What reasons are there for any Christian to deny Biological

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playhavock
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What reasons are there for any Christian to deny Biological

Post #1

Post by playhavock »

Opening remarks:

Welcome readers! Moses Yoder and I are about to debate the question: What reasons are there for any Christian to deny Biological Evolution? I shall be taking the stance that there is no reason they should and outline three arguments in favor of this, Moses Yoder will be explaining his view on biological evolution as well as giving reasons why Christians should deny any and/or all of it, he will be making his point clear in his opening.

I'd like to thank Moses for agreeing to debate. On a personal level, I found Moses to be somewhat lacking when I first read his posts in basic logic, and displayed views that I was dismayed by. I've been encouraged to see him grow out of this, so to speak, by displaying better logic as well as better arguments for his views. More than once, as of late, I have found we agree on things.

So to summarize from an emotional point, I like Moses more than I did when I first read him. I think he will comment on how he has come to understand my lack of spelling ability in his opening remarks, but he has surprised me before, so who knows?

Okay, welcome and thanks aside, let us set aside emotions and see whose premises have greater support for them. Whose facts will win the day? Let us find out!

=============================================


Opening debate:

Our debate question is "What reasons are there for any Christians to deny Biological Evolution?" my answer is simple: There are no good reasons.

I wish to stress "good" because there are plenty of bad reasons!

I will be proposing and defending three points to forward my idea that there are no good reasons for Christians to accept this.

1: It is bad science.

The overwhelming amount of data on the subject of evolution in general and biological evolution in particular leaves little to no room for science to disregard it, with only a handful of scientists who - for whatever reason - actually do disregard it. What’s more, because of the overwhelming evidence for it, we need not even appeal to the fact that “most� scientists accept it; the facts, in this case, speak for themselves.

If human biological evolution is not true, we should see some evidence of this, but contrarily we see that our DNA shares common traits with animals, and even has similarity to plant RNA. We would see animals and even plants continue to adapt to the environment and humans not. Thus, animals and plants would outlive us quickly.

Much of medicine that works on humans is based on evolution theory; if human biological evolution were not true, this medicine should not work. How could the medicine working - despite humans not being part of biological evolution - be explained away?

If we discard or deny all of evolution, then no change can be said to be made. Dogs and cats, who have wide varieties of sub-sections, would all have to be explained away, and the facts ignored. Banana evolution as well as seedless watermelons would all have to be ignored.

In essence, one would have to ignore the facts of the world around them, ignore science totally, being left behind further and further as knowledge progresses.

If biological evolution is not true, there is simply no evidence for it being untrue. No intelligent design person or group has produced any theory to explain anything. Rather, they produce sloppy arguments and conspiracy theories. It is bad science - in fact, anti-science to deny any part of biological evolution without facts.


2: It is harmful to evangelizing.

You might be a bit surprised to see a skeptic argue in favor of envangelism or anything that might help it; however my duty is to point out why denying biological evolution is bad, and this is part of it. When someone wishes to tell someone else of the things they believe in, they should give the best possible argument there is to give.

The issue here is twofold:

First, because biological evolution is fact, not fiction, presenting a false dichotomy of "believe God" vs. "believe evolution" will create a stumbling block for those who know and/or accept biological evolution as a fact. For this single reason alone, you should disregard denial of this fact. It is akin to going out and evangelizing people only to make them call you a fool when you calmly explain that part of your system requires them to believe the Earth is flat.

Second, because you are promoting a lie the outsider will suspect that you are promoting other lies.


3: It is bad theology.

Now I've blown your mind! Why would a skeptic care if it is bad theology? Well, let me explain. I used to be a Christian, so when I was, I also had no issue with biological evolution because I believed the Christian Bible would align to the facts of the world. I set out to study to see if it would.

Part of my study was on the original language of the Christian Bible, the book of Genesis to be exact. The word "Yom" in Hebrew can mean a "period of time" and this word appears in books other than Genesis to show this. When the writer of Genesis later writes "day" to mean a 24-hour period, they use a separate word for it, not the word "Yom."

Even worse, if one wanted a literal interpretation of Genesis, how can one explain that the first day happens when there is no planet, just light and dark? How can this be viewed as anything other than poetic writing?

Even the early Saint Augustine argued for a non-literal interpretation of Genesis - and that is leaving out the issue of how the world would have to be viewed if one wanted to interpret Genesis literally. Simply put, arguments that the instances of Yom in Genesis were a single 24 hour days are not very well grounded. It is unfortunate to note that the majority of Christians support the 24-hour idea vs. the idea that Yom might in fact mean "a period of time".

It is bibliolatry or doctrinolatry to assume that one MUST teach and/or MUST believe that this word means "day" or even 24 hours. If there is debate - and there is among even the scholars over the word "Yom" - why not, then, look beyond the Bible to science for the answer?

If science has found (and it has) that the world has been made over a period of time that is not within (6 days and/or 6000 years), then why not think that "Yom" is not intended to be "day" (i.e., a 24-hour day), even if people wish to translate it to that word in English?

Now, the point of talking about Yom is that most Christians cite Genesis for reason why they would view the Earth being made in less than 4.5 billon years or for the reason that humans cannot be animals, because Genesis does not say we are.

The problem with all these ideas is that it relies upon a literal view of Genesis, or worse, it relies on special pleading that parts of Genesis are literal and others are not. The fact is that one word continues to be debated, and other parts of Genesis cannot be looked at as literal without additional problems for how to view the Earth; the ideas simply do not fit within reality. If Genesis is to be taken seriously, it cannot be promoted as literal.

Conclusion:

The only conclusion one can reasonably make after the above augments is that there is no good reason for denying biological evolution. It will now be my opponent’s task to show why there are any good reasons for denying biological evolution be it from theological reasons to evangelistic reasons.

Or if he can, he must show that science is somehow in error. Although if he manages that, I'd say he should submit his evidence to get a Nobel Prize.

I will expand upon my arguments if need be, and give citations for them when appropriate.

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Post #2

Post by Moses Yoder »

For the purpose of this discussion I will only consider facts to be those things which I can confirm with all five of my senses.

Biological Evolution is defined as "Biological evolution is defined as any genetic change in a population that is inherited over several generations. These changes may be small or large, noticeable or not so noticeable.

In order for an event to be considered an instance of evolution, changes have to occur on the genetic level of a population and be passed on from one generation to the next.
at http://biology.about.com/od/evolution/a/aa110207a.htm

Evolution (the definition that applies here) is defined by dictionary.com as "Biology . change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

I have no problem when science says evolution is a fact. I can sense evolution around me with all of my senses. The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution. Can a Christian accept this claim by science? I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime. It is however possible to reject the Bible as God's word and still be a Christian.

My focus here will be in showing that the Bible claims man was created by God in one 24 hour day; you cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution. I will make several other points as well.

#1: LIFE NEEDS PURPOSE
The belief that God created man includes the belief that He did so for a reason. This gives man a purpose in life, mainly to worship God. According to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible man's highest purpose is to worship his Creator. On the other hand, if man just happened to exist by accident he has no real purpose. What would be the reason for living? As religion dies out and atheism takes over this will probably become more noticeable, leading to an increase in crime and suicide.

#2: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IN SIX 24 HOUR DAYS.

Lets look at Genesis 1:5 in the New King James version from biblegateway.com;
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
After every "day" of creation the writer uses the phrase "the evening and the morning". Lets look at the word "day" in the original Hebrew. From eSword;
H3117
יו�
yôm
yome
From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figuratively (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverbially): - age, +
Obviously the word interpreted "day" in Gen. 1:5 ,yôm, pronounced "yome" can be interpreted as an age.

Now the word "evening";
H6153
ערב
‛ereb
eh'-reb
From H6150; dusk: - + day, even (-ing, tide), night.
and the word "morning"
H1242
בּקר
bôqer
bo'-ker
From H1239; properly dawn (as the break of day); generally morning: - (+) day, early, morning, morrow.
Obviously these words mean what we understand them to mean today. The evening and the morning indicate a 24 hour period. To make them mean something else requires some pretty serious gymnastics.

Obviously the Bible is saying the universe and everything in it were created in six 24 hour days. You cannot agree with the modern theory of mans evolution from slime and still believe in the Bible.

#3 TO AGREE THAT MAN EVOLVED FROM SLIME INDICATES A LACK OF FAITH
To believe that God created man requires faith. This makes us a stranger to the rest of the world. When we don't want people to view us as quite so strange, we begin by compromising our faith. We begin to think perhaps God used evolution to create people, and now we are not so strange. Here James says what he thinks of friendship with the world;
4 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet[a] you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously�?

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.�[c]
I think the saddest part of selling out is that the world knows you have sold out. I believe there can be a mutual respect between the atheist and the Christian if they both know what they believe and why; there is more respect for great faith than there is for selling out.

I will close with this portion of scripture;
1 Corinthians 1:21
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
Matthew 16:26
New King James Version (NKJV)
26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

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playhavock
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rebutal to opening

Post #3

Post by playhavock »

Rebuttal to Moses Yoder's opening.

Recall that I said I will be defending three points; Moses gives me plenty to work with in his opening to do just this.
Point 1: It is bad science.

Moses
For the purpose of this discussion, I will only consider facts to be those things which I can confirm with all five of my senses.
Here we see the first of bad science. The field of science begins with our five senses , but does not end there. Often the apologist for Christianity will accuse a skeptic when they ask why we cannot find God with our five senses that they have missed the point, there is the "internal" sense - I am not myself sure about such a sense, but there are other ways to know if things are true, mainly in science, we have mathematics for one such example - we can and do apply mathematics to find out the orbit of planets is not circular but elliptical, and this fact allows us to send machines all the way to Mars without missing.

So I have no reason to agree with Moses here on using only our five senses to find things. If that was the case, he could not invoke God, as God itself is said to be somewhere in the missing sense. Additionally, history must be verified with more than just observation - we must apply research, something that we are using our eyes for, granted, but still is more than just our eyes; we are using our brain to make use of our five senses, something that might be implied by Moses here, but I cannot be sure.

Moses
I have no problem when science says evolution is a fact. I can sense evolution around me with all of my senses. The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution. Can a Christian accept this claim by science? I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime. It is however possible to reject the Bible as God's word and still be a Christian.
This is akin to saying that one has no problem with science saying gravity is a fact, but that one has an issue with gravity because then it prevents Muhammad from ascending to heaven in the Koran. If one is to accept evolution as fact, one cannot accept part of it and not the bit one does not like - to do so is what is called "cherry picking" - a logical fallacy, and of course, bad science.

I am not sure what Moses means by rejecting the Bible as God's word - is Moses suggesting the view that the Christian Bible (CB from now on) be taken to be written by God, inspired by God, a bit of both? The demand that the CB be inerrant is made by some Christians, but not all. Is Moses requiring us to view it as inerrant? I'm simply unsure here. I would like Moses to clarify this issue for me and the readers so I can be sure that I understand. For now I will set aside this matter and focus on this bit here:

Moses
I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime.
Ah, that first part of bad science keeps coming up! Evolution says nothing about our origin and makes no claim that it is from "slime" (primordial ooze); that would be the realm of abiogenesis to cover.

To mix the two together is bad science. Primordial ooze is one of many theories that abiogenesis has. Other ones include meteors that we have found do in fact contain building blocks of D.N.A., the ocean theory, crystal structure theorem, and many others - we have not decided what one of these is, in fact, the correct one - but this is a matter for abiogenesis, NOT evolution. Also "slime" is not the correct term; it is primordial ooze.

Before defending my other points, let me take a moment to address this:

Moses
#1: LIFE NEEDS PURPOSE
The belief that God created man includes the belief that He did so for a reason. This gives man a purpose in life, mainly to worship God. According to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible man's highest purpose is to worship his Creator. On the other hand, if man just happened to exist by accident he has no real purpose. What would be the reason for living? As religion dies out and atheism takes over this will probably become more noticeable, leading to an increase in crime and suicide.
There are a number of logical fallacies in this paragraph.

Preassumptialism that the CB is correct, that Moses's view of the CB is correct, that the view of Ecclesiastes that Moses has is correct.

Appeal to consequence - that man has no purpose if it is random.

And a conjecture of consequence that is not supported by any facts: that atheism will lead to an increase in crime and/or suicide.

Let’s just look at that last bit. If we take the "worst" example of atheism that I could think of offhand - North Korea - assuming that Moses is correct, we should expect to see rampant crime and suicide there - yet we do not. So, we must ask: Where is the rising in crime rates and suicide?

This statement, unsupported, must be dismissed. What’s more, using Moses's own standards (only the five senses), I have not seen this happen. We have plenty of members on this forum who are atheist, yet they are not suicidal; and as far as I know, are not committing crimes. Where is the proof of this statement? None. This paragraph, then, we must conclude does not fit in our debate; it has failed the rules of logic, the rules of Moses, and the rules of proof. Let us not employ such false measures to make our points. I think you can do better than this, Moses.

Now with that out of the way, I return to defending my points. Skipping point 2 (as it as yet is not something I must defend) here is point three:

3: It is bad theology.

Moses
#2: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IN SIX 24 HOUR DAYS.
No. According to your idea of what the CB says, Moses, this would be the case. If Moses is suggesting that all of Genesis be taken literally, we must then view the world as this diagram below:

Image

Now, if this is the case, then we should expect Moses to argue that yes, this IS how the Earth is, and that viewing it this way is the only way a Christian should do it. If, however, Moses says instead that only some parts of Genesis are taken as literal and others are not, to avoid cherry picking, Moses must show us how to decide what parts are literal and what parts are not.

Moses
Let’s look at Genesis 1:5 in the New King James version from biblegateway.com;
3: It is bad theology.

No - let’s not look at New King James - the King James (and the New one) are the worst translations we could turn to. I'll have to review the rules on copyright on the Bible and use of passages from it, but for now, I'll set aside the use of this poor translation as one more indicator that we are dealing with bad theology (unless, because of the rules of copyright, we are being forced to use this; then I'll drop this grievance as we have no choice in the matter).

Moses does some of my work for me by quoting yôm/yome. I accept Moses’ use of e-sword for this, as well as the definition invoked. The issue, I see, is the idea that evening and morning "must" mean that yôm is taken to be "day," as in 24 hours and not "period of time." Yet the word clearly cannot mean that, for we cannot have 24 hours at all.

Why? Because we have no planet Earth or Sun as yet.

We have, in fact, I gather, nothing but light and darkness; so one could say that in this case, the writer is trying to paint us a picture; that there is a time from this one moment of light to a moment of darkness rather than a twenty four hour cycle - at least for Genesis 1:5 - for the other parts of Genesis, yôm might be 24 hours, or again it might mean a period of time from one morning to one evening, but who is to say that morning and evening must be the same day? We do this in English, but we are not dealing in our modern tongue; we are dealing with ancient Jewish language, written by (I assume) a Jewish person for a Jewish audience.

If Moses can show that the Jewish writer and audience would have seen it as he sees it - then he has a case. If not, then we can, I think, safely say that this could be poetic writing, and not meant to be taken the way that Moses is suggesting.
This point of yôm having to be "24 hours" folds back on the first premise I am defending, that it is bad science - science has allowed us to discover that the Earth was made slowly due to gravity (mostly) and far longer than a mere 6 days to form - because the Jewish word yôm allows for it to be seen as "a period of time," we must then allow science to have its say here, so that we are not doing bad science, and in turn, we are doing better theology by acknowledging that yôm has more than one meaning.

Also from Gen 1:5: let us look at this:
So the evening and the morning were the first day.
How long is it from evening to a morning with an earth and a sun?

12 hours.

Not 24!

Looks like Moses is wrong again. He is not even using a literal translation of the words... Ooops!

Moses
#3 TO AGREE THAT MAN EVOLVED FROM SLIME INDICATES A LACK OF FAITH
To believe that God created man requires faith. This makes us a stranger to the rest of the world. When we don't want people to view us as quite so strange, we begin by compromising our faith. We begin to think perhaps God used evolution to create people, and now we are not so strange.
Here again we raise the issue that I must defend in point 1 - bad science. We covered already that "slime" is not the correct term here, and additionally, evolution says nothing about where we came from.

In this paragraph, it looks like I might have to defend my second point. 2: It is harmful to evangelizing.

Moses is correct that believing in God (here we are referring to the Christian concept of God) requires faith. I find no reason to not agree here, and I also agree that this might make them "strangers to the rest of the world." Although others do believe in God, their idea of God is not the same.

However, Moses then misses a point in favor of positive evangelizing by suggesting that it is a matter of not wanting people to view the group as strange and that one is "compromising" faith by agreeing to science.

What this in fact does is leave Christians further and further behind as our knowledge about the real world progresses. This is not a compromise of faith; rather, it is a clinging to traditional doctrine.

I will illustrate by a thought experiment:

Let’s travel back in time to Galileo’s time when the Church believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the sun rotated around it. He dared to say "no" to this, and for that was punished by the Church. Now, let’s take one of this Church’s members forward in time to meet Moses. The Church member glares in rage as he yells "heretic!" at Moses, saying that, by believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, Moses is compromising the faith and must be persecuted!

What we see here is worship of doctrine; one could call it doctrinolatry. The early Church member and Moses do not want to let go of their ideas about the teachings, and will not compromise - "THIS FAR AND NO FARTHER," They seem to yell. Well, the Church eventually did agree that the Earth goes around the sun, and no, it is not after all, in the center of the universe. Did that harm their faith? Did that make them less strange to the rest of us - no, but it is one less stumbling block to become Christian than there was before.

Imagine how hard it would be for evangelizing if you had to convince people that the Sun moved around the Earth, and that the Earth was in the center of the universe. It would not be very helpful for evangelizing.

Yet here we see the core - the real issue. Moses does not reject Biological Evolution of all other animals, only humans. Only because he thinks it must be six 24 hour days. Why? Because he thinks that is what the CB says.

But the CB says a period of time; science says several thousands of years for the formation of the Earth (and more for the universe itself) and several more thousands of years for evolution to get to homo sapiens (if you want exact numbers, I can get references for them). We must ask, in light of the bad science, bad theology, and the potential harm for evangelizing, why Moses keeps on with this idea? Perhaps I might suggest it is not God he worships, but the teaching of "6 days" being literal.

(It’s actually only three days! Wait, three? Like the trinity! Oh man, that must be it! - humor)

Let us see if Moses can summon any actual science for his statements.
Explain to us how yôm is literally 24 hours when sunset to sunrise is 12; show us how yôm is 24 (and not 12) hours, when there is no Sun or Earth.

And finally, how Moses will respond to the fact that the Church has agreed with Biological Evolution (yes, the current Catholic church agrees with biological evolution), and the fact that early Christians have already agreed with other facts about science. Can Moses show that it’s better to be out of touch with reality for evangelizing? If so, perhaps he should start preaching that the Earth is in the center of the universe.

Let’s see what Moses comes up with for a defense.

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Post #4

Post by Moses Yoder »

Rebuttal to playhavock’s rebuttal.

In the interest of form, I am not specifically addressing all the points in playhavock’s opening since essentially they are all addressed in his rebuttal. If there are points he wishes me to address he will have to raise them.

I don’t normally read extremely verbose posts. One reason is that I lose interest. Another reason is that my time is valuable. I have a number of people depending on me to share my time with them, and Debating Christianity is not a priority. I prefer to communicate using poignant allegories, or as they call them in the Bible, parables. I find this gets my point across efficiently and clearly plus it is more interesting to read. This is an extremely effective method of communication and a book has been written about it called “The Language of Love� which is designed to help communication in marriage but is effective in all cases. In this case however I actually read the whole post and am afraid the nature of the debate will make it extremely dreary. I would bet money that the only people who will actually read the whole thing are playhavock and myself.


Moses
For the purpose of this discussion, I will only consider facts to be those things which I can confirm with all five of my senses.
playhavock wrote: Here we see the first of bad science. The field of science begins with our five senses , but does not end there. Often the apologist for Christianity will accuse a skeptic when they ask why we cannot find God with our five senses that they have missed the point, there is the "internal" sense - I am not myself sure about such a sense, but there are other ways to know if things are true, mainly in science, we have mathematics for one such example - we can and do apply mathematics to find out the orbit of planets is not circular but elliptical, and this fact allows us to send machines all the way to Mars without missing.

So I have no reason to agree with Moses here on using only our five senses to find things. If that was the case, he could not invoke God, as God itself is said to be somewhere in the missing sense. Additionally, history must be verified with more than just observation - we must apply research, something that we are using our eyes for, granted, but still is more than just our eyes; we are using our brain to make use of our five senses, something that might be implied by Moses here, but I cannot be sure.
Here we have the first re-direct which comes from a misunderstanding, apparently, of the English language. In my clarification of what I accept to be facts playhavock asks if we do not use something other than our five senses to “find� God! I myself was not aware that God had been found; please post documentation of such. I myself do not accept the existence of God to be a fact. I accept the existence of God by faith. He then goes on to talk about mathematics, saying it must be fact because we can calculate a trajectory using math. I am here to say there is not one single fact in the field of math. Mathematics consists entirely of symbols which we have assigned values to. It exists only in our imagination. I challenge playhavock to post a fact from the field of mathematics. He also makes that the claim that a planet’s orbit is elliptical is a fact. In my opening statement I simply post the information that I will not be accepting that as fact. If someone can show it to me in such a way that I can see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, and hear it, I will accept it as a fact. The same idea applies to playhavock; I do not yet accept his existence as fact.

Playhavock makes the claim that this is bad science. I say which is bad science? Accepting as fact the idea that men evolved from slime when it cannot possibly be proven, or to accept as fact only that which we can verify?



Moses
I have no problem when science says evolution is a fact. I can sense evolution around me with all of my senses. The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution. Can a Christian accept this claim by science? I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime. It is however possible to reject the Bible as God's word and still be a Christian.
playhavock wrote: This is akin to saying that one has no problem with science saying gravity is a fact, but that one has an issue with gravity because then it prevents Muhammad from ascending to heaven in the Koran. If one is to accept evolution as fact, one cannot accept part of it and not the bit one does not like - to do so is what is called "cherry picking" - a logical fallacy, and of course, bad science.
I posted two different definitions of evolution and biological evolution. Please post a definition of evolution from a renowned dictionary and explain to me in plain English what parts I don’t accept as fact.

Why is “biological evolution� or “evolution� assumed to include the idea that man evolved from slime? It means no such thing as you can see by the definitions I posted. I know most people assumed it does mean man evolved from slime, which is part of the reason why I agreed to debate this with you.
playhavock wrote:

I am not sure what Moses means by rejecting the Bible as God's word - is Moses suggesting the view that the Christian Bible (CB from now on) be taken to be written by God, inspired by God, a bit of both? The demand that the CB be inerrant is made by some Christians, but not all. Is Moses requiring us to view it as inerrant? I'm simply unsure here. I would like Moses to clarify this issue for me and the readers so I can be sure that I understand.
If there is a God and He created man, logically He would have to have a reason for doing so and logically He would have to communicate that idea to man. It would not be just to do otherwise. I believe that is exactly what happened. I believe the Bible was written by men who were inspired by God to do so. If it had one error in it then one would have to assume it has perhaps many errors, thus I believe it to be inerrant. I know there are born again Christians who do not believe as I do. When I say someone has rejected the Bible as God’s word I mean exactly that; they no longer accept the idea that the Bible is God’s communiqué to man (in any form).

Moses
I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime.
playhavock wrote: Ah, that first part of bad science keeps coming up! Evolution says nothing about our origin and makes no claim that it is from "slime" (primordial ooze); that would be the realm of abiogenesis to cover.

To mix the two together is bad science. Primordial ooze is one of many theories that abiogenesis has. Other ones include meteors that we have found do in fact contain building blocks of D.N.A., the ocean theory, crystal structure theorem, and many others - we have not decided what one of these is, in fact, the correct one - but this is a matter for abiogenesis, NOT evolution. Also "slime" is not the correct term; it is primordial ooze.
First of all, I use slime as a derogatory term. Funny how you say I did not use the correct term but knew exactly what I meant. I will not be gracing the idea that man evolved from slime with the lovely term “primordial ooze�.

Also, please make up your mind. Above where I said I do not believe man became due to evolution you said I had to accept all of evolution. Here you say that is abiogenesis, different from evolution. Please explain. I accept evolution as fact. I do not accept as fact the idea that man evolved from slime, or came into existence by evolving from any other object.


Moses
#1: LIFE NEEDS PURPOSE
The belief that God created man includes the belief that He did so for a reason. This gives man a purpose in life, mainly to worship God. According to the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible man's highest purpose is to worship his Creator. On the other hand, if man just happened to exist by accident he has no real purpose. What would be the reason for living? As religion dies out and atheism takes over this will probably become more noticeable, leading to an increase in crime and suicide.
playhavock wrote: There are a number of logical fallacies in this paragraph.

Preassumptialism that the CB is correct, that Moses's view of the CB is correct, that the view of Ecclesiastes that Moses has is correct.
Here playhavock jumps to a conclusion; he assumes I consider my beliefs to be facts. This is far from the truth. I was simply stating the common beliefs that I and other Christians hold. I do not consideer any of these beliefs to be facts and I am well aware they are not necessarily the correct view.
playhavock wrote: Appeal to consequence - that man has no purpose if it is random.
If man’s existence is an accident, please explain how we can have come into existence for a reason.
playhavock wrote: And a conjecture of consequence that is not supported by any facts: that atheism will lead to an increase in crime and/or suicide.

Let’s just look at that last bit. If we take the "worst" example of atheism that I could think of offhand - North Korea - assuming that Moses is correct, we should expect to see rampant crime and suicide there - yet we do not. So, we must ask: Where is the rising in crime rates and suicide?

This statement, unsupported, must be dismissed. What’s more, using Moses's own standards (only the five senses), I have not seen this happen. We have plenty of members on this forum who are atheist, yet they are not suicidal; and as far as I know, are not committing crimes. Where is the proof of this statement? None. This paragraph, then, we must conclude does not fit in our debate; it has failed the rules of logic, the rules of Moses, and the rules of proof. Let us not employ such false measures to make our points. I think you can do better than this, Moses.
I erred here in not stating that it is only an opinion I hold that if religion dies out crime will run rampant. I do not see how it can logically be otherwise. In the United States atheists are still a small percentage of the population with Christians being around 75 percent I think. That is, people who call themselves Christians. Worldwide only about 16 percent of people do not claim to be religious. This is not a large enough percentage to determine what will happen when 85 percent of the world is atheist and 15 percent religious. I am going to give just one example. On Friday January 25 I was informed that my job was being eliminated and I was to clean out my office immediately and go home. I had a flash drive in my pocket and it was very tempting to copy information off their network that I could use to get a job elsewhere. For example, their catalog. I had helped make this catalog and could very well have considered it to be my work and therefore my property. It was very tempting to just copy it onto my flash drive and stick it in my pocket. Why did I decide not to do that? Simply because the Bible says “thou shalt not steal.� If I were an atheist, you can bet your life I would have that catalog here today. So what reason does an atheist have to be a person of integrity?


3: It is bad theology.

Moses
#2: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IN SIX 24 HOUR DAYS.
playhavock wrote:
No. According to your idea of what the CB says, Moses, this would be the case. If Moses is suggesting that all of Genesis be taken literally, we must then view the world as this diagram below:

Image

Now, if this is the case, then we should expect Moses to argue that yes, this IS how the Earth is, and that viewing it this way is the only way a Christian should do it. If, however, Moses says instead that only some parts of Genesis are taken as literal and others are not, to avoid cherry picking, Moses must show us how to decide what parts are literal and what parts are not.
I have read the entire Bible through twice, and Genesis more often than that. I have never seen that diagram anywhere in the Bible. Please provide a reference where I may find it. Yes, I am suggesting all of the Bible be taken literally.

Moses
Let’s look at Genesis 1:5 in the New King James version from biblegateway.com;
playhavock wrote: 3: It is bad theology.

No - let’s not look at New King James - the King James (and the New one) are the worst translations we could turn to. I'll have to review the rules on copyright on the Bible and use of passages from it, but for now, I'll set aside the use of this poor translation as one more indicator that we are dealing with bad theology (unless, because of the rules of copyright, we are being forced to use this; then I'll drop this grievance as we have no choice in the matter).
Please provide evidence that the New King James version does not accurately interpret the original manuscript. As an alternative, if you have a degree in the Biblical languages I will accept your own interpretation. If you claim to have a degree, please provide documentation. If you do not have a degree and furnish your own interpretation I will continue to use the New King James version.
playhavock wrote: Moses does some of my work for me by quoting yôm/yome. I accept Moses’ use of e-sword for this, as well as the definition invoked. The issue, I see, is the idea that evening and morning "must" mean that yôm is taken to be "day," as in 24 hours and not "period of time." Yet the word clearly cannot mean that, for we cannot have 24 hours at all.

Why? Because we have no planet Earth or Sun as yet.

We have, in fact, I gather, nothing but light and darkness; so one could say that in this case, the writer is trying to paint us a picture; that there is a time from this one moment of light to a moment of darkness rather than a twenty four hour cycle - at least for Genesis 1:5 - for the other parts of Genesis, yôm might be 24 hours, or again it might mean a period of time from one morning to one evening, but who is to say that morning and evening must be the same day? We do this in English, but we are not dealing in our modern tongue; we are dealing with ancient Jewish language, written by (I assume) a Jewish person for a Jewish audience.

If Moses can show that the Jewish writer and audience would have seen it as he sees it - then he has a case. If not, then we can, I think, safely say that this could be poetic writing, and not meant to be taken the way that Moses is suggesting.
Are you suggesting that the period of time which comprises 24 hours did not exist until clocks were invented around the 16th century BC (Wikipedia)? If not, when did it begin to exist? I suggest it has always existed. Just because we did not measure it does not mean it didn’t exist. 24 hours is the same length of “time� before the earth existed as it is now.

The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least. I believe the Bible was inspired by God and is God’s word to man; the beliefs and interpretation of the writer have nothing to do with what it means.
playhavock wrote:
This point of yôm having to be "24 hours" folds back on the first premise I am defending, that it is bad science - science has allowed us to discover that the Earth was made slowly due to gravity (mostly) and far longer than a mere 6 days to form - because the Jewish word yôm allows for it to be seen as "a period of time," we must then allow science to have its say here, so that we are not doing bad science, and in turn, we are doing better theology by acknowledging that yôm has more than one meaning.
Please provide acceptable proof that the world took longer than 6 days to form. Remember I need to be able to sense it with all 5 senses in order to accept it as fact. As an alternative, explain to me how science can know for certain what happened without having been there.

playhavock wrote:
Also from Gen 1:5: let us look at this:
So the evening and the morning were the first day.
How long is it from evening to a morning with an earth and a sun?

12 hours.

Not 24!

Looks like Moses is wrong again. He is not even using a literal translation of the words... Ooops!
Note what the Bible says “evening and morning� and how playhavock changes it (another redirect) “evening to a morning�. The Bible says the evening and the morning were the first day. How is this to be interpreted? Was there a 1 billion year morning then a one billion year evening and that was the first 2 billion year day? How is that logical? It is pure guess work. The simplest and most logical conclusion is that the evening ran from noon to midnight, the morning from midnight to noon, and that was the first day. That is the logical literal translation.

Moses
#3 TO AGREE THAT MAN EVOLVED FROM SLIME INDICATES A LACK OF FAITH
To believe that God created man requires faith. This makes us a stranger to the rest of the world. When we don't want people to view us as quite so strange, we begin by compromising our faith. We begin to think perhaps God used evolution to create people, and now we are not so strange.
playhavock wrote: Here again we raise the issue that I must defend in point 1 - bad science. We covered already that "slime" is not the correct term here, and additionally, evolution says nothing about where we came from.

In this paragraph, it looks like I might have to defend my second point. 2: It is harmful to evangelizing.

Moses is correct that believing in God (here we are referring to the Christian concept of God) requires faith. I find no reason to not agree here, and I also agree that this might make them "strangers to the rest of the world." Although others do believe in God, their idea of God is not the same.

However, Moses then misses a point in favor of positive evangelizing by suggesting that it is a matter of not wanting people to view the group as strange and that one is "compromising" faith by agreeing to science.

What this in fact does is leave Christians further and further behind as our knowledge about the real world progresses. This is not a compromise of faith; rather, it is a clinging to traditional doctrine.
I showed you why I do not believe in evolution with evidence from the Bible. Now you say I am clinging to traditional doctrine. This proves my point; if you believe that man evolved from slime you cannot believe the Bible. Apparently you must also give up the church doctrine, or at least I would have to in my church. How would that make you less popular in the world? You deny the Bible and church doctrine and accept the ways of the world; now you are a friend of the world and thus an enemy of Christ. How could it be otherwise?


playhavock wrote:
I will illustrate by a thought experiment:

Let’s travel back in time to Galileo’s time when the Church believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the sun rotated around it. He dared to say "no" to this, and for that was punished by the Church. Now, let’s take one of this Church’s members forward in time to meet Moses. The Church member glares in rage as he yells "heretic!" at Moses, saying that, by believing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, Moses is compromising the faith and must be persecuted!

What we see here is worship of doctrine; one could call it doctrinolatry. The early Church member and Moses do not want to let go of their ideas about the teachings, and will not compromise - "THIS FAR AND NO FARTHER," They seem to yell. Well, the Church eventually did agree that the Earth goes around the sun, and no, it is not after all, in the center of the universe. Did that harm their faith? Did that make them less strange to the rest of us - no, but it is one less stumbling block to become Christian than there was before.

Imagine how hard it would be for evangelizing if you had to convince people that the Sun moved around the Earth, and that the Earth was in the center of the universe. It would not be very helpful for evangelizing.
Here we have the Biblical description of God’s creation of man in Genesis 1:26-31, NKJV;
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.� 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.�
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food�; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Here, as near as I can determine, it says man was created by God. Where does the Bible say “the sun revolves around the earth�? Please provide a reference. Once you do, I will either believe the sun revolves around the earth or I will not be a Christian. Do you understand the difference between these two statements? “The sun revolves around the earth� and “man was created by God.� If you believe man evolved from slime, obviously you cannot believe he was created by God.

playhavock wrote:

Yet here we see the core - the real issue. Moses does not reject Biological Evolution of all other animals, only humans. Only because he thinks it must be six 24 hour days. Why? Because he thinks that is what the CB says.

But the CB says a period of time; science says several thousands of years for the formation of the Earth (and more for the universe itself) and several more thousands of years for evolution to get to homo sapiens (if you want exact numbers, I can get references for them). We must ask, in light of the bad science, bad theology, and the potential harm for evangelizing, why Moses keeps on with this idea? Perhaps I might suggest it is not God he worships, but the teaching of "6 days" being literal.


This is a sad misunderstanding. I accept biological evolution of the entire universe. I do not believe humans evolved from slime because the Bible says differently. I do not believe animals evolved from slime because the Bible says otherwise. I live in the corn capital of the world right next to companies such as Monsanto and Pioneer. I have seen the evolution of corn (assisted by man) with my own eyes. It’s funny that playhavock accuses me of idolatry considering the fact that those people who accept man’s evolution from apes obviously no longer accept the Bible as God’s word. They have arranged their beliefs to be more palatable to the world by denying the power of God and accepting the science of the world.

playhavock wrote:
Let us see if Moses can summon any actual science for his statements.
Explain to us how yôm is literally 24 hours when sunset to sunrise is 12; show us how yôm is 24 (and not 12) hours, when there is no Sun or Earth.


Science has no part in faith. I will not be summoning science. The other questions are addressed above.

playhavock wrote:
And finally, how Moses will respond to the fact that the Church has agreed with Biological Evolution (yes, the current Catholic church agrees with biological evolution), and the fact that early Christians have already agreed with other facts about science. Can Moses show that it’s better to be out of touch with reality for evangelizing? If so, perhaps he should start preaching that the Earth is in the center of the universe.


Funny how playhavock capitalized Church. The Church, capitalized, is all those people who are born again Christians. I personally believe only a very small percentage of Catholics are born again. The Catholic church has been making itself more acceptable to the world for centuries. If they have accepted the belief that man evolved from slime and was not created by God that just makes it all the more clear that they are not part of the true Church.

Here playhavock assumes that reality is as he imagines it and not as I imagine it. Why is that? Apparently he has so much faith in science that he believes it really is reality. What advantage would there be to be a golf teacher to teach all your students that the higher score is better? This would be a false teaching, and yet the students, especially the bad golfers, would feel better about themselves. Everyone would want this teacher as their instructor. Obviously there are advantages to being a false teacher.

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playhavock
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Rebutal Two

Post #5

Post by playhavock »

To readdress Moses's original premises because he calls upon them in his rebuttal here again are his first three, his additional commentary on them, and my rebuttal to his responses.

(Bold show his premises below for #1, #2, #3)

#1: LIFE NEEDS PURPOSE.

Moses Yoder
Here playhavock jumps to a conclusion; he assumes I consider my beliefs to be facts. This is far from the truth. I was simply stating the common beliefs that I and other Christians hold. I do not consider any of these beliefs to be facts and I am well aware they are not necessarily the correct view.
Your premise that life needs a purpose is supported by the statements you made, by admitting that you believe them, rather than know them to be true, you dismantle your own premise, on a logical level - we can no longer be sure that the premise is true because the supports are not necessarily true, thus we must by logics standards discard the premise. Because they are not facts - this was my point - we must discard the premise itself, and you agree they are not facts. Therefore, we should discard your premise.

Even if we were to grant this premise, how does life having purpose give any good reason to deny biological evolution? Moses suggests that biological evolution means that we have no purpose, but what’s to stop you from making your own?

playhavock
Appeal to consequence - that man has no purpose if it is random.
Moses Yoder
If man’s existence is an accident, please explain how we can have come into existence for a reason.
It is an informal fallacy due to the suggestion you have that we should not think that it is true simply because (X) - in this case, the fact of the matter might well be that we have no objective purpose, but just because this (might be) the case we cannot then conclude that biological evolution is not true.

An appeal to consequences might be positive or negative in nature, just because we like or do not like something does not make it true or false.

So if life needs purpose and there is none you make your own, it’s not objective, but again who says that life’s purpose has to objective or be what Moses suggests? Given that even if we granted this premise we still can conclude some other purpose subjectively speaking, this premise fails to support its burden of the conclusion that Moses wants to draw.


#2: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IN SIX 24 HOUR DAYS.

The second premise has plenty of theological issues as well as bad science - Moses has this to say on the matter of science:
Science has no part in faith. I will not be summoning science.
This in response to me asking him to defend his statements about the world (something science studies) - so for Moses bad science or no science simply does not matter.

Moses
Are you suggesting that the period of time which comprises 24 hours did not exist until clocks were invented around the 16th century BC (Wikipedia)? If not, when did it begin to exist? I suggest it has always existed. Just because we did not measure it does not mean it didn’t exist. 24 hours is the same length of “time� before the earth existed as it is now.

The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least. I believe the Bible was inspired by God and is God’s word to man; the beliefs and interpretation of the writer have nothing to do with what it means.
The idea of "The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least." would if granted destroy all of the Bible, as it is all written and communicated by Jewish people, the disciples are Jewish [except for Luke], Jesus was (supposedly if he existed) Jewish, and so on. To say that how they see the matters and how the writer sees it is the paramount of bad theology as it would dismantle the entire Christian Bible.

Let me address the idea of time. Time here is our measurement of the earth around sun and its rotation on its own axis rather than the fourth-dimensional time just to clarify the matter. Since we are talking about measurement of our sun, if we have no Earth and no Sun, we have no measurement possible to make days our hours out of, now perhaps what Moses is saying that even without the Earth it is still what we would call 24 hours that passed. Of course how we can have a 'evening' and 'morning' when there is no Earth or Sun is unknown - but Moses is saying, I gather, that the words together should be taken to mean that 24 Earth hours have passed even though there is not yet an Earth or Sun, because according to Moses we should take yôm to be HIS view, and not the other possible view of yôm that is "A period of time".

Moses
The simplest and most logical conclusion is that the evening ran from noon to midnight, the morning from midnight to noon, and that was the first day.
Your own argument contradicts not only the actual dictionary definition of evening (dusk), which generally goes from about 4:30 PM to about 7:00 pm and morning (dawn), which typically goes from about 4:00 AM to about 6:30 AM, but also ignores the fact that Yom is used, on multiple occasions, to refer to a 'period of time' either longer or shorter than a 24 hour day.

Moses
Note what the Bible says “evening and morning� and how playhavock changes it (another redirect) “evening to a morning�. The Bible says the evening and the morning were the first day. How is this to be interpreted? Was there a 1 billion year morning then a one billion year evening and that was the first 2 billion year day? How is that logical? It is pure guess work. The simplest and most logical conclusion is that the evening ran from noon to midnight, the morning from midnight to noon, and that was the first day. That is the logical literal translation.
Oh, I added a single word and changed everything, without Tu Quoqueing and saying that Bible translators do this all the time (they do) I'll just state that Moses is using nothing more than pure faith to believe what he does, and as such I dismiss it.

Moses
Please provide acceptable proof that the world took longer than 6 days to form. Remember I need to be able to sense it with all 5 senses in order to accept it as fact. As an alternative, explain to me how science can know for certain what happened without having been there.
I will be dealing with age of the Earth and universe with citations from science. If Moses does not understand how science can know for certain what happened then he is making an appeal to ignorance and personal incredulity and I would invite him to research the philosophy of science to better understand it, as of now he is making a statement that is without any fact to back it up, and additionally placing his own idea of how to decide what is true and false as a barrier to any evidence I might bring to the table, I will be dismissing his five senses issue latter in the rebuttal.


#3 TO AGREE THAT MAN EVOLVED FROM SLIME INDICATES A LACK OF FAITH

And here we have the final premise that is both bad science, and potentially bad theology - why does it indicate a lack of faith? Because as Moses tells us:
Apparently you must also give up the church doctrine, or at least I would have to in my church.
so we can conclude that Moses believes what he does based upon his church’s teaching, not due to science, and perhaps not even due to what the Bible says, but what man has said (from the pulpit).

Now, if we granted this premise, and there are no good reasons to, denying evolution would still not be a conclusion you could draw, because evolution has nothing to do with coming from the primordial ooze (Moses likes to call it slime).
The only premise that Moses has made that stands any hope of giving Christians a good reason to deny biological evolution would then seem to be #2 - only because the limited amount of time, however, could not a Christian also believe that evolution took place along with the Biblical account?

There seems to be no good reason for a Christian to deny biological evolution even if we granted all 3 of Moses's premises, as if one has faith, one could simply believe that God made evolution happen AS WELL as the biblical account, and not even appeal to science to believe this, how is that lessening their faith, in fact, they have more faith now in more things than before! However, I see no reason to grant any of the premises as all three have failed the test of logic to show any coherent support for them.

Now that is out of the way, let me turn to points Moses said to show how Moses continues to use bad science and bad theology. My third point that it is bad for evangelizing also briefly will come into play.


--


Moses Yoder

In the interest of form, I am not specifically addressing all the points in Playhavock’s opening since essentially they are all addressed in his rebuttal. If there are points he wishes me to address he will have to raise them.
I would like you to address my points via answering the questions:
1: Is denying biological evolution scientifically sound?
2: Do you acknowledge that biological evolution is a different field than abiogenesis?
3: Please correct me if I am getting this wrong - you seem to be suggesting that you believe that biological evolution says we came from primordial ooze (you call it slime)?
4: You also seem to suggest two problems with biological evolution you have: One is that you cannot accept that humans came from primates (?) and the other being that all animals (and plants/insects etc.) all come from something natural (although what we came from is not handled by biological evolution theorem it is handled by abiogenesis theories)?

That is all I wish clarified for the opening to make sure that I am not attacking strawmen, thank you for the clarification in advance.

--

Moses Yoder
I don’t normally read extremely verbose posts. One reason is that I lose interest. Another reason is that my time is valuable. I have a number of people depending on me to share my time with them, and Debating Christianity is not a priority. I prefer to communicate using poignant allegories, or as they call them in the Bible, parables. I find this gets my point across efficiently and clearly plus it is more interesting to read. This is an extremely effective method of communication and a book has been written about it called “The Language of Love� which is designed to help communication in marriage but is effective in all cases. In this case however I actually read the whole post and am afraid the nature of the debate will make it extremely dreary. I would bet money that the only people who will actually read the whole thing are playhavock and myself.
Not relevant to the debate at hand, I asked Moses in pm if he wished to drop the debate due to lack of time and he declined, this I dismiss the statement of not having enough time as irrelevant here. That Moses loses interest is his emotional problem and not relevent to the debate.

It is his choice to use parables (analogies) or not, and it is my duty to indicate if they are erroneous.

Moses
For the purpose of this discussion, I will only consider facts to be those things which I can confirm with all five of my senses.
playhavock
Here we see the first of bad science. The field of science begins with our five senses , but does not end there. Often the apologist for Christianity will accuse a skeptic when they ask why we cannot find God with our five senses that they have missed the point, there is the "internal" sense - I am not myself sure about such a sense, but there are other ways to know if things are true, mainly in science, we have mathematics for one such example - we can and do apply mathematics to find out the orbit of planets is not circular but elliptical, and this fact allows us to send machines all the way to Mars without missing.

So I have no reason to agree with Moses here on using only our five senses to find things. If that was the case, he could not invoke God, as God itself is said to be somewhere in the missing sense. Additionally, history must be verified with more than just observation - we must apply research, something that we are using our eyes for, granted, but still is more than just our eyes; we are using our brain to make use of our five senses, something that might be implied by Moses here, but I cannot be sure.
Moses Yoder
Here we have the first re-direct which comes from a misunderstanding, apparently, of the English language. In my clarification of what I accept to be facts playhavock asks if we do not use something other than our five senses to “find� God! I myself was not aware that God had been found; please post documentation of such.
A re-direct would be a valid objection if this is what I had done. What we see here is Moses responding to the fact that using only the five senses as bad science, and having to discard history as well, rather than rebut, Moses instead focuses only on the God part, and thus misses the other points, it is strange to note that since Moses holds that the CB is totally true and inerrant that no one has found God, how then does he explain the bible passages that promises "Seek and ye shall find"?

If no one has found God and as far as I am aware no one has with the five senses, then how can the passage be totally true: answer it cannot be, so Moses's own logic yields a negative result in this case.

Moses Yoder
I myself do not accept the existence of God to be a fact. I accept the existence of God by faith.
I accept nothing on faith if I can avoid doing so, I require facts to think that things are true, but this shows again that his premises are not supported by facts, but by his personal options and conjectures.

Moses Yoder
He then goes on to talk about mathematics, saying it must be fact because we can calculate a trajectory using math. I am here to say there is not one single fact in the field of math.
What sources do you have to show that mathematics is not a fact? This is an extraordinary claim to make, the ordinary claim of being able to use it as factual does not require support, no shifting of burden here, if you wish to say that mathematics does not yield facts you must show this to be the case.

Moses Yoder
Mathematics consists entirely of symbols which we have assigned values to. It exists only in our imagination.
This is sort of correct. The number "1" is not a real object in the universe (as far as I know) it is a construct of our brain to mean (typically) a single object say a rock, when we have two rocks we then assign a symbol "2" to this to identify it as such. This does not mean that 1 + 2 is not 3, because we find that if we pile one rock next to two rocks, we get three rocks. We could have assigned ~ to mean one rock and $ to mean two rocks and & to mean three rocks and then you would have ~ plus $ equals & the meaning is the same, and it still works.

Moses Yoder
I challenge playhavock to post a fact from the field of mathematics.
1+2=3

Moses Yoder
He also makes that the claim that a planet’s orbit is elliptical is a fact. In my opening statement I simply post the information that I will not be accepting that as fact.
Yes, I am aware that you will only accept facts that you can verify with your five senses was part of your opening, but I dismiss this as your problem, not mine. Logic does not allow proponents engaged in a debate to make up the rules as they see fit to tell the other side that (X) type of evidence does not count.
In this case, you limit yourself to the main five senses (there are others) and then expect me to comply by proving to you things within the narrow realm you have chosen. You could yourself use your eyes to read some scientific books, webpages, blogs, studies and so on that inform you of such matters, if you wanted to rebuttal my statement as fact you would have to provide scientific evidence to show that it is not.

If you wanted me to provide sources for the fact in question I would do so, but it seems moot to do so when you will not accept it if it is not personally verifiable by you. I suppose this means you do not believe in atoms, molecules, electrons, etc., - all because we require instrumentaion to see them - so you are not using your eye, your using a device, perhaps the workings of your hard drive are similarly a mystery to you.

This stance is not functional in the debate setting, thus I dismiss your position as illogical, in the end I cannot change your mind on this being bad science and a pour way to understand our world, our solar system or the universe - if you wish to continue to use this bad method of accepting facts it is your choice. I will for the readers benefit continue to show why this is poor reasoning on your part.
You cannot observe the elliptical orbits of planets, (from our vantage point) thus you must perform complex mathematics to find out if this is the case - to prove the point we have sent robotic rovers to Mars - if our math was off (even a little) we would have missed the planet.

If you wish to further deny the facts of science on planets having elliptical orbits without giving any scientific reason to do so, then I declare my first point on "Bad Science" being won, hands down, Moses Yoder simply does not want to accept what science can tell us.

What other science must be discarded if we were to apply Moses's idea? All of our knowledge about our internal organs - sure you can see them, but recall Moses said he must see them - does that mean first hand or will pictures do? Moses is presenting us with quite an unreasonable form of skepticism here, yet selectively picks what he wants to believe in: special pleading.

I think this reflects upon Moses' overall distrust of science when it comes to biological evolution - he must question all things in science, and I think he realizes this, so he questions the whole system, but only when it serves his idea that humans did not come from primates, although he insists this also means we came from primordial ooze, even though the theory of evolution says nothing about our origins at all.


Moses Yoder
If someone can show it to me in such a way that I can see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, and hear it, I will accept it as a fact. The same idea applies to playhavock; I do not yet accept his existence as fact.
There is reasonable skepticism and then there is unreasonable skepticism - here is a fine example of totally unreasonable skepticism - Moses does not accept that I exist - well - let me clarify - he does not accept "playhavock" - and he should not for that is nothing more than an avatar name that I created and my real name and identify is something that I do not care to share with Moses or the internet in general, this is my personal choice, still it is quote unreasonable to utter this, as the conclusion that we could draw would be that Moses does not believe I exist - that is, the person typing this.

Such absurd statements must be discarded. Moses is reaching here, very hard, to disbelieve anything and everything that does not fit into his very narrow world view.

To agree with Moses you now must agree that you cannot accept that I exist, if you do this, then you are not in reality.

Perhaps I suggest then Moses's way of looking at the world is not in line with reality and how we know things to be true or false. This is bad science, and bad logic.

This is also a possible red herring as we go off to have to prove my existence to Moses we are missing the point - all of this is bad science, all of it is pour logic to think that a person is not real.

Moses Yoder
Playhavock makes the claim that this is bad science. I say which is bad science? Accepting as fact the idea that men evolved from slime when it cannot possibly be proven, or to accept as fact only that which we can verify?
The bad science part I am referring to is linking biological evolution with abiogenesis.

To answer what Abiogenesis is: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Your stance is wrong - you believe (incorrectly) that acceptance of biological evolution equals accepting one theory of abiogenesis, it does not. Acceptance of Biological Evolution means you accept what science has to say on the issue of evolution, the slow process of change, natural selection, and all that goes with it.

We do not know if we came from the primordial ooze, this is just one theory of abiogenesis, there are other theories in that field that are equally possible as origins - we do not know what one has yet to accept as fact, thus we do not accept any of them as fact because it would be bad science to do so.

We do accept biological evolution as fact because it is verified - and that means humans came from primates.

Are there any good scientific reasons to deny biological evolution: No.

What theological reason is there to deny biological evolution? Moses' defense here is to insist that the CB (all of it) be taken literally, but why? What is the theological reasoning of that stance? How does he know to take (Genesis) literally rather than artistically like a poem? Other than just insisting this is so, or pointing that he would have to deny his church's teaching (that could also be in error) what justification is given for this stance?

Finally, this seems clearly to harm evangelism as Christians as backwards people who deny reality in favor of faith, by saying the facts of science are not facts, they prevent people who would otherwise join their ranks. Moses's only counter to this is that it is okay to be strange, without justifying or showing how this is helpful to evangelistic endeavors, does denying reality of science really help get people into the faith, or does it cause unnecessary stumbling blocks for people who would otherwise join in.


Moses
I have no problem when science says evolution is a fact. I can sense evolution around me with all of my senses. The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution. Can a Christian accept this claim by science? I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime. It is however possible to reject the Bible as God's word and still be a Christian.
playhavock
This is akin to saying that one has no problem with science saying gravity is a fact, but that one has an issue with gravity because then it prevents Muhammad from ascending to heaven in the Koran. If one is to accept evolution as fact, one cannot accept part of it and not the bit one does not like - to do so is what is called "cherry picking" - a logical fallacy, and of course, bad science.
Moses
I posted two different definitions of evolution and biological evolution. Please post a definition of evolution from a renowned dictionary and explain to me in plain English what parts I don’t accept as fact.
Your own definitions from earlier will do just fine, you have already told us that you both accept it and do not accept it. You have clearly contradicted yourself either you do, or do not accept this as being a fact:

Moses
The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution.
I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime.
It seems clear that you cannot accept evolution, and that you do not understand what evolution is, your own definitions show that evolution says nothing about the "slime" (primordial ooze).

You disregard the parts of biological evolution you do not want to be true, I assume this means you do not believe humans came from primates and that other animals (and plants/insects etc.) have changed over time, or perhaps it is only the humans that you cannot believe evolved. Whatever the case, you have already failed to hold to the dictionary definitions you provided and deny evolution as fact regardless of what the definitions are.

We see again what happens when someone holds to something as fact that is not fact; believing the world is made in 6 days brings about an inability to believe in evolution, sort of - you must perform the logical fallacy of cherry picking.

A whole list of abiogenesis is found on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

We can see here there is not just the soup theory but a wide range of other theories that are being looked at as possibilities.

So, where does Moses’ idea that biological evolution = "acceptance that we came from slime"

Who knows, perhaps his church, for I see nothing in science that says this is the case.

Moses Yoder
Why is “biological evolution� or “evolution� assumed to include the idea that man evolved from slime? It means no such thing as you can see by the definitions I posted. I know most people assumed it does mean man evolved from slime, which is part of the reason why I agreed to debate this with you.
I do not know why some people assume that biological evolution and/or evolution must mean the origin is primordial ooze.

People might indeed assume this to be the case, but they are wrong to assume this, it shows they do not understand what evolution IS and what it is NOT.

It does not tell us where we came from - it says nothing on the matter at all, that field is abiogenesis, and the field of abiogenesis has many possible theories on where (all) life came from.

Let me clarify the matter even further, Humans are primates.

Humans are primates of the family Hominidae:
The earliest Homo habilis evolved around 2.3 million years ago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution)

Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago.
(http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/in ... -evolution)

6 days Moses says the earth was formed, and the universe as well.

This is again, bad science, here are some pages I found to support my case on this:

How planets form: http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoverie ... anets-form

Age of the earth:
(about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

Age of the universe:
From 12 to 14 billion years old.
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

Where are Moses facts? He has zero to support his idea that our world was made in 6 days, nor has he shown us why we should think the universe was made in 6 days. Moses resorts not to facts, but to his faith for answers.

playhavock
I am not sure what Moses means by rejecting the Bible as God's word - is Moses suggesting the view that the Christian Bible (CB from now on) be taken to be written by God, inspired by God, a bit of both? The demand that the CB be inerrant is made by some Christians, but not all. Is Moses requiring us to view it as inerrant? I'm simply unsure here. I would like Moses to clarify this issue for me and the readers so I can be sure that I understand.
Moses Yoder
If there is a God and He created man, logically He would have to have a reason for doing so and logically He would have to communicate that idea to man. It would not be just to do otherwise. I believe that is exactly what happened. I believe the Bible was written by men who were inspired by God to do so. If it had one error in it then one would have to assume it has perhaps many errors, thus I believe it to be inerrant. I know there are born again Christians who do not believe as I do. When I say someone has rejected the Bible as God’s word I mean exactly that; they no longer accept the idea that the Bible is God’s communiqué to man (in any form).
Thank you for the clarification. If there is a single error that does not necessarily mean there are many errors. If I understand you correctly here, one who says the CB is not inspired by God is rejecting the idea that God communicated via it at all, but such a person could still be a Christian, in theory.

I do not wish to debate inerrancy of the CB at this time, although this explains why Moses believes what he does. We shall see if his insistence on the CB being without error helps or hinders him in this debate, I suspect he will encounter problems with this, as there are writings of the CB that use "unicorn" and "giants".
Also there are other passages that if taken literally pose serious problems for Moses proving he is a real Christian.

Numbers 23: 22: God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Conclusion: Unicorns must exist if we take this literally, and recall Moses has said that what the people of the time think and/or believe is not relevant, so we must take this at face value.

Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Conclusion: Moses should be able to drink any deadly thing, lay hands on sick and have them recover, and even hold serpents, if he cannot he is not a true Christian.

(http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/num/23.html)
(http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mk/16.html)

However, deeper research would allow us to understand the people who wrote it might be referring to a different type of animal that does exist, and in the latter case referring to very tall people. Is it still literal once you change the word from unicorn to some other animal - if it was perfect as written, then it should still read unicorn - or does our knowledge about the time and people and what they meant allow us to change the words as written?

Moses told us it matters not what the people of the time believed or what they thought, so we must stay with unicorn.

What about the ability to drink any poison, surely Moses will say this is nothing but "out of context" but the context is clear - these are signs that should accompany Christians. Perhaps he will suggest that it only was for the early Christians, but the passages never say this. Where is the literal interpretation in such matters.

I submit that Moses will make excuses rather than admit that some biblical passages are not meant to be taken literally, and perhaps some passages such as drinking any poisonous thing are simply in error. Unless he can produce Christians who can demonstrate ability to drink any poisons thing and we could form a scientific study on the matter, something that would demonstrate a reason scientifically to believe the Bible is correct about such matters.

However, I suspect Moses will offer me and the readers nothing but excuses or dodges on this matter.


Moses
First of all, I use slime as a derogatory term. Funny how you say I did not use the correct term but knew exactly what I meant. I will not be gracing the idea that man evolved from slime with the lovely term “primordial ooze�.
This is the logical fallacy of emotional bias and nothing more, so this objection is discarded.

Moses
Also, please make up your mind. Above where I said I do not believe man became due to evolution you said I had to accept all of evolution. Here you say that is abiogenesis, different from evolution. Please explain. I accept evolution as fact. I do not accept as fact the idea that man evolved from slime, or came into existence by evolving from any other object.
Then you do not accept biological evolution.

First and foremost, again, abiogenesis is a separate field of study that has many theories of where all life could have come from. (Sightings provided previously in the debate)

Second, you say "other object" rather than other animals, the theory of biological evolution does not say we humans or for that matter any animals have come from objects but from other animals, if you deny that humans (and other life) have evolved in this way, then you continue to deny biological evolution.

Sightings for what humans are has been provided previously for this, and there is simply no excuse for Moses not to have some fact to support his premises and rebuttals, as such, I dismiss them as they have zero scientific proof to back them up.

Other objections discarded:

Moses Yoder
I erred here in not stating that it is only an opinion I hold that if religion dies out crime will run rampant.
Very well, since it is not fact we must discard it as being irrelevant to the debate at hand.

Moses Yoder
I do not see how it can logically be otherwise.
This is known as the appeal to personal incredulity. So now we have to reasons to discard your opinion as it is not supported by fact, it is just your own belief based on a logical fallacy.

Moses Yoder
On Friday January 25...
Personal account is irrelevent to the topic, your own moral/ethical code are simply not relevant here.

Moses Yoder
So what reason does an atheist have to be a person of integrity?
An intriguing question, but not relevant to the topic at hand, this would fall into a moral talk and/or debate. We are debating if Christians should deny Biological Evolution, so this is not relevant.

Moses
I have read the entire Bible through twice, and Genesis more often than that. I have never seen that diagram anywhere in the Bible. Please provide a reference where I may find it. Yes, I am suggesting all of the Bible be taken literally.
For this you have to understand and care about what the people of the time wrote. The diagram is a drawing BASED ON the words the CB provides.


(Genesis 1:6-8), where God made the “expanse� or the “firmament.� The Hebrew word for this is raqia (pronounced ra-KEE-ah). Biblical scholars understand the raqia to be a solid dome-like structure. It separates the water into two parts, so that there is water above the raqia and water below it (v. 7). The waters above are kept at bay so the world can become inhabitable. On the third day (vv. 9-10), the water below the raqia is “gathered to one place� to form the sea and allow the dry land to appear.


(http://biologos.org/blog/the-firmament- ... -the-point)

Moses
Please provide evidence that the New King James version does not accurately interpret the original manuscript. As an alternative, if you have a degree in the Biblical languages I will accept your own interpretation. If you claim to have a degree, please provide documentation. If you do not have a degree and furnish your own interpretation I will continue to use the New King James version.
Sure, here are a few reasons why we should not trust the King James Version let alone the New King James version in bold are the quotes from the webpages and the source at the bottom, showing that the KJV (or New) has contained errors in it. If you cannot show that your current version of NKJV does not have these errors or others in it then it is you who lack any proof that we should accept the NKJV as a good translation of the words in question.

Genesis 1:2
KJV: "And the earth was without form, and void; . . . "
Correction: "And the earth became without form, and void; . . . "
Comments: The word translated "was" is hayah (Hebrew: ×”×™×”, Strong's Concordance Number #H1961) and denotes a condition different than a former condition, as in Genesis 19:26.


(http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/bible-errors.html)

Contrary to what some in the KJV camp believe, the 1611 KJV was not without errors. In fact, it took several subsequent editions to arrive at the version that is in use today. For instance, in the 1611 edition, Matthew 26:36 said, “Then cometh Judas�. Today, the KJV renders that verse as “Then cometh Jesus.� This is a rather significant difference. The first edition also contained the Apocryphal books, which were removed in subsequent editions. The 1613 edition inadvertently left the word “not� out of the seventh commandment, thereby encouraging people to commit adultery.

(http://www.contenderministries.org/bibl ... debate.php)

Sources
The translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources, even those that – like the Codex Bezae – would have been readily available to them.[121] In addition to all previous English versions, including the Douay–Rheims Bible, they also consulted contemporary vernacular translations in Spanish, French, Italian and German. They also made wide and eclectic use of all printed editions in the original languages then available, including the ancient Syriac New Testament printed with an interlinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp Polyglot of 1573.[122]


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized ... es_Version)

Even a webpage that seems to suggest the KJV is a good translation says that the NEW King James is a bad version!

The NKJV consistently uses terms that don't mean the same as in the King James Bible.
2 Cor. 2:17 KJV "For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God"
2 Cor. 2:17 NKJV "peddling the word of God" (like the NIV, NASV and RSV)"


(http://www.chick.com/ask/articles/nkjv.asp)

Moses
I showed you why I do not believe in evolution with evidence from the Bible. Now you say I am clinging to traditional doctrine. This proves my point; if you believe that man evolved from slime you cannot believe the Bible. Apparently you must also give up the church doctrine, or at least I would have to in my church. How would that make you less popular in the world? You deny the Bible and church doctrine and accept the ways of the world; now you are a friend of the world and thus an enemy of Christ. How could it be otherwise?
He is clinging to this doctrine of his church, even though it conflicts with reality it matters not. He continues to link Biological Evolution with a SINGLE THEORY from Abiogenesis.

This is bad theology because it decides that one church is right and one idea from that church about the Bible is right - without looking into the matter further. We see not a reasoned search for other possibilities but a "I am right" sort of attitude.

You might have to give up the church you go to because they are wrong.

Accepting the "ways of the world" would I think speak to morals and ethics, not to science, but perhaps its everything the "world" says. I am not sure, but if this is what Moses thinks, then we see fundamentalism at its worst here.

Moses
Here, as near as I can determine, it says man was created by God. Where does the Bible say “the sun revolves around the earth�? Please provide a reference. Once you do, I will either believe the sun revolves around the earth or I will not be a Christian. Do you understand the difference between these two statements? “The sun revolves around the earth� and “man was created by God.� If you believe man evolved from slime, obviously you cannot believe he was created by God.
I shall make my only retraction thus far, the Catholic Church believed the Sun moved around the Earth and also believed the Earth was the center of the solar system, it is my understanding this is very loosely based on some passages of the Bible that no current Catholic or Protestant would agree with today, so even if I sight them as reference you would disagree with them, as you should for it does not say it, it might suggest it to some however. At the time the teaching of the church was something that one was not meant to question, now we are free to question all teachings of any church we might attend.

My point was to try to show that just because a church says something is true, does not make it true. If reality conflicts with what the church says, then you must question that church. If you believe that man coming from primordial ooze means is true and thus you could not be a Christian because you view the Bible to say that man came from God, that is a conclusion you can draw, but Christians who accept what science has to say on the matter of biological evolution of course, do not draw this conclusion, so perhaps it is your way of thinking that is in error and should be discarded. You do not have to "throw out the baby with the bath water" in this case.

Moses
I accept biological evolution of the entire universe.
There is a theory regarding that the universe has evolved, that is to say it has changed slowly over time, but it is not biological because the universe is not alive.

Moses
I do not believe humans evolved from slime because the Bible says differently.
Moses
I do not believe animals evolved from slime because the Bible says otherwise.
Faith in your ideas, not supported by any facts, not supported by anything other than one idea of how Genesis should be viewed, as such, I discard these objections as bad theology and certainly as bad science.

Moses
I live in the corn capital of the world right next to companies such as Monsano and Pioneer. I have seen the evolution of corn (assisted by man) with my own eyes. It’s funny that playhavock accuses me of idolatry considering the fact that those people who accept man’s evolution from apes obviously no longer accept the Bible as God’s word. They have arranged their beliefs to be more palatable to the world by denying the power of God and accepting the science of the world.
An appeal to personal story. We should not, I repeat NOT believe in evolution simply because we see it - that’s not enough for science. But who cares about science when you have your Mythology of the Christian Bible!

In Moses's world science simply does not matter, how Moses can use the computer without "Accepting the science of the world" is a question I would LOVE for him to answer, but it is not relevant to the debate at hand.

What we see here is what is truly at stake for Moses and those like him - it is an all or none system either God's word is perfect or do not be a Christian, either accept what the Christian Bible says or do not be a Christian, either believe what the church tells you or you are not a Christian, and so on. It is thinking like this that allows people to be indoctrinated into cults, it is thinking like this that will leave people like Moses further and further behind as the rest of us accept science and move forward with understanding and technologies.

This will not stop him of course, he is free to accept this, and perhaps he feels he must do so to be a "friend" of Christ. Perhaps, though, I suggest without any insult intended that Moses use the brain he believes Christ/God gave him to study science, as it has been said by some "To understand science is to know the mind of God."

Moses
Science has no part in faith. I will not be summoning science.
1: It is bad science.
I declare a win on this premise as of now.

2: It is bad theology.

I think all of my rebutals to Moses show why I've won this point.

Moses
Funny how playhavock capitalized Church. The Church, capitalized, is all those people who are born again Christians. I personally believe only a very small percentage of Catholics are born again. The Catholic church has been making itself more acceptable to the world for centuries. If they have accepted the belief that man evolved from slime and was not created by God that just makes it all the more clear that they are not part of the true Church.
3: It is bad for evangelism.

I would tentatively say I've almost won this point, uttering that a "very" small percentage of Catholics are born again (where does he get this number from, how do we decide what % of Catholics or Christians are born again?) is a very large insult to them, and will not make them very eager to come to protestant side of things.

Moses
Here playhavock assumes that reality is as he imagines it and not as I imagine it. Why is that? Apparently he has so much faith in science that he believes it really is reality.
Is faith a good or bad thing? If faith is a good thing I should have more of it. If this is the case it is good that I have faith in science equal or more faith then Moses has in God.

If faith is a bad thing then neither I nor Moses should have faith in God or in science.

Of course this is nothing more than a strawman. I do not have faith in science. I can know science is true due to the results it produces. It is reality, and Moses wants the reader and me to believe it is not. I will not do this, and I implore the reader to not deny science in favor of what Moses thinks reality is.

Moses
What advantage would there be to be a golf teacher to teach all your students that the higher score is better? This would be a false teaching, and yet the students, especially the bad golfers, would feel better about themselves. Everyone would want this teacher as their instructor. Obviously there are advantages to being a false teacher.
Poisoning of the well fallacy. False analogy fallacy.

Let me interject this nugget of observation on his statements, using Moses's own ideas in my wording:

"Golf is not in the Christian Bible, so it cannot be true at all, if you believe in Golf that is not in the Bible you are of this world and not a friend of Christ."


Conclusion

I've won point 1, no contest here: Moses has no science to back any of his ideas.

I've won point 2 thoughout this rebutal, perhaps totally when Moses said "The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least." as that idea dismantles all Christian theology by itself.

I've tentatively won point 3, although perhaps good evangelism to Moses is not what I would see it as. Still, I see nothing to show that anything Moses has said could be good for evangelism.

Moses has failed all three of his points:

Life does not necessarily need purpose, and even if it does it could be made by humans.

The Christian Bible's use of the word Yom can be taken to mean period of time, additional problems also arise in taking the whole of the CB literally.
And finally Moses has failed to show why acceptance of science facts shows one lacks faith, in fact he accused me of having faith in science.

We must conclude that there are no good reasons for the Christian to deny biological evolution.

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Moses Yoder
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Post #6

Post by Moses Yoder »

This is part one of 2 parts; the post was too long to fit in one response.

This will be my final response in this debate. Plyhavock will be free to respond then we will shut it down. I have gone through a job change recently and find my life to be changing considerably. After getting downsized I had limited web access and had to borrow my wife’s computer or use one at the library to post anything. Since then I have purchased my own notebook computer, a very nice one from Newegg with Windows 8 which I am loving. We had a Virgin Mobile USB device for internet which limited our access to one computer and half the time had no access and ended up being incompatible with my new computer. This led to doing some research and we are installing Frontier internet which works through the phone line, a 6 MBPS speed which should be plenty, should be hooked up on Tuesday. If all goes well I will be more of a presence on here again but as mentioned my life is changing and there are other things I want to do, especially in the warm weather.
playhavock wrote: To readdress Moses's original premises because he calls upon them in his rebuttal here again are his first three, his additional commentary on them, and my rebuttal to his responses.

(Bold show his premises below for #1, #2, #3)

#1: LIFE NEEDS PURPOSE.

Moses Yoder
Here playhavock jumps to a conclusion; he assumes I consider my beliefs to be facts. This is far from the truth. I was simply stating the common beliefs that I and other Christians hold. I do not consider any of these beliefs to be facts and I am well aware they are not necessarily the correct view.
Your premise that life needs a purpose is supported by the statements you made, by admitting that you believe them, rather than know them to be true, you dismantle your own premise, on a logical level - we can no longer be sure that the premise is true because the supports are not necessarily true, thus we must by logics standards discard the premise. Because they are not facts - this was my point - we must discard the premise itself, and you agree they are not facts. Therefore, we should discard your premise.

What do you know to be true? Do you know your partner is faithful to you? No. Do you know politicians are doing the best they can to make things better for you? No. Both scenarios might be true, but we have no way of knowing. I assume those things are true which I can verify with my physical senses, although even those can be fooled. I believe it is a fact that the sun is shining right now at about 4:30 pm on 5/2/13 in Constantine Michigan. I do not have enough education to prove that to someone. If we discard all things that we do not know to be facts, we must discard everything not verified by our physical senses. I know I cannot prove that the theory of biological evolution should not be condoned by Christians; all I can do is debate it. If we must discard everything not known to be a fact, we must discard all of science.
playhavock wrote:

Even if we were to grant this premise, how does life having purpose give any good reason to deny biological evolution?

If I had to choose between purpose or no purpose, I would choose purpose. I am bi-polar and most bi-polars struggle with thoughts of suicide, ending their own life. Many succumb to this desire. If it were not for my beliefs, my religion if you will, I would have taken my own life in 2008. This relates specifically to the belief that I was made for a reason, which will unfold throughout my life. Here is a reason not to believe I am just here accidentally.
playhavock wrote:

Moses suggests that biological evolution means that we have no purpose, but what’s to stop you from making your own?

Yes, make your own purpose. Like Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wilkes Booth, or Adolf Hitler. Go ahead and make your own purpose. Who cares if it conflicts with my purpose? People should accomplish things together, similar to the human body. What if your arm suddenly decided its’ purpose was to be a foot?
playhavock wrote:

playhavock
Appeal to consequence - that man has no purpose if it is random.
Moses Yoder
If man’s existence is an accident, please explain how we can have come into existence for a reason.
It is an informal fallacy due to the suggestion you have that we should not think that it is true simply because (X) - in this case, the fact of the matter might well be that we have no objective purpose, but just because this (might be) the case we cannot then conclude that biological evolution is not true.

An appeal to consequences might be positive or negative in nature, just because we like or do not like something does not make it true or false.

You cannot prove to me that Christianity is a fact. You cannot prove to me that the theory of biological evolution is a fact. We weren’t there in the beginning in both cases. I must choose what I believe to be the best view for my life. One has purpose due to a higher power, the other one gives me the freedom to be my own god, to do anything I want. I choose obedience to a higher power, which gives me a purpose far greater than myself. You cannot prove the theory of biological evolution is fact, therefore I will never believe it.
playhavock wrote:

So if life needs purpose and there is none you make your own, it’s not objective, but again who says that life’s purpose has to objective or be what Moses suggests? Given that even if we granted this premise we still can conclude some other purpose subjectively speaking, this premise fails to support its burden of the conclusion that Moses wants to draw.

How are you doing? How do you like where you are at in life? I have some problems but overall I am very happy with my life. My beliefs seem to be working for me. I am quite sure they would work well for other people also. Once they stop working I will examine the adoption of biological evolution as a belief. I expect you to do the same for creation theory and Christianity.
playhavock wrote:


#2: ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT IN SIX 24 HOUR DAYS.

The second premise has plenty of theological issues as well as bad science - Moses has this to say on the matter of science:
Science has no part in faith. I will not be summoning science.
This in response to me asking him to defend his statements about the world (something science studies) - so for Moses bad science or no science simply does not matter.

Moses
Are you suggesting that the period of time which comprises 24 hours did not exist until clocks were invented around the 16th century BC (Wikipedia)? If not, when did it begin to exist? I suggest it has always existed. Just because we did not measure it does not mean it didn’t exist. 24 hours is the same length of “time� before the earth existed as it is now.

The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least. I believe the Bible was inspired by God and is God’s word to man; the beliefs and interpretation of the writer have nothing to do with what it means.
The idea of "The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least." would if granted destroy all of the Bible, as it is all written and communicated by Jewish people, the disciples are Jewish [except for Luke], Jesus was (supposedly if he existed) Jewish, and so on. To say that how they see the matters and how the writer sees it is the paramount of bad theology as it would dismantle the entire Christian Bible.

Your premise here simply does not account for the fundamentalist belief that the Bible as written was inspired by God. Most of the Bible was not entirely understood by the people who wrote it, and still is not today. Of course there are people who claim they understand it, for money. I believe Moses wrote Genesis and understood the universe to have been made in 6 twenty four hour days. I believe this is what God made him write. I do not believe Moses arrived at this conclusion on his own. The same with the entire rest of the Bible. The interpretation of the Bible by it’s Jewish writers has nothing whatsoever to do with what it actually means.
playhavock wrote:

Let me address the idea of time. Time here is our measurement of the earth around sun and its rotation on its own axis rather than the fourth-dimensional time just to clarify the matter. Since we are talking about measurement of our sun, if we have no Earth and no Sun, we have no measurement possible to make days our hours out of, now perhaps what Moses is saying that even without the Earth it is still what we would call 24 hours that passed. Of course how we can have a 'evening' and 'morning' when there is no Earth or Sun is unknown - but Moses is saying, I gather, that the words together should be taken to mean that 24 Earth hours have passed even though there is not yet an Earth or Sun, because according to Moses we should take yôm to be HIS view, and not the other possible view of yôm that is "A period of time".

Moses
The simplest and most logical conclusion is that the evening ran from noon to midnight, the morning from midnight to noon, and that was the first day.
Your own argument contradicts not only the actual dictionary definition of evening (dusk), which generally goes from about 4:30 PM to about 7:00 pm and morning (dawn), which typically goes from about 4:00 AM to about 6:30 AM, but also ignores the fact that Yom is used, on multiple occasions, to refer to a 'period of time' either longer or shorter than a 24 hour day.

I believe the use of the term Yom for day plus the words evening and morning are sufficient evidence together to mean a 24 hour period. I understand of course that you do not believe me. I cannot convince you otherwise. Do you think you can convince me otherwise?
playhavock wrote:

Moses
Please provide acceptable proof that the world took longer than 6 days to form. Remember I need to be able to sense it with all 5 senses in order to accept it as fact. As an alternative, explain to me how science can know for certain what happened without having been there.
I will be dealing with age of the Earth and universe with citations from science. If Moses does not understand how science can know for certain what happened then he is making an appeal to ignorance and personal incredulity and I would invite him to research the philosophy of science to better understand it, as of now he is making a statement that is without any fact to back it up, and additionally placing his own idea of how to decide what is true and false as a barrier to any evidence I might bring to the table, I will be dismissing his five senses issue latter in the rebuttal.


#3 TO AGREE THAT MAN EVOLVED FROM SLIME INDICATES A LACK OF FAITH

And here we have the final premise that is both bad science, and potentially bad theology - why does it indicate a lack of faith? Because as Moses tells us:
Apparently you must also give up the church doctrine, or at least I would have to in my church.
so we can conclude that Moses believes what he does based upon his church’s teaching, not due to science, and perhaps not even due to what the Bible says, but what man has said (from the pulpit).

Now, if we granted this premise, and there are no good reasons to, denying evolution would still not be a conclusion you could draw, because evolution has nothing to do with coming from the primordial ooze (Moses likes to call it slime).
The only premise that Moses has made that stands any hope of giving Christians a good reason to deny biological evolution would then seem to be #2 - only because the limited amount of time, however, could not a Christian also believe that evolution took place along with the Biblical account?

There seems to be no good reason for a Christian to deny biological evolution even if we granted all 3 of Moses's premises, as if one has faith, one could simply believe that God made evolution happen AS WELL as the biblical account, and not even appeal to science to believe this, how is that lessening their faith, in fact, they have more faith now in more things than before! However, I see no reason to grant any of the premises as all three have failed the test of logic to show any coherent support for them.

Now that is out of the way, let me turn to points Moses said to show how Moses continues to use bad science and bad theology. My third point that it is bad for evangelizing also briefly will come into play.

Let me just point out that a lot of scientists who believe that man exists due to evolution do not believe in God. There is also the fact that playhavock here stoops to impugning my integrity, suggesting that I believe a theory only because it leads to acceptance by a group of people. That is absolutely the furthest thing from the truth. I have stated repeatedly that if you prove the theory of evolution to me, I will deny God and begin worshipping myself.


--
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder

In the interest of form, I am not specifically addressing all the points in Playhavock’s opening since essentially they are all addressed in his rebuttal. If there are points he wishes me to address he will have to raise them.
I would like you to address my points via answering the questions:
1: Is denying biological evolution scientifically sound?

I do not believe it is scientifically sound to deny biological evolution. I simply happen to believe science is wrong in this case.
playhavock wrote:

2: Do you acknowledge that biological evolution is a different field than abiogenesis?

Yes.

playhavock wrote:
3: Please correct me if I am getting this wrong - you seem to be suggesting that you believe that biological evolution says we came from primordial ooze (you call it slime)?

No. I use slime as a derogatory association with evolution. I have no idea what the latest theory says we came from.
playhavock wrote:

4: You also seem to suggest two problems with biological evolution you have: One is that you cannot accept that humans came from primates (?) and the other being that all animals (and plants/insects etc.) all come from something natural (although what we came from is not handled by biological evolution theorem it is handled by abiogenesis theories)?
I addressed this in my opening statements. I believe biological evolution is a fact, but I do not believe humans evolved from anything other than humans. I believe we were created approximately in the form we are in now about 4000 years ago.
playhavock wrote:

That is all I wish clarified for the opening to make sure that I am not attacking strawmen, thank you for the clarification in advance.

--

Moses
For the purpose of this discussion, I will only consider facts to be those things which I can confirm with all five of my senses.
playhavock
Here we see the first of bad science. The field of science begins with our five senses , but does not end there. Often the apologist for Christianity will accuse a skeptic when they ask why we cannot find God with our five senses that they have missed the point, there is the "internal" sense - I am not myself sure about such a sense, but there are other ways to know if things are true, mainly in science, we have mathematics for one such example - we can and do apply mathematics to find out the orbit of planets is not circular but elliptical, and this fact allows us to send machines all the way to Mars without missing.

So I have no reason to agree with Moses here on using only our five senses to find things. If that was the case, he could not invoke God, as God itself is said to be somewhere in the missing sense. Additionally, history must be verified with more than just observation - we must apply research, something that we are using our eyes for, granted, but still is more than just our eyes; we are using our brain to make use of our five senses, something that might be implied by Moses here, but I cannot be sure.
Moses Yoder
Here we have the first re-direct which comes from a misunderstanding, apparently, of the English language. In my clarification of what I accept to be facts playhavock asks if we do not use something other than our five senses to “find� God! I myself was not aware that God had been found; please post documentation of such.
A re-direct would be a valid objection if this is what I had done. What we see here is Moses responding to the fact that using only the five senses as bad science, and having to discard history as well, rather than rebut, Moses instead focuses only on the God part, and thus misses the other points, it is strange to note that since Moses holds that the CB is totally true and inerrant that no one has found God, how then does he explain the bible passages that promises "Seek and ye shall find"?

If no one has found God and as far as I am aware no one has with the five senses, then how can the passage be totally true: answer it cannot be, so Moses's own logic yields a negative result in this case.

I believe in God. I do not know He exists. If I could see God, or reach out and touch Him, imagine how that would change the tone of this conversation. In fact, we would not be having this debate. I also find it interesting that playhavock invokes mathematics, a purely imaginary science filled with simple symbols we have assigned to phenomena in order to communicate with each other. Please note that in the passage “Seek and ye shall find� it does not say what will be found. I have sought God myself and have also found Him, although He wasn’t what I expected.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
I myself do not accept the existence of God to be a fact. I accept the existence of God by faith.
I accept nothing on faith if I can avoid doing so, I require facts to think that things are true, but this shows again that his premises are not supported by facts, but by his personal options and conjectures.

You have so much faith in science you actually have convinced yourself it is fact.

playhavock wrote:


Moses Yoder
He then goes on to talk about mathematics, saying it must be fact because we can calculate a trajectory using math. I am here to say there is not one single fact in the field of math.
What sources do you have to show that mathematics is not a fact? This is an extraordinary claim to make, the ordinary claim of being able to use it as factual does not require support, no shifting of burden here, if you wish to say that mathematics does not yield facts you must show this to be the case.

This is a no brainer. In 2nd grade or whatever we are told 2+2=4. Says who? What is 2? What is 4? These are simply symbols we have assigned to phenomena. The whole field of mathematics is made up in our imagination. What is 2a? a is a variable, and we can assign an infinite number of phenomena to both 2 and a. Therefore 2a has no meaning, other than in our imagination.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
Mathematics consists entirely of symbols which we have assigned values to. It exists only in our imagination.
This is sort of correct. The number "1" is not a real object in the universe (as far as I know) it is a construct of our brain to mean (typically) a single object say a rock, when we have two rocks we then assign a symbol "2" to this to identify it as such. This does not mean that 1 + 2 is not 3, because we find that if we pile one rock next to two rocks, we get three rocks. We could have assigned ~ to mean one rock and $ to mean two rocks and & to mean three rocks and then you would have ~ plus $ equals & the meaning is the same, and it still works.

The meaning is the same only if everyone is on the same wavelength or imagination, therefore it has no meaning. %^&*= 8. What does that mean?

playhavock wrote:
Moses Yoder
I challenge playhavock to post a fact from the field of mathematics.
1+2=3

What you have posted is simply not true. 1+2=4. I dare you to prove me wrong.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
He also makes that the claim that a planet’s orbit is elliptical is a fact. In my opening statement I simply post the information that I will not be accepting that as fact.
Yes, I am aware that you will only accept facts that you can verify with your five senses was part of your opening, but I dismiss this as your problem, not mine. Logic does not allow proponents engaged in a debate to make up the rules as they see fit to tell the other side that (X) type of evidence does not count.
In this case, you limit yourself to the main five senses (there are others) and then expect me to comply by proving to you things within the narrow realm you have chosen. You could yourself use your eyes to read some scientific books, webpages, blogs, studies and so on that inform you of such matters, if you wanted to rebuttal my statement as fact you would have to provide scientific evidence to show that it is not.

Do you think there is any chance your scientific evidence is wrong?
playhavock wrote:

If you wanted me to provide sources for the fact in question I would do so, but it seems moot to do so when you will not accept it if it is not personally verifiable by you. I suppose this means you do not believe in atoms, molecules, electrons, etc., - all because we require instrumentaion to see them - so you are not using your eye, your using a device, perhaps the workings of your hard drive are similarly a mystery to you.

I believe there are atoms and molecules. It has not been proven to me that the existence of an atom is a fact.
playhavock wrote:

This stance is not functional in the debate setting, thus I dismiss your position as illogical, in the end I cannot change your mind on this being bad science and a pour way to understand our world, our solar system or the universe - if you wish to continue to use this bad method of accepting facts it is your choice. I will for the readers benefit continue to show why this is poor reasoning on your part.
You cannot observe the elliptical orbits of planets, (from our vantage point) thus you must perform complex mathematics to find out if this is the case - to prove the point we have sent robotic rovers to Mars - if our math was off (even a little) we would have missed the planet.

Do you believe there is any chance your scientific evidence is wrong? A pretty girl about 25 years old came up to my car in a parking lot. She asked if she could borrow my cell phone: she had run out of gas and had no money, so she wanted to call a friend. I gave her the phone. She walked behind my car where I couldn’t hear and began making prank phone calls. I was receiving nasty calls, voicemails and texts for the next 3 days. I trusted her in the same way you trust your scientists. You say you would accept scientific evidence yet apparently you are not a scientist yourself. To me that is more illogical than my stance of only accepting as facts that which I can verify. You state that for logical debate one must accept science as fact. Funny, you must have thought you were really going to teach me something, but if I refuse to accept what cannot be proven you are at a loss for words. If the worst I am called is illogical, I will consider the battle won. I would rather be illogical than drink the Kool-Aid.
playhavock wrote:

If you wish to further deny the facts of science on planets having elliptical orbits without giving any scientific reason to do so, then I declare my first point on "Bad Science" being won, hands down, Moses Yoder simply does not want to accept what science can tell us.

What other science must be discarded if we were to apply Moses's idea? All of our knowledge about our internal organs - sure you can see them, but recall Moses said he must see them - does that mean first hand or will pictures do? Moses is presenting us with quite an unreasonable form of skepticism here, yet selectively picks what he wants to believe in: special pleading.

You are wrong about me rejecting all of science. I simply said I do not accept it as fact. Note that knowing facts and believing in something are two entirely different things.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
If someone can show it to me in such a way that I can see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, and hear it, I will accept it as a fact. The same idea applies to playhavock; I do not yet accept his existence as fact.
There is reasonable skepticism and then there is unreasonable skepticism - here is a fine example of totally unreasonable skepticism - Moses does not accept that I exist - well - let me clarify - he does not accept "playhavock" - and he should not for that is nothing more than an avatar name that I created and my real name and identify is something that I do not care to share with Moses or the internet in general, this is my personal choice, still it is quote unreasonable to utter this, as the conclusion that we could draw would be that Moses does not believe I exist - that is, the person typing this.

Such absurd statements must be discarded. Moses is reaching here, very hard, to disbelieve anything and everything that does not fit into his very narrow world view.

Absurd by who’s standard? Who’s character should I adopt as my own? I never understood people who followed style. I will discard my character when I die.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
Playhavock makes the claim that this is bad science. I say which is bad science? Accepting as fact the idea that men evolved from slime when it cannot possibly be proven, or to accept as fact only that which we can verify?
The bad science part I am referring to is linking biological evolution with abiogenesis.

To answer what Abiogenesis is: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Your stance is wrong - you believe (incorrectly) that acceptance of biological evolution equals accepting one theory of abiogenesis, it does not. Acceptance of Biological Evolution means you accept what science has to say on the issue of evolution, the slow process of change, natural selection, and all that goes with it.

Does biological evolution, according to your understanding, suggest that humans evolved from a lower life form? The Bible suggest humans were created close to their present form, in the image of God. How can one accept the Bible and the present theory of evolution which suggests man came from lower life forms???
playhavock wrote:

We do not know if we came from the primordial ooze, this is just one theory of abiogenesis, there are other theories in that field that are equally possible as origins - we do not know what one has yet to accept as fact, thus we do not accept any of them as fact because it would be bad science to do so.

We do accept biological evolution as fact because it is verified - and that means humans came from primates.

Are there any good scientific reasons to deny biological evolution: No.

You are correct on this. There are no good scientific reasons to discredit biological evolution.
playhavock wrote:

What theological reason is there to deny biological evolution? Moses' defense here is to insist that the CB (all of it) be taken literally, but why? What is the theological reasoning of that stance? How does he know to take (Genesis) literally rather than artistically like a poem? Other than just insisting this is so, or pointing that he would have to deny his church's teaching (that could also be in error) what justification is given for this stance?

If the Bible is not taken literally, it has no meaning. In other words, if not taken literally, it can mean anything. The only logical conclusion is to take it literally except for the few cases where prophecy is presented figuratively.
playhavock wrote:

Finally, this seems clearly to harm evangelism as Christians as backwards people who deny reality in favor of faith, by saying the facts of science are not facts, they prevent people who would otherwise join their ranks. Moses's only counter to this is that it is okay to be strange, without justifying or showing how this is helpful to evangelistic endeavors, does denying reality of science really help get people into the faith, or does it cause unnecessary stumbling blocks for people who would otherwise join in.

Yes. The Bible itself says straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it. Evangelism is not for the masses. Most people will drink the science Kool-Aid, have a lot of fun in life, and die not knowing God. That is not my problem. That is God’s problem.
playhavock wrote:


Moses
I have no problem when science says evolution is a fact. I can sense evolution around me with all of my senses. The problem is that science claims humans came into existence due to evolution. Can a Christian accept this claim by science? I say that a person cannot accept both the Bible and the modern theory of man's evolution from slime. It is however possible to reject the Bible as God's word and still be a Christian.
playhavock
This is akin to saying that one has no problem with science saying gravity is a fact, but that one has an issue with gravity because then it prevents Muhammad from ascending to heaven in the Koran. If one is to accept evolution as fact, one cannot accept part of it and not the bit one does not like - to do so is what is called "cherry picking" - a logical fallacy, and of course, bad science.

Please present proof that man evolved from a lower life form. If we did, and it can be proven, this should be fairly simple. I can see evolution in the cornfields of my hometown. I cannot see that humans evolved from primates. My wife occasionally makes pirogis and adds bacon and onions. My grandson does not like the onions and picks them out. According to you this is a logical fallacy.

Part 2 follows.
Matthew 16:26
New King James Version (NKJV)
26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

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Moses Yoder
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Post #7

Post by Moses Yoder »

Part Two of 2.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
Why is “biological evolution� or “evolution� assumed to include the idea that man evolved from slime? It means no such thing as you can see by the definitions I posted. I know most people assumed it does mean man evolved from slime, which is part of the reason why I agreed to debate this with you.
I do not know why some people assume that biological evolution and/or evolution must mean the origin is primordial ooze.

People might indeed assume this to be the case, but they are wrong to assume this, it shows they do not understand what evolution IS and what it is NOT.

It does not tell us where we came from - it says nothing on the matter at all, that field is abiogenesis, and the field of abiogenesis has many possible theories on where (all) life came from.

I know what you are doing. You are saying humans evolved from a lower life form but not necessarily slime. I am using slime as a general derogatory term. If all things evolve from lower life forms then everything must have come from slime, right? Do you believe humans evolved from a lower life form?
playhavock wrote:

Let me clarify the matter even further, Humans are primates.

Humans are primates of the family Hominidae:
The earliest Homo habilis evolved around 2.3 million years ago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution)

None of that is true. Humans were created by God about 4000 years ago. (Holy Bible.) You can call humans anything you want, primates or platypuses, it doesn’t change what they are.
playhavock wrote:

Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago.
(http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/in ... -evolution)

6 days Moses says the earth was formed, and the universe as well.

This is again, bad science, here are some pages I found to support my case on this:

How planets form: http://hubblesite.org/hubble_discoverie ... anets-form

Age of the earth:
(about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

Age of the universe:
From 12 to 14 billion years old.
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

Where are Moses facts? He has zero to support his idea that our world was made in 6 days, nor has he shown us why we should think the universe was made in 6 days. Moses resorts not to facts, but to his faith for answers.

You call something a fact because science says it is fact and the majority of the people have drunk that Kool-Aid. You have so much faith in science you have actually accepted it as fact. If I wore a white coat and labeled my religion to be science would you accept it?
playhavock wrote:

playhavock
I am not sure what Moses means by rejecting the Bible as God's word - is Moses suggesting the view that the Christian Bible (CB from now on) be taken to be written by God, inspired by God, a bit of both? The demand that the CB be inerrant is made by some Christians, but not all. Is Moses requiring us to view it as inerrant? I'm simply unsure here. I would like Moses to clarify this issue for me and the readers so I can be sure that I understand.

Moses Yoder
If there is a God and He created man, logically He would have to have a reason for doing so and logically He would have to communicate that idea to man. It would not be just to do otherwise. I believe that is exactly what happened. I believe the Bible was written by men who were inspired by God to do so. If it had one error in it then one would have to assume it has perhaps many errors, thus I believe it to be inerrant. I know there are born again Christians who do not believe as I do. When I say someone has rejected the Bible as God’s word I mean exactly that; they no longer accept the idea that the Bible is God’s communiqué to man (in any form).
Thank you for the clarification. If there is a single error that does not necessarily mean there are many errors. If I understand you correctly here, one who says the CB is not inspired by God is rejecting the idea that God communicated via it at all, but such a person could still be a Christian, in theory.

I do not wish to debate inerrancy of the CB at this time, although this explains why Moses believes what he does. We shall see if his insistence on the CB being without error helps or hinders him in this debate, I suspect he will encounter problems with this, as there are writings of the CB that use "unicorn" and "giants".
Also there are other passages that if taken literally pose serious problems for Moses proving he is a real Christian.

Numbers 23: 22: God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Conclusion: Unicorns must exist if we take this literally, and recall Moses has said that what the people of the time think and/or believe is not relevant, so we must take this at face value.

The word unicorn in Numbers 23:22 was originally written ר� רי� ר�י� ר�� e-Sword has this to say about it. “ unicorn: The reaim, most probably denotes the rhinoceros, so called from the horn on its nose. In size he is only exceeded by the elephant; and in strength and power inferior to none. He is at least twelve feet in length, from the snout to the tail; six or seven feet in height; and the circumference of the body is nearly equal to his length. He is particularly distinguished from all other animals by the remarkable and offensive weapon he carries on his nose; which is very hard horn, solid throughout, directed forward. He principally feeds upon large succulent plants, prickly shrubs, and branches; and delights in marshy places.� This is only one explanation. You probably believe that dinosaurs existed at one time, yet I don’t see any. My wife collected Robert Vavra books at one time; one of them is full of pictures of unicorns. That is enough evidence to suggest to me that they existed at one time.
playhavock wrote:

Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Conclusion: Moses should be able to drink any deadly thing, lay hands on sick and have them recover, and even hold serpents, if he cannot he is not a true Christian.

In Genesis God told Adam if he ate of the tree of Knowledge he would die. Adam did die, as has all of mankind since then. (Except for Elisha I guess.) You are suggesting that all men could live forever, which the Bible specifically says they will eventually die. I personally have been healed of Bi-polar disorder. God led me to doctors that provided the proper medication to stabilize me. I now that God can heal people, and for some reason in some cases He does and in other cases not. Besides, I think the passage you quoted was directed specifically at the apostles to get the church off to a good start.
playhavock wrote:

(http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/num/23.html)
(http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mk/16.html)

However, deeper research would allow us to understand the people who wrote it might be referring to a different type of animal that does exist, and in the latter case referring to very tall people. Is it still literal once you change the word from unicorn to some other animal - if it was perfect as written, then it should still read unicorn - or does our knowledge about the time and people and what they meant allow us to change the words as written?

Moses told us it matters not what the people of the time believed or what they thought, so we must stay with unicorn.

What about the ability to drink any poison, surely Moses will say this is nothing but "out of context" but the context is clear - these are signs that should accompany Christians. Perhaps he will suggest that it only was for the early Christians, but the passages never say this. Where is the literal interpretation in such matters.

I submit that Moses will make excuses rather than admit that some biblical passages are not meant to be taken literally, and perhaps some passages such as drinking any poisonous thing are simply in error. Unless he can produce Christians who can demonstrate ability to drink any poisons thing and we could form a scientific study on the matter, something that would demonstrate a reason scientifically to believe the Bible is correct about such matters.

However, I suspect Moses will offer me and the readers nothing but excuses or dodges on this matter.

Yes, I offered you an excuse and a dodge on the matter. See above. I would like to hear one good reason to drink poison. Besides, I drink poison every day and survive; it’s called Dr. Pepper.

playhavock wrote:

Moses
First of all, I use slime as a derogatory term. Funny how you say I did not use the correct term but knew exactly what I meant. I will not be gracing the idea that man evolved from slime with the lovely term “primordial ooze�.
This is the logical fallacy of emotional bias and nothing more, so this objection is discarded.

Moses
Also, please make up your mind. Above where I said I do not believe man became due to evolution you said I had to accept all of evolution. Here you say that is abiogenesis, different from evolution. Please explain. I accept evolution as fact. I do not accept as fact the idea that man evolved from slime, or came into existence by evolving from any other object.
Then you do not accept biological evolution.

First and foremost, again, abiogenesis is a separate field of study that has many theories of where all life could have come from. (Sightings provided previously in the debate)

Second, you say "other object" rather than other animals, the theory of biological evolution does not say we humans or for that matter any animals have come from objects but from other animals, if you deny that humans (and other life) have evolved in this way, then you continue to deny biological evolution.

Sightings for what humans are has been provided previously for this, and there is simply no excuse for Moses not to have some fact to support his premises and rebuttals, as such, I dismiss them as they have zero scientific proof to back them up.

Other objections discarded:

Moses Yoder
I erred here in not stating that it is only an opinion I hold that if religion dies out crime will run rampant.
Very well, since it is not fact we must discard it as being irrelevant to the debate at hand.

Funny; here we have system of good old boys who have come up with a list of “facts� they call “science�. The majority of mankind has drunk the Koo-Aid. Now, since these “facts� do not agree with my beliefs, I am irrelevant and must therefore be discarded. The time is coming, and now is, when these are the facts. I present abortion as evidence against science.
playhavock wrote:

Moses Yoder
I do not see how it can logically be otherwise.
This is known as the appeal to personal incredulity. So now we have to reasons to discard your opinion as it is not supported by fact, it is just your own belief based on a logical fallacy.

Moses Yoder
On Friday January 25...
Personal account is irrelevent to the topic, your own moral/ethical code are simply not relevant here.

My moral and ethical code are integral parts of my belief. They affect my whole outlook on life. Without them, I would not be debating this with you, therefore my moral and ethical code mean everything to this debate, as does yours.
playhavock wrote:

.

Moses
I have read the entire Bible through twice, and Genesis more often than that. I have never seen that diagram anywhere in the Bible. Please provide a reference where I may find it. Yes, I am suggesting all of the Bible be taken literally.
For this you have to understand and care about what the people of the time wrote. The diagram is a drawing BASED ON the words the CB provides.

As I mentioned before, our understanding and interpretation of the Bible has absolutely nothing to do with it’s real meaning.
playhavock wrote:


(Genesis 1:6-8), where God made the “expanse� or the “firmament.� The Hebrew word for this is raqia (pronounced ra-KEE-ah). Biblical scholars understand the raqia to be a solid dome-like structure. It separates the water into two parts, so that there is water above the raqia and water below it (v. 7). The waters above are kept at bay so the world can become inhabitable. On the third day (vv. 9-10), the water below the raqia is “gathered to one place� to form the sea and allow the dry land to appear.


(http://biologos.org/blog/the-firmament- ... -the-point)

Moses
Please provide evidence that the New King James version does not accurately interpret the original manuscript. As an alternative, if you have a degree in the Biblical languages I will accept your own interpretation. If you claim to have a degree, please provide documentation. If you do not have a degree and furnish your own interpretation I will continue to use the New King James version.
Sure, here are a few reasons why we should not trust the King James Version let alone the New King James version in bold are the quotes from the webpages and the source at the bottom, showing that the KJV (or New) has contained errors in it. If you cannot show that your current version of NKJV does not have these errors or others in it then it is you who lack any proof that we should accept the NKJV as a good translation of the words in question.

Genesis 1:2
KJV: "And the earth was without form, and void; . . . "
Correction: "And the earth became without form, and void; . . . "
Comments: The word translated "was" is hayah (Hebrew: ×”×™×”, Strong's Concordance Number #H1961) and denotes a condition different than a former condition, as in Genesis 19:26.


(http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/bible-errors.html)

Contrary to what some in the KJV camp believe, the 1611 KJV was not without errors. In fact, it took several subsequent editions to arrive at the version that is in use today. For instance, in the 1611 edition, Matthew 26:36 said, “Then cometh Judas�. Today, the KJV renders that verse as “Then cometh Jesus.� This is a rather significant difference. The first edition also contained the Apocryphal books, which were removed in subsequent editions. The 1613 edition inadvertently left the word “not� out of the seventh commandment, thereby encouraging people to commit adultery.

(http://www.contenderministries.org/bibl ... debate.php)

Sources
The translators appear to have otherwise made no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources, even those that – like the Codex Bezae – would have been readily available to them.[121] In addition to all previous English versions, including the Douay–Rheims Bible, they also consulted contemporary vernacular translations in Spanish, French, Italian and German. They also made wide and eclectic use of all printed editions in the original languages then available, including the ancient Syriac New Testament printed with an interlinear Latin gloss in the Antwerp Polyglot of 1573.[122]


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorized ... es_Version)

Even a webpage that seems to suggest the KJV is a good translation says that the NEW King James is a bad version!

The NKJV consistently uses terms that don't mean the same as in the King James Bible.
2 Cor. 2:17 KJV "For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God"
2 Cor. 2:17 NKJV "peddling the word of God" (like the NIV, NASV and RSV)"


(http://www.chick.com/ask/articles/nkjv.asp)

Here you provide claims of 2 errors in the King James version, and none in the New King James. I know the interpretation contains some errors. Overall, I would say 2 errors out of a few hundred thousand interpretations is a pretty good record and very reliable. I always rely on e-Sword which uses the original languages when I have a question about something. You have not proven the New King James version to be unreliable therefore I will continue to use it.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
I showed you why I do not believe in evolution with evidence from the Bible. Now you say I am clinging to traditional doctrine. This proves my point; if you believe that man evolved from slime you cannot believe the Bible. Apparently you must also give up the church doctrine, or at least I would have to in my church. How would that make you less popular in the world? You deny the Bible and church doctrine and accept the ways of the world; now you are a friend of the world and thus an enemy of Christ. How could it be otherwise?
He is clinging to this doctrine of his church, even though it conflicts with reality it matters not. He continues to link Biological Evolution with a SINGLE THEORY from Abiogenesis.

This is bad theology because it decides that one church is right and one idea from that church about the Bible is right - without looking into the matter further. We see not a reasoned search for other possibilities but a "I am right" sort of attitude.

Here you assume that I am not considering whether I am right or not. I present as evidence this website, the fact I am registered on it, and my participation in this debate. If that is not enough evidence to convince you that I am examining other world views by interacting with a variety of people then nothing will convince you. You have an opportunity to convince me I am wrong; it’s up to you. Note that just jumping up and down and shouting “SCIENCE IS FACT� won’t work.
playhavock wrote:

You might have to give up the church you go to because they are wrong.

Accepting the "ways of the world" would I think speak to morals and ethics, not to science, but perhaps its everything the "world" says. I am not sure, but if this is what Moses thinks, then we see fundamentalism at its worst here.

Moses
Here, as near as I can determine, it says man was created by God. Where does the Bible say “the sun revolves around the earth�? Please provide a reference. Once you do, I will either believe the sun revolves around the earth or I will not be a Christian. Do you understand the difference between these two statements? “The sun revolves around the earth� and “man was created by God.� If you believe man evolved from slime, obviously you cannot believe he was created by God.
I shall make my only retraction thus far, the Catholic Church believed the Sun moved around the Earth and also believed the Earth was the center of the solar system, it is my understanding this is very loosely based on some passages of the Bible that no current Catholic or Protestant would agree with today, so even if I sight them as reference you would disagree with them, as you should for it does not say it, it might suggest it to some however. At the time the teaching of the church was something that one was not meant to question, now we are free to question all teachings of any church we might attend.

The things the Catholic church did during the dark ages is the reason why I would never be Catholic. I do not believe the majority of Catholics are born again Christians or know God.
playhavock wrote:

My point was to try to show that just because a church says something is true, does not make it true. If reality conflicts with what the church says, then you must question that church. If you believe that man coming from primordial ooze means is true and thus you could not be a Christian because you view the Bible to say that man came from God, that is a conclusion you can draw, but Christians who accept what science has to say on the matter of biological evolution of course, do not draw this conclusion, so perhaps it is your way of thinking that is in error and should be discarded. You do not have to "throw out the baby with the bath water" in this case.

I understand there are born again Christians who do not believe God created the universe. They are free to hold to their beliefs. I personally do not see how that outlook could ever work for me, besides the fact I don’t believe it is true.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
I accept biological evolution of the entire universe.
There is a theory regarding that the universe has evolved, that is to say it has changed slowly over time, but it is not biological because the universe is not alive.

Moses
I do not believe humans evolved from slime because the Bible says differently.
Moses
I do not believe animals evolved from slime because the Bible says otherwise.
Faith in your ideas, not supported by any facts, not supported by anything other than one idea of how Genesis should be viewed, as such, I discard these objections as bad theology and certainly as bad science.

I find it interesting that you use “facts� and “science� interchangeably. Because my faith is not supported by science you assume it is not fact. Please provide evidence that Atoms are not alive.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
I live in the corn capital of the world right next to companies such as Monsano and Pioneer. I have seen the evolution of corn (assisted by man) with my own eyes. It’s funny that playhavock accuses me of idolatry considering the fact that those people who accept man’s evolution from apes obviously no longer accept the Bible as God’s word. They have arranged their beliefs to be more palatable to the world by denying the power of God and accepting the science of the world.
An appeal to personal story. We should not, I repeat NOT believe in evolution simply because we see it - that’s not enough for science. But who cares about science when you have your Mythology of the Christian Bible!

In Moses's world science simply does not matter, how Moses can use the computer without "Accepting the science of the world" is a question I would LOVE for him to answer, but it is not relevant to the debate at hand.

What we see here is what is truly at stake for Moses and those like him - it is an all or none system either God's word is perfect or do not be a Christian, either accept what the Christian Bible says or do not be a Christian, either believe what the church tells you or you are not a Christian, and so on. It is thinking like this that allows people to be indoctrinated into cults, it is thinking like this that will leave people like Moses further and further behind as the rest of us accept science and move forward with understanding and technologies.

You are right about this. True Christians will be left further and further behind until eventually they will be exterminated. Did you read what you wrote? You are suggesting it would be better for me to compromise my beliefs in order for the world to accept me! Does this actually make sense to you? Yes, some cults do bad things; that is the price of freedom.
playhavock wrote:

This will not stop him of course, he is free to accept this, and perhaps he feels he must do so to be a "friend" of Christ. Perhaps, though, I suggest without any insult intended that Moses use the brain he believes Christ/God gave him to study science, as it has been said by some "To understand science is to know the mind of God."

I find it amusing that someone suggested we could KNOW THE MIND OF GOD by studying science and there are actually people who believe this to be true.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
Science has no part in faith. I will not be summoning science.
1: It is bad science.
I declare a win on this premise as of now.

Yes playhavock, you win. Email your mailing address to 2lgaloot@gmail.com and I will send you $2 to buy yourself a Dr. Pepper. Give yourself a pat on the back for me.
playhavock wrote:

2: It is bad theology.

I think all of my rebutals to Moses show why I've won this point.

I would agree you have also won this point. Personal beliefs simply cannot compete with the machine that is science.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
Funny how playhavock capitalized Church. The Church, capitalized, is all those people who are born again Christians. I personally believe only a very small percentage of Catholics are born again. The Catholic church has been making itself more acceptable to the world for centuries. If they have accepted the belief that man evolved from slime and was not created by God that just makes it all the more clear that they are not part of the true Church.
3: It is bad for evangelism.

I would tentatively say I've almost won this point, uttering that a "very" small percentage of Catholics are born again (where does he get this number from, how do we decide what % of Catholics or Christians are born again?) is a very large insult to them, and will not make them very eager to come to protestant side of things.

One thing I really want you to get from this exchange. That is the fact that being a friend of the world means you are an enemy of God. Evangelization is not for the masses. It is presented to the masses but few will respond. It says so in the Bible. We have a prayer group at my new job; 5 people out of 50 attend. I would say that is a much higher percentage than you will find in the world.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
Here playhavock assumes that reality is as he imagines it and not as I imagine it. Why is that? Apparently he has so much faith in science that he believes it really is reality.
Is faith a good or bad thing? If faith is a good thing I should have more of it. If this is the case it is good that I have faith in science equal or more faith then Moses has in God.

If faith is a bad thing then neither I nor Moses should have faith in God or in science.

Of course this is nothing more than a strawman. I do not have faith in science. I can know science is true due to the results it produces. It is reality, and Moses wants the reader and me to believe it is not. I will not do this, and I implore the reader to not deny science in favor of what Moses thinks reality is.

Faith in a fallacy is not a good thing. Please prove to me that the scientific process produces fact.
playhavock wrote:

Moses
What advantage would there be to be a golf teacher to teach all your students that the higher score is better? This would be a false teaching, and yet the students, especially the bad golfers, would feel better about themselves. Everyone would want this teacher as their instructor. Obviously there are advantages to being a false teacher.
Poisoning of the well fallacy. False analogy fallacy.

Let me interject this nugget of observation on his statements, using Moses's own ideas in my wording:

"Golf is not in the Christian Bible, so it cannot be true at all, if you believe in Golf that is not in the Bible you are of this world and not a friend of Christ."

I note that you decided to totally sidestep the legitimate issue I raised here.

playhavock wrote:

Conclusion

I've won point 1, no contest here: Moses has no science to back any of his ideas.

Conceded.
playhavock wrote:

I've won point 2 thoughout this rebutal, perhaps totally when Moses said "The way the Jewish writer and audience saw it when it was written does not matter in the least." as that idea dismantles all Christian theology by itself.

Conceded.
playhavock wrote:

I've tentatively won point 3, although perhaps good evangelism to Moses is not what I would see it as. Still, I see nothing to show that anything Moses has said could be good for evangelism.

Conceded.
playhavock wrote:

Moses has failed all three of his points:

Life does not necessarily need purpose, and even if it does it could be made by humans.

The Christian Bible's use of the word Yom can be taken to mean period of time, additional problems also arise in taking the whole of the CB literally.
And finally Moses has failed to show why acceptance of science facts shows one lacks faith, in fact he accused me of having faith in science.



Conceded.
playhavock wrote:

We must conclude that there are no good reasons for the Christian to deny biological evolution.


Here I must disagree. I have presented 3 good reasons above; just because you have presented good arguments against them does not negate the fact that they are good reasons. In conclusion I present my final reason found in James 4:4 KJV “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.�
Matthew 16:26
New King James Version (NKJV)
26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

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playhavock
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Post #8

Post by playhavock »

Reading though the response Moses Yoder has written, the word “troubling� came to mind. I am troubled by what I’ve read; it shows a glaring disconnect from reality, a false dichotomy of choice between acceptance of fact (biological evolution for humans) and a belief in a God. It has utterly bizarre logic presented as a way to decide what could be real. From the idea that humans appeared a mere 4000 years ago (something not even YEC agree with) to the idea that a picture book is enough for evidence of unicorns.

I am deeply troubled by all of it. Logic sweeps aside easily the only rebuttal offered by Moses at the very end – after he concedes to every argument I press forward. His final rebuttal is nothing more than a circular argument, appeal to authority, and appeal to a holy text. It is these three logical fallacies his final rebuttal is built on, and as such, we must be skeptical of his conclusion, and thus I win the debate on the technical level.

It is important that I note for the readers that there are three ways of looking at an argument: Logical Perspective, Dialectical Perspective and Rhetorical Perspective. (Reference One)

I typically focus only on the first.

A logical perspective asks, “is this argument sound?� To this, I conclude “yes� as the answer. However, the other two ask much different questions. The dialectical asks, “has the discussion been handled so as to achieve a candid and critical examination of all aspects of the issue in question?� To this, I answer, “I am not sure.� And finally, the rhetorical asks, “has the arguer constructed the argument so as to successfully influence a particular audience?� For this I cannot answer; it is up to those that read it to decide. However, I feel safe in saying that for Moses Yoder, this answer is sadly “no.�

Because Moses Yoder has set up a barrier of sorts to many of the issues, there simply is no way to reach him on this issue, not with logic that I am aware of, and I fear only a trained psychologist could unravel the problem at hand. In essence, Moses Yoder is saying the following:

If biological evolution for humans = True,
THEN God = False.
If God = False, I must worship myself, and perhaps end my life.

If A, then B; if B, then C. The above is a good example of an appeal to emotion and fear. Do not convince Moses Yoder that biological evolution is true, or he will end his life (possibly), something we do not wish him to do. Thus, we can never try to do this; thus he is protected from acceptance of the facts at hand.

So I cannot, and I fear no one can ever reach Moses Yoder on this point; he has shielded himself too well from the world on this. As I said, “troubling� is the only word I can apply to this.


However, perhaps there is a small light buried deep under the shadow here; perhaps there is a way to pierce the wall made by Moses Yoder. It is a small hope, but I feel it is my duty to try to reach him with reason. I cannot know if it will work or not, but I feel I must try.

Eric Fromm, a psychoanalyst, psychologist, and social philosopher, wrote an essay called, “An analysis of some types of religious experience� (Reference Two). He writes that we can determine from a person the difference of a person’s thoughts and their emotional matrix or total personality. The illustration given I summarize as such: If a person says they believe that all people are equal, then say they believe that black people are not deserving of the same rights, they belief the latter – not the former.

I use the above as reference, because Moses Yoder shows in his writing a clear mistrust of the “kool-aid� of science, and believes that God led him to his doctor who gave him medication… both the doctor and the medication are products of science, of course – the doctor knows what they do thanks to science (study of the body, biology) and the medicine exists thanks to the study of chemicals on humans via long research processes and clinical trials.

Moses Yoder might profess to mistrust science, but in the end, he must use it to function. Without the doctor or medication, he would not function, and no amount of prayer will change that. Perhaps he thinks God led him to that doctor, but he does not really think that ALL science is kool-aid, at least not when said science benefits him.

So, the only rebuttal Moses Yoder offered is from the bible, and setting aside the logical reasons to deny this, we must ask the question – is science really “of the world,� or is it something that God has given us humans to better understand ourselves and the world?

If the former is true, then Moses Yoder displays love of the world by going to a doctor and taking medicine. If it is the latter, then Moses Yoder is showing love of God in acceptance of the wonder of science that allows us to understand ourselves and this world we live in better. If the latter is true, Moses Yoder can indeed accept biological evolution – even of humans – for it would be an understanding given by God, rather than something “of the world� to be shunned.

I offer this possible alternative to Moses Yoder, as the only ray of hope that I can think of to pierce his wall. I do not know if it will or will not work. Again, I must try.

Moses Yoder also asks me to prove evolution (for humans). This is something I said before I cannot do here; it requires a ton of writing and pictures and publications. There is just too much on the subject to prove it. I begged and pleaded with Moses Yoder to read for it himself, yet he has not.

Moses Yoder has a very strange idea. Since his wife has a picture book of unicorns, he reasons that they must have existed at some time. I do not know if this is serious or not, but there are many more books showing pictures of dinosaurs and biological evolution of humans – thus making that a fact if we are to use this strange mode of thinking.

Moses Yoder sincerely thinks that Genesis can only be viewed one way, is opposed to alternative views, and even opposed to the idea that his version of the Bible is wrong in some way. I suggest this is bibliolatry – he worships and loves the words rather than the God behind those words (if there is one), and I would suggest that this is something he set aside; explore the history of the bible, who translated it – when, how, why – what do the Jewish writers think, why – when? Learn more about your own faith, prove you love God by learning as much as you can about your own faith, but the only way you can do this is by leaving behind the ideas you have to seek what is, rather then what you think is.

This then, is a divergence from my normal mode of debate where I offer premises and conclusions, and I do it only to reach Moses Yoder on this point. I do not want Moses Yoder to simply believe that biological evolution is true, I want him to study it for himself to make an informed choice in the matter.

I also want him to study his own religion and history of it, and to leave behind the ideas of “this is it� to grow out of that. Believe in God; for many this is something that is vitally important to them. I understand this.

Here we asked the question if there was any good reason to deny biological evolution, Moses Yoder says the reason is that it is of the world – yet we must ask if it truly is. I do not think it is. Moses Yoder, if you want to prove it is, first you must learn about WHAT it is, what the science really says, what the evidence says, learn about what your faith really says, by learning more about it. Right now you argue from a position of ignorance. You can do better, you must do better.

Do not be a stumbling block for me or others; by denying the facts, you are a stumbling block. Those of us who know the facts of biological evolution see those who deny it as backwards thinkers and a joke of sorts; they are to be mocked. I think you know this, but you think that it’s better to side with tradition than to accept “what the world says.�

What good is tradition if that tradition is untrue? If the Bible said the world was flat, would you believe this – or believe that it is spherical? If it DID say such a thing (in fact one can argue it does), you would, I hope, seek to understand the meaning of it, who wrote it, and when; perhaps they were working on the understanding people had THEN, and not the understanding we have NOW; perhaps this passage was not divinely inspired, and so on. Or perhaps you would just think the world is flat, even though it is not.



I can only hope that you choose to not continue to do this. You have said here that your presence on the forums suggests you are willing to challenge things. Prove it to yourself and to me. Read some books on biological evolution, read up on the history of the Bible, its translations, and so on.

This concludes my rebuttal.
Now for my closing remarks.

----


It shocked me as a Christian to learn that many Christians denied biological evolution of humans, the age of the earth, and other facts. It shocked me more to see that the reasonings were not anchored in reality, but rather in dogma. This was a wedge that pushed me away from belief in Christianity. Other wedges followed. Who knows where I would be today were it not for that first wedge? I cannot say. I can say that Christianity would be better off without this wedge than with it. It makes no sense to deny these parts of reality.

Are there any good reasons for Christians to deny biological evolution? No. No good ones. However, as we have seen here, there are plenty of bad ones.

If you deny something without understanding that something, I am free to call you wrong. For this is indeed the heart of the argument of ignorance.

I thank you, the reader for reading, I welcome any and all input you might have on this debate. I’d like to thank Moses Yoder for doing this, and I’d like to continue to implore him to join us on this side of reality.

---

(Reference One) “Critical thinking and communication the use of reason in argument� (page 35) by Inch Warnic, published by Pearson.

(Reference Two) Found in “Critiques of God making the case against belief in God� (page 178) Edited by Peter A. Angeles, published by Prometheus books.

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