Monday, September 6, 2010

They claimed to be wise | Uncommon Descent

I found the following quote on the Uncommon Descent blog:
Extracted from the UK Telegraph comes the faith creed of modern scientism.
Evolution by natural selection, and all the other processes that produced our planet and the life on it, are sufficient to explain how we got to be the way we are, given the laws of physics that operate in our universe. However, there is still scope for an intelligent designer of universes as a whole. The designer may have been responsible for the Big Bang, but nothing more. A very advanced civilisation would have the ability to set precise parameters, thereby designing the universe in detail. It would not be possible – even at the most advanced level – for the designers to interfere with baby universes once they had formed. From the moment of its own Big Bang, each universe would be on its own.”
So let me see it I understand the argument. Although the universe is obviously designed and without a designer we have no real explanation for the laws of Physics, the author believes that the laws of physics are good enough to explain what happens after the big bang. The author even hypothesizes an advanced civilization having the ability to design the universe but doesn't explain any such evidence. So it's easier to agree to the possibility of an advance civilization designing the universe and/or all the laws of the universe snapping into place after the Big Bang (neither if which you have any evidence of) than it is to believe in God? Wow. Romans 1:18-32
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
They claimed to be wise | Uncommn Descent
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20 comments:

  1. This is even more evidence of the obviousness of design and natural man's desperation to deny that YHVH did it.

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  2. If the universe sprang from nothing 6000 years ago, I'd give you YHWH as a possibility, but since it was most likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.9 billion years ago, and whole worlds, solar systems and galaxies formed and died billions of years before our our, I think whatever the prime mover was is not likely to even fit the common human definition of "god".

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  3. Ryan, the Bible does not say the universe is 6000 years old. I thought that we've been through this.

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  4. It does if you read it plainly. I know plenty of christians that don't read it that way though, yourself included...

    But not reading it plainly is a concession on your part. Pushing god into a smaller gap if you will.

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  5. Ryan, no where in ancient literature are genealogies taken to list everyone who lived. And there is no way you can categorically date the flood or creation of the universe using the Bible. And I would not argue the six 24-hr days of creation is off the table because God could have done it in six seconds or six minutes - depending on what His will was. The question is what did God do not what he could have done. There is a historical tradition of lots of people interpreting "yom" as more than 24-hour days, yet that is a viable interpretation. I'm not making concession. I wanna go where the evidence points. If the evidence points to millions of years then I've been reading the Bible wrong (restricted by my ignorance of Hebrew) if I thought it was 24 hour days because the Hebrew language does not restrict the text that way. If you read the English Bible "plainly" you would get the idea that it's six 24-hr days, but the bible was not written in English was it?

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  6. Well, Marcus that's a whole another debate you need to have with your coreligionists that I have no interest in.

    I do find though that there are a couple things Jesus is said to have said (and Paul too) that require a literal creation if you want to hold to inerrancy (and maintain your intellectual honesty).

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  7. Ryan, i agree that there was a literal creation. a literal Adam and Eve. It's dishonest to suggest that you throughout a literal creation with the interpretation that the Bible says that the earth is 6000 years old. Every time you assert that the Bible says that you enter into a debate that you say you have no interest in. If you don't wanna defend that interpretation than quit using that argument.

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  8. Every time you assert that the Bible says that you enter into a debate that you say you have no interest in.

    I don't recall previously doing that. In this case, I have no dog in the hunt. YEC, ID'er, Liberal, or Conservative, you are all wrong. It's just a matter of degrees of how intellectually dishonest one is.

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  9. Ryan you said:

    If the universe sprang from nothing 6000 years ago, I'd give you YHWH as a possibility, but since it was most likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.9 billion years ago, and whole worlds, solar systems and galaxies formed and died billions of years before our our, I think whatever the prime mover was is not likely to even fit the common human definition of "god".

    and

    It [the Bible] does [say the earth is 6000 years old] if you read it plainly.

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  10. Well no duh, you said "EVERY TIME you assert that the Bible says that you enter into a debate that you say you have no interest in."

    And then I said I don't recall doing that except in this case.

    Then you quoted this case.

    I still don't recall doing that ANY OTHER TIME

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  11. Actually I quoted two cases in the same thread, Ryan. No matter when the universe came into existence removes God as cause. I'll remind you if you ever do argue that the Bible says that the earth is 6000 years old.

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  12. Marcus said "No matter when the universe came into existence removes God as cause."

    ?

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  13. I meant that the age of the universe makes no difference as to whether or not God created it!

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  14. Well no, not a god, but it does make a difference on if a particular creation story is likely true or not.

    As does the actual order in which "creation" occured.

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  15. Ryan said

    Well no, not a god, but it does make a difference on if a particular creation story is likely true or not.

    A creation story's likeliness of being true would also depend on if you understand what the story said about what happened.

    As does the actual order in which "creation" occured.

    What is the reference point of the person telling what happened during Genesis 1? Is that observer on earth or from space? Where the observer is observing from would make affect the order in which things appeared.

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  16. Marcus "A creation story's likeliness of being true would also depend on if you understand what the story said about what happened.

    Actually, no it wouldn't :)

    And I think the reference point for the Genesis author was around a campfire, trying to remember a Sumerian tale he'd heard.

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  17. Actually, no it wouldn't :)

    If you don't understand what Genesis is saying then you can't say if it is true or not. For example "Yom" means a period of time...sometimes it means 24 hours some3time it doesn't. What does it m3ean in Genesis 1?

    And I think the reference point for the Genesis author was around a campfire, trying to remember a Sumerian tale he'd heard.

    If Jewish tradition is true and Moses got this from God on Mount Sinai, maybe he is the observer in Genesis 1 and God allowed him to see it in Accelerated time or maybe it was 6 days out of the 40 days he was up there alone with God!

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  18. Sure it was Marcus.

    But I am aware of the perspective argument or whatever you want to call it, but that leaves you with the need to do extreme intellectual violence just to somehow incorporate two separate expanses of water being separated horizontally from each other prior to the existence of dry land, just to arrive at a mere possibility of theism, which of course is absurd.

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  19. Ryan, is it more violent than throwing the story out as you do? For which you have no real good reason to do so.

    What is wrong with:

    somehow incorporate two separate expanses of water being separated horizontally from each other prior to the existence of dry land,

    how do you know that the water above the sky was not ice? There is a theory that the earth used to have rings of ice and dust like Saturn and Uranus. What's the problem?

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