Creation "science" and a Bible-based morality

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If you become suicidal from being an atheist I suggest you stay a Christian.

When I was looking into anti-YEC resources I did say to whatever was out there "I don't care how depressing it is, I want to know the truth" and then for the only time in my life I felt a strong tingling over my body.... I guess I chose the red pill over the blue pill.....

What is depressing about the truth? Being alive can be like winning the lottery! Yet, some people what to complain that 60 to 100 years of existence isn't enough. We are literally the universe becoming aware of itself. The whole concept is awesome!

So instead of trying to want more, engage with what is... what you like to do... and do it! There are no warranties.

Unless, that means fascinating over Ken Ham and his manipulation, bullshit, and lies. In that case, find a new hobby.

Last time I served on a jury I had to take that oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Did a fifth grade class come up with that oath?

It seems we would be better served if I were placed under oath and swore to be honest, to be rational and to be accurate in my testimony. But that would probably fly over most people's heads so we dumb it down to early middle school so everyone can kind of comprehend and understand, and so the judge doesn't constantly have to re-explain what the oath means.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What is depressing about the truth? Being alive can be like winning the lottery! Yet, some people what to complain that 60 to 100 years of existence isn't enough. We are literally the universe becoming aware of itself. The whole concept is awesome!

So instead of trying to want more, engage with what is... what you like to do... and do it! There are no warranties.

Unless, that means fascinating over Ken Ham and his manipulation, bullshit, and lies. In that case, find a new hobby.

Last time I served on a jury I had to take that oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Did a fifth grade class come up with that oath?

It seems we would be better served if I were placed under oath and swore to be honest, to be rational and to be accurate in my testimony. But that would probably fly over most people's heads so we dumb it down to early middle school so everyone can kind of comprehend and understand, and so the judge doesn't constantly have to re-explain what the oath means.

Of course, the oath is actually a lie. Witnesses are explicitly forbidden from providing the "whole truth". They are only allowed to answer questions they are asked, and within a very specific level of adjacency.

Defense Lawyer: And was the defendant, to your knowledge, at that apartment?
Witness: Not to my knowledge, but I totally think he did it. I mean, his behavior since the night she died has been really suspect. My girlfriend was like 'What is going on with him?' and I was like 'I don't know, he just seems really anxious since the night that woman lady got killed.'
Defense Lawyer: Your honor...
Judge: You have been warned several times to stop elaborating.
Witness: But I took an oath to tell the "whole truth".
Judge: That's it, bailiff, please escort the witness to jail.

 

[excreationist]

If you become suicidal from being an atheist I suggest you stay a Christian.

When I was looking into anti-YEC resources I did say to whatever was out there "I don't care how depressing it is, I want to know the truth" and then for the only time in my life I felt a strong tingling over my body.... I guess I chose the red pill over the blue pill.....

What is depressing about the truth?

When I was a YEC I had an invisible friend and felt good about my belief I'd go to heaven. As I suspected when I gave up my belief in YEC I went straight to atheism and became depressed... see post #62. The Matrix (and its pills) is another example where the truth is depressing.
But now I'm no longer an atheist and I'm looking forward to plans I've got for my life (like making a computer game based on the Bible)

 

[excreationist]

If you become suicidal from being an atheist I suggest you stay a Christian.

When I was looking into anti-YEC resources I did say to whatever was out there "I don't care how depressing it is, I want to know the truth" and then for the only time in my life I felt a strong tingling over my body.... I guess I chose the red pill over the blue pill.....

A common line said about religion is that all religion is fundamentally about man's relationship with the unknown. And that's just the basic fact of the matter. Nobody knows the truth.

I was talking about the truth regarding YEC vs atheistic evolution. Perhaps rejecting YEC led me closer to the truth. It could be a false dichotomy though - there could be other possibilities besides YEC and atheistic evolution.

Or to put it more succinctly, it doesn't matter whether you swallow the red or the blue pill. Either way you'll learn the same things.

If you take the blue pill you lose all knowledge of the world outside of the Matrix...

 

[Keith&Co.]

there could be other possibilities besides YEC and atheistic evolution.

Well, yeah. There's...evolution.

Dude, it's not atheistic evolution. Science is neutral on the question of whether or not gods exist. It must be. It's purview is the natural world, not the supernatural. It's like saying there's married and unmarried bachelors...if he's married, he's not a bachelor.

Evolutionary theory asks what happened, and how. And how do we know.
It cannot say that something happened 'because god(s) so willed it.' Or definitively say 'gods had nothing to do with it.'
It's just that, like the water cycle, orbits, tides, 4-color map theory, or alternating current, we know enough about it we think the explanation hangs together without demanding an appeal to magic at step 47.

 

[excreationist]

there could be other possibilities besides YEC and atheistic evolution.

Well, yeah. There's...evolution.

Dude, it's not atheistic evolution. Science is neutral on the question of whether or not gods exist.

At that time, for me, the options were YEC and atheistic evolution. According to many famous YECs if Genesis wasn't literal then I couldn't trust the gospel either.
It's like in this comic where a OEC and YEC debate each other then the YEC eventually goes straight to atheism...
https://www.oldearth.org/tract/tract.htm
Just about the only evidence I had for God was YEC. So if YEC isn't true then neither is God. If evolution is true then perhaps deism is true but I wanted a God that could send me to heaven and work in my life. A non-intervening God was depressing and effectively doesn't exist.
Recently I did attempt to argue that evolution required God in the following threads but I failed so I don't think there is good evidence for theistic evolution over atheistic evolution.

Birds, Bees, Butterflies and Flowers

Chameleons and guided evolution?

Selection pressures for long hair and beards in humans?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Except there's still no such thing as atheistic evolution.

There is theistic evolution. Just take any textbook and stamp a 'because God*' footnote on every page, and an endnote '*By 'God' we mean ______' and fill in your preferred deity.

But no theory or detail of evolutionary science is held to work ONLY as long as there are NO gods. No part of evolutionary theory implies a lack of gods. Plenty of scientists who accept evolutionary theory accept one or more divine beings. They just don't incorporate those beings in their papers.
Just like people working in other sciences, who manage to believe in the science without harming their fidelity to the skyguy.

Continuing to see it as a split between creation and 'atheistic evolution' is the manipulation the church uses to keep people in line.

As to God being necessary for evolution, you're looking to natural processes for evidence of supernatural components. That's going to work about as well as taping a cardboard spoiler onto the back of a fighter jet.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Why do children stop believing in Santa? It certainly isn't that their brains suddenly lost the ability and the pleasure associated with pretending. It isn't that they had to start giving up receiving presents. Nothing external in their worlds changed at all. The changes were internal. All that changed was that something they considered "true" was no longer true. My one son only became convinced that Santa was just a story after checking it out in an encyclopedia and on the internet. He didn't believe his friends or his parents.

The adult god stories are exactly the same except that lots of friends and family continue to tell each other that the adult Santa god is still real, despite what lots of people say. Continuing to hold that the magic is real is no longer something odd and childish in a select group. Sometimes a group member's actual survival will depend upon clinging to the belief, unlike childhood santa god stories. There's also lots of money to be made. Children don't pass around money to those who tell them about their santa god. But adults certainly do and many become fabulously rich fulfilling the demand for adult santa stories.

In the end it is just as impossible to demonstrate that the childhood Santa god is not real as it is impossible to demonstrate that the adult Santa god is not real. It's an interesting dynamic and observation of how the human brain operates in a given environment.

 

[atrib]

A common line said about religion is that all religion is fundamentally about man's relationship with the unknown. And that's just the basic fact of the matter. Nobody knows the truth.

I was talking about the truth regarding YEC vs atheistic evolution. Perhaps rejecting YEC led me closer to the truth. It could be a false dichotomy though - there could be other possibilities besides YEC and atheistic evolution.

There is no atheistic evolution; what we have is the biological theory of evolution that attempts to model and explain the diversity of life we observe on this planet today. The theory is based on observations and experiments of the reality we observe, and uses a naturalistic approach as do all scientific endeavors. The scientific theory of evolution is supported by mountains of evidence, and it appears very unlikely that the fundamental models that describe how living things evolve will change dramatically in the future. Similarly, we don't have an atheistic model of gravity, we have Newton's model of gravity, which does a good job of describing reality within the parameters of most things we experience in our day-to-day lives, and we have the relativistic model of gravity developed by Einstein which extends the model to more massive and/or fast moving objects approaching the speed of light. The evidence supporting these models is vastly more compelling than the mythology that YEC is based on. If you choose to believe in the YEC model you are doing yourself a disservice by essentially lying to yourself.

It is hypothetically possible that the reality we experience is itself a simulation. But it would be both impractical and foolish to live our lives based on this assumption. Again, you would be doing yourself a disservice by believing an idea based on no evidence.

 

[excreationist]

....The evidence supporting these models is vastly more compelling than the mythology that YEC is based on. If you choose to believe in the YEC model you are doing yourself a disservice by essentially lying to yourself.

So perhaps I was right when I said "Perhaps rejecting YEC led me closer to the truth".

It is hypothetically possible that the reality we experience is itself a simulation. But it would be both impractical and foolish to live our lives based on this assumption. Again, you would be doing yourself a disservice by believing an idea based on no evidence.

In post #45 I said "Basically I believe I'm probably in a simulation and there is an intelligent force that isn't obvious and I'm unable to convince skeptics of its existence". Elon Musk said that he thinks the chances he's not in a simuation is one in billions. I think there isn't strong evidence for the simulation so that it is more immersive.

 

[excreationist]

.....But no theory or detail of evolutionary science is held to work ONLY as long as there are NO gods. No part of evolutionary theory implies a lack of gods....

If there's no evidence that God ever intervened in evolution at all then it suggests there isn't a God that intervenes in our world... I mean if there's no evidence that God intervened during the emergence of man, like the Bible implies, then it suggests that the virgin birth and resurrection aren't literal...
I'm talking about the God of the Bible. Like I said I believed that pretty much the only proof I had of God's existence was YEC. I wanted strong proof - not just the possibility that a hidden God is out there. At that time a hidden God was depressing because it couldn't give my life hope.

 

[excreationist]

This might not be justified but I consider evolution without an intervening intelligent force to be "atheistic evolution" even if a non-intervening intelligent force exists.

Except there's still no such thing as atheistic evolution.


There is theistic evolution. Just take any textbook and stamp a 'because God*' footnote on every page, and an endnote '*By 'God' we mean ______' and fill in your preferred deity.

In the textbooks it doesn't mention any detectable intervention of an intelligent force which suggests a god didn't actually do anything. It seems what you're suggesting is like saying God causes warm ice to melt or apples to fall....

 

[Keith&Co.]

.....But no theory or detail of evolutionary science is held to work ONLY as long as there are NO gods. No part of evolutionary theory implies a lack of gods....

If there's no evidence that God ever intervened in evolution at all then it suggests there isn't a God that intervenes in our world...

OR, he wore gloves. You'd think an all powerful being of infinite knowledge, including the future techniques used to examine the past might be able to not leave fingerprints if he so desired, nu?

I mean if there's no evidence that God intervened during the emergence of man, like the Bible implies, then it suggests that the virgin birth and resurrection aren't literal...

there is no evidence th at it's literal. This is not a problem for oodles of people who accept evolution and believe in the JCI god.

I'm talking about the God of the Bible. Like I said I believed that pretty much the only proof I had of God's existence was YEC.

that's pretty sad....

I wanted strong proof - not just the possibility that a hidden God is out there. At that time a hidden God was depressing because it couldn't give my life hope.

wanting it does not make it true. Or even likely. It doesn't even MAKE it possible,

 

[Keith&Co.]

This might not be justified but I consider evolution without an intervening intelligent force to be "atheistic evolution" even if a non-intervening intelligent force exists.

Atheism is about a belief in gods. None, to be exact.
Evolution does not have any religious belief. There is no atheist evolutionary theory.
Just like there's no atheist theory of the speed of light.
Or atheist theory about blood type inheritance.
There's observations, experiments, and math. That's it.
Calling it atheist evolution is not justified.

There is theistic evolution. Just take any textbook and stamp a 'because God*' footnote on every page, and an endnote '*By 'God' we mean ______' and fill in your preferred deity.

In the textbooks it doesn't mention any detectable intervention of an intelligent force which suggests a god didn't actually do anything. It seems what you're suggesting is like saying God causes warm ice to melt or apples to fall....

That's pretty much what theistic evolution does. Take the known science and attribute everything to god.

Self-mutation did a lot of that. According to him, no one could do 4-figure math unless God propped up mathematics.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Atheism is not the same as nihilism or amorality. It disputes the existence of an intrinsic purpose and meaning in life, but it frees one to create one's own purpose in life. Three of my favorite Robert Ingersoll quotes on this general theme:

"Let us be true to ourselves -- true to the facts we know...We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear... We can civilize our fellow men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine -- with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy."

"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray."

"Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so."

 

[excreationist]

Atheism is about a belief in gods. None, to be exact.
Evolution does not have any religious belief. There is no atheist evolutionary theory.

In post #63 Jimmy Higgins said "All books are atheists. None of them believe in god(s)." So that joke follows that the theory of evolution could be atheist.

.....It seems what you're suggesting is like saying God causes warm ice to melt or apples to fall....

That's pretty much what theistic evolution does. Take the known science and attribute everything to god.

Then wasn't I being reasonable to immediately reject Christian theistic evolution?

 

[excreationist]

If there's no evidence that God ever intervened in evolution at all then it suggests there isn't a God that intervenes in our world...

OR, he wore gloves. You'd think an all powerful being of infinite knowledge, including the future techniques used to examine the past might be able to not leave fingerprints if he so desired, nu?

That's basically what I believe now.... see post #45....

I mean if there's no evidence that God intervened during the emergence of man, like the Bible implies, then it suggests that the virgin birth and resurrection aren't literal...

there is no evidence th at it's literal. This is not a problem for oodles of people who accept evolution and believe in the JCI god.

That's also what I believe now - well a kind of god, not really the JCI one.

I'm talking about the God of the Bible. Like I said I believed that pretty much the only proof I had of God's existence was YEC.

that's pretty sad....

If YEC is true it would be pretty obvious that God existed.... like I said I now think "God" doesn't want to be obvious and I'm unable to convince any skeptics of its existence.

I wanted strong proof - not just the possibility that a hidden God is out there. At that time a hidden God was depressing because it couldn't give my life hope.

wanting it does not make it true. Or even likely. It doesn't even MAKE it possible,

I think that's why I became an atheist after giving up YEC.

 

[Keith&Co.]

In post #63 Jimmy Higgins said "All books are atheists. None of them believe in god(s)." So that joke follows that the theory of evolution could be atheist.

Yes, every single scientific throry lacks a belief in anything supernatural.
But it does not make sense to split off 'atheistic evolution' from creationism unless you refer to every science as atheistic.
'Recent findings in atheistic geology...'
'A professor of atheistic biology...'
'A lot of atheistic computing nerds scrambled for Y2K...'

If you don't do it for every one, then it's wrong to single out evolutionary theory.

That's pretty much what theistic evolution does. Take the known science and attribute everything to god.

Then wasn't I being reasonable to immediately reject Christian theistic evolution?

i don't think it's reasonable to ascribe every single thing and every step of every process to a god. Surely he could have created processes that would continue to function if he left for a while.

But, if YOU found their evidence convincing, thst's up to you.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yes, every single scientific throry lacks a belief in anything supernatural.
But it does not make sense to split off 'atheistic evolution' from creationism unless you refer to every science as atheistic.
'Recent findings in atheistic geology...'
'A professor of atheistic biology...'
'A lot of atheistic computing nerds scrambled for Y2K...

Reminds me of a guided tour at Mammoth Caves National Park. The ranger began by saying that there are many stories about how these caves were formed. it seemed odd until I realized we were in Kentucky. He then went on to say he was giving the scientific account. He didn't say he was giving the atheistic geological account. No doubt there were plenty of religionists about who believed the caves were formed when a 600 year old man built a magic boat on orders from a magic sky voice.

 

[excreationist]

....But it does not make sense to split off 'atheistic evolution' from creationism unless you refer to every science as atheistic.

I'm saying there is atheistic evolution and theistic evolution - not that evolution is always atheistic - but I rejected Christian theistic evolution and went straight to atheistic evolution.