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.

[rookiebatman]

Here's what I say:

If you believe that, you will believe, literally, anything.

...Literally anything that has scientific evidence supporting it, yes.

[Volbrigade]

Here's what I say:

If you believe that, you will believe, literally, anything.

...Literally anything that has scientific evidence supporting it, yes.

Sure, sure.

That's why you accept the overwhelming evidence for rapid deposition of sedimentary layers and their encasement of organisms, producing the fossil record, during a global Flood event as recorded in the Bible.

And why you reject the belief that microbes became men by gradual processes over long time periods, due to the lack of any proven mechanism whereby this could have occurred; and the overwhelming evidence that it could not have occurred by random, unguided processes.

Welcome to the club!

[rookiebatman]

Sure, sure.

That's why you accept the overwhelming evidence for rapid deposition of sedimentary layers and their encasement of organisms, producing the fossil record, during a global Flood event as recorded in the Bible.

And why you reject the belief that microbes became men by gradual processes over long time periods, due to the lack of any proven mechanism whereby this could have occurred; and the overwhelming evidence that it could not have occurred by random, unguided processes.

Welcome to the club!

If the evidence on those points supported that conclusion, then that is what I would believe, yes. But so far, all the evidence I've seen in favor of those positions has proven baseless, and the evidence I've seen against them has not been adequately challenged.

And frankly, dude, your constant reliance on sarcasm and condescension is not doing anything to convince me that you have the stronger rational position, nor that you are acting under the guidance of the spirit of a loving God. Just some food for thought.

[Danmark]

Which is why modern atheistic scientism always reforms into mysticism -- but that's another topic, for another time.

Science is not atheistic, it is non theistic. God and other non falsifiable ideas are simply not within its domain. This claim of science developing into mysticism is another of your false claims you cannot support.

There are many scientists who believe in God, just very, very few who don't believe evolution is the process God used and virtually none who are YECs. Merely repeating false and illogical claims is not persuasive, except perhaps in Area 51 where it appears to be required.

[Volbrigade]

Please allow me a quick aside to batman, before delving into your post, Dan.

And frankly, dude, your constant reliance on sarcasm and condescension is not doing anything to convince me that you have the stronger rational position, nor that you are acting under the guidance of the spirit of a loving God. Just some food for thought.

Oh, I don't know. Chuck Missler says that sarcasm is his "spiritual gift". God gave me both a tongue and a cheek -- am I not allowed to insert the former into the latter?

And what about Elijah and the prophets of Baal? "Is your god sleeping? Maybe needed to go to the bathroom"?

Or my favorite: Jesus on the road to Emmaeus, to the two disciples (not Apostles): "hey fellas, why so blue?" "Haven't you heard about what's happened, to Jesus of Nazareth?" (6 illegal trials; beatings, scourging, having his beard pulled out; nailed to a cross; died and resurrected [the last unknown to the two]).

And Jesus responds, with the pretense of ignorance: "What things?"

That's good stuff.

And can you in all fairness deny that i have not had quite a bit of sarcasm and condescension thrown at me? Not that two "wrongs" make a right, but...

Imagine going to a forum where you're the only one who believes that microbes morphed into men. Do you think you might resort to a little rueful sarcasm from time to time?

Which is why modern atheistic scientism always reforms into mysticism -- but that's another topic, for another time.

Science is not atheistic, it is non theistic. God and other non falsifiable ideas are simply not within its domain. This claim of science developing into mysticism is another of your false claims you cannot support.

I can, but I'm to going to bother. Like I said -- another topic, perhaps, for another time. And yes -- science, or more properly, the "scientific method", is operational independent of one's theistic views. That's why you don't need to be a believer to build a better mousetrap; or to discover that the simplest living cell is analogous to a large city in terms of its complexity and specialization of functions.

But in talking about ideas regarding the origin of the universe, and of life and its development, we're talking about philosophic and religious views that underpin the scientific investigation. We cannot make repeatable observations of those things; we must make inferences from the forensic evidence. Those inferences will be conducted from one of two epistemological positions, as I just posted on a related thread.

I seem to be repeating myself, of necessity, a LOT.

I'm not sure how much longer I'm willing to continue doing that...(shrug)

[quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 475#699475]

There are many scientists who believe in God, just very, very few who don't believe evolution is the process God used and virtually none who are YECs.

Yes, there are many scientists who accept that microbes became men -- but very few who are actually employed in fields where that presupposition makes the slightest difference to their work. In that regard, their indoctrination is no different, and likely no more questioned or examined, than an interested layman's.

It makes no difference whatsoever whether the universe is accidental, and microbes became men; or is an act of of God that occurred 6000 years ago, with regard to making improvements on a cell phone; or discovering the unaccessed functions of DNA, an information code in three dimensions, that "reads" both "forward and back".

By the way -- there is not a single scientific discovery or technological advancement that can be attributed to m2m theory.

Don't believe me?

Name one.

[Danmark]

By the way -- there is not a single scientific discovery or technological advancement that can be attributed to m2m theory.

Don't believe me?

Name one.

I can make little sense of your post, other than it seems not to follow the discussion.
But on this last I can comment.
A. You are correct. I don't believe you.
B. "m2m theory" is your own creation. I would not expect to find anything about it in a scientific journal.

Claims for young Earth creationism and anti evolution arguments do not merit discussion in my opinion, any more than talk about how many leprechauns might be hidden in a wristwatch. It's amusing to play along for a while, but . . . .

[rookiebatman]

And can you in all fairness deny that i have not had quite a bit of sarcasm and condescension thrown at me? Not that two "wrongs" make a right, but...

Asked and answered. You have every right to feel hurt (or simply annoyed) by that, but if you do, then that increases the impetus to not respond in kind (especially when you're not even responding to the same person). I don't know about anyone else, but for myself, if the overall tone of a forum is civil, then I will most likely be civil, but if the overall tone is sarcastic, then I'm more likely to give in to that ugly part of me that wants to treat the people who disagree with me as inferior. So I could say that it's not my fault because the overall tone was already like that, but by thus indulging, I am contributing to the overall tone. It's a vicious cycle that's no one person's fault, but the only way for it to ever have a chance of being broken is for each of us to not consider "someone else was sarcastic to me" as a sufficient reason to be sarcastic to someone else.

So yeah, I don't hold it against you if slip into sarcasm once or twice, because I make mistakes too. But I'm just letting you know, as far as the posts I've seen of yours since I wandered in here, it's looking pretty habitual.

Imagine going to a forum where you're the only one who believes that microbes morphed into men. Do you think you might resort to a little rueful sarcasm from time to time?

It would be hard to imagine, since that's not what I believe (as you know we've discussed).

Yes, there are many scientists who accept that microbes became men -- but very few who are actually employed in fields where that presupposition makes the slightest difference to their work.

I would presume there are very few scientists who accept that microbes became men since, as I've stated repeatedly, that is not what evolutionists believe.

By the way -- there is not a single scientific discovery or technological advancement that can be attributed to m2m theory.

Don't believe me?

Name one.

I'm no expert, so I just Googled it. Here a couple links:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/evolu ... 21306.html
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/r ... ndex.shtml

The first one has 23. So, even if you dispute 90% of them, that's still more than the 1 that you asked for, even without the second link.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 236 by rookiebatman]

I would presume there are very few scientists who accept that microbes became men since, as I've stated repeatedly, that is not what evolutionists believe.

And I agree with them.

However (and unfortunatley) that IS what mainstream "Evolutionists" believe.

I'm no expert, so I just Googled it. Here a couple links:

I didn't thoroughly go over the list, but none of them appears to have any connection with m2m. As I said before (most of what I do...[shrug] ), all YECs believe in "changes in an allele". And they accurately predicted rapid speciation based on that principle, before it was conceded to have occurred by m2m-ers.

They are MORE "evolutionary" in that regard than m2m-ers.

There are no items on your (first) list that i see that could not -- if legitimate -- have been arrived at by a trained scientist who believes God created the world 6K years ago.

And may I just stress here that m2m is a handy -- and accurate -- shorthand to differentiate between the two views of development: "uphill" (microbes, which gradually morphed into men over time); and "downhill" (genetically diverse kinds being naturally and/or artificially selected for various specific traits in response to (usually) environmental pressures.

I promise i don't mind any objections to my use of it, and invite anyone upset by it to "look the other way" (uh oh -- was that sarcastic?)

[rookiebatman]

[Replying to post 236 by rookiebatman]

I would presume there are very few scientists who accept that microbes became men since, as I've stated repeatedly, that is not what evolutionists believe.

And I agree with them.

However (and unfortunatley) that IS what mainstream "Evolutionists" believe.

We've already had this discussion.

I promise i don't mind any objections to my use of it, and invite anyone upset by it to "look the other way" (uh oh -- was that sarcastic?)

Let me explain why I will not look the other way, and why I will not accept as valid any argument you make which employs the phrases "microbes morphed into men" or "microbes became men."

What you're doing is employing a psychological trick, a rhetorical tactic, that has absolutely nothing to do with whether your position is more consistent with reality than ours. Whether you're aware of it or not, whether the use of this psychological cheat is conscious or subconscious, what you're doing is planting in people's minds the idea that evolution is as ridiculous as "microbes morphing into man." Of course that's ridiculous, which is why evolutionists do not believe it. You know this is the case, because I and others have told you so repeatedly. You are therefore willfully perpetuating an inaccurate description of evolution (violating your own Ninth Commandment), and whether this is your intention or not, the effect of that falsity is to give less-informed people the completely inaccurate idea that evolution is as ridiculous as a microbe just shape-shifting into a human being. That is not what evolutionists believe, that is not what the theory of evolution claims, it's an inaccurate reframing of evolution with the specific function of making it sound more absurd than it actually is in reality.

I don't even care if this gets flagged for being a personal attack, because it needs to be said. Your use of these plainly erroneous descriptors of evolution are simply false, you've been told they're false by the people whose viewpoint you claim it represents, and yet you persist in willfully ignoring those statements and continue to bear false witness about what evolution is. Fair warning; from this point forward, I will flag any further posts you make with the terms "microbes morphed into men" or "microbes became men" as Repeated Unsubstantiated Claims, because that is exactly what you're doing. You're making the claim that this is what evolutionists believe, you are not providing any evidence or substantiation for that claim, and yet you are continually and persistently repeating it.

In closing, I have just one question for you. If you really, honestly believe that your position is more consistent with reality, then why must you depend on this cheap tactic of constantly misrepresenting your opponent's position? If your position is more consistent with reality than ours, you should be able to represent our position accurately and still demonstrate that yours is more rational.

So far, all you've done is repeatedly knock down the same straw man that none of us actually believe. You can claim all day long that we really do believe it whether we say so or not, but no amount of times you say that will make it true.

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 238 by rookiebatman]

(Yawn)

Do what you gotta do.

Frankly, I'm pretty tired of going over the same ground with people who will not even admit what it is they believe.

I have stated your position at least a dozen times. Probably many more. I've lost track.

It is unwieldy to make the same paragraph-long qualification each time I wish to refer to the theory that states that microbes formed by random processes (yada yada) and eventually, through a long series of random processes (yada yada) turned into men.

Again, I'm sorry that the term upsets you. But just as I'm not going to write a chapter of specific details in order to expand on the story of a man who made a success of himself from humble beginnings, but rather will merely refer to his "rags to riches" tale;

I will condense the atheopatic myth to the more facile "microbes to men"; or even better, m2m. I suggest you learn to live with it, and perhaps find things more suitable for earning the getting up of your dander; like the fact that our children are taught this absurd myth in schools (the morphing of microbes into men) unchallenged by the truth of (at least) ID (which is "Intelligent Design". Any problems with that abbreviation?)

Hey -- at least m2m is better than "from the goo to the zoo to Mu to you", no?


On a related note:

watching the Weather Channel a couple of nights ago (entertainment pickings are slim these days -- another topic).

An interesting series -- 'the worst weather in the solar system', or somesuch.

What was funny was how they continually postulated how circumstances COULD be satisfactory on such-and-such a moon of Jupiter or Saturn (e.g., Europa) for the presence of hydro carbons that COULD combine to form... you guessed it... microbial life.

For instance, one moon (sorry, can't remember the details -- they're easily googled, I'm sure) theoretically has a subsurface ocean of water (beneath miles of ice), melted by the tidal friction generated by its elliptical orbit around its planet (Jupiter, I'm almost certain. Maybe Saturn). More water, it is said, than in all of our oceans combined.

Might it be possible that hydrocarbons combined to form amino acids... blah, blah, blah...

I mean, it happened here, on this planet, right? Why not there?

I just smiled. It's just funny, really.

But also sad.