Quote from: Stijn on December 30, 2014, 09:49:28 AM

Quote from: BADecker on December 30, 2014, 03:00:18 AM

All evolution coherence is based on "if." What I mean is, when you get down to the basis of it all, the science says "if" this and that are true, then evolution happened. There is no foundation under evolution. Indeed, there are lots of void gaps between the various steps in evolutionary process.

of course there will always remain void gaps, because not all fossils of all our dead ancestors remained conserved. But evolution can predict something: that new fossil discoveries make the gaps smaller. And indeed that is what we see happening again and again. And we see the fossils in different layers in the ground corresponding with different eras in the past. And that all makes sense. The genesis flood will predict another patern of fossil deposits, and we don't see that pattern.
So yes: if (yes, of course "if") evolution is true, we expect to see X, Y and Z. If genesis is true, we expect to see A, B and C. Now, we see none of A, B nor C, but we already see X and Z. Then it is irrational to believe in genesis and not in evolution by claiming that there is a gap, that we didn't see Y yet.

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The thing is, nobody knows if those are intermediate species. Which ones are the intermediate ones? Are they all intermediate ones? Perhaps they were all created as individual kind-begets-kind species, and the thing we see today is entropy increasing. More and more of our current species of life are dying out without anything coming in to take their place.

we can deduce that those fossils are intermediate species (or relatives of intermediates), by first dating how old those fossils are. Then we put all the fossils next to each other, the oldest ones left, the newest ones right. Then we look at structural differences between the fossils, the shapes of the bones. And then we see some changes when we move from left to right. And those changes make sense from the point of evolution. For example we see an old fossil of an animal with arms, a newer fossil of an animal with featherlike things at his arms, a newer fossil of an animal with winglike arms, and still a newer fossil of an animal with full blown wings. And of course now there are three gaps in the fossil record. And then we find another fossil of an animal that lived between the second and third and looked a bit like the second and a bit like the third in the row. So it is an intermediate, but now there are four gaps. But the gaps are getting smaller.

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Good questions. God is God. How do we know that He needed creating? We aren't far enough along in our investigations to even begin to view what He is personally like.

here we can see a clear distinction between current science and religion. Like evolution, god is a hypothesis. But it in contrast to evolution, god is not a fruitful hypothesis. After all those millenia, christians still don't know anything about how god did it, what he is like. Whereas evolutionary biologists are moving ahead at fast speed, gaining new insights every time. I have the impression that christians are not even investigating their god hypothesis. The god hypothesis is not fruitful.

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2. There is no pure randomness. Everything that we call random or probability is based on our inability to see the causes for some effects. The whole universe operates on cause and effect and always has. Even the quantum math that has been developed, which might suggest that there is pure random out there somewhere, has been designed using cause and effect thinking.

some models about the origing of the universe did not have a beginning and hence were not caused (e.g. Hawking Hartle no-boundary state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartle%E2%80%93Hawking_state)

Again models... filled with holes and gaps... simply because we don't know enough to determine if they are even plausible or not.

well, we have mathematics to determine whether they are plausible, in the sense of whether they are consistent and whether they predict things that corresponds with empirical data. You see scientists thinking about how the universe began, constructing and testing models. Why are christians so incapable of doing that? Why don't they construct a clear model of god and then test it against empirical data?

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The fact that we humans think the way we do - about everything including science and art - has its base in cause and effect, because something caused us to think the way we do. What is the Great First Cause that caused the chain of effects?

and what is the cause of that? What caused god? What caused god to make a causal universe?

Again. We are barely getting an understanding of the way the universe works.

well, scientists (physicists) are moving ahead at great speed and understand more and more about the big bang. Whereas christians remain stuck with those basic questions.

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And we are scratching the surface of this understanding. How can we understand God Who is eternal and never changes, and lives in light that is unapproachable, and with Whom there is no shadow of turning?

how do you even know that an entity like that even exists?
Scientists are able to discover things (particles, dark matter,...) that are not visible...

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Perhaps I said it not so clear. I meant two things:
1. The Bible can't exist, yet it does. The history of the Bible shows this. Yet, Bibles abound around the world.
2. Non of the other religions approaches this impossibility of existing.

why can't the bible exist?
If the bible can't exist, then neither can the bhagavat gita.

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You missed it. God doesn't even think mistakes. God doesn't plan for failures. The failures and mistakes are automatically corrected. The corrections are built in.

I guess no-one who makes something thinks about the mistakes and pplans for the failures. But the failure and mistake of eve eating from the forbidden fruit is not automatically corrected. All this suffering after the fall is not a good correction for a single person eating from a fruit. A correction would be to induce vomitting in Eve.

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The question for each of us is, Will I accept the correction, or will I push myself out of existence by not accepting the correction?

very strange question...

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God made man in the image of God so that man could recognize how good and great God is.

being extremely narcissistic is not my idea of being good...
It sounds silly: "oh, let's make toys that can adore me and see how great I am"

Except that, when you are as good as God, it is the only way to operate.

oh, sure :-)
God is sooo good, that he is allowed to be sooo narcissistic...

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In the perfect world that God made, there wasn't any suffering. Such a thing as "unnecessary suffering" does not fit that world.

Cannibalism was never condoned.

Animals are not related to people in such a sense that cannibalism would apply.

and then someone ate from a fruit, and god turned 180° and decided to make the world far worse than perfect. And with far worse I mean: far worse. Why would he change his mind like that? Why would he suddenly allow so much unnecessary suffering?

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Part of God's plan always was blessings for man. Among the blessings was freedom of choice.

then why didn't he create a free world in the first place? A world where everyone is free to kill and eat someone else?

The idea was to give man the opportunity to be the best that he could be, not to give him the opportunity to fail.

this doesn't make any sense to me. Giving someone an opportunity for A without giving him at the same time the opportunity for non-A? You are free to choose A but not free to choose anything else but A?

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God doesn't want anyone to be destroyed.

well he clearly did, with his floods and plagues and genocides and infanticides...

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But, that's how great God is. If people won't do the thing that they were made for, what good are they?

I think god has to know what he wants. He can't have the cake and eat it too. Either he wants to be sure that he will be worshipped by his creatures, or he wants his creatures to be free.
But are people made for worshipping god? How egocentric and narcissistic is this god? If I would be a creator and I want to be worshipped, I can create people who worship me. But why would I make these people sentient, with their own preferences, likes and dislikes, if all I'm going to do is destroy these people (against their preferences) once they no longer worship me? Why didn't god make insentient robots that worshipped him?

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Yet, God in His mercy gives them many second chances. And still they won't turn and accept God.

and that innocent child that died from a horrible disease did not even get one chance...

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Realize that it is not God that is crazy.

well, according to your descriptions and to what I read in the bible...

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View the Youtube videos that show how marvelously a living cell works to see about crazy.

ok, on the engineering part, god can be clever, but reading the bible, on the psychological-moral part he is really crazy. He is jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. (quote from Dawkins)

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It IS important to Him. He doesn't allow failure in any way, even once. That's why His Son Jesus had to come as man, with the strength of God, to take the punishment for man, so that man can live. Jesus virtually nullified the effects of breaking the law, without nullifying the law itself. Look to Jesus and live.

well I can't understand the jesus part either. God sends himself as his son to earth to be tortured for the things that someone else did wrong in order to forgive some other people? It doesn't make any sense... Perhaps god watched too many episodes of Monty Python's flying circus: "and now for something completely different"

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It is true that a lot of believers get what the unbelievers should be getting in this life, and vice versa. There will come a time when Jesus will return to raise all the dead to life, and to judge everyone with regard to how much right and wrong he did while living.

but jesus is still not helping all those innocent victims now. Where is he waiting for? He does not even want to say when he will come to help. He still does not give us any evidence that he will come and compensate for all the unnecessary suffering. That's not good. Look at how a medic does it in the hospital. Suppose we have a patient, and a doctor can heal him instantly. But the doctor does not heal him. Instead, he goes away, does not even tell when he will be back, that he will heal the patient. And he remains absent for a long long time without giving the patient any sign of hope... That's not a good doctor.

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Those who believed in Jesus for salvation will receive eternal life in the New Heavens and the New Earth that God will create (is creating?).

but why all the unnecessary suffering? It is like a thief. Suppose we have a thief who already has enough money. Still he steals money from you. So you are stolen and poor. You won't hear anything from the thief, but then, some 50 years later, the thief comes back and gives you back your money and much much more. Ok, what the thief did in the end, giving that fortune, was very good. But that still doesn't justify him stealing your money. The thief did not need your money. Compare this thief with a second person: someone who did not steal from you, but still gave you the fortune. I think this second person did something better.

I accept. You certainly are welcome to resist God. Your choice. However, if you have cause to change your mind in the future, God welcomes you.

Thanks for the chat.