# Questions on Christianity (Again...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952 "2010-08-30T02:13:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 46
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/901 "2010-09-13T11:17:30Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 1\> You are addressing the ‘why’ of a genetic adoption. I am asking for the ‘why’ of a non-genetic one. I’m telling you “a somewhat indiscriminate willingness to adopt” addresses both genetic and non-genetic adoptions: it produces favorable outcomes when it results in genetic adoptions, and non-favorable outcomes when it results in non-genetic adoptions, but that’s good enough – and it’s the _ **same** _ overly broad trait both times. By analogy: say you see a dog humping enthusiastically away on a table leg, or a guest’s leg, or whatever. You ask: why is he doing this? I answer: he really likes to hump things. You ask why. I tell you it often enough produces favorable outcomes by resulting in procreation, such as when it leads him to vigorously hump a female canine in heat. You point out that vigorously humping a man’s leg produces no such outcome. I tell you it’s the same trait, which manifests sometimes in reproductive behaviors and sometimes is nothing more than – well, call it “barking up the wrong tree”. The same overly broad trait sticks around so long as it results in enough favorable outcomes to outweigh the non-favorable ones. > [@](#): > > _2\> You can’t simply argue that whatever remains must be the truth. ‘That is science of the gaps’. At the end of the day, this comes down to a decision on the improbabilities. Beneficial mutations are extremely rare. Beneficial mutations that result in non-physical benefits such as benevolence are so speculative as to be little above science fiction._ Why? Evolution exists. Benevolence exists, and is useful to organisms even when it’s overly broad. Mutations appear, and do so in increasing numbers as the timeframe expands – whereupon they spread or die out according to evolutionary utility, which benevolence has. You say the alleged improbabilities of that possibility are so high as to approach science fiction, and so you postulate an entity with attributes too far-out for most science fiction – and who, for all we know, is _ **even** _ less probable according to whatever different laws of physics he theoretically operates within. If, in the worst-case scenario, it’s “science of the gaps” versus “god of the gaps”, I of course (a) see no reason for you to claim it must be the god of the gaps, and (b) merely note that _ **whatever** _ remains in the ever-shrinking gaps does so because non-gap science keeps expanding in explanatory power. > [@](#): > > _3\> In the first link, go to “Is c, the speed of light in vacuum, constant?” You will find my comments there._ No, I’d read that: he says we currently assume photons are massless, but notes that photons may have a tiny mass, in which case light would travel at different speeds according to its frequency; he mentions as well that we could, in principle, get a very different answer using measurements based on laboratory experiments rather than astronomical observations; he adds that “there is good observational evidence to indicate that those parameters have not changed over most of the lifetime of the universe” and caps it with the following: “At the moment you can measure macroscopic distances most accurately by sending out laser light pulses and timing how long they take to travel using a very accurate atomic clock.” He points to experiments that have played out to explain the falsifiable conclusion, and emphasizes that further experimentation could disprove it by producing different testable conclusions; that’s science. Is your postulated god likewise a falsifiable conclusion which currently rests on the evidence of experiments but could be disproven next week? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/902 "2010-09-13T11:36:41Z")
[quote=“aigonz, post:859, topic:551952”] > [@monavis](#): > > You make assumptions about both God and ‘nothing’. > > When it is claimed that nothing can come from nothing, the reference is to the natural world, as I made clear. > > God is outside of the natural world, therefore your objection is invalid. You assume God is outside the natural world. It would still mean He needed a place first, before He could exist there, something had to preceed any being, it must be in existence before it can exist!!! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/903 "2010-09-13T11:41:26Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@monavis](#): > > > > Science doesn’t state a theroy as fact until it can be proven as fact. Faith starts out believing something is fact, Science starts out searching for facts! Big difference!! > > Again you do science and religion a diservice. Both are a quest for truth, both are explanations for observable phenomena. > > Do you seriously think religious folk wake up one morning and think ‘I believe there is an intelligent agent outside the universe…’? Of course not. Religious viewpoints reflect a quest for truth, just as do scientific ones. > > There are many things science cannot explain (if you doubt that I suggest you watch a brief excerpt from a debate between William Lane Craig and Dr Peter Atkins at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco)). The God hypothesis isn’t simply a matter of filling in the gaps, it is a plausible, coherent hypothesis that has been shared by some of the planets greatest intellects, including scientific ones. Wrong, religion doesn’t search for truth, it starts out with what they believe is truth, and try to get people to accept that,There is too much contradiction in religions, truth is not contradictory! Science has an idea, then tries to see if there is truth in it. Science corrects itself, religions just make up ways it could happen, and decide the early writers or founders were telling the truth. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/904 "2010-09-13T11:48:52Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@monavis](#): > > > > Did it ever register with you that maybe some stupid man wrote the Bible? You are believing in the Biblical writers and their interpertation of a God there is no difference! > > The question was about what the Bible SAYS, not whether any of us believe it. > > I was responding to false claims as to content, not defending the Bible. That is a different debate altogether. You stated, not I, that you know the Bible, well, the Bible was written by some human(really several humans) centuries ago and the writers were not able to experience what people know today. Much has been proven untrue. I know the Bible fairly well myself, and it has many contradictions. Hence, I take no more stock in the Bible than I do in Aesops Fables,because there is some morals to be considered in the Bible there is just as much in Aesop’s writings!! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/905 "2010-09-13T12:00:18Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Please don’t forget Waldo, I am not questioning or doubting the general theory of relativity. I am simply making the point that even commonly accepted scientific theories rely on assumptions of one kind or another. Do you mean like the earth is not the the center of the universe, the study of atoms and all science has learned from such things as an electron microscope etc.?Think back to times before Science made discoveries and prove Biblical thinkers wrong, and what happened to the one’s who disagreed!! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/906 "2010-09-13T12:04:39Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@CurtC](#): > > > > Uhhh, yeah. And you believe what WLC says? My impression with him is that he’s either clueless or dishonest. > > > > You know that science doesn’t deal in proofs, right? > > > > Our ideas of physics were giving wrong answers when we _didn’t_ assume that the SoL was constant for all observers. Einstein came along with the idea that it was constant, which brought along a bunch of counter-intuitive side-effects, and every one of those predicted effects has been observed to be accurate. > > > > This is well beyond an assumption - it’s an idea that people have tried to falsify for 100 years, and it still stands. I think you’re taking the fact that you’ve heard that science can’t prove things, and are then equating things we know from science, as assumptions with no evidence. That’s either clueless or that d- word I used earlier. > > 1\> I recommend watching even one of Craigs debates on you tube. You will find he is neither. You will also not find any debates between Craig and Richard Dawkins. because Dawkins refuses. > > 2\> “You know that science doesn’t deal in proofs, right?” What kind of nonsense is this? I’m sure you know the word science means ‘knowledge’. We can’t ‘know’ something without ‘proof’. You really are a very confused puppy. You do realize Aginoz, that you claim to know something with out proof when you state you know something about God. Who is confused? ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/907 "2010-09-13T12:41:43Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Perhaps you might actually care to outline your points in a coherent manner, devoid of the ramblings. I did. The fact that you can’t answer them and instead have to try to handwave my points away through insulting rhetoric is very telling. > [@aigonz](#): > > It would also help if you (and others) took the time to actually confirm what I HAVE said, before taking a pot shot at what I HAVEN’T. I did - I actually quoted you in my posts. Perhaps that’s why you think I was rambling, because you confused your responses for my own. > [@aigonz](#): > > It would seem that many of you are a little too eager to accept any hypothesis, no matter how absurd or unsubstantiated, just as long as it doesn’t involve anything outside the natural. Yet there are a number of things science cannot explain about the natural world. Irony. You can’t even define what you mean by ‘outside the natural’. The idea is, as I’ve repeatedly shown, incoherent. You are the one who leaps to accept a magical entity whose existence is contradictory. Let’s all remember that. Just because science can’t explain something doesn’t mean we can attribute that something to magic or God. That’s appealing to ignorance. > [@aigonz](#): > > Gee you really do have double standards don’t you. > > I will respond when someone responds to what I have actually said. I will not repsond when someone misquotes me and then procceds to attack a position I did not take. Where did I do this? Is this how you are weaseling out of defending your position? By claiming that I misquoted you (please demonstrate where)? Let’s suppose for a second that I did, how does that make your position somehow intelligible and coherent. > [@aigonz](#): > > 3\> WLC agrees with Einstein. Yes, but he doesn’t agree with the standard views on how to interpret Einstein. He has to deny the B theory of time through some very odd metaphysics. His position is in the minority. Which is kind of funny since he often appeals to authority with regard to the historicity of Jesus. Gee, I wonder why he would flip flop like that? Perhaps it’s for the same reason that you refuse to deal with all of the contradictions and trouble spots of your position? I’ve given you a last chance and you **failed to make your case**. Instead you took the intellectually weak position of simply ignoring my counters. I’m out of this thread. You, apparently, have no desire to put forth a rational position. Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/908 "2010-09-13T13:33:04Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 2\> ‘Science can’t prove anything’ is among the sillier things stated here. The mehod of science can prove many things true. The theory of gravity is one such thing. Here’s a challenge: please explicitly describe this “theory of gravity” that you think has been proven true. > [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > I heard what he said. It’s not what you claimed. How much more do you want to bullshit about this? It’s obvious that aigonz learned his debate style from William Lane Craig: confidently assert some bullshit, then when it’s pointed out to you exactly how it’s wrong, just confidently assert it again as if your point was not addressed. How many different subjects has aigonz been shown to be demonstrably wrong about, right here in this thread, without even slowing him down from being wrong again? Evolution, quantum mechanics, the views of prominent scientists, relativity, and linguistics. You’re the polymath of wrong! ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/909 "2010-09-13T13:48:33Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 2\> ‘Science can’t prove anything’ is among the sillier things stated here. The mehod of science can prove many things true. The theory of gravity is one such thing. > > Here’s a challenge: please explicitly describe this “theory of gravity” that you think has been proven true. +1 I _think_ I’ve said it in this thread, but if not, science is not deductive (which is where ‘proof’ would come in), it works off of abduction, induction, and falsification. There are some aspects which are deductive, IIRC some areas of physics, were _within the system_ they are expounded in they produce certain results. Of course, the crux being how to demonstrate certainty of the system. > [@CurtC](#): > > > [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > > > I heard what he said. It’s not what you claimed. How much more do you want to bullshit about this? > > It’s obvious that aigonz learned his debate style from William Lane Craig: confidently assert some bullshit, then when it’s pointed out to you exactly how it’s wrong, just confidently assert it again as if your point was not addressed. I think that Aigonz has learned _some_ stuff from Craig - maybe he’s seen a lot of Craig debates. I’m almost certain he hasn’t read a whole lot of Craig though, since he seems to be fundamentally ignorant about the metaphysics of time. Craig goes over this in detail in a few books and in a debate with Quentin Smith. Craig is a philosopher and, as far as I can tell, one of the only ones that sticks with the A theory of time. He’s at least, it’s most prominent proponent. The reason most philosophers of time do not hold to the A theory is precisely because of how it is hard to reconcile with the theory of relativity. So for Aigonz to say that Craig agrees with Einstein is a bit of a slippery statement. Yes, Craig accepts the theory of relativity, but not the conventional view. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/910 "2010-09-13T21:32:38Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 1\> Dawkins was asked why he would not debate Craig. He then made the comment about preoessional debaters. You just hadn’t listened. > > I heard what he said. It’s not what you claimed. How much more do you want to bullshit about this? > > > [@](#): > > > > 2\> In this video, Dawkins states that ‘I don’t take on creationists’, not I ‘won’t’, or ‘now longer’. He has. > > Do you know what “don’t” means? If I say I don’t drink, it doesn’t mean I never have. He doesn’t have to say “no longer”. 1\> Dawkins gave two reasons why he wouldn’t debate Craig. The first was that he doesn’t debate creationists. The second is that he won’t debate with professional debaters. 2\> The first excuse was a lie, whichever way you look at it. He has debated creationists. He has also agreed to debate with bishops, cardinals, etc etc. Dare I suggest that these will all be creationists? You missed that little contradiction didn’t you? Dawkins is reluctant to engage with either Palntinga or Craig because he knpws his arguments will be exposed. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/911 "2010-09-13T21:49:23Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 1\> You are addressing the ‘why’ of a genetic adoption. I am asking for the ‘why’ of a non-genetic one. > > I’m telling you “a somewhat indiscriminate willingness to adopt” addresses both genetic and non-genetic adoptions: it produces favorable outcomes when it results in genetic adoptions, and non-favorable outcomes when it results in non-genetic adoptions, but that’s good enough – and it’s the _ **same** _ overly broad trait both times. > > By analogy: say you see a dog humping enthusiastically away on a table leg, or a guest’s leg, or whatever. You ask: why is he doing this? I answer: he really likes to hump things. You ask why. I tell you it often enough produces favorable outcomes by resulting in procreation, such as when it leads him to vigorously hump a female canine in heat. You point out that vigorously humping a man’s leg produces no such outcome. I tell you it’s the same trait, which manifests sometimes in reproductive behaviors and sometimes is nothing more than – well, call it “barking up the wrong tree”. The same overly broad trait sticks around so long as it results in enough favorable outcomes to outweigh the non-favorable ones. > > Why? Evolution exists. Benevolence exists, and is useful to organisms even when it’s overly broad. Mutations appear, and do so in increasing numbers as the timeframe expands – whereupon they spread or die out according to evolutionary utility, which benevolence has. You say the alleged improbabilities of that possibility are so high as to approach science fiction, and so you postulate an entity with attributes too far-out for most science fiction – and who, for all we know, is _ **even** _ less probable according to whatever different laws of physics he theoretically operates within. > > If, in the worst-case scenario, it’s “science of the gaps” versus “god of the gaps”, I of course (a) see no reason for you to claim it must be the god of the gaps, and (b) merely note that _ **whatever** _ remains in the ever-shrinking gaps does so because non-gap science keeps expanding in explanatory power. > > > [@](#): > > > > _3\> In the first link, go to “Is c, the speed of light in vacuum, constant?” You will find my comments there._ > > No, I’d read that: he says we currently assume photons are massless, but notes that photons may have a tiny mass, in which case light would travel at different speeds according to its frequency; he mentions as well that we could, in principle, get a very different answer using measurements based on laboratory experiments rather than astronomical observations; he adds that “there is good observational evidence to indicate that those parameters have not changed over most of the lifetime of the universe” and caps it with the following: “At the moment you can measure macroscopic distances most accurately by sending out laser light pulses and timing how long they take to travel using a very accurate atomic clock.” > > He points to experiments that have played out to explain the falsifiable conclusion, and emphasizes that further experimentation could disprove it by producing different testable conclusions; that’s science. Is your postulated god likewise a falsifiable conclusion which currently rests on the evidence of experiments but could be disproven next week? 1\> You may need to rethink your illustration of the dog. The dog humping the table does so for immediate pleasure, not for some alternative perceived outcome. The adoption of an unrelated animal carries no benefit and actually some potential cost/risk. And think on this. You haven’t even come close to explaining basic altruism. How can you possibly contend that evolution can then proceed to explain absolutely selfless committment to others at great cost to oneself? 2\> The reason the God hypothesis IS more plausible than evolution when explaining such things as benevolence is simply because evolution cannot explain benevolence, or many other similar traits. The God hypthesis can. Logically and coherently. 3\>The author of the piece I posted says precisly what I quoted. It is precsiely where i said it was. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/912 "2010-09-13T21:54:12Z")
[quote=“monavis, post:902, topic:551952”] > [@aigonz](#): > > You assume God is outside the natural world. It would still mean He needed a place first, before He could exist there, something had to preceed any being, it must be in existence before it can exist!!! No. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/913 "2010-09-13T21:59:30Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > Again you do science and religion a diservice. Both are a quest for truth, both are explanations for observable phenomena. > > > > Do you seriously think religious folk wake up one morning and think ‘I believe there is an intelligent agent outside the universe…’? Of course not. Religious viewpoints reflect a quest for truth, just as do scientific ones. > > > > There are many things science cannot explain (if you doubt that I suggest you watch a brief excerpt from a debate between William Lane Craig and Dr Peter Atkins at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco)). The God hypothesis isn’t simply a matter of filling in the gaps, it is a plausible, coherent hypothesis that has been shared by some of the planets greatest intellects, including scientific ones. > > Wrong, religion doesn’t search for truth, it starts out with what they believe is truth, and try to get people to accept that,There is too much contradiction in religions, truth is not contradictory! Science has an idea, then tries to see if there is truth in it. Science corrects itself, religions just make up ways it could happen, and decide the early writers or founders were telling the truth. You are a master at misunderstanding. I did not say religion searches for truth. Religious viewpoints reflect a search for truth. WE humans search for truth. Religious viewpoints provide some hypotheses with which contend. A scientific method can (and has been) applied to the Bible, for example, to test it’s truth claims, it’s existential value, etc. The Bible states the earth is round. Until the 16th century many scientists disagreed. The Bible was right. The Bible said there was a people called the Hittites. For centuries historians doubted this. The Bible was right. I can go on. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/914 "2010-09-13T22:00:28Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 1\> Dawkins gave two reasons why he wouldn’t debate Craig. The first was that he doesn’t debate creationists. The second is that he won’t debate with professional debaters. That’s not what he says. [Here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFamS4RGE_A)’s the link again for anyone wanting to check if **aigonz** ’s statement is accurate. > [@](#): > > 2\> The first excuse was a lie, whichever way you look at it. He has debated creationists. He has also agreed to debate with bishops, cardinals, etc etc. I already responded this to this claim of yours in post #899. What’s the point in repeating the same thing instead of rebutting my rebuttal? > [@](#): > > Dare I suggest that these will all be creationists? You missed that little contradiction didn’t you? I have a sneaking suspicion you’re using a different definition of creationist that I bet you’re aware Dawkins is using. > [@](#): > > Dawkins is reluctant to engage with either Palntinga or Craig because he knpws his arguments will be exposed. Which arguments will be exposed that hasn’t been brought up by others he’s debated with? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/915 "2010-09-13T22:01:29Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > The question was about what the Bible SAYS, not whether any of us believe it. > > > > I was responding to false claims as to content, not defending the Bible. That is a different debate altogether. > > You stated, not I, that you know the Bible, well, the Bible was written by some human(really several humans) centuries ago and the writers were not able to experience what people know today. Much has been proven untrue. I know the Bible fairly well myself, and it has many contradictions. Hence, I take no more stock in the Bible than I do in Aesops Fables,because there is some morals to be considered in the Bible there is just as much in Aesop’s writings!! This is not a discussion about the Bible, but given your claims above, I doubt you know very much about it at all. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/916 "2010-09-13T22:05:10Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > Please don’t forget Waldo, I am not questioning or doubting the general theory of relativity. I am simply making the point that even commonly accepted scientific theories rely on assumptions of one kind or another. > > Do you mean like the earth is not the the center of the universe, the study of atoms and all science has learned from such things as an electron microscope etc.?Think back to times before Science made discoveries and prove Biblical thinkers wrong, and what happened to the one’s who disagreed!! Again, you show your ignorance of the Bible. The Bible never claimed the earth was the centre of the universe; the Bible is not a book on astronomy. There have been humans who have chosen to distort the bible for their own ends, but that is the very nature of mankind. You don’t dismiss all of science because of scientific miscinduct, do you? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/917 "2010-09-13T22:06:12Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 1\> I recommend watching even one of Craigs debates on you tube. You will find he is neither. You will also not find any debates between Craig and Richard Dawkins. because Dawkins refuses. > > > > 2\> “You know that science doesn’t deal in proofs, right?” What kind of nonsense is this? I’m sure you know the word science means ‘knowledge’. We can’t ‘know’ something without ‘proof’. You really are a very confused puppy. > > You do realize Aginoz, that you claim to know something with out proof when you state you know something about God. Who is confused? No me. I have stated openly that Good cannot be ‘proven’. But there are also many sceintific assumptions that cannot be ‘proven’. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/918 "2010-09-13T22:06:39Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 2\> The first excuse was a lie, whichever way you look at it. He has debated creationists. He has also agreed to debate with bishops, cardinals, etc etc. > [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > I already responded this to this claim of yours in post #899. What’s the point in repeating the same thing instead of rebutting my rebuttal? BTW, you’re doing exactly what **CurtC** accused you of doing in post #907. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/919 "2010-09-13T22:13:53Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > 2\> ‘Science can’t prove anything’ is among the sillier things stated here. The mehod of science can prove many things true. The theory of gravity is one such thing. > > Here’s a challenge: please explicitly describe this “theory of gravity” that you think has been proven true. Let me give you a science lesson. A Scientifc Law details the findings of repeated observation (or ‘proof’). Theories explain laws. The theory of gravity is how we explain the law of gravity, which can be proven by dropping an apple from a tree onto your head. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/920 "2010-09-13T22:17:22Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Let me give you a science lesson. > > A Scientifc Law details the findings of repeated observation (or ‘proof’). > > Theories explain laws. > > The theory of gravity is how we explain the law of gravity, which can be proven by dropping an apple from a tree onto your head. FAIL ETA: This has gotten kinda comical. You’re pissing all over yourself here and you don’t even realize it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=45) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=47)