Still no science concerning your belief?
As expected, when the angry fundies are challenged with supporting their claims to magic and supernaturalism, they scatter like cockroaches when a light is turned on.
Are you insane? I've been doing nothing but discussing the science that supports my contention on this thread and the other thread. You've done nothing but sling insults and make baby talk. You're not making a lick of sense.
1. You're asking for an empirical demonstration of an immaterial substance.
*crickets chirping*
Oh my. And still you hope to slither away from the tough questions.
It's theists who make claims to one or more gods so your inability to make any rational case for your version of gods is not my demonstration to make.
The theist creates for himself a genuinely unsolvable dilemma. He/she claims there is a source material that lays out the belief system. He/she claims this source material has a level of functionality that supports that belief system as well. He/she further asserts that unless the "author" of that support system (a god or god(s)) endows one with some special knowledge (knowledge that can’t be shared in a meaningful way), one cannot understand that support system as laid out and supported by the source material.
The theist then further complicates matters by suggesting that there are various complex methods by which one can read and interpret this source material.
Then the theist proceeds even further. He/she states that the god has a vested interest in human salvation, and through this book makes that word of salvation known, and yet... according to believers, there are varying degrees by which this knowledge may or may not be interpreted or even discovered.
In other words, the message of the book is a cold, unalterable law:
Ye must believeth this, or be damned.
Then the book itself ranges from fact to fiction, from literalism to metaphor helter-skelter, and humans are then asked to pick and choose which aspects are literal and which are not.
Is Joshua's sun-standing still (i.e., Earth stopping its rotation) a true rendering of an historical event, or not? Is the flood true? Is Adam and Eve and original sin true (this one is primary, for without it, all the rest is unnecessary), is the resurrection true?
I dunno. Could be. Maybe. Depends. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe a flesh and blood body. Maybe not. That's what you embrace. Meanwhile, the underlying message remains:
Believe this, or be eternally, forever, always and from now until never – marshmallow in Hell.
Super!
So, obviously, you cannot or will not respond to:
"My gods are true as exampled by the supernatural / un-natural event of ________________" which is testable by peer reviewed experimentation."
*crickets chirping*
2. Can you provide an empirical demonstration for what is in fact the immaterial substance of your presupposition for science: metaphysical/ontological naturalism?
*crickets chirping*
You use goofy terms you apparently stole from one of the fundamentalist creation ministries. How cute.
I'm not one to but into any of the conspiracy theories that haunt many of the more excitable fundies. I'm OK with providing a short primer on biological evolution for you as you're a bit light on the basics.
Biological evolution (Darwinian or otherwise) presumes the existence of life, and it does not matter what the source of that life might be. It could be abiogenesis, or it could be panspermia (directed or otherwise), or it could be the miraculous intervention of one of more of the gods, or it could be some other source of which we are completely unaware. Evolution studies what has occurred to life ion the planet in the subsequent 3+/- billion years of its existence. It explains the origin and diversity of species, not the origin of life. To pretend that evolution's status as a rigorous science depends on a prior solution to the problem of abiogenesis is the equivalent of insisting that orbital mechanics is not scientific until we have a prior solution to the issues regarding quantum mechanics. Planets still orbit their respective suns in a way that is rigorously understood, even though we do not yet fully understand the behavior of subatomic particles. And, as best science can determine, humans still evolved from a common ancestor with the apes, even though we do not fully understand the origin of the first organism.
Evolution is based on evidence. This is different from creationism, which selectively uses evidence to support its position. In other words, evolution comes from evidence, while creationism uses evidence to support an unverifiable, pre-existing source (the “holy text” of choice).
Creationism is not science, because it relies completely on miraculous interventions (floods, miracles and the creation itself,)-- things that cannot be used in the formulation of a scientific theory. Since miraculous events cannot be tested, repeated, nor can the processes by which they operate be described, they must be taken on faith. Creationism is an expression of religious belief-- not science. There is a huge difference.
The fact that all species alive today have descended from a common ancestor can be denied, but not refuted. We know it happens because we can observe it directly in short-lived species, and for longer lived species there is genetic and fossil evidence that is unambiguous. There is no other scientific explanation for the diversity of living species. Creationism IS NOT a scientific explanation-- it is a religious one, and a religious explanation is not interchangeable with a scientific one.
If you have trouble fathoming the study of events that happened millions or billions of years ago, perhaps you should study further. Is paleontology to be doubted? Should archaeology be thrown out? Is geology a religion? Is all of history suspect? There are real reasons behind the science of reconstructing the past.
*crickets chirping*
3. I'm not a fundamentalist.
You're a card carrying, bible beater.
4. I'm not a young-earth creationist.
Is the Flat Earth Society currently promoting an enrollment drive?
"Man" ... The evidence seems overwhelming that man does indeed share a common natural descent with all other forms of life on earth.
What evidence? Do you know what the alleged evidence is for this is or not? I've already refuted the supposed evidence in the above. Do you have a counterargument or not?
I do know what the evidence is. I'll leave it to you and your fundie homies to embrace any and all global conspiracies involving those
Atheistic Evilutionist Scientists
Your comments are stereotypical for fundie whack-jobs and is another demonstration of creationist inability to deal effectively with the overwhelming evidence of biological evolution since that "mysterious" origin. Evolutionists can fully concede (arguendo) that some god created the first living thing, and that would still change nothing for the subsequent science.
It is part of what I like to call "The Amazing Shrinking Creation Model." The original creationists made no effort to conceal their agenda of promoting Biblical literalism. It was (as you may recall) originally called "Biblical Creationism" with great candor. Faced with the correct legal conclusions that it was merely religion, they retreated and renamed it "Scientific Creationism," making a half hearted attempt to edit out explicit Biblical references... but that fooled no one. When that met an equally unambiguous decision in the courts, the new version became "Intelligent Design." In the process, the creationist movement has become progressively less candid, more ambiguous, and frankly more pathetic.
In the same way, when creationists find themselves unable to deal with the multiple independent sources of evidence for evolution that include the fossils, the genetic comparisons, comparative anatomy, biogeography, ecology etc., they retreat further and further towards the subject of abiogenesis. But how does that help them?
Does a god that created bacteria and then let everything else evolve from there conform any better with the record of Genesis than no god at all? Either way, the Bible still cannot be taken literally. Adam and Eve are still an allegory. Biblical history is still a myth.
It is not the issue of abiogenesis that actually concerns the creationist movement. It is irrelevant to the actual disagreement with science, and most creationists already know that. The disagreement fundamentally is about evolution, not abiogenesis. And specifically, the issue is about the evolution of human beings, not the origin of the first cell.
Creationism is not a theist vs. atheist controversy. It is a Fundamentalist Christian vs. everybody else controversy. It is a single biblical literalist perspective versus even other Christians who have no trouble with the scientific perspective.
Organisms still evolve through a combination of genetic mutation and natural selection. And the evidence still reflects a common origin for all living things from a common ancestor via a process of descent with modification, no matter how life arose in the first place. That is the problem for creationists.
*Crickets chirping*
At what point of our biotic history can we chop down the tree and say, "This creature has a soul?"
I don't except the premise for this question. I refuted the premise for this question. Do you know the science of your faith or not?
What is wrong with you?
You give yourself credit for doing nothing.
At this point I cannot take you off the hook quite that easily. There does not exist a significant "anti-evolution" movement outside of Christian creationism. This is (and you must be honest with yourself here) the source of your own arguments, and therefore it is fair game, if only from a history of the philosophy perspective. It would be easier to take seriously your protests here were your arguments not so tightly in lockstep with those of the Institute for Creation Research, the Center for Scientific Creationism, or the Discovery Institute. But that is not the case.
Further, were you not essentially arguing as a classic Creationist, I would expect you to actually have a scientific alternative to propose, which (of course) Creationists and their ID'iot brethren do not. Creationism has always consisted primarily of arguments against evolution rather than argument in favor of a different theory of origins. This is also the manner in which you are arguing.
lol
