Cavemen on Dinosaurs

[Parduz]

Originally Posted by Jotun

So the Earth can be flat depending on whether or not you believe it is plausible for it to flat?

Is a too much convoluted phrase...

I think that for someone the Earth should be flat because:
- he have not so much school and infos as we have
- he trust more in someone else that says this than a scientist (or a blue ball image) he don't know.
So, for that person, a strong reasoning using the best of his knowledge and the best person he know will lead to the believing in a flat Earth.

But maybe i've misuntertood you, so i may have write the wrong answer...

[InfinityMax]

Parduz, that was an excellent post. I really like the analogy comparing belief in a religion to food preference. In the end, you like your religion because you do.

[Jotun]

Originally Posted by Parduz

Is a too much convoluted phrase...

I think that for someone the Earth should be flat because:
- he have not so much school and infos as we have
- he trust more in someone else that says this than a scientist (or a blue ball image) he don't know.
So, for that person, a strong reasoning using the best of his knowledge and the best person he know will lead to the believing in a flat Earth.

But maybe i've misuntertood you, so i may have write the wrong answer...

You don't seem to have misunderstood me. My point is that there is information about our world and our universe that is not open to interpretation. You may decide not to believe the info or include it as information that you use to make decisions, but that does not make it any less true. To me, people not believing in macroevolution are pretty much saying, "The world is square." Yes, they are right that it isn't flat, but they have decided to stop trusting the source of their info when the truth got a little uncomfortable.

[Jexik]

Originally Posted by InfinityMax

Parduz, that was an excellent post. I really like the analogy comparing belief in a religion to food preference. In the end, you like your religion because you do.

I like the religion that lets me eat a bacon cheeseburger without guilt.

[Parduz]

Originally Posted by Jotun

My point is that there is information about our world and our universe that is not open to interpretation.

This is the point. This is where you (and me) start to Trust and to believe.

(i'm being a little absurd just to try to explain myself).
This is my internal debate about the Earth as a sphere or as a disk:

Someone tells me that the Earth is round.
I start reasoning on that "theory" and after some time i have
1) - a vision of the horizon at the sea: it can be the border of the disk, or the "tangent" of the sphere.... this does not help me.
2) - A plastic globe. Beautiful. But it is not the earth, so i don't know if it is a scaled reproduction or a scuplture.
3) - A photo of the Earth from the shuttle. I was not in that shuttle. I saw it on TV. It's a good TV show or it is real?
4) A lot of books saying that the Earth is round. Same as the plastic globe.
5) A lot of ppl that, for passion of for work, says the Earth is round.
6) A knowledge (given to me from years of school: i'm lucky): what i see is not always real, or right.

I sum all that point in my mind, and i keep some decisions:
i need to TRUST to that lot of ppl. They seems honest and have good points that support the theory of a round earth. I've not the chance to go to look at them, but i can eventually go on a plane and make the fly all around. A time warp that put the plane at the starting point seems not plausible. So i think that is not so absurd that the Earth is round. I'm convinced: is plausible, to me.

You see? i can debate ANY single point if i trust only in ME. There's not really an absolute evidence, if the only good source of info is what i can touch, see, taste or ear. I NEED to trust to someone. "Trust" negate he concept of an "absolute" evidence.

Now, i don't know what you, Jotun, have seen and what you have learnt. But i'm sure that you have not seen ALL the things you call "informations not open to interpretation". You, like me, have reached some point in some matter where trust, or faith, is required 'cause you have not seen it yourself.

If you extend my reasoning to somewhat else than the earth being round, you will see that there's no way to have an absolute "evidence".
Most of the time we use the "common sense", that means that the majority of the ppl think the same.
I may be wrong, but i think that the majority of the ppl in the world are not atheist, or agnostic. They all believe in some sort of divinity.
This means that the "common sense" tells that there's a god?
I don't think so. So i have built all my reasoning about the existence of god using the best of my knowledge, asking to a lot of persons and finally using what my mind think is plausible.... whatever is the result, it can give to you the idea that i'm believing in a square earth, if your reasoning goes in a different solution.

This is the reason to avoid to arguing against someone else vision of some "difficult to proof" arguments. No one can honestly tell that he KNOW the REAL thing.

[keglo]

Originally Posted by Parduz

Premise:
i hope i'm able to explain myself: it's hard, for me.

I cannot see at all a faith as a computation: "i've nothing to loose, so why not?".
As you can see under my avatar, i live in a Country that is STRONGLY under the Church influence. We're lucky enough to have our "Act of Faith" from some "real" motivation ("real" is related to the perception of the subject, not to the common belief of what is real).
Try to follow me:
EVERYONE have a Faith. The difference is on WHAT they believe.
Almost nobody have so much knowledge to really understand and proof to himself that everything he ear is "true". So you have to put your faith (lowercase "f") to "someone" that teach you something in a plausible manner.
How much person can really follow and "proof" the whole "Big Bang" theory?
Most of us just believe in some person that is entitled to say "is true". Then each of us use his mind to connect what we know, what we have learnt and what we see as "reasonable". Finally, we reach a point that satisfy our personal "perception" of reality.
I can believe in a God that create the whole universe, just 'cause i can't think at me as a simple result of a random combination of atoms.
Someone can really think the opposite, loving his sons just 'cause "the nature put that instinct in every animal, there's no Love, Soul and so on". That's a faith also.
A debate about this have no meaning 'cause we use our mind to understand why our mind take some things as "real"... is like to test a device using the device itself as probe.

So all these post about WHY we should believe in the Bible or in the Evolution theory needs to be read as a explanation of what the writer mind think is "plausible". Arguing against a someone else view of this believes is like a debate about what food you like more, and why.

I hope that all that words have means somewhat.

Well said Parduz.

[Parduz]

Originally Posted by InfinityMax

Parduz, that was an excellent post. I really like the analogy comparing belief in a religion to food preference. In the end, you like your religion because you do.

It is exageratly simplifyed, but is true: talking for me only, i think less absurd the existence of a creator than the chances to have me and you as a result of a casuality.... which exatly means that i "like" more an idea than another.
(to be honest, my faith have other bases also, but this is not interesting for anyone).

To return to this thread, i then think that the creation starts way before the existence of our sun, so cavemen was not riding on dinos

[AgentX-127]

Originally Posted by Parduz

I cannot see at all a faith as a computation: "i've nothing to loose, so why not?".

EVERYONE have a Faith. The difference is on WHAT they believe.

Most of us just believe in some person that is entitled to say "is true".

Then each of us use his mind to connect what we know, what we have learnt and what we see as "reasonable".

Finally, we reach a point that satisfy our personal "perception" of reality.

Arguing against a someone else view of this believes is like a debate about what food you like more, and why.

Yup, Parduz wins.

Originally Posted by Parduz

i hope i'm able to explain myself: it's hard, for me.

You did better than I could have, and I have a degree in English.

[Malechi]

Originally Posted by keglo

Notice that I asked for proof that the Old Testament had been altered. I realize that the second article gets into the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) being translated into Greek, etc. But I'm talking about the Hebrew scriptures. Where is the evidence that this has been significantly altered? ...

I can honestly say I do not know much of the Torah. I believe I may have been the first in this thread to claim the major editing of the Bible, but I was definitely referencing the Christian Bible. And more specifically to the time of Emperor Constantine I (316 – 340 A.D.) where entire books of the Bible were removed, some lost forever.

As for the Hebrew Bible being edited, try this Wiki entry (I did not read the entire text, but I do believe it answers some of your question):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_e...e_Hebrew_Bible

[Agent Minivann]

Originally Posted by Jexik

I like the religion that lets me eat a bacon cheeseburger without guilt.

So you aren't Jewish or Muslim. :P

[Malechi]

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

So you aren't Jewish or Muslim. :P

... Or, Hindu!

[owvanguard]

I was raised Roman Catholic became an atheist where I questioned everything. then a agnostic becuase I could statitlly prove that the odds of there being a god are much greater than there being no god. I read the entire bible as well as other sources. I have done much research trying to balance modern science and the bible. Enough about me here is me 2cents

1) Do you believe that God created the world from nothing in a literal 7-day period? Like if we had been there, we wouldn't have had time to grow a decent beard?
That's debatable. I wouldn't be surprised either way.

2) Do you just say that carbon dating is a tool of the devil? Because if you don't, how do you reconcile a considerable pile of scientific evidence that would really destroy the Lost World theories for people who are not allowing religion to overrule science?
Carbon Dating / Radiometric dating is not a tool of the devil. That's silly. With that said carbon dating is very failable over large timeframes. They have very valid statistical curves on how old things are that are very valid. They have points in history where they can connect the dots on that curve. Unfortunately anything over ~3000 year old is unverifable either way. So science takes a very educated guess on the age of things older than that and they do a pretty good job. Now this curve past ~3000 years ago has to be based on some sort of assumptions and they base it on the THEORY of EVOLUTION which to explain evolution the earth would have to be billions of years old. I feel the earth is less than 1 million years old but a lot greater than the 6000 years listed by some.

3) If you believe that humans and dinosaurs were alive at the same time, are you an American Protestant? (I predict an extremely high correlation)
I am an american protestant and I believe you need to better define dinosaurs because crocadiles are dinosaurs in my book.
Now through science we know of a great water event that happend. It can be found in the fossil record. I believe this is the great flood (i.e. Noah). I also believe that the ice age ended with the polar ice caps melting causeing this great flood and the event that cause the polar ice caps to melt was the great meteor hitting the earth in central america. This is also the time in the fossil record that a lot of things just stop. That sounds good to me.

4) Can anyone explain why God couldn't have used evolution to create the world?

The THEORY of EVOLUTION as stated by Charles Darwin has many facets. Let say hypathetically 100 facets. Most of the facets have been scientifically proven to be fact (survival of the fittest, adaptation, etc). Several of his facets have been proven false, and several are left as theory. Now what annoys me is that the scientific communty based so much on this theory that they treat as fact. Ever hear of the missing link it basicall if we evolved from apes there should be some creature genetically between ape and human. This link is missing for EVERY species at EVERY stage. That proof enough for me that what your DNA says you are you are. The neanderthral "cave man" has the same DNA as us. No genetic evolution at all just adaptation.
With that said, God does use evolution just not genetic evolution.

Am I a loon or what!

Now I will go way over board:
Since modern biology and medicine is based using the theory of evolution and cancer is cells 'evolving' incorrectly there will never be a cure for cancer with the evolution mind set.