Creationist Attempts to Prove the Existence of God / Denial of Evolution [merged threads]

Great Debates
221

Are you saying that the Israelites who wrote Genesis knew that they were referring to Jesus when they wrote that?

Guess what? Objective scholars of the Bible have noticed all those references to Elohim (in the plural), and know why it says that. The ancient Israelites were henotheistic - they believed there were many gods, but there was this one god, YHWH, for whom the Israelites were his chosen, special people. In other words, they were not monotheistic, but there was only one of the many gods that they were supposed to worship. Over the centuries, this gradually changed into monotheism, but that was later in the Jews’ history.

Where did you get your information that a plural reference to the gods in Genesis refers to Jesus?

222

From last to first:
No, Jesus and Peter are not liars; they were employing the myth in the way that it was understood by the people of the time in order to make a rhetorical and moral point. It should be noted, here, that I use the word myth in its technical anthroplogical sense of “a story used to express a truth held by a people,” although I suspect that you will not deal well with that definition.
(Peter did not write that letter, by the way.)

As an observant Jew of the first century, I am sure that Jesus did believe in thr Flood story–in the way that it was intended: to provide a lesson regarding the sinfulness of humanity and the anger of God against sin and the mercy of God toward the righteous. When the incidents of a myth are contradicted by evidence, I recognize that the story of the myth and its intention is more important than the details that the story employs to make its point. So when Noah takes six or two of the same animals into the ark, I don’t get hung up on worrying about whether he really had eight animals or whether “God” forgot what he was writing and put the numbers in wrong. (“God” didn’t write it. Different people wrote it and later people incorporated it into a testimony of their beliefs in God and still later people chose to enshrine that revised and redacted (and error laden) story as Scripture and myth.)

As a Christian, I consider the whole of the bible to convey truth about God, recognizing that different portions are written in different media. And I consider what the community of believers has said about the various stories, myths, poems, prophetic utterances, letters, and so forth through the ages to determine the meanings of those lessons.

223

Problem with atheists is you come up with a generic explanation and force fit to apply to any supernatural experiences. All NDE’s are hallucinations, for example. That doesn’t prove anything, it’s just a convenient escape route to close the book automatically on any experience a person has.

224

How about you provide some cites showing that Israelites believed in many gods? Why does Genesis 1:1 say

“In the beginning God created, the heaven and the earth"

instead of “In the beginning the gods created, the heaven and the earth”

Also Genesis 3:15 is clearly refering to the battle between Jesus and Satan.

225

Actually the ***empiricists ***state that since the brain can have hallucinations there is no need to posit a further causal agent that you can not materially test. To add more agents beyond what is required sinmply adds complications. Not that those agents don’t necessarily exist, but that they are not necessary for the explanation.

So your personal experience is yours. It simply can not be extended to others with any rigor.

226

No, it isn’t.
To start with, HaSatan is “the adversary”, God’s DA, not a villain.
Further, Judaism has no concept of Jesus, nor allows a triune deity, nor was the passage about Jesus or HaSatan. It was a just so story to explain people’s instinctive revulsion/fear when faced with serpents and the fact that the bite of a snake, especially variates like the asp which lived near ancient Israel, could be lethal.

I understand that you’d like to retcon the Tanakh, but sorry, we were using it for quite a bit longer than you before you decided to change it. If you want to read about HaSatan, check out Job.

227

Well, for one thing, we’ve been able to re-create religious experiences in the lab. We can literally induce them in the brain.

The point is that the evidence is far in favor of your NDE being a form of hallucination than it is an example of divine interaction. It’s not a “generic explanation” force-fit to apply to the supernatural. It’s an explanation that is supported with empirical evidence that is consistent with everything else we understand about physics/neuroscience/etc.

We also know that eyewitness testimony is notorious for being inaccurate and biased. Just because you could “swear you saw your dead mother’s ghost for a split second in the doorway one time,” for instance, doesn’t mean it was a divine experience. The more likely explanation lends itself to perfectly good scientific explanation that doesn’t require the supernatural at all.

That’s why it’s not terribly convincing when someone claims to have had a religious experience. “Well, how do you know?” is always met with “I just do,” and that’s hardly compelling evidence. It relies on say-so without any external verification. Again, that’s not science. That’s why we “close the book” on such things, typically. Unless you have more evidence, there’s nothing to discuss that won’t ultimately resort to a “No you didn’t!” / “Yes I did!” type of argument.

When we take all the other evidence into account, it’s much more likely that your NDE is entirely explainable in terms of natural phenomena. No God required.

228

Speaking of escape routes, where are those other cites supporting the flood story? Anyway this is not “an escape route.” It’s a simpler explanation that’s well-supported by evidence, and from a scientific and logical point of view, a simpler explanation is usually preferred.

The Hebrew word “Elohim,” which is used repeatedly in the Old Testament, is plural. More specifically it’s the masculine plural. (I don’t speak Hebrew myself.) And yes, that’s the word that is used in the first verse of Genesis. (Other words are used elsewhere, which is one of the hints that the book was written and edited by multiple people over time.) Modern translations of the Bible often don’t reflect this fact because modern Judaism and Christianity and both monotheistic.

229

I gave my argument for the FLood story in the beginning with the striking similiarity of flood story details in cultures spread out over the world. This was rejected as expected given the nature of atheists. I posted cites showing the details, even went to the effort of offering a counter argument showing how your counter argument is just not realistic.

I’m not an expert in geology so there’s really no point in me going down that route.

Elohim can be both singular and plural. This proves nothing. In the plural sense, it’s obvious that the author is not talking about God, but rather false gods.

Ex. 1 Samuel 28:13 The witch says she sees gods. This not a reference to God especially considering witchcraft is of the occult and has nothing to do with God.

Genesis 1:26 may appear to be plural but it is refering to the Holy Trinity. This actually shows me that the Bible is divine in nature since the Jews had no real concept of the Trinity at the time but it was written this way.

If you truly believe that Elohim refers to many gods worshipped by the Israelities then why it is almost always used with a singular verb or adjective?

230

It’s rejected because it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. The similarities aren’t “striking:” you have stories about floods that some people survived, many of them in a boat and some without a boat. A handful of the stories included a dove, but most didn’t. Half of them didn’t involve God. The similarities are very basic and better explanations have been offered.

“Even went to the effort?” This is what you’re expected to do around here. And your “counterargument” actually consisted of ignoring what people had said - you insisted that either all flood legends had a single source or that they were coincidences. This is what’s called a strawman argument: you argue with a caricature of your opponent’s position to make you own argument look better. Even then, your argument doesn’t look great.

So you have no cites based on geology, genetics, or archaeology? Just that people have vaguely similar flood legends, which is easily explicable without a global flood? Why is that more meaningful to you than the fact that there’s no evidence of a population bottleneck, and no fossil or archeological evidence of a flood?

Cite, please.

So your contention is that Genesis begins, “In the beginning, false gods created the heavens and the earth?”

Cite please.

Please reread the relevant posts. Nobody said this.

231

Once again, Sincardio the Invisible Baby-Saving Nymph cannot get the credit he deserves. Not that I would expect anything different from you dishonest, close-minded anymphists.

Anyone can prove a near death experience is real when they retrieve information from “the other side” that they couldn’t have had otherwise (beyond what is possible by chance). Examples: future lottery picks, the location of Jimmy Hoffa’s corpse, numbers written on the top of hospital furniture.

No one has ever shown one way in which these things are not hallucinations. Since we know hallucinations exist, it’s only prudent to categorize near death experiences as hallucinations unless new evidence contradicts that.

Funny how it’s singular when you need it to be, but plural everywhere else.

There is plenty of evidence that Israelites were polytheistic, including archaeological finds of cult objects throughout the region. The Bible contains many prohibitions against worship of the “Baals”, and many stories about when the Israelites didn’t follow those prohibitions. One way you can know someone is doing something is if someone else tries to forbid it (otherwise you wouldn’t bother).

If you believe the Bible as it is written and compiled by 7th century Yahwehian priests, Israel was constantly going off with this god or that god, while neglecting the “true god Yahweh”.

Historians argue (I think compellingly) an alternative view that Israelites went through several unsuccessful conversions by the southern Judean Yahwehists then reverted back to their earlier Baal worship as the southern influence faded. Some evidence of this can still be found in the language used: Elohim refers to the children of El, various Canaanite gods of which Yahweh may have been one. There are clear solar motifs in the story of Samson that reflects a probable euhemerism of a story about a sun god. Gideon is referred to as Jerubaal (Baal contends), which may indicate that the story was trying to coopt an earlier Baalite figure and bring him into the fold as a Yahwehist. The Bible tells a story about constructing a bronze or brass serpent to cure snake bites, this falls in line with various nearby traditions, as much as we understand them. These are not conclusive on their own, but considering that even the Yahwehists agree (to their shame) that the Israelites were polytheists at various points, it’s worthy of provisional agreement.

By the way, is every religion thread going to become the GEEPERS Show from now on? It’s good to have a diversity of opinions, but… well… you know what I mean. This was originally a thread about the cosmological argument, but it’s quickly devolved into talking about floods and ghosts and all sorts of nonsense. EDIT: Although looking again, there was mention of a flood in the OP. I retract that complaint, but ghost stories are still pretty afield, I think.

Incidentally, creationists claim that all humans are descended from 8 people 6 thousand years ago. ALL people. Every mutation, every trait, every immunological quirk of every distinct ethnicity, race, and tribe evolved in humans within the life-span of a single creosote bush. No evolutionary biologist is zealous enough to claim evolution happens that fast, so why do creationists get away with it?

232

“Evolution doesn’t happen, except when it does, then it happens at a ridiculously fast rate.”

233

Typical atheist response to trash all over what is really a beautiful uplifting story.

This has been demonstrated by people who have out of body experiences and report details that can’t possibly have been the result of a hallucination.

Ex.

Example 1: An elderly woman had been blind since childhood. But, during her NDE, the woman had regained her sight and she was able to accurately describe the instruments and techniques used during the resuscitation her body. After the woman was revived, she reported the details to her doctor. She was able to tell her doctor who came in and out, what they said, what they wore, what they did, all of which was true. Her doctor then referred the woman to Moody who he knew was doing research at the time on NDEs.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence02.html

Care to explain that one?

Funny how it’s singular when atheists need it to be, but plural everywhere else.
And I don’t argue that the Israelites worshipped other gods in periods of history. So what? They rebelled against the true God many times and fell into idoltry. You would think the authors would try to paint a rosier picture of the Israelities if it was all a work of fiction. During Moses time, they moaned and complained constantly, and even Aaron himself made a false idol to a calf god while Moses was receiving the 10 commandments. This doesn’t disprove the Bible in any way. The Bible is merely reporting the history, dirty and ugly as it really happened.

Honestly, I’m getting pretty bored here so I’ll probably be moving on soon. It would be nice to find a debate forum where I’m not the solo Christian defending against a horde of atheists.

234

Is it a beautiful uplifting story if it’s not true?

What are you talking about? The claim (and it’s true) is that in some places in the Bible, God is described in the plural as Elohim. You responded that this only referred to false Gods, but it’s right there in the first verse of Genesis. How is that the fault of the mean atheists?

You’ve had Christians and Jews disagree with you, too, remember? They were disagreeing because much of what you’re saying is incorrect or simply ludicrous.

235

Christians? Only one dude who admitted that he doesn’t even believe in the whole Bible. And how do you know as fact that the miracle story never took place? Andrew Womack happens to be a highly respectful ministry that gives away free stuff more than ask for money.

236

Yet another unsubstantiated claim on a website full of them. Next time you provide a cite, you might want to aim for one that is more truthful and less pretty and uplifting. Btw, are you claiming that those on this board who claim to be Christians really aren’t?

237

Just because something is beautiful to you doesn’t make it true.

Again, this is hardly compelling evidence.

  1. The story itself lends to an inconsistency. People who are born blind do not develop a sense for visual stimuli. They develop a framework with respect to other senses (especially touch and sound). They’ll even dream this way. However, if someone is born blind, and they have a NDE where they can somehow see, they’re not going to know how to make sense of what they’re experiencing. How am I going to explain to a doctor that I saw medical instruments and be able to accurately describe them if I’ve never seen one such tools before in my life? I’d have no point of reference. People who have never taken in sensory stimuli do not suddenly conjure up frameworks for them out of nowhere. In other words, the story itself is likely to be untrue or missing key details. It would be like me suddenly dreaming in sonar or something and being able to accurately relay everything I experienced to, idk, an intelligent bat or something >.>

  2. If the woman only became blind after being able to see at first (i.e. having experienced visual stimuli before), that framework gets developed. Even if your eyes go bad, the visual processing in your brain still rages onward. If someone is near-death, that portion of the brain can easily fire off all the same. It’s also not hard to make up a generic story about doctors and operating equipment being used on you, especially if you’ve seen what such layouts look like before. Your story also doesn’t give any specific details. The woman could have easily said something not much more complex than “Oh, I saw doctors operating on me! Respirators and tubes! Doctor’s equipment everywhere! People in scrub-gear walking in and out of the room! I was lying on a long bed, fast asleep!” and suddenly this gets blown out of proportion as an OOBE because we’re taking her word for it.

  3. While being resuscitated, it’s also possible for one to not be entirely unconscious. You can sometimes still hear things being said around you. Again, not proof of supernatural influence.

  4. The fact that no names are given means it gets to hide behind the shield of being generically anonymous so nobody can ask further questions.

  5. We don’t know the extent of her blindness. The story’s credibility is especially shot if her eyesight was simply “very bad” (as most “blind” people’s are) as opposed to completely shot.

All in all, it’s still tenuous “evidence.” And again this is why atheists tend to roll their eyes at this stuff. It’s incredibly weak, vague, detail-devoid evidence, but you’ll cite it because it happens to agree with your views.

238

I recall one Christian and one Jew. That “one dude” knows a lot more about the Bible than you do, and for the record, most Christians don’t take the entire Bible literally. The thing isn’t internally consistent, so everybody picks and chooses. Some people can admit that and some can’t.

I didn’t say for a fact that it didn’t happen. I said there’s not much evidence it happened, and if it really happened I would expect to see a lot more reporting. It’s a lot easier to find evidence of spontaneous cancer remissions, which you talked about in another thread.

So?

And again, you’ve stopped arguing about your factual claims so you can complain about the atheists being unfair. It can be a tough crowd here, but you’re also doing very little to back up anything you’ve said.

239

Typical anymphist response to the GOOD NEWS of Sincardio.

I would need to read actual details of what she described and then compare it to the actual circumstances. Your website had no details that I could find. (Honestly, I didn’t look that hard.) Details are what could potentially make that an interesting story. If she described a small coffee stain on the doctor’s shoulder, that would be impressive. If she described how they wore white coats and blue scrubs, I’m less impressed. As it is, there is not enough detail to even comment.

You’re dangerously close to a rubber-glue analogy. I never said it was singular. I actually think it was probably almost exclusively plural, then later generations tried to reconcile it as being singular, too.

You said:

How about you don’t demand citations for things you apparently already know.

That’s actually what I’m saying. What actually happened was Israelites worshiped all sorts of Canaanite gods, then were culturally infused by Yahwehism from Judea. That Yahwehism didn’t really take for a long time, but eventually it did. Later, when the Bible was being written and compiled, they made it seem as though Israelites were ALWAYS Yahwehists who just “kept falling into idolatry”. From the 7th century Judean perspective, that was a rosy view.

As for other warts on the tradition, there are a thousand reasons to do that (literary self-flagellation for one). It’s not really something that interests me personally, but I would be cautious about anyone saying they can read the minds of people thousands of years ago. Cultural mores and conventions are so different between societies, let alone over the centuries, that we may not even be able to intelligibly speculate on their true motivation.

In general, you seem to have difficulty in the idea of provisional acceptance. I provisionally accept that Homer existed, but there is no direct evidence for it, and if it turned out that he didn’t exist, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not personally convinced a Trojan War happened, but if it did, there still was almost certainly no Achilles. If there was an Achilles, he certainly wasn’t the son of a water nymph (or at least, that’s what anymphists say). When archaeologists discovered Troy, it didn’t mean the Iliad was a reliable historical document. It made some of the events described slightly more plausible. But there are things in it that are still impossible, and without really solid evidence, we shouldn’t accept those. The Bible is the same. Spider-Man is the same, as well. There are comic books after 9/11 that feature Spider-Man digging people out of the Twin Towers rubble. It’s the mixture of reality and fantasy that makes myth compelling to us today, as it was for our ancestors.

Second, you seem to think that all atheists (or just people who disagree with you) all think the same thing and that it’s some conspiracy to subvert your religion. It reality, it’s just people who don’t agree with you.

The thing is: you’re not. Most Christians don’t agree with you on most topics, so you’re problem isn’t atheism, it’s dissent. Most of the internet is not too accommodating to literalist Christians because it’s just provably untrue, so I doubt you’ll find a “debate forum” that you’ll like. Traditional religions have only existed in a world where people with dissenting views were isolated or silenced by their local majority. That’s not how the internet works. Here, everyone can speak their mind and no one can shout them down.

I don’t want you to leave, GEEPERS. I want for you what I want for myself. To engage with the immensely intelligent people on Straight Dope’s boards and to learn. To be challenged, because challenges are what makes people stronger. To change your views when presented compelling evidence. To respect people enough to hear them out, even if (hell, especially if) you disagree with them. To convince them when you’re right, and come around when you’re not.

I’ve been in the majority and in the minority in informal debates like this, online and offline. If you can drop this ME VS. ATHEISM frame that you put on every post, you might find that the world isn’t really about a constant Jihad against the infidels.

240

It’s certainly true, GEEPERS, that you don’t know as much about atheists as you think you do. If you stick around you could try asking them what they actually think and how they came to be atheists in the first place.