Re: Science, God, and Free Will

On Nov 6, 6:04 pm, rem6...@xxxxxxxxx (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t)
wrote:
From: part...@xxxxxxxxx
you need some biological assumptions - that the creature didn't
dig itself in deep rock before it died, etc.

Humans, with lots of machinery, are the *only* animals that have
ever dug holes deep into solid rock. Only coal miners actually
commute into their deep holes and occasionally get trapped and are
buried alive. Oil-well drillers leave nothing but an occasional
drill bit deep inside rock. Geologists drilling core samples
likewise don't leave bodies inside the tunnels. But no animal, not
even humans, has ever dug a hole deep into rock and buried self and
then sealed the entire tunnel so well that there's no evidence of
there ever having such a tunnel, not to mention the problem of
encapsulation of such coal-miner bodies as if integrated into the
rock, with body tissues replaced by mineral precipitate. It just
doesn't happen, so stop using it as a rebuttal to age estimates for
fossils.

I didn't say these assumptions make no sense. Anyway there are
biological assumptions. Indeed, this point is more relevant in the
physics->philosophy case, when the assumptions *are* senseless,
sometimes.

The Jews are still alive, preserving their original religion and
culture (some of them, anyway). ...
No nation/culture has so survived.

Look how you contradict yourself! Either at least one culture *did*
so survive, namely the Jews, or not any whatsoever did.

I meant that no nation/culture has survived as the Jews did.

And it was prophecied 3000 years ago.

Yeah, and so did just about every other local culture around the
same time. One of them got lucky, with the culture surviving. Some
of the others changed cultures over time while surviving
biologically. The rest went extinct. So among all these, the Jews
got lucky.

I'm not sure that anyone so prophecied. Where did you get this info
from? Anyway, no one has survived even close to that. Well, the Roman
empire has survived for about 1000 years, but its culture has changed
significally during that period. It's not like a lottery, in which
*someone* has to win, so there's no reason to wonder why it is your
neighbour. Here, *no one* should have survived - chances are just so
low, especially when so many people and nations have tried to destroy
them during history. I'm not sure how to calculate the probabilities,
but the fact that no one has done it shows it's really low (most
cultures didn't stand more than a few attempts to destroy them -
Judaism stood hundreds, at least). Even if the probability isn't zero
(=a miracle), it is negligible. And when a negligible event is
prophecied and then happens, it's a reason to wonder.

Just about everyone who bets a dollar on the lottery hopes to win.
But you only hear about the one who wins the mega jackpot. You
don't hear the stories of all the losers. Same with religions. It's
just luck who wins the lottery or which culture survives 3000
years.

Don't you think it requires a guidance of history?

Given a thousand starting points, I don't think it's remarkable
that one of them survives 3000 years.

Yeah, if the probability was about 1/1000. But then you could expect
a few. What about a 1/10^7 probability? even with a few thousand
staring points, it's quite remarkable. I'm not sure historical events
can have an exact mathematical probability, but you got the point.

Of course, past survival isn't a guarantee, but realizing it was
prophecied, it does guarantee that the One who gave this prophecy
knew what He's speaking on, and that's a guarantee.

There is no way that the high priests of the Middle East, who hired
scribes to write their myths, then died 3000 years ago, can *now*
guarantee anything. They were just men, and now they've been dead
for 3000 years. If their "guarantee" isn't good, how are you going
to collect damages? Their "guarantee" is worthless, get used to it.

That's exactly the point. They couldn't have been *so* wise, so
maybe the prophecer wasn't them...

Anyway the prophecy proclaims that history will be guided, and
history (so far) follows this prophecy.

Nope. You're halucinating.

No facts contradict the flood story - only assumptions on which
interpretations of these facts are made.

The entire body of scientific understanding contradicts the flood
story.

It doesn't. You just got used to live in a scientific environment
(in the sence you described), and disbelieving the Flood, so you think
there's a connection between them.

And there's nothing like 'body of scientific understanding' -
different areas of science use different methods and tools. If modern
technology makes you believe that physicists know what they're saying
and doing, there's still no reason to believe it is the same for
archeologists (just an example) - althought it may be called a
science. Maybe their methods have nothing to do with physics, and
their assumptions have no relation to modern physics or anything, so
maybe they have no idea what they're talking about (and please don't
open a new sub-discussion on archeology - it's only an example).
There's no connection at all between the knowledge used to construct
can-openers and the assumptions which led you to deny the Flood.

Please give specific evidence against the Flood, if you have any. We
can then try to find their underlying assumptions, and see where the
bible contradicts these assumptions.

If you throw it all out, then you can't manufacture
computers, you can't understand what a keyboard or mouse is
supposed to do because anything anyone tells you about their
workings makes no sense whatsoever, etc. etc. etc. Your entire
modern society with all its advantages breaks down if you don't
accept scientific understanding. Just think of *anything*
whatsoever that you do, such as turn the ignition key in your
automobile, and without a cause-effect relationship that uses
scientific knowledge, you haven't the slightest reason to turn on
that ignition key as a preparation for going to work or to a
grocery store. In fact you have no reason to believe that there
even are groceries in a grocery store, after all why should there
be? It takes a whole economic model to give any reason to trust that
going into a grocery store will result in availability of food there.
And for canned food, why would you ever open one of those cans, after all
without some scientific understanding why would you expect to find
editable stuff hidden inside them? For that matter, without
knowledge of simple tools such as gears and inclined plane, why
would you apply a can opener to a can to open it? Why would that
physical object have any effect in removing the lid of the can if
you apply it in a particular way? Are you just a trained monkey who
performs actions you've been trained to perform with not the
slightest expectation of the result? And every time you see food
come out of a can you've opened you are quite surprised and pleased
at discovering editable food right there in front of your face?
Without scientific understanding, that's how your life would be.
If you don't understand even the concept of computers and
networking and newsgroups, then who trained you to post crap here?

Genessis 8:22 reveals that the sequence of day-night, as well as
the year's seasons, did indeed stop (or was different) during the
flood.

Only an idiot would believe that kind of crap. Do you *really* want
to paint yourself into *that* corner?

I said nothing on my personal beliefs here, I think. You can decide
it's idiotic. Be my guest. But any conclussions based on that
assumptions can't contradict the bible, right? You can argue that the
Bible is idiotic, but you have no evidence against it.

It may be interpreted that physics laws were different (earth
didn't preserve its angular momentum), or some other catastrophe
has occured (a tiny back hole passing by, or such).

Only an idiot would try to prop up an ancient myth like that.

You agreed that past survival isn't a guarantee for the future.
Can't you extrapolate this principle to the past, too? the current
(apparent) constancy of physics laws says nothing on what happened
thousands of years ago. If you thought that bible is idiotic, surely
you'll agree that the belief in nature laws is worse?

any extrapolation on current physics laws and solar system's
behaviour into the past, is anti-Biblical, ...

Who the *** cares? The entire Universe is anti-Biblical in that sense.

In what sense?

An accepted theory in geology is Uniformity, stating that only
'slow' changes occur.

Only idiots accept that without exception. It's well known by
anyone willing to check the evidence that every once in a while an
asteroid collides with Earth, causing local immense geological
destruction and worldwide ecosystem collapse and a sudden layer of
sediments containing excess iridium. Even some meteors cause
very-local utter-destruction, such as Meteor Crater in Arizona.

Once again, I didn't hint that you base your argument on that
assumption. I was just demostrating what kind of assumptions may
cause the apparent contradiction with the Flood.

... you can't prove it's the case with humans ...

And you can't prove it's not the case. It's an open question
whether humans, or any other living forms, have any non-physical
parts whatsoever. No non-physical parts have ever been
demonstrated.

I think I closed this question, a while ago, in the long discussion
with Garamond, on this very thread. And you're certainly right that no
non-physical parts were ever physically demonstrated...

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