Two potential creation scenarios

[agnosticatheist]

Let's assume for the sake of this debate that the following premises are true:

A: The Christian God exists

B: The Christian God created the universe

Now, let's consider two possible creation scenarios.

Scenario 1: God created each species in a separate creation event.

Scenario 1 questions for debate:

1. Why would God create each species in separate creation events and yet make it appear that each species emerged from earlier lifeforms? Wouldn't that make God dishonest?

2. The Bible says that God is trustworthy; can he still be trusted if he made it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't?

3. Why would God make it look like large-scale evolution has taken place when in fact it hasn't, knowing full well that this will cause many to doubt God's existence?

Scenario 2: God created the conditions in which carbon-based lifeforms could emerge and evolve on Earth, and eventually lead to the emergence of Homo Sapiens, which God would give a soul to (and perhaps make some other minor changes to), which would result in the creation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, or Modern Humans.

Scenario B Question for debate:

1. Why would God go to all that trouble when he could simply create each species in separate creation events?

Here's a broader set of questions that apply to both scenarios:

Why would God create lifeforms other than humans? Clearly humans are important because they "house" the human soul. But what about Wolves? Crocodiles? Crows? Gorillas?

What is the role of non-human lifeforms in God's "plan"?

Do they have souls too? Consciousness/awareness is a state that people claim is possible due to the soul.

Well, the more we observe and study the non-human natural world, the more it seems that consciousness/awareness exists on a spectrum, from human-level awareness (or perhaps higher...), down to complete non-consciousness/non-awareness (e.g. bacteria). There isn't some absolute line where life is divided between conscious and non-conscious, except for maybe at the "lower lifeform levels", but definitely not at the "higher lifeform levels". Dogs are conscious, they just aren't conscious to the same degree that humans are.

So, why create lifeforms besides humans and have consciousness exist on a spectrum?

Why would God do this knowing full well that it would cause people to question his existence?

It just seems to be such an interesting coincidence that God created lifeform consciousness on a spectrum.

[Wyvern]

So insects breathe just like land vertebrates, except they don't have lungs, nor blood. I think a child could intuit pretty readily that insects are not of the same category as the other animals that would've been brought upon the Ark. A detailed analysis of the issue, form both a biological and linguistic perspective, is available at the site I linked earlier. It has a tremendous search engine, and thousands of catalogued articles -- you can find an answer to virtually any reasonable question you have regarding origins, development, and history -- though it's unlikely you will approve of those that conflict with your epistemiological bias.

Assuming your interpretation of the Hebrew is correct you have an additional problem that being insects are not vertebrates. Also of course insects do not breath as vertebrates do, insects do not have lungs as do all vertebrate land animals.

As for insects: one mechanism for survival could have been enormous vegetative rafts that would've been produced during the seismic upheaval associated with Flood -- just as they are today, by the same processes.

Which does not address what all these animals ate after the flood. Herbivores would have starved to death waiting for the plants to grow back. Any of the many carnivores that were supposedly transported killing even a single herbivore in order to not starve themselves would have made extinct an entire "kind". Also not addressed is how the plants survived being submerged for an extended period of time. If you say these vegetative mats of yours were heaped with viable seeds you solve how the insects on them survived but are again faced with how the plants made it.

The observed change (to flightlessness) involves a loss of information (for operational wings); the hypothetical one (gills and fins) would involve an increase in information for those structures. That has never occurred; and that is what is necessary in order for a microbe to acquire the the non-stop stream of beneficial mutations that would transform it, eventually, into a man (and every other organism on earth).

It seems you are under the impression that humans have the most extensive genome when that honor is reserved for a microbe (amoebas) that you continue to denigrate.

Well, the presupposition is "we know that the God of the Bible doesn't exist...". Or even more absurdly, "even if He did, that would be irrelevant to our investigations".

Please point out a single science text, experiment or website that states this.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 158 by Danmark]

The problem is presuppositions. In scientific inquiry we start with no presuppositions except what we already know by careful, and repeated observation, peer review, and confirmation by replicated experiments.

Well, the presupposition is "we know that the God of the Bible doesn't exist...".

You continue to start your posts with misstatements or fallacies.

Science makes no claim that "the God of the Bible doesn't exist." Science does not deal with non falsifiable claims. The most science can say about deities is that we have no evidence of a god.

[FarWanderer]

I appreciate your protracted attempt at reductio ad absurdum, which is duly noted.

But I will not respond to it.

The Biblical narrative is not a contrived video game, for reasons that are so blindingly obvious that it would take great effort to explain -- like trying to explain to a mentally challenged person why 2 apples, added to 2 apples, makes 4 apples, if they are unable to intuit it directly.

(Note: I am NOT saying YOU are "mentally challenged". I am saying, by my example, that if you cannot intuit the difference between the Biblical account, and the narrative of a video game or modern novel, then I am unwilling to help you in that regard. Not because you're unable to intuit the difference -- but because you ARE able).

And you have no idea how good Tales of the Abyss is.

Do you have any reason for why God would not reveal himself via a video game? I'm completely serious.

Heck, you practically characterize reality as a computer simulation already, don't you?

I will select one particularly egregious misunderstanding, and address that:

Volbrigade wrote:
The Biblical account that I accept as revealed, propositional truth from the Creator Himself (more below) says that sin and death entered the world through one man's -- Adam's -- disobedience (in concert with the deception of Eve), and spread, genetically, throughout the entire human race. That is necessary so that Redemption could likewise take place through the office of one Man, Jesus Christ.

So, God intended for us to disobey him so that we would have to go through redemption?

To me, it is lot like letting someone break their arms and legs so that they will be abjectly dependent on you (general). Sick.

Do you (specific) really like being "broken" and "in need of redemption" that much?

I don't like being broken and in need of redemption at all. But the fact is, I am. And so are you. And so is every person who has ever lived. The fact that our affluent western society has succeeded in masking that brokenness -- who needs Jesus if they have a comfortable home, food in the pantry, access to transportation, a nice income, and inexhaustible entertainments? -- is our great modern and post-modern deception; and the greatest challenge to evangelism in our time. How can you accept the Good News, if you don't understand the "bad news"?.

And the m2m narrative is the mythos that underpins this denial. Advanced apes, who are the result of random processes in a mindless, indifferent universe, have no need of redemption. And no experience after the cessation of their biological processes. All you need for confirmation is to ask one, whose processes have ceased. They never answer. There's your proof!

The key to your question is "intent".

God knew we would disobey. But that was not his intent.

Just like you know your child will make mistakes. But you must allow them to be made, even at great risk, in order for their own benefit. Would it be better for there to be no children, so that there would be no mistakes? Or to establish an order where children could never make one?

It's not my fault if you mischaracterize your own religion.

You said, quote, "[Adam's sin] is necessary so that Redemption could likewise take place through the office of one Man, Jesus Christ"

"So that" implies intention.

This line of discourse could be furthered -- but I am tired of typing, for now...

I bet.

If you have something better to do, do it. I know I would.

[FarWanderer]

In scientific inquiry we start with no presuppositions except what we already know by careful, and repeated observation, peer review, and confirmation by replicated experiments.

Actually, this is not quite true. Science presuppses one thing: the uniformity of nature.

Or, to put it in more plain English, science presupposes that the patterns we observe in nature actually mean something.

[Danmark]

In scientific inquiry we start with no presuppositions except what we already know by careful, and repeated observation, peer review, and confirmation by replicated experiments.

Actually, this is not quite true. Science presuppses one thing: the uniformity of nature.

Or, to put it in more plain English, science presupposes that the patterns we observe in nature actually mean something.

Those are two very different statements.
And I'm not sure I agree with either one.
Science does not presuppose the uniformity of nature. Science is always open to new information.

Science may look to find patterns, but whether whether those patterns have meaning and what the meaning is remains an open question.

[FarWanderer]

In scientific inquiry we start with no presuppositions except what we already know by careful, and repeated observation, peer review, and confirmation by replicated experiments.

Actually, this is not quite true. Science presuppses one thing: the uniformity of nature.

Or, to put it in more plain English, science presupposes that the patterns we observe in nature actually mean something.

Those are two very different statements.
And I'm not sure I agree with either one.
Science does not presuppose the uniformity of nature. Science is always open to new information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

Science may look to find patterns, but whether whether those patterns have meaning and what the meaning is remains an open question.

Not that kind of meaning.

"Mean", as in, jumping in the ocean "means" you will get wet.

[Danmark]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

Science may look to find patterns, but whether whether those patterns have meaning and what the meaning is remains an open question.

Not that kind of meaning.

"Mean", as in, jumping in the ocean "means" you will get wet.

Neither the Wikipedia entry nor your own sentence assist your argument.
Or...
I'm even less sure what you are talking about than I was before...
unless you are referring to uniformitarianism. Altho' it's true science generally assumes things have always operated the way they do today, a good scientist should always be open to exceptions, where the evidence suggests it.

A good example comes from geology, where earth quakes and volcanoes have long persuaded geologists that catastrophic change can occur. The geology in the Pacific NW is another example, with ice dams periodically breaking in Montana, causing huge walls of water moving as fast as 80mph down the Columbia River gorge, carving in minutes what might otherwise take centuries.

[Clownboat]

CB -- God made creatures with free will. He placed them in a temporary environment, in order to exercise that free will. Hell may be a punishment -- but it is also a choice. No one will go there except by their own free will. And they will have to crawl over the Cross to get there.

I'm sure you're a good person. As am I (more or less).

It's as if you are not aware of the Mayans, Aztecs, American Indians and Aboriginals (for example).
All these people that you claim have "free will" to reject a god that they never new existed because they were also inventing their own god concepts at the time.

They sure had to crawl all over that cross they would have known nothing about.

Unless you have an explanation, I'm not sure what could be said to further this discussion and will just make note of this post to point people to in the future.
Thank you.

[Danmark]

CB -- God made creatures with free will. He placed them in a temporary environment, in order to exercise that free will. Hell may be a punishment -- but it is also a choice. No one will go there except by their own free will. And they will have to crawl over the Cross to get there.

I'm sure you're a good person. As am I (more or less).

It's as if you are not aware of the Mayans, Aztecs, American Indians and Aboriginals (for example).
All these people that you claim have "free will" to reject a god that they never new existed because they were also inventing their own god concepts at the time.

They sure had to crawl all over that cross they would have known nothing about.

Unless you have an explanation, I'm not sure what could be said to further this discussion and will just make note of this post to point people to in the future.
Thank you.

And those cultures and hundreds of others have as much "evidence" for the truth of their gods as there is evidence the biblical "God made creatures with free will. He placed them in a temporary environment, in order to exercise that free will. Hell may be a punishment -- but it is also a choice."

It takes a staggering amount of audacious ethnocentrism to dismiss all other 'gods' and state my choice is the choice. And this is particularly true when the level of knowledge about nature today gives no reason to invent any god.

[Clownboat]

CB -- God made creatures with free will. He placed them in a temporary environment, in order to exercise that free will. Hell may be a punishment -- but it is also a choice. No one will go there except by their own free will. And they will have to crawl over the Cross to get there.

I'm sure you're a good person. As am I (more or less).

It's as if you are not aware of the Mayans, Aztecs, American Indians and Aboriginals (for example).
All these people that you claim have "free will" to reject a god that they never new existed because they were also inventing their own god concepts at the time.

They sure had to crawl all over that cross they would have known nothing about.

Unless you have an explanation, I'm not sure what could be said to further this discussion and will just make note of this post to point people to in the future.
Thank you.

And those cultures and hundreds of others have as much "evidence" for the truth of their gods as there is evidence the biblical "God made creatures with free will. He placed them in a temporary environment, in order to exercise that free will. Hell may be a punishment -- but it is also a choice."

It takes a staggering amount of audacious ethnocentrism to dismiss all other 'gods' and state my choice is the choice. And this is particularly true when the level of knowledge about nature today gives no reason to invent any god.

If only that was as far as the claims went, but unfortunately, many times they (like above) go further and claim that this "choice" is so obvious that they feel justified in claiming that people are rejecting their god concept or as in this case, "crawl over the cross" to get to hell.

This IMO is an example of the ridiculousness that can be brought about because of religions. The Mayans had no issue with humans sacrifice to god concepts, why would they appose human sacrifice this one time just to go to hell?