Again - very quick with the ‘liar’ stuff again.
This is a very well-known quote from the Origin of Species.
Chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory.
Take an hour an fifty minutes and learn The Naked Truth
Might get you angry and/or offended, but facts are facts and faith is…well, belief, in the absence of facts.
Rather irrational if you ask me.
I’m glad some standards are finally being set for the presentation of facts on this site. I’ll be off to purchase a microscope and get some of those #40 bacteria and perhaps you could send me some of your #33’s now that you’re done with them. These new standards are inconvenient but obviously worth it, as you’ll soon be setting sail to the Gallapagos for a good long while (don’t forget to take Kalhoun with you). And don’t worry, I’m sure others will take up the slack with your “Liar, liar, pants on fire” mantra. Don’t forget to write.
P.S. If you have no actual personal knowledge of all those Middle Eastern countries (Israel, Egypt, Iraq, etc) which you constantly reference, better stop by there on your way home.
You never did answer my question…do you consider yourself a bible literalist or a cherry-picker?
Not all our troubles, clearly, since you’re both getting annoyed by and mocking us whilst believing yourself to be not seperated from God. Tsk.
I don’t deny God’s existence solely on the basis that i’ve had no personal contact with him; I haven’t had personal contact with a lot of people I believe in. No, I don’t believe in God (or any other deity) because there is no evidence at all for their existence. I’d advise you to stop trying to read my mind. After all, that would be magic.
Scientific evidence can sustain it, i’m afraid. Let me guess; all of your knowledge of evolution you’ve taken from Creationwiki or some such site? Seriously, you should try looking at a description of evolution by a, well, evolutionist.
Oh, and just to point out - evolution and a belief in God aren’t incompatible. I may not believe in gods, but others that have been arguing with you do, and they seem to have no problem reconciling the two. Just a thought.
This amuses me no end. I have read the Bible (not the whole thing, i’ll admit; but then I feel if I made an effort i’d have to read all the holy texts of religions, and that would take me a considerable amount of time).
But wait; God’s promised to speak to me through the Bible? I thought he’d also promised to speak to me directly - and yet you quite happily have said I’ve never met the guy. Hey, if he breaks one promise, how do I know he’ll keep this one?
Suicide bombers are an excellent example, because they place what they think is god’s word above their own safety and morals. They know who is boss, and they are like other religious fanatics throughout history - like the Crusaders who burned Constaninople on the way to the Holy Land or the devout Cossacks who attacked my ancestors. If the true God told you to kill, would you? Don’t say he’d never do that, since all you have to do is look in the Bible to find examples of his murderous commands. Can you logically argue that Moslems are less correct than you? Their prophet was rewarded by Allah with wealth and success - your prophet didn’t last a week in the big town.
If God told you to become a suicide bomber, would you defy him?
Wrongo.
Evidence for macroevolution
Thermodynamics
The flagella
Really, do you think this is new to us? You haven’t answered my question about what books on evolution you’ve read. Not many, I’d guess, or you wouldn’t be posting such nonsense.
As for transitional animals, we’re all transitional or we’re dead ends. But if you want to see an animal that even looks transitional, in the traditional sense, go to Ano Nuevo California next month and visit the elephant seals. These are animals who can only eat in the water and breed on land, so the females load up on food, go onto the beach, breed and have their pups, then go back into the water after a long fast. That’s a poor design! They may go extinct, or they may evolve the means to have young in the water, like whales, so they won’t have to fast.
Ah, pay no attention to the bullshit behind the curtain, huh? If there is a god, he gave me my intelligence, and I’m not going to stow it in the closet to read your Bible. “Trust me” is the song of con men everywhere. I’m from New York, I sell bridges to suckers, I don’t buy them. If your god can’t inspire a Holy Book that can stand up to logical scrutiny, he’s not a god I want anything to do with.
IIRC, Darwin then went on to show how there are explanations - the eye, for example. At the time he wrote, the mechanism for the changes was unknown, so it is true that if small changes couldn’t be explained, or shown, there would be a problem. Today that is not the case, and even Behe accepts evolution, except in the instances where he thinks some undefined person did design at an undefined time. You can’t really prove IC, since that is proving an existential negative, but even if it were shown to some level of confidence, evolution would still explain 99.99% of the features we see. And there are no cases of IC that can’t be explained.
I’m curious if our friend is ignorant about evolution, or if he has read the literature and refuses to admit it having no refutation for what is really said.
Man, stop stuffing your God into those gaps , you’re going to start running out…and then what?
Curse you, Voyager…and my super-slow 3rd-world connection.
The writings of the Bible use every form of communication that mankind is capable of producing ie, poetry, parables, historical accounts, metaphors, hyperbole, similies, songs, even sarcasm. It might even speak both literally and symbolicaly at the same time, for instance in the parables. Those with an ear to hear can discern the deep spiritual Truths being communicated while unbelievers see nothing but common, everyday facts. If your question has to do with something like “plucking out one’s eye that offends lest your whole body be cast into hell” - Jesus was speaking with hyperbole to illustrate the deadly nature of sin. Fortunately, as revealed elsewhere in the Bible, God has provided us with a far superior method of being released from sin than by eliminating body parts. So to answer your question: Do I take the Bible literally or symbolically? The answer is yes.
How do you determine which parts are symbolic or literal?
Well, that was two hours I wish I had back. Okay, there were a few interesting nuggets here and there but more often it just made me cringe. The first half hour was particularly annoying. And it’s not just the similarity to Jack Palance’s hosting of Ripley’s Believe it or Not. If you watch it, be ready on the pause button so you can see more context for some of their cites.
If I wasn’t already an atheist, I’m pretty sure this film wouldn’t be convince me.
Sorry. However, you post so many false assertions and never return to acknowledge the corrections to them that after a while I begin to think that perhaps you are doing it deliberately.
In this thread you have played word games to make an erroneous point regarding “absolutes”; you again played word games regarding the information that Piaget has demonstrated regarding your false claim that humans are born with a conscience, continuing to imply that the bible supports your odd claim in spite of the fact that you have provided no biblical evidence of such support; and now you claim that we have “found” a bacterium that could not have evolved, despite the fact that Behe’s odd claim has been debunked for nearly ten years. In the Do Christians believe that non-Christians are going to hell? you posted historically false claims regarding the history of the development of the concept of Purgatory, you posted that the bible includes no factual errors (and when several errors of fact were posted, you ignored those to wander off on a claim that various similes and metaphors were not really contradictions, completely ignoring the errors of fact that you had falsely claimed did not exist).
With a history of making false statements that you generally fail to support and changing the topic when your facts have been demonstrated to be clearly in error, I have simply become suspicious of any claim you make. You go beyond holding a position in an argument to the point of leaving stinking piles of false claims in the threads to which you post.
In this case, you actually got one statement right. Congratualtions.
Now go out and read what scientists have discovered regarding bacteria flagella and stop posting false claims garnered from Creationist websites.
Most people probably rely on scholars…Biblical, historical, and linguistic…to help with this. There is no way that your average person could understand the language and historical context you need to determine this on your own.
I believe this is why so many people in the US are Bible literalists, actually. Our American independence & reluctance to bow to authority, combined with the lack of education needed to understand the Bible in a more in-depth fashion, is the perfect breeding ground for literalism. In my opinion, unless one is willing to literally give up their entire lives to studying the necessary disciplines, one has to rely on “experts” to help. In fact, even if you ARE willing to study to this degree, you still have to rely on experts who came before you…this is true of all studies of historical documents.
My apologies. I was reading this quickly and thought that I was responding to Bible man. However, my remarks to Bible man remain. He posts false statements in an incessant stream and fails to support them with evidence. I consider that borderline (if not over) lying.
This was certainly an accident. 
Creationists don’t quite get that the ability to falsify a hypothesis is a good thing. Darwin got this intuitively, long before the philosophers of science wrote about it. As a rhetorical device, he laid down the conditions under which evolution would not be true, and then demonstrated how these were not met. This has been a fertile source of quote mining for creationists ever since as they ignore the other parts of the chapter. I agree with you that this is a dishonest tactic. The need for evidence in the fossil record is another popular example. I believe Darwin noted that evolution would be falsified if evidence for it were not found in the rocks. He explained why little evidence had been found as of yet, and predicted that it would be. His prediction was right on the money (unlike Biblical predictions.) but creationists would rather put their fingers in their ears and their blindfolds on and lie about no transitional forms ever being found.
I find it fascinating that creationists never, ever answer questions about what books on evolution they’ve read. If we atheists had never read the Bible, and then avoided questions about it while displaying total ignorance of what it said, we’d rightly be subjects for scorn.
The scripture I quoted indicates the progression that faith in God must take (Rom10-:17), because if you don’t believe in what He has already spoken, you won’t listen or believe if He should now speak to you directly.
But evolution and the God of the Bible are completely incompatible, a different god is created by those who want to believe in both. The God of the Bible designs and creates things in the finished physical form he intends, He doesn’t go through a process of trial and error making improvements along the way. He does provide for environmental adaptability, but it has nothing to do with some process of macroevolution. Even humans wouldn’t initiate such a process: if someone wanted a Cadillac he wouldn’t buy a Toyota first and then start taking away the parts to add on the ones that he actually wanted. If the god you believe in is that stupid and\or incompetent, I would recommend finding a more efficient one. Write me for a suggestion about where to start looking (Hint: look at my screen name)
I guess you’ll just have to be satisfied with a bizarre, unsupportable, and impersonal theory that somebody made up.
This takes us around to square one of the discussion and it boils down to a matter of faith versus faith. We look at much of the same evidence: the highly complex physical aspects of the universe and the even more sophisticated workings of the non corporeal world like conscience and guilt; you choose to put your faith in an unproven theory that explains their existence and I have to admit that your faith is much greater than mine although at the same time, a whole lot blinder.
Well, it looks we’ve traveled full circle and at an impasse of belief systems. I’ll just have to do what Tom accuses me of always doing - declare myself the discussion winner and shuffle along now…
P.S. but don’t hesitate to have the last word if you’d like
Typical reaction of someone who has his fingers in his ears and his head in the sand.
Satan tried to get Jesus to jump off a building by using a verse from the Bible (Matthew4:5-7) Jesus answered him with another verse which clarified that he had misused the scripture. Jesus counsels us , “We live by every Word which comes forth from the mouth of God”(Matt4:4, Deut8:3) Most interpretations are a result of failing to read all the scriptures, and that process also will clarify the literal from the symbolic. We are further counseled, “Lean on, trust and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind, and do not rely on your own understanding” (Prov3:5). As I’ve previously stated, the help of the Holy Spirit is imperative in understanding and interpreting the Bible, otherwise it will remain an enigma.
Sounds like you’re saying the only way to know god is to suspend reason.