[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Doc, I just had the most amazingly phenomenal notion! Since you live in the same metro area as this Criswell feller, why don’t YOUUUUUUU, the master of skepticism (by your very screen name) swing by ICR’s headquarters, just up the road from you in Santee, and straighten him out?
You could do a little field trip there like I did about 17 years ago. Then you could report back to this thread. You could relate how you found this bevy of flunkie scientists hanging out there with their stuffed dinosaur dolls and and how you looked into their eyes and could see that their rockers had indeed been pulled out from under them.
I’m serious. Do it. I’m sure ol’ Penta-Jab and Pook the Priest and I would ecstatically await the results of your visit. Take pictures and everything. It just might be fun.
Will you do it?
No.
Shucks.
I long ago learned the most important fact in psychiatry: insanity is not supposed to be an infectious disease.
And the reason is plain. The same reason I chose, pages ago, not to argue with you, someone I respect. You are not insane. But you have core beliefs and I do not need to detract from them.
If Dr. Criswell chooses to mangle and select science, that is fine. But, really, has he (among the other Flood-o-philes) chosen to forget that there were not 2 of every animal, but 7 of the clean variety? The ark must have had room for Jabs’ million beetles as well as 7 of each even-toed ungulate, but only 2 rabbits. Oh rabbits, for those who believe in the scientific inerrancy of the Holy Bible, must be cud chewing animals, as they are so identified in Leviticus, even if no rabbit in 6000 years has regurgitated from any of 4 stomachs.
So Dr Criswell and others do a disservice to the Bible.
Doc, you too have stumbled with this misconception of two (or seven) of every animal. Or of every species. You have jumped to improper conclusions without the requisite study. Scroll back up where I mention this. Remember the discussion about biblical “kinds” and species and genus’ and orders and families? Recall the discussions on micro-evolution and adaptation and speciation or better yet, research it a little in regards to creationism. You are doing a disservice to objectivity and full disclosure if you don’t.
You’ll find that the estimated number of animals is tremendously less than the nay sayers scream. Why is it all of a sudden so difficult to work with the idea of speciation when we are talking about the Flood? Answer that question, please. Why are you and others abruptly jumping overboard from the Good Ship “Speciation”? This is puzzling to me.
I know you are a linguistic aficionado. So spend a little time exploring the semantics of the word “kinds” as used in Genesis. In Hebrew. Take your knowledge of language, combine it with science and your knowledge of speciation and contemplate the idea that there might not had to have been eight gazillion animals on board a huge oil tanker sized ship with hundreds of thousands of square feet of space. Then get back to me.
The word for “kind” is the same for “species,” myn.
Doc, you have completely overstepped your knowledge of this subject. You have no earthly way of ascertaining that the English word, “kind” directly translates to the Hebrew original meaning. You simply cannot do this. You can look in a modern Hebrew-English dictionary and it may say that but you are completely out of bounds to say that the author of the first three chapters of Genesis penned the word several thousand years ago so that it would precisely fit an English word in his distant future. Stop it with this foolishness.
What you have done is define species to suit your ends.
Maybe it is, in fact, you who have done this.
However much room there was the ark, that is how many species there are. This is tautologic. And it is not an acceptable description of speciation. Jab is correct. Even your compromised proposition–that Noah’s genera squeezed into a gopherwood box–are all there are with mere “microevolution”–is entirely unsupported by any objective observation. Lose this conviction.
The problem for evolutionists is they simply cannot force speciation to occur so that it transcends genera. It can be speculated, yes, but it is unsupported by any objective observation. And as it has been stated many times both by myself and my opponents, taxonomy is an inexact and fluid science so I am not stating unequivocally that the genus level IS the line. But there is that brick wall I talked about. You should know this. There is no reason I should be lecturing you about this; you are too smart of a guy.
Heretic! Bishop Usher tells us that the world is 6000 and a few years old. No more.
I know all about the kind bishop. Maybe he was right. Maybe he wasn’t. Don’t tell me to heed Usher when you in fact don’t. Goose and gander, baby.
The “box” in question was not constructed in the heretical ten thousand years BC–and don’t go on about the Nascar continents achieving their positions in 10,000 years. Regarding the time periods, which is it? Were the fossil strata laid down before the flood, or magically afterward in the ensuant 5000 years?
Why don’t you stroll on down to Santee and ask them there boyz your questions? Or is it too much easier to taunt your buddy on the internet? Hmmmmmm?
As they are layman and so far you have not convinced me of your positions.
Strawman!
I know you are a very intelligent guy and I respect you greatly but you just pitched a ball that was intended to hit the batter. There are scientists at ICR that you may disagree with but to call them laymen is just a low blow. I’ve seen some of them in debates with evolutionists and they are not “second string” players. Lose this conviction.
Why would I want to waste their time?
So you’d rather waste mine?
I have no interest, as I said, in detracting from their system of beliefs. I also do not need to talk to schizophrenics about the Voices, the Conspiracies, and their beliefs which explain their lives.
I do not imply that those Creationists are insane, just that their beliefs are in a different majesterium than scientific inquiry.
Ad hominem.
Actually, I read all that stuff…
Bullshit. I’m no more going to let you make that claim unchallenged than if you’d said you’ve practiced every Kama Sutra move with a real live Indian princess.
Why did you bring this up?
The Bible gives us a very good estimate of pi–but that does not make it a trigonometry text.
The Bible gives us estimates of the Golden Ratio–but that does not make it an architectural text.
The Bible gives us a beautiful Creation story–but it is not a text of biology and paleontology.
Why would anyone want to reduce it so?
I understand what you’re saying but is it a reduction? Really?[/quote]
The meaning of a word is derived from its continuous usage, and from internal concordance. There are about 8000 root words in the OT, and there are not distinctions that English may hold, say, “variety,” “kind,” “species,” “manner.” You have no basis for presuming another idiosyncratic definition. However Linnaeus may have felt about his distinctions, my definition of species is derived from empiric observations over 250 years, and is not tautologic. You lose this particular argument.
I built no straw men. What Creationists have to say–and what I read in your cited posts–stands on its own gaseous ambiguities.
The Bronze Age scholars who redacted Genesis were not fools and idiots. To pretend that Genesis is a biology text is to reduce the value of The Bible. The Bible does not need to explain flagellar evolution, or cytochrome c, and in its expression of truth it does not rely on bizarre perversion of orogeny and plate tectonic theory. I do not find it lacking thereby. For those that cling to it, it is instead the description of relationship among men, God and His creations. That suffices.
