Talk:Essay:A Challenge to Creationists

Re: If god did create the universe, then it would have to be physically possible for a sentient being to create universes, planets, living creatures, basically anything.

Physically possible? I think a far better explanation is that it was a supernatural event. Please go HERE. Conservative 17:31, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Jack,

Your challenge echoes that of Kent Hovind, and is flawed for the same reasons. By the same logic, I could challenge you to prove that you're not a clever construct being controlled by hyper-intelligent slug aliens from a distant galaxy, and claim that if you can't prove it, the notion that you're a sentient being has no merit.

You're asking finite beings to explain the infinite. By definition, we cannot. If God exists, then we cannot explain Him or the mechanisms by which He works His wonders. If God does not exist, then we obviously cannot explain Him or the mechanisms by which He works His wonders.

Your challenge meets the same result regardless of whether God exists or does not exist; thus, it is not a useful challenge. --Benp 18:03, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Actually...

My challenge is nothing like Hovind's.

Hovind's was invalid because it required one to prove things outside the scope of evolution, not just evolution. Hovind's challenge therefore wasn't to prove evolution, it was to disprove creationism, which is by nature unfalsifiable.

physical or supernatural, creationism requires the actions of god to be POSSIBLE in some way. Extraordinary Claims need Extraordinary Evidence, as they say. I could claim that there exists a being that defies all laws known to man, but it would be just that: a claim. Until I proved it could be done.

In other words, in something can't be DISproven, you must PROVE it. --JackSmith 07:48, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

Not much of a challenge

What kind of challenge is that? The challenger doesn't even understand the nature of God.

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Mark 10:27

Now Jesus was talking about salvation, especially in the context of one who clings to "the good life" here on Earth. But it goes double and triple and tenfold and a thousandfold for an event as all-encompassing as creation.

Here's the real challenge: if God did not create everything, then explain to me how it was physically possible for things to "just happen," and in a way that does not multiply guesses. It doesn't even have to be an odds-on favorite; odds less than nineteen to one against would be fine. The trouble is that the odds against things "just happening" are nothing short of astronomical, and somethings simply could not have "just happened" in any amount of time, and other things couldn't have happened because they did not have that much time.--TerryH^Talk 09:47, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

Response: If god DID create everything, how did HE come to be? that's even LESS likely than this world developing on its own. And he couldn't have always been there. Time cannot extend infinitely backwards, because if it did, then an eternity would have passed by now, which defies the rule of "eternity". --JackSmith 10:03, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

P.S: did you just link the word Astronomical to the astronomy article? They mean completely different things. --JackSmith 10:13, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

Rebuttal: God needed no cause for Himself. He is the First Cause, and the Last.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Revelation 1:8

God made time. So, according to His nature, He is outside of time.

And—funny that you should talk about time being incapable of flowing infinitely backwards. That's a relatively new concept, did you know that? Sir Charles Lyell, the inventor of uniformitarianism, held as one of his central precepts that the Earth has always been around, and forever. That premise became untenable when the radiometrists couldn't come up with any number higher than 4.6 billion years for the "ages" of the oldest rocks.

And I did not link to astronomy by accident. I meant to do that. Because modern astronomy is providing observations that, properly understood, are tearing uniformitarianism, and all the deep time baggage that goes with it, to tatters. Think about it—virtually every successful space mission, by NASA, or the ESA, or the old Soviet space agency, has turned up observations that create serious problems for the whole deep time concept, the nebula hypothesis, the Big Bang, and everything else. Check out the articles on the planets and on many of the moons, and you'll see.--TerryH^Talk 11:06, 16 June 2008 (EDT)