Luskin: Judge Wrong To Rule Against ID's Theology


VoiceOfReason wrote:
snex wrote:
VoiceOfReason wrote:
snex wrote:
VoiceOfReason wrote:
snex wrote:
VoiceOfReason wrote:
snex wrote:
VoiceOfReason wrote:
snex wrote:
<snip>







personally persuasive of what? that the mythological characters
currently espoused by the person's current culture are really real?
...


I suggested that you closely examine your definition of "real", but for
some
reason, you didn't bother.

perhaps you should suggest that theists do so, since they are the ones
who think faith can determine reality.


If you have a case in question, please let us know. But you have repeatedly
used the word. And here you avoid telling us what you mean by it.

"But if evolution is true, there is no 'need' for a deity to create,
organize, and shape the world. What we see around us is explicable in
exclusively natural terms. That is actually a knife in the heart of
Christian belief.

VoiceOfUnreason replies: Only for those with very weak faith.

the implication here is that VoU has strong faith,

No, the implication is that people with weak faith feel threatened by
evolution.

and you are not threatened by evolution and have faith, therefore you
have strong faith. duh.

Yes, that would seem to be rather obvious, wouldn't it?

and that the science
of evolution does not affect his belief that *reality* coincides with
his own personal version of christianity.

And that the majority of the world's Christians are capable of
reconciling science with Christianity.

really? how do they reconcile the fact that science says that people
dont rise from the dead after 3 days?

I don't reconcile it. Several possibilities exist: he rose from the
dead after 3 days by way of some miracle; he wasn't actually dead, but
was comatose and/or unconscious for 3 days; etc. I'm don't know exactly
what happened, but I'm not all that concerned about it.

"some miracle?" i thought you said christians are capable of
reconciling science with christianity.

Most are.

no they arent. you require a miracle to maintain belief in events you
claim were real. that is denial of science.

I don't "require" a miracle, as I clearly explained above. I accept
that as one possible explanation.

miracles are not possible explanations. you are denying science.

Prove that miracles are impossible.

i dont need to. i need only point to the facts that no claimed miracles
have ever been demonstrated to be true, and that it is very easy for a
skilled magician to fool people into thinking a miracle happened.

the evidence is overwhelmingly against miracles.

Another unsupported assumption. Absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence.

absence of evidence indicates that reasonable people refrain from
believing until evidence arrives. and the fact that magicians can fool
people is positive evidence *against* miracles, but i suppose you
missed that part.


your other possibility would be considered heresy by pretty much every
christian denomination out there.

I acknowledge the possibility that whoever wrote the gospel was
mistaken. As I said, I'm not all that concerned about it. Why are you?

if they could have been mistaken, why do you insist on believing them,
when in fact being mistaken is the most plausible explanation?

Where did I say I insist on believing them? You're obsessing on nitnoy
details. The essence of the gospels is not "Did Jesus say *exactly*
those words," but in the overall message.

are you now claiming that you *dont* insist on believing the claims in
the bible? one of those claims is that god exists.

I don't obsess over nitnoy details.

and yet you believe that god exists. you are acting like pagano or sean
pitman in this thread, dancing around things and never openly stating
your position. it shows your dishonesty.

No, it shows you're not paying attention. I don't obsess over nitnoy
details. I don't get hung up on reams of dogma. How many other ways do
I need to explain it?

do you believe that god exists? yes or no?

do you believe that the bible is his inspired word? yes or no?


Again, you're getting hung up on the literalism thing. Most Christians
are not literalists.

you still did not answer my question.

Once again, providing an answer you don't like is not the same as as
not answering.

you did not provide an answer. the question was "are you now claiming
that you *dont* insist on believing the claims in the bible?"

the only two possible answers are "yes" and "no." neither one came from
you.

Your question is irrelevant to me. I don't obsess over nitnoy details.
I don't get hung up on reams of dogma.

you mean you dont want to answer my question, yet you still think your
views should be respected.


VoU, being a christian,
presumably thinks that the jesus of the bible *really* lived, *really*
healed people, and *really* died and rose from the dead. he thinks that
the god described in the christian bible *really* exists and that there
is *really* a heaven he goes to when he dies.

Close enough.

he thinks that his "faith" in these ideas is ample justification to
believe in their actuality, and presumably he will act in an according
manner. he does not care if none of these ideas have evidence,

I do not expect to find evidence for the existence of God.

and yet you claim that god has produced observable effects on the
natural world.

I have not made that claim. I know of no criteria to determine for
certain that an observable effect was produced by a deity or not. God
may have produced observable effects, but I am not aware of them.

the gospels clearly state that god made observable effects happen.

Which one(s) do you have in mind?

jesus was born of a virgin. jesus healed the sick. jesus walked on
water. jesus rose from the dead. etc.

How do you propose that I "observe" those effects 2000 years after the
event?

the same way we "observe" other facts about history. the same way we
"observe" past results of evolution.

That's not an answer. The fact is that it's impossible to check the
veracity of those details.

it is impossible to check the veracity of caesar's emperorhood. it is
impossible to check the veracity of archaeopteryx as a transitional. in
both cases, the entities in question are dead. the only thing we can do
is make predictions based on theory and *hope* that new evidence comes
along to fulfill those predictions.

people who make predictions about caesar and archaeopteryx tend to be
right. people who make predictions based on the bible are notoriously
good at failing.

The Bible is not a science book. It's not an accurate history. So what?

if it is not an accurate history, why do you believe it? answer the
question.


claiming to believe in those miraculous claims about historical events
is denial of science.

Please explain what part of science I have denied.

you deny the fact that virgins who lived 2000 years ago cannot get
pregnant. you deny the fact that dead men dont rise from the dead.

I wish you'd read before you post, and stop extrapolating into what you
*think* my beliefs are. So far you've been wrong every time.

snex wrote:

VoU, being a christian,
presumably thinks that the jesus of the bible *really* lived, *really*
healed people, and *really* died and rose from the dead. he thinks that
the god described in the christian bible *really* exists and that there
is *really* a heaven he goes to when he dies.

VoiceOfUnreason wrote:

Close enough.


if
you deny that they can be trusted on those matters, why trust them on
*any* matters?

That's Creationist logic. "You have to accept every word in the Bible
literally in every way or you have to throw the whole thing out the
window" is not a view most Christians hold.

no, it isnt creationist logic.

Yeah, it is. I've heard it countless times from them.

asking queustions is creationist logic?

"You have to accept every word in the Bible literally in every way or
you have to throw the whole thing out the window" is Creationist logic.

except i didnt say that.

"if you deny that they can be trusted on those matters, why trust them
on *any* matters?"

Same logic.

no, i asked a question. now answer it.


i asked YOU why YOU still accept the bible.
you STILL have not answered.

"You're obsessing on nitnoy details. The essence of the gospels is not
"Did Jesus say *exactly* those words," but in the overall message."

the overall message that god exists and the way to heaven is through
faith in jesus? why do you believe this?


its a question that you once again
failed to answer. IF certain parts of the bible can be shown to be in
error, THEN why should you trust other parts when no evidence exists
for them?

I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water.

what bath water? i clearly said "why should you trust other parts WHEN
NO EVIDENCE EXISTS FOR THEM?" there are plenty of parts where evidence
does exist, the books of kings for example.

"I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water" means
that I don't reject the whole Bible because of errors in some details.
Again, you're getting hung up on the literalism thing. Most Christians
are not literalists.

and yet you still havent said WHY you dont reject the bible.

I see no reason to reject it.

how about the fact that it makes absurd statements that anybody
familiar with science knows is bull***? dead men dont rise from the
dead after 3 days.


when i read a creationist article that makes stupidly absurd claims
like evolution going against 2LoT, i usually dont bother to read any
further.

There's an overwhelming body of evidence that evolution does not
violate the 2LoT. What point were you trying to make?

the point is that when your bible makes stupidly absurd claims, i no
longer take it as authoritative on anything.

Bull***. You're rabidly anti-religion. Suggesting that you would even
consider taking it as authoritative on anything is disingenuous.

im anti-religion as a RESULT of reading the stupid bull*** in the
bible and other holy texts. had those texts not said such stupid
bull***, i might believe one of them.

I don't believe that for a second.

you can believe anything you want. fact is, i was raised a christian,
and i quickly realized how stupid the tenets of christianity are.


other things i think are stupid bull*** based on evidence:

dowsing
psychics
alien abductions
the veracity of greek mythology

christianity is no different than any of these.

That is not an indication of the veracity of the Bible. It's an
indication of how narrow-minded and obsessively anti-religion you are.

no, its an indication that bull*** exists, and people believe it, even
when it isnt your own brand of bull***. i call it what it is. your
religion has just as much evidence as any of the other things i
mentioned.


but, like a broken clock,
even it is right sometimes. but before i accept that it is right on any
particular point, i need evidence. you seem to think its ok to
uncritically believe its claims with no evidence, even when those
claims usurp the territory of science.

You're making unsupported assertions about my beliefs again. You
haven't the faintest idea what I think.

you already admitted to believing in the miracle claims of jesus.

I acknowledged the possibility that a miracle is one possible
explanation.

if you allow miracles as possible explanations, then you arent allowed
to point to scientific flaws in creationist arguments, because those
flaws can be fixed by miracles.


that you think its ok to believe the bible when it says a virgin woman
can conceive a child but not when it says that the earth was made in 6
days is a completely arbitrary decision made by you, and you have no
grounds to fault creationists for disagreeing.

There is an overwhelming body of evidence that the earth is billions of
years old. There is no observable evidence that Mary was or was not a
virgin. Certainly you can tell the difference between the two?

there is an overwhelming body of evidence that virgins cant get
pregnant without modern technology. there is an overwhelming body of
evidence that dead men cant rise from the dead.

And there is -0- evidence for what happened or didn't happen in the
Middle East 2,000 years ago.

wrong. there is plenty of evidence that the only sentient beings living
there were humans. and since we know that humans cant rise from the
dead after 3 days, none of those humans did either.


For example, I accept that creation as described in Genesis is a story
that was never meant to be taken literally. That doesn't bother my
faith.

You seem to be getting hung up on the literalism thing. Most Christians
are not literalists.

he does
not care that all known evidence is against these ideas.

I have not seen evidence for the non-existence of God or Jesus. All
I've heard of is a lack of contemporary written evidence, which isn't
surprising.

maybe you should look into other mystery cults that predate jesus, like
osiris and mithras. their stories are amazingly similar to the jesus
one. do you take the opinion of the early church fathers that satan
seeded these cults with just the right ideas centuries before jesus was
born just so people would think that the jesus story was ripping them
off?

No, I don't take that opinion.

then why is the jesus story so similar to other stories that long
predate it?

Beats me.

first you said you have seen no evidence that the jesus story was made
up. i presented you with some, and your only response is "beats me?"

First, you made an assertion that I cannot immediately verify. Since
you have a track record of making unsupported assertions, it wouldn't
make sense to take your assertion too seriously now, would it?

then go verify it. no really, ill wait.

Nice try. Support your own assertions.

Second, you made the false assumption that if parts of the "Jesus
story" were made up, that would mean Jesus never existed. That is an
unsupportable position.

it isnt "parts," its *all* of the major details.

That's another unsupported assertion.

if there ever was a
jesus who founded christianity, we know pretty much *nothing* about
him.

We have quite a bit of information about him. The exact details of
that information are not well supported.

just below i accuse you of not caring about truth because evidence is
irrelevant to you, and you said that such is not the case. well here is
the time to demonstrate it. the evidence shows that the jesus story is
ripped off from earlier myths that you probably agree are not true.

No, you've provided one unsupported assertion and one unsupportable
position based on a false assumption.

it is easily supported by learning the history of mystery religions in
ancient times. i even gave you names to get started. osiris, mithras,
krishna, appolonius of tynana, dionysus.. the list goes on.

It's up to you to support your own assertions. I will not waste my time
to check up on your claims. That you have an obvious anti-religion
agenda makes your claims suspect, at best.

osiris: http://www.touregypt.net/Osiriscu.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris

mithras:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#Similarities_to_Christianity

krishna: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna

apollonius of tyana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_tyana

is it really so hard to wiki these things? are you really so
disinterested in the history of your own religion?

No, I'm disinterested in the opinion of someone who is so rabidly
anti-religion.

wikipedia is rabidly anti-religion? archaeologists who discover and
date this stuff are rabidy anti-religion?


how do you deal with the fact that the gospels obviously contradict
each other in basic facts that should have been known by anybody
familiar with actual events they were writing about, like the death of
judas?

Humans communicated the gospels verbally, wrote them, transcribed them,
and possibly made mistakes or embellished them while doing so at
numerous points in time. IIRC, scholars have discovered that the
"final" versions of gospels have minor differences from earlier
versions.

the contradictions in events surrounding the death of judas described
in matthew and acts of the apostles are *not* minor.

And?

so these guys are supposedly reliable writers on the matter, and yet
they cant agree on how one of the main characters died?

"Humans communicated the gospels verbally, wrote them, transcribed
them, and possibly made mistakes or embellished them while doing so at
numerous points in time."

so if they cant even get basic facts about main characters right, why
do you trust them in anything else?

I don't reject the whole Bible because of errors in some details.

you did not answer my question.

Sigh... Yes, I did. You just didn't like the answer.

no, you didnt. explain WHY you refuse to reject the bible's authority.


dont give me your sophist bull*** about "creationist logic." answer
the question.

Just because you don't like the answer to a question does not make it
sophist bull***. That's your tactic, not mine.

no, it has nothing to do with me not liking it. it has to do with you
not answering it. i asked you WHY you do not reject the bible. all you
replied with was "i dont reject the bible."

NO *** SHERLOCK. the question was WHY.

Read above. I answered that several times already. If you don't like
the answer, don't ask the question.

you did not answer. you merely repeated that you dont reject the bible.


he does not
care if these ideas are false, he will believe them anyway.

Wrong.

if you admit that no possible evidence can ever sway you (because no
evidence is possible), then it is correct to say that you dont care if
your ideas are false.

I don't say that no possible evidence can ever sway me.

and yet your position is arrived at through a lack of any evidence
whatsoever. if you are prepared to hold positions without evidence,
then evidence is irrelevant to you.

Non sequitur. If I had evidence that falsified some part of my belief,
then I'd modify my belief.

you cant have evidence, because it is a matter of faith, as you say.

Your staement, not mine.

the fact that you arrived at these beliefs through faith and not
evidence means that faith is more powerful than evidence to you.

Another non sequitur. I have not made a choice between faith and
evidence.

but you have. you have chosen to believe in god despite the fact that
no evidence exists for him.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

irrelevant. reasonable people do not form beliefs on an absence of
evidence.


i see no difference between that attitude and the attitude of a
creationist.

Creationists disbelieve and/or deny scientific evidence that conflicts
with their literal interpretation of Genesis. Most Christians do not.

you deny the scientific evidence that states that men cannot rise from
the dead after 3 days.

No, I don't. I acknowledge the possibility that Jesus rose from the
dead after three days.

what possibility? scientific evidence denies such a possibility.

Science/medicine tells us that a human being cannot rise from the dead
after three days. It has no position on whether Jesus, as God, could
rise from the dead after three days.

special pleading. men cannot rise from the dead after 3 days. by saying
otherwise you are denying science.

Read it again. I didn't say that men could rise from the dead after 3
days.

and yet you believe that at least one did. you are a science denier.

Another unsupported assertion.

you admitted to belief in the resurrection. you are a science denier.

Another unsupported assertion. Dude, you're getting boring with this.

your science denial is boring. stop pretending that creationists should
accept evolution when you dont accept basic anaotmy of humans.

.