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User talk:Philip J. Rayment/Evolution (view source)
Revision as of 04:44, August 29, 2007
, 04:44, August 29, 2007Long reply to ATang
'''''This is the continuation of a discussion begun on the [[talk:Theory of Evolution|evolution talk page]], and now archived at [[Talk:Theory of evolution/Archive 12]]'''''
This post is a response to ATang's post there.
ATang wrote: "''They accept that their religion is not explanation for everything, while Abrahimic religions simply states "this is the truth, there is no more to it". Because of the inherent unknowns of the universe, I am very hesitant to say "this is it" (about anything, science, religion or otherwise).''"
Okay, so ''you'' are hesitant. That doesn't mean that others have to be, or that any criticism of those who are not hesitant is justified. However, I don't agree that the Abrahamic religions state that "there is no more to it".
"''If you want to be hypothetical - why not in the case all religion is wrong? That is not a solid argument!! No one would use that in court. "What if I'm right?"''"
There's nothing wrong with being hypothetical to make a point. The point is that your attitude that people are unjustified in being certain of their beliefs does not allow for the case where their beliefs are correct. You have not explained why someone is unjustified in being certain if they are indeed correct.
"''A viewpoint is more like a methodology, an operating procedure to handle truths - which are facts, what one considers as undeniable and cannot be altered.''"
No, a viewpoint is like a framework into which you put your facts. It's a starting point for how you understand the facts.
"''You say my viewpoint is "never take anything as the one and only, undeniable truth", and that's correct. My viewpoint is not a "fact", or a "truth", and the case is same vice-versa.''"
Should I consider your viewpoint to be true or not? If it's ''true'', then surely it's a "truth"? The point is, it's a self-refuting statement, as if I'm not supposed to take anything as the one and only undeniable truth, why should I take that statement as being true?
"''Later you say my fixed view is that I cannot have a fixed view - a distortion of my idea. One can have a fixed view, but if that view says "Take A as fact, everything else is wrong", then that is a view I reject."''
First, I assume that by saying "everything else is wrong", you are not talking about matters that have no bearing on the matter in hand. To be specific, if it is your view that fixed views are wrong, then either (a) that view of yours is fixed (which means that you condemn yourself for having that view), or (b) your view is not fixed, which means that you can't say for certain that fixed views are wrong. So which is it?
Your explanation regarding survival of the fittest misses the point. You go to considerable lengths to explain how the "fittest" might be determined, pointing out that it might be a complex set of factors, but none of that changes that "survival of the fittest" has the corollary of "non-survival of the less fit", which means "survival of the fittest at the expense of the less fit". If the less fit don't ''die'' out, then evolution stagnates. Thus survival of the fittest is the opposite of the golden rule.
"''In reference to "greater good", I thought it was intuitively obvious that survival of an individual is good.''".
It is to me, a Bible-believing Christian, but not to evolution, which can only work by the non-survival of many. In other words, in the evolutionary view, non-survival of many individuals is arguably "good", because without their non-survival there is no evolution. The other point is that you haven't explained why any survival is necessarily good. Claiming that it is "intuitively obvious" is not an explanation. I believe it is, of course, because that's what God intended. But that rationale doesn't apply to evolution.
"''Based on the evidence, I see that co-operation between individuals suggests it may have evolutionary roots. It may also be because God designed it that way, but because of absence of physical evidence that God designed co-operation between men, the former explanation is more likely.''"
First, yes by "working together", I was referring to co-operation. I don't see any physical evidence that co-operation has evolutionary roots. You see co-operation in real life being beneficial, and you believe that evolution is how these things came about, so you ascribe the origin of co-operation to evolution. But there's no physical evidence of that.
Similarly, I see co-operation, and I believe that God created everything, so I ascribe the origin of co-operation to God. However, you reject that, on the grounds that there is no physical evidence of it, yet you have no physical evidence of evolution being the cause. And whilst I have no ''physical'' evidence, I do have ''eye-witness'' evidence (the Bible). You don't even have that, so on that basis, I consider my explanation more likely.
"''Your accusations of my preconception clouding my judgement can be applied to you as well. Bias in inherent in any debate, and such accusations could only waste time and space - that's why I've try to avoid it all together! Each person of course believes that they're non-biased, while the other will beg to differ.''"
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that a person's preconceptions are clouding (distorting) their judgement if there's grounds for doing so, as I believe there is here. It's not a waste of time if the result is that the person becomes aware of that. I for one don't believe that I'm not biased—I know that I am—but there's nothing wrong with being biased if the bias is correct.
"''I wasn't aware that the books of the Bible were written by a divine hand. I thought each of them has a mortal author (Luke, etc.).''"
Then you've learnt something! God used human authors to write the Bible, much as a celebrity might use a "ghost-writer" to pen their autobiography.
"''You say that my statement was contrary to the Bible's own claim - but that's just like an article referencing itself as proof of its correctness!''"
No it's not, because that's not how I presented it. That is, I did not say "The Bible is written by God because it says that it is". What I said was that the view that the Bible was written by God is not agreed nor self-evident, given that acceptance of such is widespread and that the Bible itself claimed this.
In effect, what you have done is argue, "Because the Bible is not written by God...". I've jumped in and said, "That is an unjustified assumption". Your response is, "I don't accept your evidence that the assumption is wrong, so it is right". However, I wasn't offering evidence that the assumption was wrong. I was arguing that the onus is on you to justify that assumption, and you've failed to do that.
"''It does not stand under my viewpoint (and the scientific method, because it is not peer-reviewed).''"
There was no formal peer-review process in those days, so of course there won't be what we today think of as peer-review, but the Bible was accepted as accurate by readers who were witness to its events, so there ''was'' a peer-review type of process.
"''Is there a third party "reference point" that points at the authorship of God?''"
Numerous authors have pointed to various factors in the Bible other than the Bible's own claim on the matter indicating God's authorship. These include such things as the consistency of the book written by numerous human writers over a period of going on for 2000 years, and the prophecies which have come true.
"''If my statement is contrary to Christian belief, then of course, it will not make sense to a Christian. To a non-Christian, however, this argument does not stand. Christianity is a point of contention in this debate.''"
Again, this is not an argument for Divine authorship. It's an argument that there is an onus on you to justify the assumption that all those Christians are wrong. You can't argue that because it is a belief of Christians, it can be ignored and doesn't need to be refuted.
"''A quick study of ancient mythologies, and examination of each of the deities, will show that they were in fact made up. That's what "history" tells us. You may argue that this does not apply to Christianity, but it's perfectly acceptable practice to draw parallels between past and current events.''"
Drawing parallels is one thing. But coming to firm conclusions on the basis of a loose parallel is unjustified. But if you want a parallel, remember that forgeries exist because there's a real one to make a forgery of.
"''I attempt to use common ground - and I thought the scientific method, and the use of physical evidence is the agreed rules of the debate. Maybe that's why there's such divide! Religion is incompatible with the scientific method!''"
The scientific method works on physical things in the present. It doesn't work on non-material things (such as ideas, beliefs, the soul, etc.), and it doesn't work on past events. It's not that "religion" (whatever is meant by that) is incompatible with the scientific method, but that the scientific method is incompatible with studying historical events (although it can help by being used in the study of historical artifacts).
Furthermore, I'm quite certain that you don't do all the scientific studies yourself. Instead, you rely on reading the accounts of studies done by others. You assume that in most cases their accounts are accurate, particularly if others have reviewed them and not disagreed. And I'm sure that you do the same for accounts outside the area of science, such as recent history. What scientific studies have been done on, for example, World War I? I'd bet that essentially everything that you know, and accept as true, about World War I was as a result of reading (or seeing on TV, or hearing on the radio or direct from someone who was there) the accounts of those who were there and witnessed the events, or others who themselves rely on those accounts. I do the same, including for the Bible. That is, when studying ''history'', the best source is eye-witness accounts, not laboratories, and that is why I rely on ancient documents such as the Bible rather than the non-empirical (non-scientific) ideas of (generally atheistic or agnostic) scientists for learning about history.
"''That's why trying to attribute motive in a court case is so difficult - because it's hard to get inside someone's mind.''"
Yet courts often do just that. It depends on how well you (get to) know the person.
"'' Basically, it's irresponsible to attribute something to God if we only have a partial understanding of it - because if we find out something that seems to go against the nature of God (the part we know anyways), we can always attribute that to the part of God we don't understand.''"
That's basically an argument to say that if we don't know everything about someone, we can't explain anything. That argument is nonsense.
"''How do you explain stillbirths? If the parents are bad people, then yes, it's easy to justify that by saying God is trying to punish them. If the parents are good Christians, who try their hardest not to sin? How do we explain that? Do we just say "God works in mysterious ways"?''
If anything, that's an argument as to why agnostics should not use this sort of argument. That is, atheists and agnostics claim that because they can't explain why God would do something, nobody else can either. Stillbirths? The result of a deteriorating creation, itself the result of us (mankind) rejecting God. It's actually quite easy to explain, and your inability to do so is no justification for arguing that others are incapable of doing so.
"''The proof of miracles that I ask is anthropological, scientific proof.''"
Then you are being unreasonable, because, as I have explained above, you can't scientifically study past events.
"''The fact that I exist, you argue, is proof of God - but it could be proof of a million other things. Why isn't my existence the proof of Hindu Gods? Allah? How about extraterrestrial aliens who brought life to Earth? One could just as easily say my existence is proof of evolution! This is why my existence isn't proof of ANYTHING!''"
No, I did not argue that. Not at all.
"''If I right about events A, B, and C in a book, then provide historical proof that A and B occurred, would you simply believe that C occurred as well?''"
Yes. Given that the author has been shown to be accurate on A and B, and assuming that there was no reason to believe that C did not also occur, it seems entirely reasonable to also believe that C occurred. And I have no reason to assume that the miracles did not also occur.
"''An argument by continual existence is as weak as it sounds - would you say that Scientology is true because it's still existent today? I will peruse the page you've provided when I have time, and write up an appropriate response.''"
A rebuttal to an argument that you've not read is likely to be just as weak. But notice that I said "likely", not "is", as you did.
"''Actually, I've never explicitly stated what my Mr. Good/Bad book was going to be published as. If I published it as history, 2000 years later one cannot see the difference! Furthermore, my intention was that the book was written NOW, not 2000 years later. The examination of the work is what occurs in 2 millennia.''"
Why would nobody bother examining it for 2000 years? Answer: They wouldn't: There would be people examining it from the day it was published.
"''I've added no additional physical events, so one cannot know if it was God who actually created Katrina.''"
A miracle is a ''physical'' event. Your disagreement is about ascribing a source to the miracle, not to the veracity of the account of the miracle itself.
"''These books cannot be effectively refuted by the masses, because they don't have the information highway that we do today.''"
That sounds like a bit of chronological snobbery to me. Of course they could be refuted by others. People did disagree with others in those times.
"''You say proof of God is in the Bible, while I disagree that the Bible is a factual account of history in all aspects.''"
No, I didn't say that ''proof'' of God is in the Bible. I said that the Bible contains ''evidence'' for God. Okay, you disagree that the Bible's always accurate. But do you have good reason (physical evidence?) that it's not always accurate?
"''... my questions regarding the authenticity of the Bible is not satisfactorily answered!!''"
I think mostly we've been arguing about assumptions and starting points, and haven't really discussed much the reasons that the Bible is authentic history. So that criticism is somewhat premature.
"''... since I've repeated stated my distrust of the Bible, why use it as an argument when you know it wouldn't stand from my viewpoint?''"
I've not used the Bible as an argument. I've argued that your reasons for dismissing it are not justified, and pointed out some facts about it (such as it claiming certain things) but that's about all.
"''The Bible states God created everything (including the Bible). This self-referencing is suspicious.''"
Suspicious? So if a book says that it was written by Joe Bloggs, you would be suspicious about that book? This sounds like a classic time-wasting bibliosceptic tactic of trying to find any possible criticism of the Bible that can be made to sound at least half plausible, no matter how little rationality it has.
"''Further exploration for direct physical evidence yields inconclusive proof of God's existence...''"
Perhaps you are looking at it the wrong way, such as trying to find experimental proof of a past event?
"''The believes of Christianity (and religion) inherently dismisses all other believes without reason.''"
Huh? Another ridiculous bibliosceptic argument. Christians have offered ''plenty'' of reasons for rejecting (not dismissing) other beliefs.
"''This is an obvious ploy to ensure continual perpetuation of the religion, and it's also why it is so enticing and easy to believe.''"
A conclusion based on a faulty premise is unsound, and in this case, wrong.
"''Because of the lack of conclusive proof of God outside the Bible, and the suspicious "Bible as the proof of itself" circular logic, I reject Christianity as a logical, reasonable, and scientifically correct viewpoint to take on.''"
Of course, what you consider sufficient evidence as "conclusive proof" others may not, and as I've pointed out the problems with the rest of your arguments, I see no grounds for your conclusion.
"''I truly believe that religion is created as a "God of the gaps" ...''"
Yet you've put no compelling argument for that view.
"''Christianity may satisfy the people of past times, when there is considerably less understanding of the physical world; it will no longer appeal to the increasingly educated populous - at least when the stories of the Bible is interpreted literally.''"
Well, bibliosceptics have been claiming similar for centuries, and have yet to be proven correct, so I take that with a grain of salt. And it has a touch of chronological snobbery and evolutionary belief in it. To explain, as a Christian, I believe that man was created without defect, but that we have deteriorated since. So I am not more intelligent than Adam, but less intelligent. Sure, we as a civilisation have more accumulated far more knowledge than Adam had, but are inferior in most other ways.
In contrast, the evolutionary view is that we are ''better'' (smarter, wiser, etc.) than our predecessors.
So to suggest that people of past times would be satisfied with something that we would not be satisfied with today is to ''presume'' an evolutionary view of us being smarter than those in the past.
"''Already, young-earth creationism, as told by the Bible, is doubted by the majority.''"
You have that back to front. Young-Earth creationism was all but dead as a viewpoint until the early 1960s, when it was revived with the publication of the book, ''The Genesis Flood'', by Morris and Whitcomb. It is not losing ground, but gaining it, from that low point of acceptance. Sure, acceptance of it has a long way to go yet, but it is increasing, and it is increasing (in my opinion, and ignoring God's role in this) mainly due to the strength of the evidence and arguments in favour of it. That is, people are accepting it (when they do) because it makes sense, and rejecting it (when they do) because of an atheistic ideology and/or peer pressure.
[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)
This post is a response to ATang's post there.
ATang wrote: "''They accept that their religion is not explanation for everything, while Abrahimic religions simply states "this is the truth, there is no more to it". Because of the inherent unknowns of the universe, I am very hesitant to say "this is it" (about anything, science, religion or otherwise).''"
Okay, so ''you'' are hesitant. That doesn't mean that others have to be, or that any criticism of those who are not hesitant is justified. However, I don't agree that the Abrahamic religions state that "there is no more to it".
"''If you want to be hypothetical - why not in the case all religion is wrong? That is not a solid argument!! No one would use that in court. "What if I'm right?"''"
There's nothing wrong with being hypothetical to make a point. The point is that your attitude that people are unjustified in being certain of their beliefs does not allow for the case where their beliefs are correct. You have not explained why someone is unjustified in being certain if they are indeed correct.
"''A viewpoint is more like a methodology, an operating procedure to handle truths - which are facts, what one considers as undeniable and cannot be altered.''"
No, a viewpoint is like a framework into which you put your facts. It's a starting point for how you understand the facts.
"''You say my viewpoint is "never take anything as the one and only, undeniable truth", and that's correct. My viewpoint is not a "fact", or a "truth", and the case is same vice-versa.''"
Should I consider your viewpoint to be true or not? If it's ''true'', then surely it's a "truth"? The point is, it's a self-refuting statement, as if I'm not supposed to take anything as the one and only undeniable truth, why should I take that statement as being true?
"''Later you say my fixed view is that I cannot have a fixed view - a distortion of my idea. One can have a fixed view, but if that view says "Take A as fact, everything else is wrong", then that is a view I reject."''
First, I assume that by saying "everything else is wrong", you are not talking about matters that have no bearing on the matter in hand. To be specific, if it is your view that fixed views are wrong, then either (a) that view of yours is fixed (which means that you condemn yourself for having that view), or (b) your view is not fixed, which means that you can't say for certain that fixed views are wrong. So which is it?
Your explanation regarding survival of the fittest misses the point. You go to considerable lengths to explain how the "fittest" might be determined, pointing out that it might be a complex set of factors, but none of that changes that "survival of the fittest" has the corollary of "non-survival of the less fit", which means "survival of the fittest at the expense of the less fit". If the less fit don't ''die'' out, then evolution stagnates. Thus survival of the fittest is the opposite of the golden rule.
"''In reference to "greater good", I thought it was intuitively obvious that survival of an individual is good.''".
It is to me, a Bible-believing Christian, but not to evolution, which can only work by the non-survival of many. In other words, in the evolutionary view, non-survival of many individuals is arguably "good", because without their non-survival there is no evolution. The other point is that you haven't explained why any survival is necessarily good. Claiming that it is "intuitively obvious" is not an explanation. I believe it is, of course, because that's what God intended. But that rationale doesn't apply to evolution.
"''Based on the evidence, I see that co-operation between individuals suggests it may have evolutionary roots. It may also be because God designed it that way, but because of absence of physical evidence that God designed co-operation between men, the former explanation is more likely.''"
First, yes by "working together", I was referring to co-operation. I don't see any physical evidence that co-operation has evolutionary roots. You see co-operation in real life being beneficial, and you believe that evolution is how these things came about, so you ascribe the origin of co-operation to evolution. But there's no physical evidence of that.
Similarly, I see co-operation, and I believe that God created everything, so I ascribe the origin of co-operation to God. However, you reject that, on the grounds that there is no physical evidence of it, yet you have no physical evidence of evolution being the cause. And whilst I have no ''physical'' evidence, I do have ''eye-witness'' evidence (the Bible). You don't even have that, so on that basis, I consider my explanation more likely.
"''Your accusations of my preconception clouding my judgement can be applied to you as well. Bias in inherent in any debate, and such accusations could only waste time and space - that's why I've try to avoid it all together! Each person of course believes that they're non-biased, while the other will beg to differ.''"
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that a person's preconceptions are clouding (distorting) their judgement if there's grounds for doing so, as I believe there is here. It's not a waste of time if the result is that the person becomes aware of that. I for one don't believe that I'm not biased—I know that I am—but there's nothing wrong with being biased if the bias is correct.
"''I wasn't aware that the books of the Bible were written by a divine hand. I thought each of them has a mortal author (Luke, etc.).''"
Then you've learnt something! God used human authors to write the Bible, much as a celebrity might use a "ghost-writer" to pen their autobiography.
"''You say that my statement was contrary to the Bible's own claim - but that's just like an article referencing itself as proof of its correctness!''"
No it's not, because that's not how I presented it. That is, I did not say "The Bible is written by God because it says that it is". What I said was that the view that the Bible was written by God is not agreed nor self-evident, given that acceptance of such is widespread and that the Bible itself claimed this.
In effect, what you have done is argue, "Because the Bible is not written by God...". I've jumped in and said, "That is an unjustified assumption". Your response is, "I don't accept your evidence that the assumption is wrong, so it is right". However, I wasn't offering evidence that the assumption was wrong. I was arguing that the onus is on you to justify that assumption, and you've failed to do that.
"''It does not stand under my viewpoint (and the scientific method, because it is not peer-reviewed).''"
There was no formal peer-review process in those days, so of course there won't be what we today think of as peer-review, but the Bible was accepted as accurate by readers who were witness to its events, so there ''was'' a peer-review type of process.
"''Is there a third party "reference point" that points at the authorship of God?''"
Numerous authors have pointed to various factors in the Bible other than the Bible's own claim on the matter indicating God's authorship. These include such things as the consistency of the book written by numerous human writers over a period of going on for 2000 years, and the prophecies which have come true.
"''If my statement is contrary to Christian belief, then of course, it will not make sense to a Christian. To a non-Christian, however, this argument does not stand. Christianity is a point of contention in this debate.''"
Again, this is not an argument for Divine authorship. It's an argument that there is an onus on you to justify the assumption that all those Christians are wrong. You can't argue that because it is a belief of Christians, it can be ignored and doesn't need to be refuted.
"''A quick study of ancient mythologies, and examination of each of the deities, will show that they were in fact made up. That's what "history" tells us. You may argue that this does not apply to Christianity, but it's perfectly acceptable practice to draw parallels between past and current events.''"
Drawing parallels is one thing. But coming to firm conclusions on the basis of a loose parallel is unjustified. But if you want a parallel, remember that forgeries exist because there's a real one to make a forgery of.
"''I attempt to use common ground - and I thought the scientific method, and the use of physical evidence is the agreed rules of the debate. Maybe that's why there's such divide! Religion is incompatible with the scientific method!''"
The scientific method works on physical things in the present. It doesn't work on non-material things (such as ideas, beliefs, the soul, etc.), and it doesn't work on past events. It's not that "religion" (whatever is meant by that) is incompatible with the scientific method, but that the scientific method is incompatible with studying historical events (although it can help by being used in the study of historical artifacts).
Furthermore, I'm quite certain that you don't do all the scientific studies yourself. Instead, you rely on reading the accounts of studies done by others. You assume that in most cases their accounts are accurate, particularly if others have reviewed them and not disagreed. And I'm sure that you do the same for accounts outside the area of science, such as recent history. What scientific studies have been done on, for example, World War I? I'd bet that essentially everything that you know, and accept as true, about World War I was as a result of reading (or seeing on TV, or hearing on the radio or direct from someone who was there) the accounts of those who were there and witnessed the events, or others who themselves rely on those accounts. I do the same, including for the Bible. That is, when studying ''history'', the best source is eye-witness accounts, not laboratories, and that is why I rely on ancient documents such as the Bible rather than the non-empirical (non-scientific) ideas of (generally atheistic or agnostic) scientists for learning about history.
"''That's why trying to attribute motive in a court case is so difficult - because it's hard to get inside someone's mind.''"
Yet courts often do just that. It depends on how well you (get to) know the person.
"'' Basically, it's irresponsible to attribute something to God if we only have a partial understanding of it - because if we find out something that seems to go against the nature of God (the part we know anyways), we can always attribute that to the part of God we don't understand.''"
That's basically an argument to say that if we don't know everything about someone, we can't explain anything. That argument is nonsense.
"''How do you explain stillbirths? If the parents are bad people, then yes, it's easy to justify that by saying God is trying to punish them. If the parents are good Christians, who try their hardest not to sin? How do we explain that? Do we just say "God works in mysterious ways"?''
If anything, that's an argument as to why agnostics should not use this sort of argument. That is, atheists and agnostics claim that because they can't explain why God would do something, nobody else can either. Stillbirths? The result of a deteriorating creation, itself the result of us (mankind) rejecting God. It's actually quite easy to explain, and your inability to do so is no justification for arguing that others are incapable of doing so.
"''The proof of miracles that I ask is anthropological, scientific proof.''"
Then you are being unreasonable, because, as I have explained above, you can't scientifically study past events.
"''The fact that I exist, you argue, is proof of God - but it could be proof of a million other things. Why isn't my existence the proof of Hindu Gods? Allah? How about extraterrestrial aliens who brought life to Earth? One could just as easily say my existence is proof of evolution! This is why my existence isn't proof of ANYTHING!''"
No, I did not argue that. Not at all.
"''If I right about events A, B, and C in a book, then provide historical proof that A and B occurred, would you simply believe that C occurred as well?''"
Yes. Given that the author has been shown to be accurate on A and B, and assuming that there was no reason to believe that C did not also occur, it seems entirely reasonable to also believe that C occurred. And I have no reason to assume that the miracles did not also occur.
"''An argument by continual existence is as weak as it sounds - would you say that Scientology is true because it's still existent today? I will peruse the page you've provided when I have time, and write up an appropriate response.''"
A rebuttal to an argument that you've not read is likely to be just as weak. But notice that I said "likely", not "is", as you did.
"''Actually, I've never explicitly stated what my Mr. Good/Bad book was going to be published as. If I published it as history, 2000 years later one cannot see the difference! Furthermore, my intention was that the book was written NOW, not 2000 years later. The examination of the work is what occurs in 2 millennia.''"
Why would nobody bother examining it for 2000 years? Answer: They wouldn't: There would be people examining it from the day it was published.
"''I've added no additional physical events, so one cannot know if it was God who actually created Katrina.''"
A miracle is a ''physical'' event. Your disagreement is about ascribing a source to the miracle, not to the veracity of the account of the miracle itself.
"''These books cannot be effectively refuted by the masses, because they don't have the information highway that we do today.''"
That sounds like a bit of chronological snobbery to me. Of course they could be refuted by others. People did disagree with others in those times.
"''You say proof of God is in the Bible, while I disagree that the Bible is a factual account of history in all aspects.''"
No, I didn't say that ''proof'' of God is in the Bible. I said that the Bible contains ''evidence'' for God. Okay, you disagree that the Bible's always accurate. But do you have good reason (physical evidence?) that it's not always accurate?
"''... my questions regarding the authenticity of the Bible is not satisfactorily answered!!''"
I think mostly we've been arguing about assumptions and starting points, and haven't really discussed much the reasons that the Bible is authentic history. So that criticism is somewhat premature.
"''... since I've repeated stated my distrust of the Bible, why use it as an argument when you know it wouldn't stand from my viewpoint?''"
I've not used the Bible as an argument. I've argued that your reasons for dismissing it are not justified, and pointed out some facts about it (such as it claiming certain things) but that's about all.
"''The Bible states God created everything (including the Bible). This self-referencing is suspicious.''"
Suspicious? So if a book says that it was written by Joe Bloggs, you would be suspicious about that book? This sounds like a classic time-wasting bibliosceptic tactic of trying to find any possible criticism of the Bible that can be made to sound at least half plausible, no matter how little rationality it has.
"''Further exploration for direct physical evidence yields inconclusive proof of God's existence...''"
Perhaps you are looking at it the wrong way, such as trying to find experimental proof of a past event?
"''The believes of Christianity (and religion) inherently dismisses all other believes without reason.''"
Huh? Another ridiculous bibliosceptic argument. Christians have offered ''plenty'' of reasons for rejecting (not dismissing) other beliefs.
"''This is an obvious ploy to ensure continual perpetuation of the religion, and it's also why it is so enticing and easy to believe.''"
A conclusion based on a faulty premise is unsound, and in this case, wrong.
"''Because of the lack of conclusive proof of God outside the Bible, and the suspicious "Bible as the proof of itself" circular logic, I reject Christianity as a logical, reasonable, and scientifically correct viewpoint to take on.''"
Of course, what you consider sufficient evidence as "conclusive proof" others may not, and as I've pointed out the problems with the rest of your arguments, I see no grounds for your conclusion.
"''I truly believe that religion is created as a "God of the gaps" ...''"
Yet you've put no compelling argument for that view.
"''Christianity may satisfy the people of past times, when there is considerably less understanding of the physical world; it will no longer appeal to the increasingly educated populous - at least when the stories of the Bible is interpreted literally.''"
Well, bibliosceptics have been claiming similar for centuries, and have yet to be proven correct, so I take that with a grain of salt. And it has a touch of chronological snobbery and evolutionary belief in it. To explain, as a Christian, I believe that man was created without defect, but that we have deteriorated since. So I am not more intelligent than Adam, but less intelligent. Sure, we as a civilisation have more accumulated far more knowledge than Adam had, but are inferior in most other ways.
In contrast, the evolutionary view is that we are ''better'' (smarter, wiser, etc.) than our predecessors.
So to suggest that people of past times would be satisfied with something that we would not be satisfied with today is to ''presume'' an evolutionary view of us being smarter than those in the past.
"''Already, young-earth creationism, as told by the Bible, is doubted by the majority.''"
You have that back to front. Young-Earth creationism was all but dead as a viewpoint until the early 1960s, when it was revived with the publication of the book, ''The Genesis Flood'', by Morris and Whitcomb. It is not losing ground, but gaining it, from that low point of acceptance. Sure, acceptance of it has a long way to go yet, but it is increasing, and it is increasing (in my opinion, and ignoring God's role in this) mainly due to the strength of the evidence and arguments in favour of it. That is, people are accepting it (when they do) because it makes sense, and rejecting it (when they do) because of an atheistic ideology and/or peer pressure.
[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 00:44, 29 August 2007 (EDT)