only atheists are allowed to post in this thread.

[SF1900]

Hey SF. 

Just to clarify... I did not say that we are distrustful of 'science and education'

I said we are distrustful of the "scientific community" and of the education system.

There is a difference!

Splitting hairs. The scientific community is made up of scientists who........science. Same with education. You really can't separate the two.

You just don't like the science the scientific community engages in because it does not fit with your God agenda. Thus, to a great extent, you're distrustful of science.

Basically, you want all scientists and educators to align with your God agenda. If they do not, which most don't, then you will distrust that community and system, which, in effect, is distrusting the science and education behind it.

[BigRo]

"No, Jesus saves those who believe in Him."

Well who does the condemning to eternal damnation then? His Father? Didnt he say he and the father were one and the same?

Many words were attributed to Jesus by men bent on controlling the masses that no enlightened man would ever say.

[avxo]

That's fine I understand the skepticism,  this is an event I've had to decide if it's something I believe. I think you're putting a spin on a catastrophic event where  all of mankind is eliminated as being blissful. It sounds like you're at least familiar with the story, Noah, 500 as you pointed out, built an ark, via specific instructions from God to prepare for a flood, that may have taken up to 75 hears to complete and upon completion animals walked on two by two.

No. I'm not just "spinning." I'm presenting the story accurately and the fact that you see it as a tall tale speaks volumes.

There are many questions unanswered through,  off the top of my head what happened to all the sea life? How did the fresh and salt water animals survive the influx of water? We can believe the polar ice caps can/are/will melt because of global warming and this will cause the earth to flood yet because the Bible account of a flood only talks about 40 nonstop days of rain than nothing else played a role in the flooding?

First of all, even if all the ice from the polar ice caps and even Greenland were to melt, the sea level would rise less than 70 meters. While that would certainly change the landscape (goodbye Holland!), it wouldn't flood the earth.

But what would take to flood the earth along the lines described in the Biblical story? Well, Mount Everest is a little over 8,800 meters tall but let's just round it off to 8 km. Let's also assume the earth is a perfect sphere, with a radius of 6,371 km. We can calculate the volume of water needed by using the formula for the volume of a spherical shell:

V=4π((6,371 km + 8 km)³ - (6,371 km)³)/3 = ... = 4.086×10⁹ km³.

This number may be a little hard to comprehend, so how about we turn it to gallons? That's 1.079×10²¹ gallons. Or, expanded out, it's wolf gallons. That's almost 4 times the amount of water present in the earth's oceans - including polar ice. That works out to 1.873×10¹⁶ or 18,730,000,000,000,000 gallons per second coming down every second for 40 days and 40 nights. That means 95,000,000 gallons per second per square mile over the entire surface of the earth - or to use a more common measurement, 3.5 gallons per square foot per second. This may not seem like much so let's get some perspective. The average rainfall in the continental United States over the last 50 years in 32". This translates into almost 20 gallons of rainfall per square foot per year. The Biblical flood would see rainfall increase by a factor of approximately 31,540,000.

I can understand why someone wouldn't believe this, it's difficult to comprehend.

It's not just difficult to comprehend - it's mind-blowing. I don't think you understand what 3.5 gallons per square foot per second means. And where did all that water disappear off to after the 40 days?

I think with the "non believer" there is always the inferring of the stories of the bible being easy, happy ending fairytales, when the reality of the stories is that the are occurring with real people with real issues who had the same questions and issues with God we have now.

It is a fairy tale when a 500 year old man builds a wooden boat capable of carrying two of every animal, that the animals voluntarily get on that boat, and that the boat manages to float and survive being continuously pummeled by a massive amount of water over 40 y

That said most believe an asteroid was what eliminated dinosaurs,  but we don't know that with 100% accuracy either, it goes without saying that something happened to eliminate them though.

We have a theory, for which the evidence is - pardon the pun - rock-solid. The K–T extinction event happened, and it was caused by an asteroid whose impact resulted in the Chicxulub crater.

We're not certain if we could replicate the Great Pyramid of Gaza with today's construction methods; I know many debate this some say we could build it better others argue we couldn't build it until we know it's complete layout, regardless no one has done and why would they. It's kind of a silly argument anyhow, as both sides think they're right but neither will likely to be able to prove the other wrong.

Huh? We could certainly replicate the Great Pyramid of Giza with today's construction and do it quite trivially with modern construction methods (arguments about layout aside - they're largely pointless) since even medium sized projects today are much more complex. How can you say, with a straight face, that we're not certain we could build the Great Pyramid of Giza when we've built the Panama Canal and the Three Gorges Dam, and we put up 1 World Trade Center over just eight years?

Let's be serious here...

[avxo]

I think one thing to consider is that God does have some limitations.  God can’t be anything other than himself….he can’t not be divine in nature.   God can’t not exist.  God can’t create another being that is equal to or greater than himself.   God is incapable of not knowing all things past, present and future.  God also can’t create beings who are given free will and that will only choose him.

I've seen this line of reasoning before: define God by listing what attributes he doesn't have. It seems smart at first, but besides involving vigorous handwaving, this method has a bigger problem: how is a deity defined only in terms of negatives different from nothingness?

I have a piece a piece of toast. The piece of toast can't be anything other than a piece of toast. It can't be non-bread in nature. It can't not exist. It can't create another piece of toast that is equal to or greater than itself. It's incapable of not knowing all things past, present and future. The piece of toast also can't create beings who are giving free will that will only choose him.

And it's so good too!

God’s Foreknowledge is exactly what it is…knowledge of all things to come….it can’t not be that.  I’m curious how it could be?   The reprobate had every opportunity to turn to God and they refused…..they made their choices….the choices weren’t made for them.   Knowing every single thing that will happen is not the same thing as programming “choices” into folks that they are forced to make.

No. You cannot have your cake and eat it too: either we have free will, in which case God is not omniscient because he can't know what we will choose before we choose it, or God is omniscient in which case we don't have free will.   

In this discussion, God is marked as the only one “to blame”.   Well, if God neither preprograms our choices nor forces us to abide by his will then we have to consider our lineage.   Our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so forth all made the decision to have sex and some did so for the specific purpose of making little avxo’s and little MOS’.   Now, God certainly has both the right and ability to intervene in his creation, but he allows for the contingency of free will and yet remains sovereign.  Our lives are completely wrapped in the choices made by our parents.  God, in his providence, made it possible for his creation to “go forth and multiply”.    Now given his foreknowledge of the future choices of these new folks should God have eliminated those that he knew wouldn’t choose him?   Shouldn’t all people have the opportunity to choose God?

If they have a choice yes, but that choice is incompatible with one of the major, defining characteristics of God: omniscience. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Further, the problem with your personal objections is that you fully realize and comprehend the implications of your choices.  In this moment, you are in direct defiance of God and you continue to refuse him.  The reprobate world realized the same.    God knew you would defy him, but he didn’t preprogram that decision into you nor does he want you to make that choice.  Is it better that you not be created in the first place or created without options or choice?

If the inescapable result of me being created is that I will suffer for an eternity - and the Biblical hell is certainly described as eternal torment - and he knows that then yes, not being created would certainly be better.

Keep in mind, that within your current, Godless existence that the expressions of goodness and beauty and love and compassion we experience in this life are directly attributed to the very nature of God.  The very visage of humanity is an expression of his divine countenance.  You already exist in his grace yet you defiantly lash out against him.   God created us to come into fellowship with him, but provided for our free will (with the understanding of the limitation therein) so that we may make the purest choice possible to accept or reject him.  Those that reject him will exit this life and enter into an eternity in which all the divine attributes of God will be removed.   What remains in that existence will encompass hell and those that populate its ranks are those that chose “no God for me”.

Boy, you sure know a lot about this God that you say you do not comprehend.

There is no requirement on God’s part to satisfy our sin debt.  Yes, it’s his creation and his law, but law without the enforcement of penalty is no law at all….it’s meaningless.

The same applies if his law boils down to "I will punish you for your nature, which  you cannot fundamentally alter." My birth was a matter outside of my choice, as is my nature. I am, in essence, forced to play a game with loaded dice and held accountable for the losses.

The degree of holiness, righteousness and justice of God’s nature is beyond our ability to comprehend.   It’s so inconceivably absolute that it cannot be aligned with unrighteousness in any form whatsoever.

This is meanigless... but something does strike me. For something you describe as "beyond our ability to comprehend" you certainly seem to have no problem comprehending it.

If you were to approach me and slap me in the face the penalty for doing so may be that I slap back…not much.

Or, you know... assault charges.

If you slap a police officer you’re going to spend some time in jail. If you slap the President you’re may spend your life in jail.   Now, if you slap an infinite God in the face the penalty will align with the his nature and remain infinite.

Interesting bit of reasoning. There's a few logical fallacies here, but I want to focus on one: you're making a deductive jump from the finite to the infinite and from an actual slap to a figurative slap.

This sin-filled existence will come to an end and from that end will be ushered in something new, something spotless, something without the mar of sin.  And it will populated by those of his former creation that chose to align themselves in righteousness with God.

"If you pay me $5 today, I'll pay you $50 in 5 days!"

God also designed his creation so that life is in the blood.  He chose that the vehicle to pay for sin is found in blood.  The Israelites of the OT atoned for sin via the sacrifice of the prime specimens of their flocks and herds.  That was a temporary measure.  Why did God choose blood as his vehicle and not something else I couldn’t say.   In the end, because of his foreknowledge of our future free choices he entered into his creation as the incarnate Son in Jesus Christ.  The spotless lamb who’s perfect, divine blood was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of his divine law.     “God should just forgive everyone because it’s his own law that you admit we can’t live up to and yet are subject to.”    Correct, we can’t, but God didn’t leave us without the ability to be permanently reconciled with his divine righteousness.   That’s why he sent his Son  Jesus Christ to pay that sin debt on our behalf.

[First, one small sidenote about the "God also designed his creation so that life is in the blood" bit: you are aware that artificial blood products are now available and it's possible to survice with such products. Right?]

Again, you seem to find no issue with the fact that God instituted a "law" that he knew nobody could follow, then set a penalty for violating this "law." That's bad enough in itself, but there's something even bigger: you say that God can't change that law; it's set and we must all live with the consequences. But you're OK when God develops a workaound, whereby he sent himself-as-his-son, to die to satisfy the requirements of the "law" by proxy.
   
Do you not see the absurdity?!

I can’t explain every facet of God’s nature and that’s ok.  It’s neither required of me nor is it necessary for any of us to fully grasp before we can make a pure choice about God.

You cannot an informed choice about something you do not comprehend.

You want the onus shifted squarely on God’s shoulders and you accept no responsibility for your sins against God.

If God expects worship, then I demand proof that God exists and this particular law is just and moral.

You understand the law, break it, but aren’t complicit.

I don't understand it - I can't understand how a law that punishes me for something that it outside of my control. I consider such a thing unjust and immoral.

In your eyes God should just given everyone a free pass

No. In my eyes, if your God is real, he should not punish people for having the nature he gave them. That he does speaks volumes.

and you refuse to accept that Jesus Christ is that pass because you dislike the concept of faith.

Yes, I refuse to accept something that cannot be proven logically or rationally and is based on nothing but ancient superstition and stories of burning bushes and talking snakes.

[BigRo]

Cast that first stone with the Jesus Slingshot, do on to others before they can do on to you...

[Necrosis]

We are all biased. We Creationists are biased towards our God, The Lord Jesus Christ, and what His Word tells us. We interpret the data accoridng to what our God has told us about the past.  And, yes, we are very distrustful of the "scientific community" and of the education system.. because we believe that humans are evil, and humans hate God, and humans will do everything in their power to convince themselves, and others, that God does not exist. Just look at some of these quotes...

ok, so you have your conclusion and you are looking for facts to support it, the opposite of science and a sure way not to find the truth.Why do you believe humans are evil? what kind of brain washing have they done to you? God is infinitely more evil, in fact he created it!!

“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that."
-Thomas Nagel

So? who cares what he thinks?



    "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.


    It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

No you can't measure the supernatural by definition so what type of instruments does he want? it produces an explanation, a supernatural one is not an explanation as it cannot be measure, it answers nothing

    The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen. "
-Richard Lewontin

Again, there has never ever been a miracle or suspension of natural order, our predictions, math and everything we know would make no sense.



"I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism"
-John J. Dunphy

The classroom will be filled with reality and facts. He is right though, christianity is rotting away, so it should.


"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic"
-Dr. Scott Todd

How can anything natural point to a supernatural cause, we are not privy to them, we cannot measure or study them, they are SUPER natural. Our world is material, with no evidence of supernatural intervention, everything works just fine without one. This guy is an asshat, if all the data points to god, was reproducible and reliable then yes, if it's "shit I don't know, god?" then no they would not.

[BigRo]

both sides of this divide are as stubborn and small minded as the other.

[bigmc]

both sides of this divide are as stubborn and small minded as the other.

99 percent of the human race is

we use it to protect ourselves from the insanity that would come with infinite possibility

[Dave D]

No. I'm not just "spinning." I'm presenting the story accurately and the fact that you see it as a tall tale speaks volumes.


First of all, even if all the ice from the polar ice caps and even Greenland were to melt, the sea level would rise less than 70 meters. While that would certainly change the landscape (goodbye Holland!), it wouldn't flood the earth.

But what would take to flood the earth along the lines described in the Biblical story? Well, Mount Everest is a little over 8,800 meters tall but let's just round it off to 8 km. Let's also assume the earth is a perfect sphere, with a radius of 6,371 km. We can calculate the volume of water needed by using the formula for the volume of a spherical shell:

V=4π((6,371 km + 8 km)³ - (6,371 km)³)/3 = ... = 4.086×10⁹ km³.

This number may be a little hard to comprehend, so how about we turn it to gallons? That's 1.079×10²¹ gallons. Or, expanded out, it's wolf gallons. That's almost 4 times the amount of water present in the earth's oceans - including polar ice. That works out to 1.873×10¹⁶ or 18,730,000,000,000,000 gallons per second coming down every second for 40 days and 40 nights. That means 95,000,000 gallons per second per square mile over the entire surface of the earth - or to use a more common measurement, 3.5 gallons per square foot per second. This may not seem like much so let's get some perspective. The average rainfall in the continental United States over the last 50 years in 32". This translates into almost 20 gallons of rainfall per square foot per year. The Biblical flood would see rainfall increase by a factor of approximately 31,540,000.


It's not just difficult to comprehend - it's mind-blowing. I don't think you understand what 3.5 gallons per square foot per second means. And where did all that water disappear off to after the 40 days?


It is a fairy tale when a 500 year old man builds a wooden boat capable of carrying two of every animal, that the animals voluntarily get on that boat, and that the boat manages to float and survive being continuously pummeled by a massive amount of water over 40 y


We have a theory, for which the evidence is - pardon the pun - rock-solid. The K–T extinction event happened, and it was caused by an asteroid whose impact resulted in the Chicxulub crater.


Huh? We could certainly replicate the Great Pyramid of Giza with today's construction and do it quite trivially with modern construction methods (arguments about layout aside - they're largely pointless) since even medium sized projects today are much more complex. How can you say, with a straight face, that we're not certain we could build the Great Pyramid of Giza when we've built the Panama Canal and the Three Gorges Dam, and we put up 1 World Trade Center over just eight years?

Let's be serious here...

You used the word blissful I've never read the Bible encounters as blissful.

What are your feelings on continental plates, was the earth once Pangea or has it always been divided continents as it is now.

Sounds like you've singlehandedly debunked the Bible, and concretely established how dinosaurs were eliminated as well as confirmed that we easily can rebuild the Great Pyramid. You should offer to debate at mega churches and eliminate the Christian disease once and for all.

[Dave D]

Avxo you may want to contact Walt Brown to debate with someone more challenging to you. He actually uses scientific theory to prove the occurrence of a biblical flood 


http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/06/does-science-prove-noahs-flood/

[avxo]

You used the word blissful I've never read the Bible encounters as blissful.

Artistic license. Also, grow a sense of humor.

What are your feelings on continental plates, was the earth once Pangea or has it always been divided continents as it is now.

I have no "feelings" on continental plates other than to say that I am aware of their existence; plate tectonics is not my realm of expertise. I've read briefly about the Pangea theory. I recall finding it interesting when I first four out about it, but again, have no expertise on the subject.

Sounds like you've singlehandedly debunked the Bible, and concretely established how dinosaurs were eliminated as well as confirmed that we easily can rebuild the Great Pyramid.

I haven't concretely established anything about the dinosaurs: scientists doing extensive research have established a theory that explains how an impact caused the K-T extinction. That theory makes predictions that match observable facts such as fossils and, of course, the existence of the Chicxulub crater.

Yes, we could easily rebuild the Pyramid of Giza today: we undertake engineering projects that are much larger in scope and complexity! We are tunneling under the Alps (the almost 60km long Gotthard Base Tunnel), we connected two oceans (the Panama Canal) and built The Freedom Tower which easily dwarfs Khufu's Pyramid in size.

As to whether I debunked the Bible: I don't think the onus is on me or anyone to debunk the Bible; the onus is on those who believe it to prove that it's true and accurate. Given that the subject matter is a supernatural deity that cannot be defined, quantified or even really comprehended but which must be accepted solely on faith, I don't think that's happening any time soon.

You should offer to debate at mega churches and eliminate the Christian disease once and for all.

I don't care to eliminate anything - people's personal beliefs are their business, as long as those beliefs aren't forced on me or used as the foundation of a morality I have to live under.

As for debating at "mega churches" I should tell you that I have little respect for them to begin with, and see little point in debating this topic in front of an audience who believes on faith what I will be arguing doesn't exist.

Look at what happened in our discussion of the Flood. I use math to calculate the amount of water coming down and you dismiss that with a second thought. You could have said "well, maybe the earth was flatter then" or "perhaps landmasses weren't fully covered." But you didn't, because you're not interested in debate. You believe what you believe and no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. You treat reality as something that can be easily dismissed when it conflicts with your beliefs.

And that is the different between you and me.

[SF1900]

Artistic license. Also, grow a sense of humor.


I have no "feelings" on continental plates other than to say that I am aware of their existence; plate tectonics is not my realm of expertise. I've read briefly about the Pangea theory. I recall finding it interesting when I first four out about it, but again, have no expertise on the subject.



I haven't concretely established anything about the dinosaurs: scientists doing extensive research have established a theory that explains how an impact caused the K-T extinction. That theory makes predictions that match observable facts such as fossils and, of course, the existence of the Chicxulub crater.

Yes, we could easily rebuild the Pyramid of Giza today: we undertake engineering projects that are much larger in scope and complexity! We are tunneling under the Alps (the almost 60km long Gotthard Base Tunnel), we connected two oceans (the Panama Canal) and built The Freedom Tower which easily dwarfs Khufu's Pyramid in size.

As to whether I debunked the Bible: I don't think the onus is on me or anyone to debunk the Bible; the onus is on those who believe it to prove that it's true and accurate. Given that the subject matter is a supernatural deity that cannot be defined, quantified or even really comprehended but which must be accepted solely on faith, I don't think that's happening any time soon.


I don't care to eliminate anything - people's personal beliefs are their business, as long as those beliefs aren't forced on me or used as the foundation of a morality I have to live under.

As for debating at "mega churches" I should tell you that I have little respect for them to begin with, and see little point in debating this topic in front of an audience who believes on faith what I will be arguing doesn't exist.

Look at what happened in our discussion of the Flood. I use math to calculate the amount of water coming down and you dismiss that with a second thought. You could have said "well, maybe the earth was flatter then" or "perhaps landmasses weren't fully covered." But you didn't, because you're not interested in debate. You believe what you believe and no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. You treat reality as something that can be easily dismissed when it conflicts with your beliefs.

And that is the different between you and me.

100% spot on.

[avxo]

Avxo you may want to contact Walt Brown to debate with someone more challenging to you. He actually uses scientific theory to prove the occurrence of a biblical flood 


http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/06/does-science-prove-noahs-flood/

Will be interesting to read, but I should warn you, my expectations are low.

[Necrosis]

both sides of this divide are as stubborn and small minded as the other.

Absolutely not, one is using reason and rationale the other hopes and wishes. False equivalence is a tactic used by creationists, there is no two sides, there is only one, fact.

[Dave D]

Artistic license. Also, grow a sense of humor.


I have no "feelings" on continental plates other than to say that I am aware of their existence; plate tectonics is not my realm of expertise. I've read briefly about the Pangea theory. I recall finding it interesting when I first four out about it, but again, have no expertise on the subject.



I haven't concretely established anything about the dinosaurs: scientists doing extensive research have established a theory that explains how an impact caused the K-T extinction. That theory makes predictions that match observable facts such as fossils and, of course, the existence of the Chicxulub crater.

Yes, we could easily rebuild the Pyramid of Giza today: we undertake engineering projects that are much larger in scope and complexity! We are tunneling under the Alps (the almost 60km long Gotthard Base Tunnel), we connected two oceans (the Panama Canal) and built The Freedom Tower which easily dwarfs Khufu's Pyramid in size.

As to whether I debunked the Bible: I don't think the onus is on me or anyone to debunk the Bible; the onus is on those who believe it to prove that it's true and accurate. Given that the subject matter is a supernatural deity that cannot be defined, quantified or even really comprehended but which must be accepted solely on faith, I don't think that's happening any time soon.


I don't care to eliminate anything - people's personal beliefs are their business, as long as those beliefs aren't forced on me or used as the foundation of a morality I have to live under.

As for debating at "mega churches" I should tell you that I have little respect for them to begin with, and see little point in debating this topic in front of an audience who believes on faith what I will be arguing doesn't exist.

Look at what happened in our discussion of the Flood. I use math to calculate the amount of water coming down and you dismiss that with a second thought. You could have said "well, maybe the earth was flatter then" or "perhaps landmasses weren't fully covered." But you didn't, because you're not interested in debate. You believe what you believe and no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. You treat reality as something that can be easily dismissed when it conflicts with your beliefs.

And that is the different between you and me.

Brother I meant no disrespect.  I'm well out of my field of expertise and I've conceded defeat. I brought up Pangeia, because some feel that the flood (see my references to Walt Brown) occurred during a different earth.

I'm also well aware of the Chicxulub crater above the Yucatan Peninsula,  my point was many scientists debate if that asteroid alone was the sole cause, some of those who do contend it was a different earth (in terms of  "topography"). As with the pyramid (I know we used more concrete in day to construct the Panama Canal than used in the pyramid) many debate if we could construct with the same efficiency especially since we don't the exact layouts.



Please forgive my snarkiness. I may have misunderstood you initially when you included "blissfully" as an adjective. I appreciate your intelligence and use of science to validate your points.

[Parker]

No. I'm not just "spinning." I'm presenting the story accurately and the fact that you see it as a tall tale speaks volumes.


First of all, even if all the ice from the polar ice caps and even Greenland were to melt, the sea level would rise less than 70 meters. While that would certainly change the landscape (goodbye Holland!), it wouldn't flood the earth.

But what would take to flood the earth along the lines described in the Biblical story? Well, Mount Everest is a little over 8,800 meters tall but let's just round it off to 8 km. Let's also assume the earth is a perfect sphere, with a radius of 6,371 km. We can calculate the volume of water needed by using the formula for the volume of a spherical shell:

V=4π((6,371 km + 8 km)³ - (6,371 km)³)/3 = ... = 4.086×10⁹ km³.

This number may be a little hard to comprehend, so how about we turn it to gallons? That's 1.079×10²¹ gallons. Or, expanded out, it's wolf gallons. That's almost 4 times the amount of water present in the earth's oceans - including polar ice. That works out to 1.873×10¹⁶ or 18,730,000,000,000,000 gallons per second coming down every second for 40 days and 40 nights. That means 95,000,000 gallons per second per square mile over the entire surface of the earth - or to use a more common measurement, 3.5 gallons per square foot per second. This may not seem like much so let's get some perspective. The average rainfall in the continental United States over the last 50 years in 32". This translates into almost 20 gallons of rainfall per square foot per year. The Biblical flood would see rainfall increase by a factor of approximately 31,540,000.


It's not just difficult to comprehend - it's mind-blowing. I don't think you understand what 3.5 gallons per square foot per second means. And where did all that water disappear off to after the 40 days?


It is a fairy tale when a 500 year old man builds a wooden boat capable of carrying two of every animal, that the animals voluntarily get on that boat, and that the boat manages to float and survive being continuously pummeled by a massive amount of water over 40 y


We have a theory, for which the evidence is - pardon the pun - rock-solid. The K–T extinction event happened, and it was caused by an asteroid whose impact resulted in the Chicxulub crater.


Huh? We could certainly replicate the Great Pyramid of Giza with today's construction and do it quite trivially with modern construction methods (arguments about layout aside - they're largely pointless) since even medium sized projects today are much more complex. How can you say, with a straight face, that we're not certain we could build the Great Pyramid of Giza when we've built the Panama Canal and the Three Gorges Dam, and we put up 1 World Trade Center over just eight years?

Let's be serious here...

You may forgotten glacier ice (the ones from mountain ranges), ice from mountain tops, and fresh water lakes that were carved out by glaciers.

[avxo]

You may forgotten glacier ice (the ones from mountain ranges), ice from mountain tops, and fresh water lakes that were carved out by glaciers.

I did not: the water from lakes is irrelevant since it cannot possibly contribute to a rise of the sea level - think about it. As for glaciers: I accounted for most of the earths glaciers in my calculation. Sorry to disappoint.

The fact is not enough ice exists in the world to account for what the Biblical flood is supposed to be. The water would have to come down in the form of rain. Even if we assume a divine intervention that caused rain to condense magically - ignoring the water cycle - the amount of water needed is staggering.

As I said we'd go to 3.5 gallons per second per square foot, every day for forty days. The average amount of rainfall is 20 gallons per square foot per year. This kind of torrential downpour would leave incontrovertible evidence behind it. Yet no such evidence exists.

By the way, I wrote a quick little Python program to check the speed of a single raindrop assuming that raindrops were about the size of an average raindrop. Turns out with 3.5 gallons per second you'd be well into supersonic speeds.

[BigRo]

Absolutely not, one is using reason and rationale the other hopes and wishes. False equivalence is a tactic used by creationists, there is no two sides, there is only one, fact.

your reason is a bit unreasonable. With a name like Necrosis I am not surprised you shun the spiritual dimension.

[calfzilla]

Atheists owning the schizophrenics in this thread.

[Necrosis]

your reason is a bit unreasonable. With a name like Necrosis I am not surprised you shun the spiritual dimension.

Who said I shun the spiritual dimension?

Things have to make sense.

[tbombz]

"No, Jesus saves those who believe in Him."

Well who does the condemning to eternal damnation then? His Father? Didnt he say he and the father were one and the same?

Many words were attributed to Jesus by men bent on controlling the masses that no enlightened man would ever say.

People condemn themselves by their actions.

Every single human who ever lived would be condemned if it wasn't for the fact that Jesus sacrificed His own life on our behalf.

Some people like to focus on the fact that not everyone will be saved... and then blame God for that.

But none of us deserve to be saved. We all deserve to be destroyed.

God cannot accept a human into Heaven based on their own merits.

We are all filthy with lies, deceit, idolatry, and selfishness.

Even the good things we do are done for the wrong reasons.

So He came down from Heaven and took upon Himself the punishment that we all deserve.

And I praise Him for that.

 

We are all biased. We Creationists are biased towards our God, The Lord Jesus Christ, and what His Word tells us. We interpret the data accoridng to what our God has told us about the past.  And, yes, we are very distrustful of the "scientific community" and of the education system.. because we believe that humans are evil, and humans hate God, and humans will do everything in their power to convince themselves, and others, that God does not exist. Just look at some of these quotes...

ok, so you have your conclusion and you are looking for facts to support it, the opposite of science and a sure way not to find the truth.Why do you believe humans are evil? what kind of brain washing have they done to you? God is infinitely more evil, in fact he created it!!

“I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that."
-Thomas Nagel

So? who cares what he thinks?



    "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.


    It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

No you can't measure the supernatural by definition so what type of instruments does he want? it produces an explanation, a supernatural one is not an explanation as it cannot be measure, it answers nothing

    The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen. "
-Richard Lewontin

Again, there has never ever been a miracle or suspension of natural order, our predictions, math and everything we know would make no sense.



"I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism"
-John J. Dunphy

The classroom will be filled with reality and facts. He is right though, christianity is rotting away, so it should.


"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic"
-Dr. Scott Todd

How can anything natural point to a supernatural cause, we are not privy to them, we cannot measure or study them, they are SUPER natural. Our world is material, with no evidence of supernatural intervention, everything works just fine without one. This guy is an asshat, if all the data points to god, was reproducible and reliable then yes, if it's "shit I don't know, god?" then no they would not.

Hey Necrosis.  

How are you doing?

You said that it was wrong for me to start my interpretation of the evidence with the assumption that God's word is true. Well, do you not start your interpretation with the metaphysical assumption that there is no God, and no supernatural activity?

Here is a quote which I think speaks to this notion =

"It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing)."

But, you might say, both sides are wrong, that we should not start with any assumptions of presuppositions whatsoever. But I would say that is naive thinking, and ignorant of history! Everyone starts with assumptions and presuppositions. Darwin started with the assumption that God was just a delusion in the minds of men, and set out to find evidence in support of his assumption. And since then all men who hate God latch onto Darwin and interpret evidence according to their anti-God bias.

But, Necrosis, You and I both well know that I am not a man of "science". I do not wish to sit here and go back and forth with you on these issues concerning "science". What I will do, however, is copy and paste scientific articles for you to read, if you so wish. I do not mind doing that at all. Yet, I do not think this discussion will actually produce any "fruit".. because, Necrosis, I think your mind is already made up. I am confident that if you personally witnessed a miracle your first response would be to try and explain it away using naturalistic means and then throw the experience away  into your subconscious and forget all about it.  

But, anyways, since you seem to enjoy talking science.. here you go=




The important question is not, ‘Is it science?’ One can just define ‘science’ to exclude everything that one doesn’t like, as many evolutionists do today. Today, science is equated with naturalism: only materialistic notions can be entertained, no matter what the evidence. The prominent evolutionist Professor Richard Lewontin said (emphases in original):

    “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."


Now that’s open-minded isn’t it? Isn’t ‘science’ about following the evidence wherever it may lead? This is where the religion (in the broadest sense) of the scientist puts the blinkers on. Our individual worldviews bias our perceptions. The atheist paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, made the following candid observation:

    “Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method’, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology.”


So the fundamentally important question is, ‘which worldview (bias) is correct?’, because this will likely determine what conclusions are permitted to be drawn from the data. For example, if looking at the origin of life, a materialist will tend to do everything possible to avoid the conclusion that life must have been supernaturally created.


Of course the founders of modern science were not materialists (Sir Isaac Newton, widely considered the greatest scientist ever, is a prime example) and they did not see their science as somehow excluding a creator, or even making the Creator redundant (see The biblical roots of modern science: A Christian world view, and in particular a plain understanding of Scripture and Adam’s Fall, was essential for the rise of modern science.). This recent notion has been smuggled into science by materialists.

Michael Ruse, the Canadian philosopher of science also made the strong point that the issue is not whether evolution is science and creation is religion, because such a distinction is not really valid. The issue is one of ‘coherency of truth’. See The Religious Nature of Evolution.

In other words, there is no logically valid way that the materialist can define evolution as ‘science’ and creation as ‘religion’, so that he/she can ignore the issue of creation.

However, we can make a valid distinction between different types of science: the distinction between origins science and operational science. Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today’s world—repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. This is the science of Newton, Einstein and Planck, for example. However, origins science deals with the origin of things in the past—unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events. This is why it could also be called ‘historical science’. There is a fundamental difference between how the two work, even though both are called ‘science’, and operational science does have implications for origins (or historical) science. Operational science involves repeatable experimentation in the here and now. Origins science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation (unless someone invents a ‘time machine’ to travel back into the past to observe).

Of course it suits many materialists to confuse operational and origins science, although I’m sure with most the confusion arises out of ignorance. Tertiary (college / university) courses in science mostly don’t teach the philosophy of science and certainly make no distinction between experimental / operational and historical / origins sciences.

Both evolution and creation fall into the category of origins science. Both are driven by philosophical considerations. The same data (observations in the present) are available to everyone, but different interpretations (stories) are devised to explain what happened in the past.

Note that this distinction between operational science and evolution is not an invention of creationists. High-profile evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr and E.O. Wilson both acknowledged the distinction.

The inclusion of historical science, without distinction, as ‘science’, has undoubtedly contributed to the modern confusion over defining science. This also explains the statement by Gould (above), who, as a paleontologist, would have liked there to have been no distinction between his own historical science and experimental science. Gould rightly saw the paramount importance of presuppositions in his own science and assumed that it applied equally to all science. This is not so, although some presuppositions play an important role in operational science.

[avxo]

I had written a large post, addressing the points that I thought tbombz had made, but then I realized that all the stuff in his post is basically a straight copy-paste from the buffoons at creation.org.

I'm happy to debate and discuss anything with anybody, but I expect them to do so with their own voice, not by acting as electronic carbon paper. What you are doing - copy-pasting other people's thoughts and claiming them as yours - is dishonest and wrong. Not only because you are not giving people attribution for what they wrote but moreso because you tend to present their opinions poorly.

With that said, I'll make some brief comments and take the opportunity to highlight how much of your "post" isn't yours.

You said that it was wrong for me to start my interpretation of the evidence with the assumption that God's word is true. Well, do you not start your interpretation with the metaphysical assumption that there is no God, and no supernatural activity?

Except it's not the same thing. It's not the same to assume that a being that cannot be measured, quantified or even defined doesn't exist. On the other hand, it's absurd to assume that it exists.

You want proof of how absurd it is? There's a supernatural, magical pink unicorn in my back yard. Let's start our discussion based on on that assumption.

 

But, you might say, both sides are wrong, that we should not start with any assumptions of presuppositions whatsoever. But I would say that is naive thinking, and ignorant of history!

Oh well... if you say it!

Everyone starts with assumptions and presuppositions.

There's nothing wrong assumptions and presuppositions. We assume many things - that the sun won't suddenly go dark, that if we drink rat poison we will become sick, that planting a slice of cheese won't yield a cheese tree. The important this is to be aware of those things and to understand whether the assumptions and suppositions we make are grounded in logic and can be rationally justified.

Science is designed to take personal bias out of the equation. Whether one is a Christian or not has little bearing on whether Indium nitride is a superconductor at extremely low temperatures. 

Darwin started with the assumption that God was just a delusion in the minds of men, and set out to find evidence in support of his assumption.

No he didn't. Darwin made an observation, and formulated a theory that would explain those observations within the context of nature.

And since then all men who hate God latch onto Darwin and interpret evidence according to their anti-God bias.

You're rambling...

But, Necrosis, You and I both well know that I am not a man of "science". I do not wish to sit here and go back and forth with you on these issues concerning "science". What I will do, however, is copy and paste scientific articles for you to read, if you so wish. I do not mind doing that at all. Yet, I do not think this discussion will actually produce any "fruit".. because, Necrosis, I think your mind is already made up. I am confident that if you personally witnessed a miracle your first response would be to try and explain it away using naturalistic means and then throw the experience away  into your subconscious and forget all about it.  

I can't speak for Necrosis, but if I witnessed a "miracle" - that is something that not only I couldn't explain but would seem to contradict the natural laws as we understand them - of course my first reaction wouldn't be to just proclaim "MIRACLE! MIRACLE!" Why? Doing so explains nothing. Attributing it to Zeus shooting lightning bolts explains nothing.

If I encountered such a phenomenon I would try to explain it based on what I know, then I would ask others who might have expert knowledge, and if they couldn't either I would simply consider it as an open question which can't be answered because our understanding of the world around us is insufficient.

crap from http://creation.com/its-not-science

If you're going to copy-paste that much, can you at least pick some quality content that isn't chock full of logical fallacies? Logical fallacies make me sad.

[Necrosis]

Hey Necrosis.  

Oh Hai

How are you doing?

going to hell

You said that it was wrong for me to start my interpretation of the evidence with the assumption that God's word is true. Well, do you not start your interpretation with the metaphysical assumption that there is no God, and no supernatural activity?

No, there very well could be a god, I see no reason to invoke one. I start with my senses and progress. I am not out to believe anything in particular but what exists

Here is a quote which I think speaks to this notion =

"It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing)."

This seems to be a play on words, a semantic game. Does gravity have a purpose? one could suggest it is to hold us to the earth, the mathematical equation that it represents says nothing of the sort, consciousness dictates purpose thus the material universe is purposeless. It does not strive for life, in fact it is mostly a death machine, where are the aliens tay tay? ever hear of the fermi paradox? was a star undergoing nuclear fusion in order to eventually create humans?

But, you might say, both sides are wrong, that we should not start with any assumptions of presuppositions whatsoever. But I would say that is naive thinking, and ignorant of history! Everyone starts with assumptions and presuppositions. Darwin started with the assumption that God was just a delusion in the minds of men, and set out to find evidence in support of his assumption. And since then all men who hate God latch onto Darwin and interpret evidence according to their anti-God bias.

This is just cherry picked stuff, Darwin went were the evidence lead, his presuppositions, beliefs and conjecture had no bearing on the outcome, that;s the point I am trying to make. Darwin wasn't even aware of genetics, the religious people have created this deity,Francis Collins who helped map the genome says evolution is undeniable, why are you so against science?

But, Necrosis, You and I both well know that I am not a man of "science". I do not wish to sit here and go back and forth with you on these issues concerning "science". What I will do, however, is copy and paste scientific articles for you to read, if you so wish. I do not mind doing that at all. Yet, I do not think this discussion will actually produce any "fruit".. because, Necrosis, I think your mind is already made up. I am confident that if you personally witnessed a miracle your first response would be to try and explain it away using naturalistic means and then throw the experience away  into your subconscious and forget all about it.  

I would try to explain it in the simplest manner, one that allows me to repeat and predict it again, one that can be verified. If an amputee's leg would grow back I would believe, yet, tay tay, me and you both know, god works in "mysterious ways"

But, anyways, since you seem to enjoy talking science.. here you go=

is this you or a copy and paste? I honestly am suggesting you simply step back and take a real look at reality. As happy as you seem, that jesus has touched you, how can you reconcile that with torture, rape and murder in illiterate (ie going to hell) provinces and shitholes?I am not saying god does not exist, he just can't be like you god or any that man has conjured up, we wouldn't know, at all, as he is god.Does an ant worry about it's lifespan? could he balance a check book?




The important question is not, ‘Is it science?’ One can just define ‘science’ to exclude everything that one doesn’t like, as many evolutionists do today. Today, science is equated with naturalism: only materialistic notions can be entertained, no matter what the evidence. The prominent evolutionist Professor Richard Lewontin said (emphases in original):

    “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

You CANNOT MEASURE THE SUPERNATURAL. If we took the above approach we would be still wondering why flames hurt. Ever experiment ever conducted has done so using material means. Science is observation at it's core, the tools we use to observe and measure etc. What tools are there for the supernatural? john edwards the spirit medium? or slyvia brown. What you are charging science with here, or they, is ridiculous, it's impossible. Design an experiment to test for the supernatural. The very next paragraph talks about going where the evidence leads, "isn't that what science is about", yes, it is. That's why we no longer burn witches, or send as many kids to the rape factory as we once did, we discarded our beliefs and followed the evidence, the facts reality.

Now that’s open-minded isn’t it? Isn’t ‘science’ about following the evidence wherever it may lead? This is where the religion (in the broadest sense) of the scientist puts the blinkers on. Our individual worldviews bias our perceptions. The atheist paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, made the following candid observation:

    “Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method’, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology.”


Is this not exactly what he is doing? he is guessing that there is a supernatural cause, he doesn't know because I dont know, we are humans made of material. You snort cocaine you feel good, material and mechanistic. You pray you feel... maybe something?

So the fundamentally important question is, ‘which worldview (bias) is correct?’, because this will likely determine what conclusions are permitted to be drawn from the data. For example, if looking at the origin of life, a materialist will tend to do everything possible to avoid the conclusion that life must have been supernaturally created.

No they won't, who the fuck are these people they talk about? life may have been supernaturally created, we thought that about a lot of things, thunder is supernatural, albino's supernatural, now the origin of life is supernatural. God is an ever receding pocket of ignorance.


Of course the founders of modern science were not materialists (Sir Isaac Newton, widely considered the greatest scientist ever, is a prime example) and they did not see their science as somehow excluding a creator, or even making the Creator redundant (see The biblical roots of modern science: A Christian world view, and in particular a plain understanding of Scripture and Adam’s Fall, was essential for the rise of modern science.). This recent notion has been smuggled into science by materialists.

There is no conspiracy man, this is sounding like nutter stuff. Smuggled in? no one gives a fuck about god dude, let alone sneak around and rig the deck, this isn't a dan brown novel

Michael Ruse, the Canadian philosopher of science also made the strong point that the issue is not whether evolution is science and creation is religion, because such a distinction is not really valid. The issue is one of ‘coherency of truth’. See The Religious Nature of Evolution.

No it's which one explains shit and which one doesn't so god created everything, so how often does he create these things? do they pop into existence? do they come randomly? etc etc. it answers nothing, biology is built on facts, like species adapt, we can observe it. We can predict it, we can create new populations, different traits, we manipulate genetic material, breed dogs,it works.

In other words, there is no logically valid way that the materialist can define evolution as ‘science’ and creation as ‘religion’, so that he/she can ignore the
issue of creation.

Evolution doesn't talk about creation though, that's a different field in molecular biology called abiogenesis, these guys can't even get the concept right. Most likely they can but they are cons

However, we can make a valid distinction between different types of science: the distinction between origins science and operational science. Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today’s world—repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. This is the science of Newton, Einstein and Planck, for example. However, origins science deals with the origin of things in the past—unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events. This is why it could also be called ‘historical science’. There is a fundamental difference between how the two work, even though both are called ‘science’, and operational science does have implications for origins (or historical) science. Operational science involves repeatable experimentation in the here and now. Origins science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation (unless someone invents a ‘time machine’ to travel back into the past to observe).

They just made this shit up, they set up a completely false dichotomy and destroyed their self made straw man.

Of course it suits many materialists to confuse operational and origins science, although I’m sure with most the confusion arises out of ignorance. Tertiary (college / university) courses in science mostly don’t teach the philosophy of science and certainly make no distinction between experimental / operational and historical / origins sciences.

They are aware science is a huge field right? medicine etc.

Both evolution and creation fall into the category of origins science. Both are driven by philosophical considerations. The same data (observations in the present) are available to everyone, but different interpretations (stories) are devised to explain what happened in the past.

What the fuck! bullshit, so in a murder case with the evidence we can look at it and come to conclusions and neither one can do anything to make certain? if you find the knife in the guys coat with his finger prints on it and blood would you think it's him or a silverback leprechaun? They act like the past is some distant thing that was under the control of magic, the universe behaves the same way with or without us, this allows us to understand the past and often solve problems in the now.

Note that this distinction between operational science and evolution is not an invention of creationists. High-profile evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr and E.O. Wilson both acknowledged the distinction.

The inclusion of historical science, without distinction, as ‘science’, has undoubtedly contributed to the modern confusion over defining science. This also explains the statement by Gould (above), who, as a paleontologist, would have liked there to have been no distinction between his own historical science and experimental science. Gould rightly saw the paramount importance of presuppositions in his own science and assumed that it applied equally to all science. This is not so, although some presuppositions play an important role in operational science.

They sound so smart the way they use those non-sense words. What are predictions futurology science?

TL:DR

[The Ugly]

   
No, Jesus saves those who believe in Him.
 

From Dad. Who's really him, too, we are told. Saving us from himself, then.

An odd one, that God.

[Necrosis]

You want proof of how absurd it is? There's a supernatural, magical pink unicorn in my back yard. Let's start our discussion based on on that assumption.



I can't speak for Necrosis, but if I witnessed a "miracle" - that is something that not only I couldn't explain but would seem to contradict the natural laws as we understand them - of course my first reaction wouldn't be to just proclaim "MIRACLE! MIRACLE!" Why? Doing so explains nothing. Attributing it to Zeus shooting lightning bolts explains nothing.

If I encountered such a phenomenon I would try to explain it based on what I know, then I would ask others who might have expert knowledge, and if they couldn't either I would simply consider it as an open question which can't be answered because our understanding of the world around us is insufficient.
Would agree