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::: If the argument you mention is the most convincing argument you've heard for the existence of God, then it would appear that you've heard very little on the subject. The argument is false anyway, in proposing a history for Adam. Being created as a fully-grown man only gives the appearance of him having been a child if you reject that God could create him as an adult (and that therefore the only way an adult could come about is by being a child first). As a belly button is a scar (not a design feature) of an event that never occurred, Adam would not have had one, so this "evidence" is invented. You are confusing an appearance of adulthood with an appearance of ''aging'', and the processes that go along with that. That is, Adam would have appeared as an adult, true, but without any evidence of having grown older or of a past life, such as scars, wrinkles, callouses, or the like, that would be evidence of actual events happening. A machine such as a television, fresh off the factory floor, is ''complete'', but without scratches, worn parts, etc. which come with ''aging''. Adam would have been like that. The analogy with cosmology and genetics follows: Any evidence of actual events happening indicates that those things happened; they were not fake history created by God. But similarly, evidence that is not actually of events happening, but which ''assume'' that a history was required, is not ''evidence'', but ''presumption''. For the same reason, creationists generally reject the idea that God created starlight in transit, because that starlight carries information about events happening, such as stars going nova, that would never have happened if the starlight was created in transit. But similarly, they reject claims about ages based on presumptions that things started off in particular states when it is just as valid to claim that God created them that way.
::: If the argument you mention is the most convincing argument you've heard for the existence of God, then it would appear that you've heard very little on the subject. The argument is false anyway, in proposing a history for Adam. Being created as a fully-grown man only gives the appearance of him having been a child if you reject that God could create him as an adult (and that therefore the only way an adult could come about is by being a child first). As a belly button is a scar (not a design feature) of an event that never occurred, Adam would not have had one, so this "evidence" is invented. You are confusing an appearance of adulthood with an appearance of ''aging'', and the processes that go along with that. That is, Adam would have appeared as an adult, true, but without any evidence of having grown older or of a past life, such as scars, wrinkles, callouses, or the like, that would be evidence of actual events happening. A machine such as a television, fresh off the factory floor, is ''complete'', but without scratches, worn parts, etc. which come with ''aging''. Adam would have been like that. The analogy with cosmology and genetics follows: Any evidence of actual events happening indicates that those things happened; they were not fake history created by God. But similarly, evidence that is not actually of events happening, but which ''assume'' that a history was required, is not ''evidence'', but ''presumption''. For the same reason, creationists generally reject the idea that God created starlight in transit, because that starlight carries information about events happening, such as stars going nova, that would never have happened if the starlight was created in transit. But similarly, they reject claims about ages based on presumptions that things started off in particular states when it is just as valid to claim that God created them that way.
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:54, 5 December 2008 (EST)
::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:54, 5 December 2008 (EST)
: I see a problem in that they would have passed through many different environments in getting to Australia, so they would surely need to adapt to those environments. With regards to young roos being able to cross the water easily, we know that they spend much of their young lives depending on their mothers for protection and sustinance, so that means the journey would have had to fit nicely into the alotted time period between dependence and full-grown maturity, which is doubtful. If young roos are able to travel in the same way as other small mammals, it begs the question why they would not migrate further beyond Australia, to colonize other islands, as other small animals have done. Did they set off from the Middle East with the objective of ending up in Australia? Was it by luck that they ended up there?
: I don't necessarily believe in the evolution of Mankind - at least not the evolution of our conscious, reasoning minds - but even the slow evolution demonstrated in the lab is evidence of ''some'' evolution, no matter how little, in some creatures. Even waiting 41,000 generations - very much within the lifetime of one scientist - to see genetic mutations, is a small number of generations in terms of a 6 billion year earth-history.
: Regarding fossils, I know there isn't a perfect picture of the past 60 million year history, my point was that if you accept that the earth has had a 60 million year history, then you also have to accept dramatic geological changes as part of the earths history, and these will lead to the destruction of historical evidence. The fact that there is evidence of such an ancient history is in itself scientific evidence that the Biblical accounts of creation are incorrect or inadequate.
: Evolution is philosophy and story telling in as much as the scientific observation of ones environment can be. The genetic age has demonstrated that genes are passed from both parents down to their child, and that mutations in parental genes - such as genetic disorders - therefore appear in their children. In this, and as with the example of the cane toad and [many http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5756/1878?maxtoshow=3D&HITS= more] we can see evolution to some extent at work.
: I see your argument against the appearance of a history but I don't necessarily agree. Regarding the example you give with the television, I would say that the construction of the component parts for the television may be analogous with the construction of genetic material for human beings. Equally I would not like to make an analogy between Gods creation and mankinds creation, as that would imply the assumption of God having ''constructed'' us in a similar way to the way we construct inanimate objects. I believe if God did create us, it would be far more complex than this and could not be described wholly in any human given description. The argument I was putting forward is one which has existed for many years, and I don't think you've fully addressed to absolute nature of it, which is looked at in greater depth in the reference given.
: I did not want this to turn in to a creation - evolution argument, but that seems to be the only grounds on which I will find any sort of reasoned debate. A theological debate without jumping back to the idea that 'the Bible says this so it must be right' or that 'scientist have no evidence' seems impossible, though it would be beneficial to Christian dogma to engage in one fully, where they have no more than the word of other men to go by themselves.
: [[User:Entheogenicorder|Entheogenicorder]] 11:23, 5 December 2008 (EST)