist, nor have i any means of observing the universe as a whole, beyond my individual perspective, and what little research i've done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
but is not research speculation until one takes it upon them self to try and test their research?
on matters pertaining to the big bang/big crunch, we have only speculation based on our observations of the movement of the stars.
is that not pure speculation?
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 origin of first life, either it came about by spontaneous chemical generation without intelligent intervention, or by the intervention of an intelligent being through special Creation.
Evolutionists believe that life began in a spontaneous way from nonliving chemicals by purely natural processes. Shortly after the earth was cooled enough to allow it, they tell us, the combination of simple gases like hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia, and carbon dioxide reacted to form elementary amino acids, which in time developed into DNA chains and finally cells. Of course, this is said to have taken several billion years and the extra energy of the sun, volcanic activity, lightning, and cosmic rays were needed to keep the process going. Experimentation begun by Stanley Miller arid Harold Urey has attempted to reconstruct these conditions and has had success in producing various amino acids needed for life. From this, much of the scientific community has concluded that the spontaneous chemical generation of life from a pre biotic soup is the way life began.
There are, however, some very good reasons to reject this view. First, the early earth conditions necessary to produce life are just as likely to destroy it. The experimental work has shown that no oxygen can be present for the reaction to work. Also, the energy needed from the sun and cosmic radiation are damaging to the very substances produced. Under the conditions required for life to have arisen spontaneously, it is more likely that the elements would be destroyed faster than they could be produced. Even if the right chemicals could be produced, no satisfactory answer has been given for how they could have been arranged properly and been enclosed in a cell wall. This would require another set of conditions altogether.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
huh?
The geological record does not support the view that life arose spontaneously from non-living matter. Evolutionists date this origin at about 3.5 billion years ago; however, cells capable of photosynthesis have been found in rock from South Africa dated more than 3.1 billion years old, and in Australian rock dated 3.5 billion years old, five different kinds of cells have been identified. There also appears to be evidences of living cells in rocks from Greenland dated 3.8 billion years ago. There are no signs in the geologic record of pre-cellular life. But if the age of the earth is about 4.6 billion years and life seems to be abundant, complex, and diverse by 3.5 billion years, that allows only 170 million years for the earth to cool and evolution to take place. This is considerably less than the 2 bil1ion years originally estimated. Just to complicate matters further, there is growing evidence that the early earth was rich in oxygen but low in nitrogen??just the opposite of what evolution needs.
The experiments which support the generation of living matter from nonliving chemicals are flawed by the very interference of the intelligent scientist performing the experiment. These experiments do not really reproduce the conditions of early earth. There were no traps to collect only the amino acids produced. The chemicals used were not nearly as concentrated and not handpicked to form a better reaction. There were many sources of energy acting simultaneously on the chemicals, and not always in harmony. And the levels of energy and wavelengths of light were not controlled. In other words, the experimenters are only fooling themselves to think that they are observing a natural process. They have manipulated the process by their own [intelligent] intervention.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
there is no such thing as nonliving matter, or non-life what so ever.
that which exists is alive. that which is not alive, does not exist.
if life could come from non-life, my chair would have an I.Q. of 500 with all the internet surfing i do. my PC would, thus, have an incalculable I.Q.
If life can come from non-life, then the presumed life is not alive, but merely a combination of non-lives.
The sun is our oldest ancestor. Our Greatest Grandfather.
The Earth is our Greatest Grandmother.
The ocean is the womb of all textbook-life on Earth, but the earth itself is alive as well.
[align=center]THE ORIGIN OF FIRST LIFE 3[/align]
Evolutionists have never shown any mechanism that can harness the energy to do the work of selecting amino acids and sorting which will build each gene to develop a living organism. It doesn't do any good to have a drawer full of batteries if we don't have a flashlight (a mechanism for harnessing energy) to put them in. The DNA molecule is very complex. In fact, it has the specified complexity that we spoke of earlier. The English alphabet has twenty-six letters; the Greek alphabet has twenty-four and the genetic alphabet has only four, but the method of communicating by the sequence of letters is the same. Information scientist Hubert P. Yockey insists, "It is important to understand that we are not reasoning by analogy. The sequence hypothesis applies directly to the protein and the genetic text as well as to written language and therefore the treatment is mathematically identical." [Hubert P. Yockey, "Self-Organization, Origin of Life Scenarios, and Information Theory" in Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1981, p. 16] It turns out that a single strand of DNA carries the same amount of information as a volume of an encyclopedia. Granting that there may have been enough energy available to do the work, the only systems we know which can harness the energy to do this kind of work are either living (but these were not around before life began) or intelligent. It is easy to pump a lot of energy into a system at random if all you want to do is make it hot, but if you want to organize it??that is, put it in order and create information??that requires intelligence.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
[align=center]THE ORIGIN OF FIRST LIFE 4[/align]
What could explain the sudden appearance of life and also provide for the informational organization of living matter? If we apply the principle of uniformity (analogy) to the question, the only cause that we know routinely does this kind of work in the present is intelligence. The reasonable assumption is that it also required intelligence to do it in the past. Uniform experience proves this to us and, as Hume said, "As a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof from the nature of the fact" that the information inherent in living things required an intelligent cause. Since it is not possible that we are speaking of human intelligence, or even living beings in the natural sense, it had to be a supernatural intelligence. This does create a disjunction in the course of nature, which irritates most scientists; however, once it is admitted that there is a radical disjunction from nothing to something at the beginning of the universe, there can be little objection to the idea of another intervention when the evidence clearly points to it.
Other theories have been advanced to explain the origins of first life on earth. One is that new natural laws need to be discovered, but scientists can only point out the need and cannot explain how the organizing work can be done. Others suggest that life may have come to earth from somewhere else in the universe, either on a meteorite or on an ancient spaceship, but both of these solutions just push the question back one step: Where did that life come from? Still others borrow from pantheism and hold that some mind within the universe can account for the origin of life. Thermal vents in the sea floor and clay deposits are being studied as possible breeding grounds for life's beginnings, but none of these views really accounts for a way to harness the energy to make specified complexity possible. The most probable cause is a supernatural intelligence.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
Hey Pahu, have you ever read "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot?
I think you would be interested by the idea of the Implicate order, and what that model has to say about evolution, especially the way you are talking about it.
Check it out even just as a pass time its a good read.
[align=center]
THE ORIGIN OF NEW LIFE FORMS 1
[/align]
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 origin of new life forms, they appeared either by an evolutionary process of natural selection without any intelligent intervention or by special Creation through the work of an intelligent designer.
Darwin made one of his greatest contributions to the theory of evolution with his analogy of selection by breeders to selection in nature. This principle of natural selection became the hallmark of evolution because it provided a system by which new developments of life forms could be explained without recourse to a supernatural cause. The main evidence that he put forward to support this analogy was the fossil record. Introductory biology books ever since have pictured this gradual transition of life forms from simple to complex in acceptance of this view.
Darwin himself was aware that there were serious problems with the analogy between breeders and nature, but he hoped that what humans could do in a few generations could be done by nature in several hundred generations. However, time is not the only factor, which weakens the analogy. E.S. Russell wrote:
??It is unfortunate that Darwin ever introduced the term ??natural selection,?? for it has given rise to much confusion of thought.
??Conclusion: Rather than being analogous, in the most crucial aspects, natural selection and artificial selection are exact opposites.
??He did so, of course, because he arrived at his theory through studying the effects of selection as practiced by man in the breeding of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. Here the use of the word is entirely legitimate. But the action of man in selective breeding is not analogous to the action of ??natural selection?? but almost its direct opposite .... Man has an aim or an end in view; ??natural selection?? can have none. Man picks out the individuals he wishes to cross, choosing them by the characteristics he seeks to perpetuate or enhance. He protects them and their issue by all means in his power, guarding them thus from the operation of natural selection, which would speedily eliminate many freaks; he continues his active and purposeful selection from generation to generation until he reaches, if possible, his goal. Nothing of this kind happens, or can happen, through the blind process of differential elimination and differential survival which we miscall ??natural Selection.? [E.S. Russell, The Diversity of Animals ([1915] 1962), p. 124. Cited in James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979)]
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
[align=center]THE ORIGIN OF NEW LIFE FORMS 2
[/align]
A major problem for evolution is the analogy of selective breeding being used to prove that natural processes did it all because it contains a great deal of intelligent intervention that is overlooked in the theory. Breeders manipulate according to an intelligent plan to produce specific developments. Informationally speaking, this is going from a state of complexity in the DNA code to a higher, or at least more specific, state, of complexity. It is like changing the sentence, "She had brown hair," to the more complex statement, "Her tresses were auburn and shown in the sun." This increase in information coded into the DNA requires intelligence just as surely as the original coding to produce life did. Indeed, if Darwin's analogy proves anything, it shows the need for intelligent intervention to produce new life forms. Again, the principle of uniformity leads us to this conclusion once it is realized that we are working within origin science, not operation science.
But what of the fossil evidence that has been so widely proclaimed? Darwin recognized this as a problem as well and wrote in The Origin of Species, "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory." [Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 280] In the 130 years since Darwin wrote, the situation has only become worse for his theory. Noted Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has written, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils." [Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace" in Natural History May 1977, p. 14]
Eldredge and Tattersall agree, saying:
??Expectation colored perception to such an extent that the most obvious single fact about biological evolution??non-change??has seldom, if ever, been incorporated into anyone's scientific notions of how life actually evolves. If ever there was a myth, it is that evolution is a process of constant change.? [Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 8]
What does the fossil record suggest? Evolutionists like Gould now support what creationists like Agassiz, Gish, and others have said all along:
??The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:
??1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
??2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and ??fully formed.??" [Gould, op. cit. pp. 13-14]
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
[align=center]
THE ORIGIN OF NEW LIFE FORMS 3
[/align]
The fossil evidence clearly gives a picture of mature, fully functional creatures suddenly appearing and staying very much the same. There is no real indication that one form of life transforms into a completely different form. While these two features seem to invalidate classical evolution, they are somewhat problematic to creationists also.
Some creationists say that the fossil record reflects the debris of the great Flood either because some animals were better able to escape the waters or by hydrodynamic sorting as the remains settled. These scientists are concerned with preserving a young earth on the grounds that they believe in a literal six-day, twenty-four hour period Creation with no large gaps in the early genealogies of Genesis. Others, known as old earth creationists, hold that the earth need not be only thousands of years old. This group understands the fossil record to show that Creation was accomplished in a series of stages, each new appearance in the geological strata pointing to a new moment of direct creation. Invertebrates appeared first, followed by a long period of nature balancing itself before the next burst of creation. Fish appeared next and then amphibia and so on until man was created. The latter view does agree with the fossil record, but there is no consensus between creationists about the age of the earth. This is a hotly debated issue, bur no matter which way it is resolved, they both agree that the existing fossil evidence supports Creation better than evolution.
Some evolutionists have attempted to deal with the fossil evidence by introducing the idea of punctuated equilibrium. These scientists say that the jumps in the fossil record reflect evolutionary jumps which brought on major changes in shorter times. Hence, evolution is not gradual, but punctuated by sudden leaps from one stage to the next. The theory has been criticized because they cannot produce any evidence for a mechanism of secondary causes which makes these sudden advances possible. Their theory then appears to be based solely on the absence of transitional fossils. Darwin, after all, understood suddenness to be evidence of Creation. If this is true, then it supports what Creationists said all along??the sudden appearance of fully formed animals is evidence of Creation.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
[align=center]
THE ORIGIN OF NEW LIFE FORMS 4
[/align]
Creationists reason that there are real limitations to genetic changes and that this indicates a special creation of each major category of life forms. Each new life form came into being by an act of intelligent intervention specifying its genetic information for its peculiar function. Just as letter sequences make up different words, DNA codes vary and produce different species. If it requires intelligence to create King Lear from selecting and sorting the words in a dictionary, then it also requires intelligence to select and sort genetic information to produce a variety of species which work together as a system in nature. The sudden appearance of these life forms only strengthens our case that a supernatural intelligence was at work to accomplish this organization. By the principle of uniformity, this is the most plausible solution to the problem.
CONCLUSION
Now that we have new evidence about the nature of the universe, the information stored in DNA molecules, and further fossil confirmation, the words of Louis Agassiz resound even more loudly than they did when first written in 1860: "[Darwin] has lost sight of the most striking of the features, and the one which pervades the whole, namely, that there runs throughout Nature unmistakable evidence of thought, corresponding to the mental operations of our own mind, and therefore intelligible to us as thinking beings, and unaccountable on any other basis than that they owe their existence to the working of intelligence; and no theory that overlooks this element can be true to nature." [Louis Agassiz, "Contribution to the Natural History of the United States" in American Journal of Science, 1860]
There are two views of origins. One says that everything came about by natural causes; the other looks to a supernatural cause. The overwhelming evidence supports the Creationist view.
[From When Skeptics Ask by Geisler & Brooks]
You're using thinking that, let's face it came from the source you're trying to, in a way, disprove -- science. What brought the universe into existence? We don't know, and we may never find out, but what brought god into existence? Why are you implying only god can be without a creator?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
Religion and superstition have no place in todays world but there are people out there who cannot accept this and go to great lengths to use any kind of argument they can fathom.
"The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! 'Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options.'"
- Bill Hicks
Where do you get the notion I am trying to disprove science? I am using the facts of science to disprove evolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHonorary
But we do know by experience, experimentation, etc. that before the universe existed, it didn't exist and therefore there was nothing. We know that nothing comes from nothing by any natural cause, therefore, the cause of the universe must be supernatural.Quote:
What brought the universe into existence? We don't know, and we may never find out,
A number of skeptics ask this question. But God by definition is the uncreated creator of the universe, so the question ??Who created God??? is illogical, just like ??To whom is the bachelor married???Quote:
but what brought god into existence? Why are you implying only god can be without a creator?
So a more sophisticated questioner might ask: "If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn??t God need a cause? And if God doesn??t need a cause, why should the universe need a cause?" In reply, we should use the following reasoning:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
The universe has a beginning.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
It??s important to stress the words in bold type. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so doesn??t need a cause. In addition, Einstein??s general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. Therefore, time itself would have begun along with matter and space.
Since God, by definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time ?? God is ??the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity? (Isa. 57:15). Therefore, He doesn??t have a cause.
In contrast, there is good evidence that the universe had a beginning. This can be shown from the Laws of Thermodynamics, the most fundamental laws of the physical sciences.
1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant.
2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.
If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever; otherwise, it would already have exhausted all usable energy??the ??heat death?? of the universe. For example, all radioactive atoms would have decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no further work would be possible.
So the obvious corollary is that the universe began a finite time ago with a lot of usable energy, and is now running down.
Now, what if the questioner accepts that the universe had a beginning, but not that it needs a cause? However, it is self-evident that things that begin have a cause??no one really denies it in his heart. All science and history would collapse if this law of cause and effect were denied. So would all law enforcement if the police didn??t think they needed to find a cause for a stabbed body or a burgled house.
In addition, the universe cannot be self-caused??nothing can create itself, because that would mean that it existed before it came into existence, which is a logical absurdity.
IN SUMMARY
The universe (including time itself) can be shown to have had a beginning.
It is unreasonable to believe something could begin to exist without a cause.
The universe therefore requires a cause, just as (Gen. 1:1) and (Rom. 1:20) teach.
God, as creator of time, is outside of time. Since therefore He has no beginning in time, He has always existed, so doesn??t need a cause.
I agree that we would be far better off if we got rid of superstition and false religions. That is why I am sharing scientific facts that disprove the superstition of evolution.Quote:
Religion and superstition have no place in todays world but there are people out there who cannot accept this and go to great lengths to use any kind of argument they can fathom.
That is one of the doctrines of false religion. The Holy Bible reveals that instead of annihilating us when we decided our way was better than His, He confined us to earth with all the material we needed, and a few thousand years, to discover if we were right. History is a record of our failure to do better exercising our way contrary to His.Quote:
"The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! 'Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options.'"
- Bill Hicks
He took on human flesh and died a very painful death in order to open the door of forgiveness and salvation for all who repent and truly desire eternal life with Him. Those who choose to continue in sin will eventually be judged and annihilated, not confined to an eternal lake of fire and torment. But no one will experience eternal death before He makes sure they know the truth and have an opportunity to apply it.
Most people in this life have never learned the truth because of all the rampant confusion and deception, so our physical death is not the end of the story. We survive the death of our bodies and have reincarnated several times. That is also part of God's plan of salvation: to give us time to experience the fruit of our positive and negative choices down through the ages. It's part of our learning process that our loving Creator has provided.
You took apart my response pretty thoroughly, the problem is it all fails miserably because of an epic fallacy in your argument -- circular reasoning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
God is the creator of the universe by definition.
By who's definition?
The bible's.
How would the bible know?
Because it is gods word and he is the creator of the universe.
Oh...
Even though the Bible does confirm that God created the universe, we don't have to rely on the Bible at all. We can use the facts of science to prove it:Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHonorary
When we set out to explain why and how something happens, we must use the evidence, facts and experience available to us if we are to arrive at a logical conclusion. Using available evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we know that the universe had a beginning and that before that beginning there was no universe and therefore there was nothing. We know this because of the Law of Causality (for every cause there is an effect and for every effect there is a cause). Based on this law, we can use the following logic:
1. The universe exists.
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. Before the beginning of the universe, there was no universe.
4. Since there was no universe, there was nothing.
5. Since the universe does exist, it came from nothing.
6. Nothing comes from nothing by any natural cause.
7. Therefore the cause of the universe is supernatural.
8. Life exists.
9. Life always comes from pre-existing life of the same kind (the Law of Biogenesis).
10. Life cannot come from nonliving matter by any natural cause.
11. Since life does exist, the cause of life is supernatural.
Many people with a naturalistic worldview assume everything can be explained by natural causes. From the beginning, they reject the possibility of a supernatural cause. Because of this they are left with no scientifically valid answers to the question of how the universe could come from nothing, which is impossible by any natural cause of which we are aware. Many answers have been proposed that go beyond the realm of known evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation and therefore enter the realm of fiction.
The same logic applies to life. Using available evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we know that life only comes from pre-existing life of the same kind.
??Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently it is called the Law of Biogenesis. Evolution conflicts with this scientific law by claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes? (From In the Beginning by Walt Brown, Ph.D. page 5). [http://www.creationscience.com/]
Life never comes from non-living matter by any natural cause of which we are aware.
Now that we have seen proof that God exists, using logic based on known evidence, experience, facts, observation and experimentation, we need to see if He has revealed Himself to us. In the Holy Bible there are hundreds of prophecies given by God who is speaking in the first person. In both Bible and secular history we find that those prophecies have been accurately fulfilled. No other writing on earth comes close to doing this! Only God can accurately reveal the future, ergo, He is the author of the Holy Bible. Within the pages of the Holy Bible He reveals His nature, our nature, His relationship to us, our need for salvation and His plan of salvation for us.
The reason the universe and life cannot come from nothing by any natural cause, but can come from a supernatural cause is because God is the self-existent creator of everything and everyone. He is not subject to His creation. He created it and sustains it. It is a mistake to judge God by human standards and human perspectives. God reveals that He is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
If you are interested in more detailed proof, read, ??Evidence that Demands a Verdict? by Josh McDowell.
[From ??Reincarnation in the Bible?? http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/b...0-595-12387-2]
Basically what you're saying is that since we cannot yet figure out what happened before the big bang, or what caused it, it must have been supernatural. Lightning, earthquakes and magnetism used to all be considered supernatural before we were able to figure out, with logic and science, what they were. Do you honestly not see the pattern?
I agree that the concept of something from nothing may be beyond our comprehension and therefore we simply default to some kind of great creator or life force of it ALL. However you cannot, with rational and logical thinking anyways, say that the god of your bible is it. And no, I will not even begin to discuss why your religion is or isn't the real religion, because that is just irrelevant.
Your point sounds valid, but even though it is true that many events in the past have been attributed to the supernatural, and later found to be natural, does not rule out the possibility of a supernatural cause for those things that cannot be harmonized with known scientific facts. Also, the question remains: Where did all the matter in the universe come from and the laws governing that matter? We still are left with a supernatural cause in the beginning.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHonorary
In my response to which you are responding, I touched on the primary reason the Bible alone is unique among all religious writings because of the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies confirmed by non-biblical science. Also unique is the fact that archaeology has confirmed the historical accuracy of the Bible and has found no inaccuracy, so far.Quote:
I agree that the concept of something from nothing may be beyond our comprehension and therefore we simply default to some kind of great creator or life force of it ALL. However you cannot, with rational and logical thinking anyways, say that the god of your bible is it. And no, I will not even begin to discuss why your religion is or isn't the real religion, because that is just irrelevant.
Your position seems to begin with the belief that there can be no such thing as a supernatural cause of anything, and therefore a creator God does not exist. Do you have any evidence to support such a belief? When confronted with facts that logically demand a supernatural cause, you resort to the faith that someday in the unknown future, those facts will be demonstrated to have natural causes.
[align=center]
Parallel Strata
[/align]
The earth??s sedimentary layers are typically parallel to adjacent layers. Such uniform layers are seen, for example, in the Grand Canyon and in road cuts in mountainous terrain. Had these parallel layers been deposited slowly over thousands of years, erosion would have cut many channels in the topmost layers. Their later burial by other sediments would produce nonparallel patterns. Because parallel layers are the general rule, and the earth??s surface erodes rapidly, one can conclude that almost all sedimentary layers were deposited rapidly relative to the local erosion rate??not over long periods of time.
Fossils crossing two or more sedimentary layers (strata) are called poly- (many) strate (strata) fossils. [Fossil trees are found worldwide crossing two or more strata]?Had burial been slow, the treetops would have decayed. Obviously, the trees could not have grown up through the strata without sunlight and air. The only alternative is rapid burial. Some polystrate trees are upside down, which could occur in a large flood. Soon after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, scientists saw trees being buried in a similar way in the lake-bottom sediments of Spirit Lake. Polystrate tree trunks are found worldwide.
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 22. Parallel Strata
intelligent design is nothing more that creationism and had been thoroughly discredited in the court ruling Dover. its not even bad science its just bad reasoning. any theory that is based on a unstable foundation cannot be considered science. watch NOVA's judgement day intelligent design on trail, it shows that intelligent design was created by a bunch of religious zealots trying to change society. and at the end when it was ruled not to be science a fold of deaths were sent to many people involved in its disproval, what good Christians believe what i say or i'll kill you...... very Christian dont you think. evolution does in no way disprove the existence of god it only says that the bible may not be 100% accurate, after all it was written by man not the hand of god and was written to the best of our understandings at the time
You may not be aware of the whole story in the Kitzmiller vs Dover Opinion. Here are some facts:Quote:
Originally Posted by animalman
Michael J. Behe is Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Behe's current research involves delineation of design and natural selection in protein structures. He was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District federal trial in 2005.
On December 20, 2005 Judge John Jones issued his opinion in the matter of Kitzmiller, in which I was the lead witness for the defense. There are many statements of the Court scattered throughout the opinion with which I disagree. However, here I will remark only on section E-4, ??Whether ID is Science.?
The Court finds that intelligent design (ID) is not science. In its legal analysis, the Court takes what I would call a restricted sociological view of science: ??science? is what the consensus of the community of practicing scientists declares it to be. The word ??science? belongs to that community and to no one else. Thus, in the Court??s reasoning, since prominent science organizations have declared intelligent design to not be science, it is not science. Although at first blush that may seem reasonable, the restricted sociological view of science risks conflating the presumptions and prejudices of the current group of practitioners with the way physical reality must be understood.
On the other hand, like myself most of the public takes a broader view: ??science? is an unrestricted search for the truth about nature based on reasoning from physical evidence. By those lights, intelligent design is indeed science. Thus there is a disconnect between the two views of what ??science? is. Although the two views rarely conflict at all, the dissonance grows acute when the topic turns to the most fundamental matters, such as the origins of the universe, life, and mind.
Below I proceed sequentially through section E-4. Statements from the opinion are in italics, followed by my comments.
[To read the complete response, go to: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vie...wnload&id=697]
Conclusion
The Court??s reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; an incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID. The Court has accepted the most tendentious and shopworn excuses for Darwinism with great charity and impatiently dismissed evidence-based arguments for design.
All of that is regrettable, but in the end does not impact the realities of biology, which are not amenable to adjudication. On the day after the judge??s opinion, December 21, 2005, as before, the cell is run by amazingly complex, functional machinery that in any other context would immediately be recognized as designed. On December 21, 2005, as before, there are no non-design explanations for the molecular machinery of life, only wishful speculations and Just-So stories.
Precisely why evolution cannot be considered science.Quote:
its not even bad science its just bad reasoning. any theory that is based on a unstable foundation cannot be considered science.
Is that movie based on science and fact? Movies rarely are.Quote:
watch NOVA's judgement day intelligent design on trail, it shows that intelligent design was created by a bunch of religious zealots trying to change society. and at the end when it was ruled not to be science a fold of deaths were sent to many people involved in its disproval, what good Christians believe what i say or i'll kill you...... very Christian dont you think.
Do you understand that evolution teaches a natural undirected cause of the development of life from one cell to humans?Quote:
evolution does in no way disprove the existence of god it only says that the bible may not be 100% accurate, after all it was written by man not the hand of god and was written to the best of our understandings at the time
Do you understand the Bible teaches that God created everything and everyone?
Can the cause of life forms be both non-intelligent and intelligent?
Do you know for a fact that the Bible was authored by men rather than God? If so, can you produce evidence supporting that fact?
Lets turn the table (from your list):Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
2. The universe had a beginning.
I challenge you to produce evidence supporting this fact
3. Before the beginning of the universe, there was no universe.
I challenge you to produce evidence supporting this fact
4. Since there was no universe, there was nothing.
I challenge you to produce evidence supporting this fact
5. Since the universe does exist, it came from nothing.
I challenge you to produce evidence supporting this fact
WOW - this thread still lives!
More copy-pasting than you can shake a stick at :wtf:
Let's get at least one thing straight:
The theory of Evolution has nothing to do with the Big Bang, nothing to do with the formation of the sun or planets and nothing to do with the existance or lack thereof of a first cause. The theory of Evolution doesn't even deal with how life on Earth got started.
The only thing that is examined and explained by the theory of Evolution is how life on Earth developed after life began.
I'm still waiting to see how Science disproves evolution - so far this thread is full of fail.
Pahu is literally spamming the whole web with this BS:
Check this Google search
"pahu science disproves evolution"
Isn't this enough to get banned here? Or at least moved to the conspiracy forum :D j/k
You failed to answer my question. As to your challenges, all the facts are self evident. Can you think of anything in the universe that had no beginning? The definition of universe is everything that exists. Before everything existed, did it exist? If it did not exist, wouldn't there be nothing? Since the universe does exist, and it appeared from nothing, and there is no natural cause, then isn't it logical to conclude the cause of the universe is supernatural?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ubalubus
Aren't your challenges really an attempt to explain away your inability or unwillingness to accept facts that threaten what you want to believe?
You are referring to biological evolution. Do you disagree that the universe evolved from a Big Bang as many scientists believe?Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta9 UK
Do you question the belief that evolution starts with a single cell that had no beginning?
Do believe everything that exists was created from nothing? If so, we agree!
Doe BS mean Beautiful Science? As to your suggestion I should be banned for sharing my understanding of reality (which, by the way, is what you are also doing), I am not interested in entering into endless quibbling over the information I am sharing because I believe the information speaks for itself. If you disagree, that ??s fine. I believe the free exchange of facts is a healthy, profitable way to discover truth, but your disagreement is with the scientists being quoted, not me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delta9 UK
The mentality of unredeemed human nature has remained unchanged since Cain murdered Abel over a disagreement. History is full of examples of people silencing those with whom they disagree:
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace because they refused to worship the king??s idol.
Daniel was thrown into the lion??s den for worshipping God, contrary to the king??s decree.
Jesus was crucified because the religious authorities disagreed with Him.
His disciples were tortured and murdered because the authorities disagreed with them.
Thousands were murdered for disagreeing with the Roman Catholic church during the inquisition.
Hitler murdered six million Jews and seven million Christians because he disagreed with them.
Over 100,000,000 people have been murdered under atheist communism for disagreeing with them.
Muslims murder anyone who disagrees with them.
So you are definitely in the majority when you want to silence me because you disagree with the facts I am sharing that challenge your worldview.
The refusal to believe facts in this and other instances may run deeper than just simple fear, hatred or partisanship. Perhaps some people invest so much of themselves into a certain political, religious, philosophical or scientific viewpoint, that their identity and sense of self becomes bonded to it. The bond is so strong that any fact that disproves even a small part of their particular viewpoint is interpreted as a direct attack upon their own self-identity. This can lead to retaliation in the form of wild accusations or character attacks upon the people promoting such facts (I.E. stop the message by killing the messenger).
If this is true, then you can probably never prove any disagreeable facts to such people. They??ve traded introspection and reason for the security, comfort, and certainty that their viewpoints, and thus their identity, are always 100 percent correct.
as you did mine...Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pahu78
Religion is an evil invention of man to perverse and twist the beauty and pureness of spirituality to benefit himself both in wealth, power and ego.
Why do you believe that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ubalubus
[align=center]
Fossil Gaps
[/align]
If evolution happened, the fossil record should show continuous and gradual changes from the bottom to the top layers. Actually, many gaps or discontinuities appear throughout the fossil record (a).
a. ??But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?? Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 163.
??...the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution].? Ibid., p. 323.
Darwin then explained that he thought that these gaps existed because of the ??imperfection of the geologic record.? Early Darwinians expected the gaps would be filled as fossil exploration continued. Most paleontologists now agree that this expectation has not been fulfilled.
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - 23. Fossil Gaps