The BIBLE and SCIENCE

[M.Dancer]

Here's some real religious insanity. Bring yer fire-proof skivies 'cause thar be sulphur & brimstone.

http://www.landoverbaptist.net/index.php

Freaky...

LAndover Baptist is a satire site

[DogOnPorch]

LAndover Baptist is a satire site

Yes I see that...now...lol.

Quite the...errr...dedication.

[GostHacked]

DogonPorch

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/01...eton/index.html

This is why science is beautiful. We have seemed to discover something that predates 'Lucy'. A new species that gives more evidence to apes/chimps/humans having a common ancestor.

"This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," said project co-director Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi," is a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Aramis, Ethiopia. That makes Ardi more than a million years older than the celebrated Lucy, the partial ape-human skeleton found in Africa in 1974.

When new evidence is found it is scrutinized. It took almost 15 years for extensive studies to show that this is a relly interesting find. This is also science's self correcting mechanism in place as well. New evidence is found and many things now have to be modified and possible thrown out all together in light of the new evidence.

[Mr.Canada]

Creationism and science aren't at odds with one another. It is perfectly acceptable for a Catholic to believe in Creationism as well as Science. In fact the Pope has a Science body which furnishes him with information. A group of which Hawkins is a member as well as many other notable and respected scientists.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Creationism and science aren't at odds with one another. It is perfectly acceptable for a Catholic to believe in Creationism as well as Science. In fact the Pope has a Science body which furnishes him with information. A group of which Hawkins is a member as well as many other notable and respected scientists.

The pope isn't a creationist in fact the Pope called Creationism pagan. Creationism doesn't go against some science just most.

Creationism goes against dozen of scientific principles not the least of which are evolution, gravity and the speed of light.

[ToadBrother]

Creationism and science aren't at odds with one another. It is perfectly acceptable for a Catholic to believe in Creationism as well as Science. In fact the Pope has a Science body which furnishes him with information. A group of which Hawkins is a member as well as many other notable and respected scientists.

Your confusing Creationism and Theistic Evolution. Other than involving a Creator, they have little in common. The Church has specifically rejected Creationism for decades.

[ToadBrother]

When new evidence is found it is scrutinized. It took almost 15 years for extensive studies to show that this is a relly interesting find. This is also science's self correcting mechanism in place as well. New evidence is found and many things now have to be modified and possible thrown out all together in light of the new evidence.

What's revolutionary about it is that it suggests very heavily that bipedalism began to evolve while our ancestors were still living a largely arboreal lifestyle (much like chimps live). For many years it was assumed that full bipedalism didn't evolve until we left the forests and started living much of the time in the savanna. This seems to pretty much debunk that (though, to be clear, there was never a consensus on it).

One thing it ought to do is finally kill the Aquatic Ape Theory.

[DogOnPorch]

Richard Dawkind vs Wendy Wright of the CWA (Concerned Womem for America)

http://www.cwfa.org/main.asp

...a classic engaement of religion vs science. Richard is trying not to be too big of an a**hole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US8f1w1cYvs

(7 parts total...but I think you'll see what I mean in the first 10 minutes.)

[jbg]

There are a lot of questions about Creationism in the other co-related evolution threads, so this thread was created to avoid too much clutters, for easy follow-ups, references....and because it deserves to have its own thread.

Be forewarned: most, if not all of the sources will come from Scientists-Christian Apologetics. I, myself, am learning about them as I go along with this.

I am, as a left-winger and someone who is not particularly religious disinclined to believe creationism. However when I read this garbage on "scientific" speculation about the beginning of life (link) I have my doubts.

Some 3.9 billion years ago, a shift in the orbit of the Sun’s outer planets sent a surge of large comets and asteroids careening into the inner solar system. Their violent impacts gouged out the large craters still visible on the Moon’s face, heated Earth’s surface into molten rock and boiled off its oceans into an incandescent mist.

Yet rocks that formed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, almost as soon as the bombardment had stopped, contain possible evidence of biological processes. If life can arise from inorganic matter so quickly and easily, why is it not abundant in the solar system and beyond? If biology is an inherent property of matter, why have chemists so far been unable to reconstruct life, or anything close to it, in the laboratory?

The origins of life on Earth bristle with puzzle and paradox. Which came first, the proteins of living cells or the genetic information that makes them? How could the metabolism of living things get started without an enclosing membrane to keep all the necessary chemicals together? But if life started inside a cell membrane, how did the necessary nutrients get in?

The questions may seem moot, since life did start somehow. But for the small group of researchers who insist on learning exactly how it started, frustration has abounded. Many once-promising leads have led only to years of wasted effort. Scientists as eminent as Francis Crick, the chief theorist of molecular biology, have quietly suggested that life may have formed elsewhere before seeding the planet, so hard does it seem to find a plausible explanation for its emergence on Earth.

In the last few years, however, four surprising advances have renewed confidence that a terrestrial explanation for life’s origins will eventually emerge.

One is a series of discoveries about the cell-like structures that could have formed naturally from fatty chemicals likely to have been present on the primitive Earth. This lead emerged from a long argument between three colleagues as to whether a genetic system or a cell membrane came first in the development of life. They eventually agreed that genetics and membranes had to have evolved together.

The three researchers, Jack W. Szostak, David P. Bartel and P. Luigi Luisi, published a somewhat adventurous manifesto in Nature in 2001, declaring that the way to make a synthetic cell was to get a protocell and a genetic molecule to grow and divide in parallel, with the molecules being encapsulated in the cell. If the molecules gave the cell a survival advantage over other cells, the outcome would be “a sustainable, autonomously replicating system, capable of Darwinian evolution,” they wrote.

“It would be truly alive,” they added.

*************

Without divine intervention, I am beginning to think that too much would have to go right for this to happen.

[BubberMiley]

At first blush, that idea seems to be an accurate description of what science is all about, but when you dig deeper you find that things like evolution can not be truly tested in a controlled setting since the theory takes millions of years to prove.

I am once again disappointed in your flippant use of name calling and derogatory accusations. Grow up.

Evolutionary science relies on scientific data to prove its point. Anything unscientific is disgarded.

But in terms of my "derogatory accusations," redeem yourself. Where are the reams of evidence of creationism you said you could provide?

[ToadBrother]

Without divine intervention, I am beginning to think that too much would have to go right for this to happen.

This is what is commonly called an argument from incredulity. Beyond that, how does invoking divine intervention solve the problem? What did this Divine being do? What energies were harnessed? What precisely did this being produce? What's more, now we have to find an explanation for this being. It solves an immediate problem at the expense of any explanatory power and creates a whole new realm of problems.

[jbg]

This is what is commonly called an argument from incredulity. Beyond that, how does invoking divine intervention solve the problem? What did this Divine being do? What energies were harnessed? What precisely did this being produce? What's more, now we have to find an explanation for this being. It solves an immediate problem at the expense of any explanatory power and creates a whole new realm of problems.

If it was a divine action we don't need those answers. The term is "lacunae" or things we'll never know.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Without divine intervention, I am beginning to think that too much would have to go right for this to happen.

This sounds like the God of the gaps argument which basically means because we don't know how, god did it. In this case its uses abiogenesis keep in mind that there are dozens of hypothesis on how this could have occoured. That's not the most important part we know the chemicals that make up life were on the primitive earth. We also know that many of those could self replicate but self replication never works perfectly so it causes mutations. So know we have a primitive natural selection the ones that do better "live" the ones that don't "die". If some of those chemicals get something to hold them together they will do better than ones without. Give it a couple thousand years and you've got true cell. Also remember that the primitive cells were not even close to as complex as cell know.

This

Deals with it a bit more.

[Guest TrueMetis]

If it was a divine action we don't need those answers. The term is "lacunae" or things we'll never know.

If we accepted that kind of argument than we would still think the sun orbited the earth and the earth was 6000 years old. No thanks.

[ToadBrother]

If it was a divine action we don't need those answers. The term is "lacunae" or things we'll never know.

So your solution to every difficult problem is to throw up your arms, declare your favorite deity responsible and... what? I mean, there is no next step here. You've just declared something unexplainable. You might as well tell all those organic chemists and biologists to go home, there's no solution to the abiogenesis problem, and never can be.

Doesn't exactly sound like a recipe for progress to me.

Edited October 11, 2009 by ToadBrother

[jbg]

If we accepted that kind of argument than we would still think the sun orbited the earth and the earth was 6000 years old. No thanks.

So your solution to every difficult problem is to throw up your arms, declare your favorite deity responsible and... what? I mean, there is no next step here. You've just declared something unexplainable. You might as well tell all those organic chemists and biologists to go home, there's no solution to the abiogenesis problem, and never can be.

Doesn't exactly sound like a recipe for progress to me.

I'm in no hurry. If a researcher comes up with the answer I'll accept it. I just don't think that's too likely.

[GostHacked]

I'm in no hurry. If a researcher comes up with the answer I'll accept it. I just don't think that's too likely.

Science is continually filling the holes though. So you see where the progression is going. As we gain more knowledge we understand our universe more, and god gets pushed out all over the place. Eventually there will be no wherer left for this god to hide, so we will either oust him out, or he will make himself known to us.

I just don't think it's likely at all we will ever find ... god.

[ToadBrother]

I'm in no hurry. If a researcher comes up with the answer I'll accept it. I just don't think that's too likely.

I don't care if you have that attitude. What scares me is if grant agencies start getting that attitude.

[DogOnPorch]

Well with chicks like Wendy Wright running around...anything is possible.

[fellowtraveller]

Did God create Man , or did Man create God?

Vote early.

Vote often.

[M.Dancer]

It has been proven scientifically that a 10lbs bible and a 10lbs Koran dropped together from 100 feet will hit the ground at the same time.

[GostHacked]

It has been proven scientifically that a 10lbs bible and a 10lbs Koran dropped together from 100 feet will hit the ground at the same time.

Dude, wait .. what if they were both 5lb each ??!??!?!?! Should we include other religious texts??

[Oleg Bach]

Dude, wait .. what if they were both 5lb each ??!??!?!?! Should we include other religious texts??

Only if you are smart can you personally edit the New Testiment and see the quantum mechnics that Christ is talking about - great science does exist withing these old writings. BUT it was Paulism that soiled the message of Christ and put a bad taste in the mouths of the intelligent - who could not get past their prejudice. As for the Old Testimonial writings - They are a history of corruption and cruelty - where truely evil men and woman are immortralized and made heros....The OT is horrific - and why the western world along with the Judiacs embrace this trash as a model for living is beyond me....No wonder they hated Christ who pointed out - that they were not heros but hooligans.

[PocketRocket]

She lost the last three. So here we go again. It's a standard tactic in some forums to create multiple threads on the same subject forcing those against to fight the battle several times. Tedious.

dub does it re: the Jews.

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

[Oleg Bach]

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Then again, we can always use copy/paste.....

Paste copy and always remember to repeat again...run it in reverse that should clog up the mind long enough for someone to WIN the debate - odd - Biblicalism is all about competion and debate - about winning and destroying your advesary - even those that bargain and debate on behalf of science are conditioned by biblical thinking....which is to compete!