Evolution works in mysterious ways

Oakman

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

I did not. Quote away, but read first to avoid embarassment.

Better yet, I'll quote in full: "Even you could pick the consistent from the inconsistent, or perhaps not. I have had the privellege of good teaching over the years from some of the best pastors in the UK. I'm told told my current pastor has written around 100 books, most of them probably way over my head. I'd love to learn ancient Hebrew and Greek and Aramaic but I'm afraid languages are not my thing. What you understand when you read enough scripture is that it's overall theme is the nature and character of God. Now remeber this is the same God that I know so it's like reading about a good friend. Not difficult to spot any glaring errors." (Emphasis added)

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Most of it more than 3 times and although I don't

I didn't count any of the mosts or maybes or somewhats or scripture readings for the day. If you didn't sit down and read it straight through, then you didn't read it. Sermons are a great way to be lead astray. I am surprised at how oftem the bible is quote out of context by folks who should know better.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

you clearly know better.

Exactly. I do. I find the concept of a god who interferes with his own creation; or needs the worship of his creations; or who has any interest in the petty little rules that each denomination promulgates (they all have a thing about donations though - they are remarkably consistent about that) to the point of enforcing them with everlasting torment to be ludicrous. Something that is omnipotent and omniscient would not be bothered. If, on the other hand, there is a god like the one you believe in, then I, like Shaw's Don Juan, consider Hell to be a far more convivial place to spend eternity.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

73Zeppelin

Oh Paul, I've lost countless hours trying to discuss things with these guys and the experience can only be likened to having your teeth pulled with no anaesthetic: pointless, disappointing, bloody and painful. Don't repeat my mistake.

Matthew Faithfull

Paul Watson wrote:

Actually there are writings of Jesus outside of the Bible. Some suppressed by the Church

There are no credible 1st century writings suppressed even by the church and certainly not by the Church. There are a couple of laughable modern day islamic forgeries and some incidental scribblings of the non Christian Ethiopian Gnostics dated before 500 AD. Neither has any bearing on the person or works of Christ. I'm not aware of any Roman writing referencing Jesus specifically but Josephus, a Jew working for the Romans around AD 70 may well have referred to him and certainly referred to the Christians. His works are non religous historical accounts generally taken to be accurate if a little biased towards his paymasters and apparently contain nothing in contradiction to the Bible. Clearly some people claim the Bible to be literally true but don't understand it. Jesus was clear that he had come to fulfill the Old Testament law, to complete its purpose and render it thereby obselete. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself. This contains the whole law, everything else is an expansion and application of it. The Old Testament law did not become wrong it is merely superceeded. Those whose understanding of this is so limited they cannot eat Pork with a clean concience should not eat it and those that can may do so except where it would cause distress or temptation to those who cannot.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

R Giskard Reventlov

So you are delusional: quick lock him up: he's a godbot. I'm happy (in a strange, magnanimous kind of way) that you believe the voices in your head but, and trust me on this, there is no god, no afterlife, no nothing. You die, you're dead, that's it. Nice god, btw, that allowed 100,000 innocents to die in Burma. Bet that gives you a warm glow at night.

me, me, me

Matthew Faithfull

Oakman wrote:

Not difficult to spot any glaring errors

And as I've said I never spotted any. Quite sure I would have done if there were any though :)

Oakman wrote:

If you didn't sit down and read it straight through, then you didn't read it.

Not strictly true.

Oakman wrote:

I find the concept of a god who

You find your own small mean broken down concept of God distastefull. Well on that we can at least agree. God's concpet of God on the other hand well that will be stretching my mind to new horizons for eternity. :-D

Oakman wrote:

Something that is omnipotent and omniscient would not ...

You see right at that point you fall flat on your face and spontaneously combust. You know less about what something omnipotent and omniscient would do than you do about canine dentistry in zero gravity, which is strange considering you've read all about exactly what someone omnipotent and omniscient has done and a great deal of why and how. Clearly you didn't get it which is truly, truly, sad. :((

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Ilion

Call all you want: I've *seen* your general posts and so I *know* that you're little different in general approach from the pseudo-atheists and half-baked "Darwinists" you're having a spat with at the moment. That in this thread on this subject you've been trying to argue by the "rules" of logic and reason, and doing a fair job, is great! I commend you ... in this limited context. Clearly, you *can* reason reasonably. When you do it consistently, then you can think about "calling me on that" ... though, of course, at that hoped-for time, there will be no need to do that.

Oakman

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

No that was the church, getting into the Church is little more difficult.

Problem is that everybody is in the Church - until some human comes along as says - oh no, he wasn't and she wasn't and they weren't either. God told me so. It always boils down to little men becoming big men by becoming God's mouthpiece.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Matthew Faithfull

I'm a deal happier that I don't believe the voices in your head, talk about delusions, just declare 100,000 people you don't know to be innocent why don't you. 'Judge of all the Earth' err no, that title belongs to Jesus Christ, who earned it. I highly recommend you check your omnipotence, immortality, omnicience and general perfection before you start an argument with the almighty himself. Relying on his enormous patience while your time runs out on a guess that your immortal soul can be switched off like a light, seems like a bad strategy to me.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Oakman

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

And as I've said I never spotted any.

But that's because you have only read one version, by your own admission. Try the Vulgate on for size.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

God's concpet of God on the other hand well that will be stretching my mind to new horizons for eternity.

I guess that's the problem. The more I understand about your concept of god, the more distasteful I find it. As for any assurance that it is God's concept, I am afraid i regard that as another case of a small man hoping to convince everyone that he's a great man because he speaks for god.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

You know less about what something omnipotent and omniscient would do than you do about canine dentistry in zero gravity

You forget that I am an official preacher. ;P Whatever else, you cannot suggest that I know nothing about what I speak of. You, on the other hand, are a rank amateur, holding up your guesses as if they were Holy Writ.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Matthew Faithfull

Oakman wrote:

Problem is that everybody is in the Church

Not quite, everybody is generally presumed to be in the Church because it not up to us either to determine or to know who is and who isn't. That is the preserve of God who does not generally hand out lists of those who are and aren't to men small or large. Anyone claiming he has done so is highly suspect. The danger comes when this occurs in a weak church without enough discernment to understand what's going on. This is not the norm or the general case. I guess you've probably been through a church split or two and they're nearly always sad and traumatic. 'By their works you shall know them' and remember that He has promised to build his Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. The Kingdom of heaven is forever and that forever can begin right now.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Vikram A Punathambekar

Paul Watson wrote:

I wonder how many other "unique" surnames there are in the world.

Mine. Google it, and you will only ever come across two people - a distant uncle of mine, and, well, me. It's a corruption of a slightly more common name, Puntambekar. BTW, cows *are* female.

Cheers, Vikram.

The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.

Matthew Faithfull

Oakman wrote:

I guess that's the problem. The more I understand about your concept of god,

Take no notice of my concept of God, it is inadequate, as am I, to begin to describe what the almighty is like.

Oakman wrote:

Whatever else, you cannot suggest that I know nothing about what I speak of

Much the same was no doubt said by the Pharisees who knew their scriptures at least as well as you and understood them even less. Perhaps you can enlighten me from your store of knowledge. Who is it that the verses in John 1 1-18 are talking about. There is clearly John the Baptist and Moses gets a mention but who is this word he talks about?

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Lost User

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Being taught as fact simply because it is I have no problem with.

Intelligent Design is fact? How so?

Lost User

What has atheism got to do with bias?

DemonPossessed

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Like evolution but the other way around, species breaking up, loosing genetic information over time, becoming over adapted, over specialized to their environments, less flexible and more vulnerable to environmental change. Think of it as entroy applied to population genetics and you'll see that not only is it inevitable but it's obvious, accounts for all the genuine 'evidence' purported to demonstrate evolution, operates effectively over much shorter time scales and also absolutely rules out the evolution of higher organisms from lower ones.

If it is impossible for "higher" organisms to form from "lower" ones, then why is it that insects and bacteria can evolve resistance to pesticides and antibiotics in such a short time frame because of natural selection? Surely this added complexity could not arise through random mutations and natural selection. Is God sitting up in heaven magically using his Intelligent Design powers as we speak on bacteria and crop pests? If bacteria and insects can evolve changes that help them survive through mutations and natural selection in such a small timescale think what is possible over a timescale of hundreds of millions of years.

I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion

Matthew Faithfull

The universe and everything in it is the creation of an intelligent God who designed it. The clear marks of his design are written all over it for any and every open eye to see, 'so that no one may have an excuse'. These are the facts of intelligent design, it is a basis for science not a product of it or a theory dervied by it. It is theology and philosophy and should be taught as such.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Matthew Faithfull

DemonPossessed wrote:

why is it that insects and bacteria can evolve resistance to pesticides and antibiotics in such a short time frame

They cannot, no evolution is involed as discussed elsewhere in this thread. They must contain wihtin them the necessary information to enable the resistance beforehand, there is no opportuinity to evolve it by any mechanism ever propoed as evolutionary. They'd all take too long apart from just plain not working. If your code doesn't contain a DrawLine Function that can handle differing screen resolutions you're not going to get one by waving a magnet over your hard disk, not even if you wave it for a million years over a billion hard disks simultaneously, even if you do throw away a random selection of those that don't work every now and again. :)

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Oakman

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Take no notice of my concept of God, it is inadequate, as am I, to begin to describe what the almighty is like.

'Twould be easier to ignore if you spent less bandwidth posting about it, end without end.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

Much the same was no doubt said by the Pharisees who knew their scriptures at least as well as you

They had less to study.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

understood them even less

You need to spend some time studying the history of Judea.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

There is clearly John the Baptist and Moses gets a mention but who is this word he talks about?

We really should refer to "Logos" which doesn't exactly mean "word" (Could that be an error???) but is what the Greek author of John used. This is, of course, the section of the New Testament that was used to place Yeshua as an equal the Yaweh. Yaweh was also identified with Logos and so we had the start of the triple-headed god.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Lost User

It is called belief, not fact. Different people believe different things. You accept on faith that God created everything; another person may not accept it.

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

The clear marks of his design are written all over it for any and every open eye to see, 'so that no one may have an excuse'.

Lots of people have a different opinion. All I have to say is this. You can believe in anything you want. You don't have the right to force it on anyone else. You force it on people, when you ask it to be taught as fact in schools. Teaching christian beliefs have an appropriate means -- Catechism, Sunday school, maybe a religious studies class in school. I hope you understand my point of view.

DemonPossessed

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

If your code doesn't contain a DrawLine Function that can handle differing screen resolutions you're not going to get one by waving a magnet over your hard disk, not even if you wave it for a million years over a billion hard disks simultaneously, even if you do throw away a random selection of those that don't work every now and again.

This is a typical creationist error. And one of the most ridiculous misunderstandings of evolution. Evolution does not deal with impossibly improbable single step changes. It deals with cumulative small changes over an extremely long time frame. Extremely small random changes in the offspring of each generation, such as the ones in bacteria that give them resistance to antibiotics allow natural selection to "select" the best suited ones to survive and produce the next generation of offspring. And over an extremely long time scale, this produces big changes, but in a small time scale, it produces small changes.

I'm a Christian: I *know* that I'm perverted. - Ilion