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Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | Thanks for this link, John....it's made my day LOL! There is a particular pieced I will copy and paste tomorrow for you. Goodnight and sleep well! |
John Ravenscroft Posts: 321 Joined: 21st Sep 2007 Location: UK | quotePosted at 06:53 on 18th September 2008 Well, if nothing else I'm glad I sent you to bed happy, Sue! I did indeed sleep well. Hope you did, too. I prayed to God last night that he'd stop the few shares I have left from tumbling in value, but I'd be willing to bet the FTSE Index will dive down again today. That's cast-iron proof that He doesn't exist, I reckon. |
Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | I'm glad you slept well, John. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about stocks and shares, but I sometimes have a flutter on the National Lottery and never ask God to give me the winning ticket......, and even if I did I wouldn't expect a reply! Seriously, prayer isn't about asking for material things, really. You said in another post you could not imagine a God sitting up there waiting to give you whatever you asked for, and you're right! I thought this was an interesting post on the link you provided. I am not sure about the young earth bit, though. .. How refreshing to see the BBC publish an article on creationism that does not set out to ridicule it or to portray creationists as naive or non-scientific. Creationists actually have the same scientific evidence as evolutionists - it is the way that evidence is interpreted that makes the difference. Evolutionists begin with the pre-supposition that there is no God (having a pre-supposition is NOT a scientific approach) and so have to interpret the evidence accordingly - any suggestion that what we see may have its origin in Almighty God will not be entertained for a moment by such scientists - one has to ask "why?" It must also be seen that a belief in evolution is exactly that - a belief, a faith system (as admitted by Richard Dawkins himself in one of his early books) - it is by no means fact as it is far from proven. A true scientist will examine all possibilities and given an honest interpretation of what we see around us in the light of what the Bible teaches about a worldwide flood then a young earth created with intelligent design by an Almightly God is not only a very real possibility but actually a probability. |
| John Ravenscroft Posts: 321 Joined: 21st Sep 2007 Location: UK | quotePosted at 16:40 on 18th September 2008 Sue, can't you see that the person who posted that comment has got things exactly the wrong way round? Evolutionists do not begin with the presupposition that there is no God - any more than they begin with the presupposition that there is no Santa, or no Jack Frost. They simply look at the evidence in the real world: the diversity of plants and animals, the obvious relationships between those plants and animals, the nature of the fossil record, the messages written in DNA and so on... God is not a factor in their thinking. Its creationists who begin with presuppositions - huge ones! They presuppose that there is a God, that he created the world and everything in it, that the Bible is the true word of that God... Evolution is a theory, but it's also a FACT, Sue. It happens, and can be seen to happen everywhere we look. Read Stephen J Gould (who Creationists often quote - or misquote). Facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered. Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution. |
Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | Hi John, I would have answered earlier, but have been busy and could not get to the computer. Re your post above. You said that scientists don't start with presumption that there is no God any more than they do the presumption that there is no Santa or Jack Frost. Well, bracketing God with the other two rather speaks for itself I would have thought. When you joined this thread, John, you said you were 'fascinated by the concept of God'. I must say, I have searched hard to find any posts suggesting this. Every post contains your efforts to show He does not exist. Can you tell me John, about your fascination with the concept of God and what shape it takes? |
| John Ravenscroft Posts: 321 Joined: 21st Sep 2007 Location: UK | quotePosted at 23:42 on 18th September 2008 It takes several shapes, Sue. Shape one: the need for God fascinate me. Shape two: the fact that many people cling to their notion of God despite all the evidence that it is a fiction fascinates me. Shape three: the connection between a belief in God and a tendency to believe in the supernatural fascinates me. Shape four: the intellectual and linguistic knots that believers need to tie themselves in to maintain their belief fascinates me. I expect there are many more shapes, but I've had too many glasses of Shiraz to think of them at the moment! As for bracketing God with Santa and Jack Frost, I see no difference. All three are, as far as I can tell, fictional characters. |
Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | But there we are, John, your last reason speaks volumes. On the one hand you say scientists DON'T start off with any predetermined views, but like you they see God as on par with Father Christmas. I call that a closed mind. Your second 'shape' is just your opinion. You say He is a fiction, because that is what you want to believe. He is fiction in your mind only, to billions of people he is the living God. You talk about believers tying themselves in knots. What is so mangled about saying " I believe in God".? Interestingly, your third shape fascinates me. Those that don't believe in a creator, will believe in all other manner of things. I can't remember who said it but there is a quote " When people stop believing in God they start believing in anything." That may not be word perfect but it is the gist of the quote. On a lighter note, we already have a Krissy and Jason show....what do you think this should be called, John?! LOL You would think there was someone out there that would come in and let me go and have a cigarette!
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| John Ravenscroft Posts: 321 Joined: 21st Sep 2007 Location: UK | quotePosted at 09:45 on 19th September 2008 On the one hand you say scientists DON'T start off with any predetermined views, but like you they see God as on par with Father Christmas. I call that a closed mind. Sue, imagine two very early humans. Let's call them Fred and Mary. They both notice that we have day and we have night: they both see the sun move across the sky. Those are real world facts. Fred and Mary wonder about those facts - they want to understand what is happening. Fred decides that inside the Sun there must be a God. The sun must be his fiery chariot, and he rides it across the sky over the flat Earth. Fred likes that explanation, because his God inside the sun explains lots of other things, too. Thunder must be the rumbling of his God's belly, lightning must be the Spear of his God when his God is hunting, the Moon must be his God's woman, and when the moon covers the sun they are making love. From now on whenever Fred sees something he doesn't understand he has a ready explanation - the God in the sun did it. His mind is closed. Mary explains day and night in a different way. When she was a child she found a round stone and one night, turning it in front of the fire, she noticed that half of the stone was in light, the other half was in darkness. She thinks the world might be like a very large stone, turning in front of a very large fire - the Sun. Mary realises that could explain why we have day and night. When it comes to lightning, of course, Mary has to find some other explanation - unlike Fred God in the sun, her spinning stone is not an explanation for everything. Her mind is open, and whenever new facts present themselves she looks for new answers. You talk about believers tying themselves in knots. What is so mangled about saying " I believe in God".? There's nothing mangled about saying I believe in a God, Sue. The problems come when you make definite statements about what that God does, and those statements are then shown to be false. For example, Creationists say the Earth is only a few thousand years old - dating it according to events in the Bible. Faced with the fact that there is undeniable evidence in the fossil record for an earth that is billions of years old, Creationists tie themselves in knots (and make fools of themselves) and say things like 'God planted the fossils to test us.' On a lighter note, we already have a Krissy and Jason show....what do you think this should be called, John?! LOL You would think there was someone out there that would come in and let me go and have a cigarette! Ha! Admit it - you're enjoying yourself here in the John and Sue show! |
Posts: Joined: 1st Jan 1970 | Yes, I'm having a ball, John! Your little story is clearly saying that anyone who believes in God has a closed mind and is probably a bit dim. That's why Richard Dawkins is an enthusiastic member of the Brights Movement. Are you a member, John? The founders denied the title was implying that they are hugely cleverer than believers, but a man with one eye can see through that. Also, you are lumping together creationists with people who have a faith in God. I haven't a clue how old the earth is and makes no difference to me anyway. All the evidence has always pointed to a higher intelligence. From our brains, which are still a mystery, to the beautiful universe. Have you never had a moment in your life when you have been overwhelmed and thankful and realise you can't think of anyone to thank? I think it was Malcom Muggeridge who said something along the lines of " In about a hundred years time, man will look back and realise that belief in evolution was the biggest Hoax of the twentieth century" I read some good news today, that it is also on the wane in the USA. Also just under half the British population don't believe that life on this earth came about by accident. And 40% of them would like Intelligent Design to be taught in schools. That's pretty good coming from a society as secular as ours. I also like the quote " God can stand being told He doesn't exist". I do wish you would open your mind a little, John, to other possibilities.
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| John Ravenscroft Posts: 321 Joined: 21st Sep 2007 Location: UK | quotePosted at 16:37 on 19th September 2008 Sue, I asked you a question a while ago that you didn't really answer. Here it is again: Is there any evidence at all that would convince you there is no God?
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