Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
462

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
I don’t see any logical inconsistency in this statement :

“Sometime between 5700 and 10 000 years ago, an omnipotent God created a 13 billions years old Universe containing a 4,5 billions years old planet named Earth and inhabited by an adult man called Adam.
The whole process took Him six 24-hours days.”

I don’t have any empirical evidence against it either.
[/quote]

To answer this Kamui, I am going to copy what I posted on page 8. I think you will understand it perfectly looking at it this way:

[i]Okay, I am not a ‘creationist’, but I want to play a little devil’s advocate in favor of the creationist side…

Supposedly the oldest human fossil known to date is about 200,000 year’s old. That being the case, there is no evidence of anything intelligent and self aware until about 4 century B.C.

So say for instance, you divide creation into 6 periods. It could actually work.

So Day 1: God created heavens and earth. Ok, so this would be the theory of primordial soup, for instance.
Day 2: Let there be light! = Big ass Bang! - Light from darkness, objects separating the from the illumined and the void or unillumined.

Day 3: God separated the heavens from the watery expanse. The watery earth gets an atmosphere due to the ‘firing up’ of the earths magnetic field, which is what allows us to have an atmosphere and viola. We have an atmosphere! It’s magic!

Day 4: Let the water and the heavens gather in to one place and let dry land appear. - No longer the earth is a steamy place covered by cloulds and oceans. The water cools the crust and tectonics cause land to raise out of the water in places and the earth begins to cool from it’s beginnings.

Day 5: Let the earth sprout vegetation. Life, begins. Algee and simple single cell life begins, unto sea vegitaion, to tree plants and bushes…

Day 6: Let the earth bring forth creatures. Then lastly, man in His image. - Animal life begins and flourishes and evolves…Then at the end, Man to rule it all.

Forget about what you think of the Bible for a minute. And look at the order of the events. Whether you consider Genesis to be true or not, the order of event’s from the perspective of Earth dwelling creatures is correct.

The bible did not specify what a “day” was as indeed, in at least the first 2 ‘days’ there was no such thing as a ‘day’. And then from 3 forward what a day technically was varied quite a bit between then and now, if talking earth day. The bible didn’t specify ‘Earth days’ We just automatically jump to that assumption. And since time a space are a function of each other, what constituted a ‘day’ way back may be fractions of a second if we were to observe it from the outside.
While we may have evidences of early man, we have no evidence it’s sentience was beyond that of a dog. The world as we currently know it, is about 6000 years old. That’s not a fossil record perspective, that is what we know as our world, our history as a sophisticated, conscious, morally apt people is only 6000 years old as we know it and there is zero evidence of that beyond 6000 years old.

I would like to have come up with all this stuff myself, but it was actually an article posted by Jewbacca that got me thinking differently about Genesis and reconciling it with was found scientifically.

Genesis was written for early peoples, they don’t know quantum theory, they don’t know about the big bang or stars as being billions of light years away, they know they are here and there is a reason. [/i][/quote]

What do you mean by our history is only 6000 years old? Is there not evidence of older civilizations? Wouldn’t permanent habitation and agriculture count?

463

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

…Also, the manner in which you gloss over or outright ignore what the other side is presenting to you is very similar to Tiribulus’ methods.

[/quote]

Currently I will gloss and ignore at will. It’s my time. I’m not obligated to respond as if you were interviewing me for a job or such. My aforementioned gazillion words of type on this site regarding this issue speak for themselves.

FTR I agree with most if not all of Tirib’s views in this regard. I do think my delivery is different.
[/quote]

Yeah, your delivery is different, I find your presentation of information much easier to understand than his.

464

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
I don’t see any logical inconsistency in this statement :

“Sometime between 5700 and 10 000 years ago, an omnipotent God created a 13 billions years old Universe containing a 4,5 billions years old planet named Earth and inhabited by an adult man called Adam.
The whole process took Him six 24-hours days.”

I don’t have any empirical evidence against it either.
[/quote]

To answer this Kamui, I am going to copy what I posted on page 8. I think you will understand it perfectly looking at it this way:

[i]Okay, I am not a ‘creationist’, but I want to play a little devil’s advocate in favor of the creationist side…

Supposedly the oldest human fossil known to date is about 200,000 year’s old. That being the case, there is no evidence of anything intelligent and self aware until about 4 century B.C.

So say for instance, you divide creation into 6 periods. It could actually work.

So Day 1: God created heavens and earth. Ok, so this would be the theory of primordial soup, for instance.
Day 2: Let there be light! = Big ass Bang! - Light from darkness, objects separating the from the illumined and the void or unillumined.

Day 3: God separated the heavens from the watery expanse. The watery earth gets an atmosphere due to the ‘firing up’ of the earths magnetic field, which is what allows us to have an atmosphere and viola. We have an atmosphere! It’s magic!

Day 4: Let the water and the heavens gather in to one place and let dry land appear. - No longer the earth is a steamy place covered by cloulds and oceans. The water cools the crust and tectonics cause land to raise out of the water in places and the earth begins to cool from it’s beginnings.

Day 5: Let the earth sprout vegetation. Life, begins. Algee and simple single cell life begins, unto sea vegitaion, to tree plants and bushes…

Day 6: Let the earth bring forth creatures. Then lastly, man in His image. - Animal life begins and flourishes and evolves…Then at the end, Man to rule it all.

Forget about what you think of the Bible for a minute. And look at the order of the events. Whether you consider Genesis to be true or not, the order of event’s from the perspective of Earth dwelling creatures is correct.

The bible did not specify what a “day” was as indeed, in at least the first 2 ‘days’ there was no such thing as a ‘day’. And then from 3 forward what a day technically was varied quite a bit between then and now, if talking earth day. The bible didn’t specify ‘Earth days’ We just automatically jump to that assumption. And since time a space are a function of each other, what constituted a ‘day’ way back may be fractions of a second if we were to observe it from the outside.
While we may have evidences of early man, we have no evidence it’s sentience was beyond that of a dog. The world as we currently know it, is about 6000 years old. That’s not a fossil record perspective, that is what we know as our world, our history as a sophisticated, conscious, morally apt people is only 6000 years old as we know it and there is zero evidence of that beyond 6000 years old.

I would like to have come up with all this stuff myself, but it was actually an article posted by Jewbacca that got me thinking differently about Genesis and reconciling it with was found scientifically.

Genesis was written for early peoples, they don’t know quantum theory, they don’t know about the big bang or stars as being billions of light years away, they know they are here and there is a reason. [/i][/quote]

What do you mean by our history is only 6000 years old? Is there not evidence of older civilizations? Wouldn’t permanent habitation and agriculture count?
[/quote]

Neolithic people are an illusion.

465

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Matty:
Not doing unnecessary harm to others comes to mind.

pat wrote:
That is a component of morality. [/quote]

For him, not harming others unnecessarily has nothing to do with being ‘morally good.’ Or, that the other has an inherent right not to be harmed, which he is morally obligated to acknowledge. It’s simply too risky. For him, at least.
[/quote]

Admitting there is an ultimate ‘good’ by which things are measured is a risky proposition for an atheist.
And that’s what I don’t understand about atheism. To justify it, you are forced to take untenable positions, like moral relativity, otherwise you leave the door open for God to exist and they know it.
It’s why Dawkin ans Hitchens attack false propositions of theism as an argument against God, except there is a problem. It’s not honest and therefore not true.[/quote]

What makes that position and moral relativity untenable?
These words are new to me.[/quote]

Matty, when you can no longer look an abused child in the eye and say that the crime against him/her was evil (not simply a silly risk to the perpetrator), you no longer have a foundation for an orderly and civilized society. In order to get rid of God, to not share even an inch of commonality with theists, you’ve jettisoned rights inherent to the individual, and thrown away good and evil. For all the crimes carried out under religion, the above mindset would bring horrors to this world never seen before, at an unimaginable scale.

466

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Matty, when you can no longer look an abused child in the eye and say that the crime against him/her was evil (not simply a silly risk to the perpetrator), you no longer have a foundation for an orderly and civilized society. In order to get rid of God, to not share even an inch of commonality with theists, you’ve jettisoned rights inherent to the individual, and thrown away good and evil. For all the crimes carried about under religion, the above mindset would bring horrors to this world never seen before, at an unimaginable scale.
[/quote]

What evidence do have for these claims(no foundation for orderly and civilized society/unimaginable horrors)?

Law abiding societies were around well before the creation of the bible, that makes it quite apparent to me that the bible and the God derived from it are not a prerequisite for creating an orderly and civilized society. From this you also run into the problem of why did God wait so long to intervene and also in such a terrible/vague manner as depicted in the bible. The impression I get is that some malicious individuals chose to maniulate other people’s fears(due to a lack of knowledge of the natural world), and used supernatural threats for their own advancement in their societies.

Back then, I would think that just about everyone believed in a God or Gods, and felt the need to appease them in one form or another. Because this thinking was so widespread, supernatural threats of God or hell or whatever were used to keep people in line. To me, this is negative reinforcement, and leads to people being good just because they don’t want to be punished.

I’d rather have virtues, good morals and whatever else be based on proper education, critical thinking, and an incentive to do good that is rewarded within the time frame of our finite lives. Despite what I feel is lacking in sufficient evidence, even if going to heaven is possible, I wouldn’t want to go eternally praise God. This is not an incentive I care to work towards and I reject the threat of hell as a consequence of having not been born in the right part of the world. Instead of thinking that there is an afterlife where everything will be well, I’d rather accept that life is finite, and that I’m going to die someday, and be as productive as I can before that day comes.

Before you say it, I understand that this sort of thinking in a chemically unbalanced mind could lead to epic horrors, which is why I put an emphasis on proper education, critical thinking and an incentive to do good.

Just because the evidence for God theory doesn’t meet mine and many other people’s standards, doesn’t mean that theists and atheists are unable to have things in common. I don’t look to make enemies, and I’m sure you don’t either, I(We, if you agree) simply strive to live my life as best I can and to understand the intricacies of those different from me. While this post of yours has given me an impression of a black/white type of thinker, I’m pleased to say that you haven’t given me that impression overall.

467

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

Law abiding societies were around well before the creation of the bible,[/quote]

I said nothing about the bible. I was speaking to the complete rejection of faith. Things that can’t be falsified.

468

Creationism does what???

469

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
While this post of yours has given me an impression of a black/white type of thinker, I’m pleased to say that you haven’t given me that impression overall.[/quote]

Without knowing for certain what you mean by it, I’d say I AM pretty far on the black/white thinking scale. I believe some acts are evil. Others to be good. I don’t think an armed robber shouldn’t rob because there’s some risk to himself, but because the act is flat evil. Or that I shouldn’t defraud the elderly because somehow a blind, deaf, and dumb cold universe will see that is in turn done unto me. I don’t do it because I have faith that it is evil.

471

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

Law abiding societies were around well before the creation of the bible,[/quote]

I said nothing about the bible. I was speaking to the complete rejection of faith. Things that can’t be falsified. [/quote]

Other than your religious belief(s), what sort of things do you have faith in?

472

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:<<< Yesterday, I went through 25 pages of epistemology thread even though Tiribulus’ tactics of argument became apparent after the first 5 pages. >>>[/quote]I appreciate this Matty. You shot up several large notches on my respectometer as a result. I must tell you though that you still do not understand my “tactics”. This is in no way an insult. Truly. You have inspired me to rethink my presentation yet again. I don’t know If I can revise it much more, but I’ll give it some attention. I do however owe brother Joab an answer to the knotty problem that he hit me with a couple months ago now. In the meantime I’m going to write a post for this thread demanding someone show where anybody has demonstrated that matter can give rise to information and language uninfluenced by the force of external design. That is sort of (sort of) the epistemology in the context of the bio sciences. If that cannot happen then absolutely NO other evidence for macro evolutuin can by definition be valid. Period. It is syllogistically not possible.
Major premise = Biologically coded information CANNOT increase in volume or complexity in the absence of exogenous purposing by an exogenous mind.
Minor premise = Atheistic macro evolution in the nature of the case absolutely requires this increase in both the volume AND complexity of said biologically coded information and that without the imposition of a designer.
Conclusion = Macro evolution is impossible.
Therefore, whatever else the data we gather may be telling us, we KNOW already that it CANNOT be telling us that.
OR. We are simply taking it on faith that one day we’ll have the answers without which our pet theories are for the time being so much wishful fantasy.
Keep in mind Matty. My contention is not that man has an intellectual problem with His creator. The intellectual problems are only symptoms of the sin problem. An ethical divide. A state of moral warfare. Man hates God. The real one that is. Because that God demands that man surrender Himself to this God and live His life as this God commands. Anything but that. Sinful man will enthusiastically, passionately and fully embrace ANYTHING that he sees as an escape from the God who is Their Lord whether they like it or not. The ONE thing they WILL NOT believe in is the God I preach. They would truly worship the flying spaghetti monster first.

473

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

Major premise = Biologically coded information CANNOT increase in volume or complexity in the absence of exogenous purposing by an exogenous mind.
[/quote]

Says who?

474

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

Major premise = Biologically coded information CANNOT increase in volume or complexity in the absence of exogenous purposing by an exogenous mind.
[/quote]

Says who?[/quote]Show me where. Actually, show me the explanation for the origin of this biological language/code of positively astronomical complexity too while you’re at it.

475

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

Major premise = Biologically coded information CANNOT increase in volume or complexity in the absence of exogenous purposing by an exogenous mind.
[/quote]

Says who?[/quote]Show me where. Actually, show me the explanation for the origin of this biological language/code of positively astronomical complexity too while you’re at it.
[/quote]

Why would I need to?

I could do it the way you do, which is postulating an unproven premise that contains the answers I seek.

476

The AiG page claims that “information-increasing mutations” are “required” for evolution. The concept of “information” is a problematic one in biology, as most measures only imperfectly capture key aspects of genetic change. Biologists prefer to think in terms of gene number and gene/protein function. While an increase in gene number and function is not required (parasites which have lost genes do quite nicely), increase in gene number has occurred. Certainly the average vertebrate has more protein coding genes than worms or insects, and these in turn have more protein coding genes than unicellular yeast. The basis of this increase is largely via duplication of pre-existing genes. For example, one of the major differences between vertebrates and worms, and worms and yeasts, is an increase in the numbers of modified copies of a class of enzymes called tyrosine kinases. By most measures of “information” a vertebrate with 30,000 genes in its genome has more information than a yeast with a mere 6,000 or so genes, and the role of gene duplication in this rise is well understood (13).

477

Evolution of novel genes.
Long M.
Source

Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, 1101 East 57th Street, Chicago Illinois 60637, USA. mlong@midway.uchicago.edu
Abstract

Much progress in understanding the evolution of new genes has been accomplished in the past few years. Molecular mechanisms such as illegitimate recombination and LINE element mediated 3’ transduction underlying exon shuffling, a major process for generating new genes, are better understood. The identification of young genes in invertebrates and vertebrates has revealed a significant role of adaptive evolution acting on initially rudimentary gene structures created as if by evolutionary tinkers. New genes in humans and our primate relatives add a new component to the understanding of genetic divergence between humans and non-humans.

478

First, thank you for speaking more plainly. I hope that you don’t feel that you had to sacrifice content in order to do so.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

In the meantime I’m going to write a post for this thread demanding someone show where anybody has demonstrated that matter can give rise to information and language uninfluenced by the force of external design. That is sort of (sort of) the epistemology in the context of the bio sciences. If that cannot happen then absolutely NO other evidence for macro evolution can by definition be valid. Period. It is syllogistically not possible. [/quote]

Just because the how(or whatever the question is) is presently unknown doesn’t give anybody a reason to say that it must be God. I’m not a mechanic, I don’t understand how an engine works, but I sure as shit know that somehow it works and I can drive places. Just because I don’t know how it works, doesn’t mean that it can’t function. And just because I don’t know who or what made it, doesn’t mean that it was some God figure. I believe the saying is, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.

[quote]Major premise = Biologically coded information CANNOT increase in volume or complexity in the absence of exogenous purposing by an exogenous mind.
Minor premise = Atheistic macro evolution in the nature of the case absolutely requires this increase in both the volume AND complexity of said biologically coded information and that without the imposition of a designer.
Conclusion = Macro evolution is impossible. [/quote]

I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to link to this, but it seems that I keep having to.
http://home.nctv.com/jackjan/item13.htm

[quote]Therefore, whatever else the data we gather may be telling us we KNOW already that it CANNOT be telling us that.
OR. We are simply taking it on faith that one day we’ll have the answers without which our pet theories are for the time being so much wishful fantasy. [/quote]

It seems to me that no matter how many people might die jumping off of a building, you won’t every accept that gravity exists unless God did it. If there is no evidence to support some observation, the default position is ‘I don’t know’ not ‘God did it’.

I’m done going back and forth over this with you, so don’t feel the need to respond unless you’d like to have the final say.

480

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
Hi, I was just driving by and read this thread with interest. This is the newest publicized research in the field of evolutionary genetics. In case you are interested and haven’t seen it yet.

http://www.eva.mpg.de/denisova[/quote]

This is fascinating. Of course not in the way you think. This is actually a falsification of the predictions made by evolutionary theory. Not that you’ll see them focus on that.

Read this. Denisovan Genome Reveals Interbreeding With Modern Humans – CEH

If you are really open-minded you might find some very interesting reading on that site.