Christianity debate

[FlaGator]

Originally Posted by hampshirebrit
FlaGator, whatever the relative merits of our cases, it is good to see you back on CU.

Welcome back to the fleet.

I concur. One of my favorite posters :)

Thank you very much the both of you! I needed a bit of a time out after all the stuff in December but its nice to be back. I was taking the bloggin stuff way to serioiusly and it was distracting me from what God's desires for me. Any ways I enjoy chatting with each of you and look foward to more of the same!

gary

[FlaGator]

Yes, those bones.

Of course, if you're going to claim that the Earth is thousands of years old, not billions of years old, then you've got to do more than show that the decay rate of Carbon 14 has not always been constant. You also have to show that the speed of light has not always been constant because that would be the only way to explain how the light from most of the stars in the sky has reached Earth. Good luck.

This got me thinking. Actually it is not the speed of like being wrong that would shake up science. It is the red shift data of the doppler effect. Say that one day they discover that gravity in deep space pulls more strongly on light then the red shift would appear to be greater than it actually is and the distances between stars and galaxies would be greately exaggerated. This would turn modern cosmology on it's head and many of the assumptions based on the age of the universe would need to be re thought or thrown out all together. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. I've seen nothing to make be believe that this is so but I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of the possibility.

[The Night Owl]

Submitted for your approval... (best Rod Stering voice)

For the record the speed of light is not always a constant. In a vacuum it has a constant rate of speed but with in a thick atmosphere such as earth or Jupiter it does slow down.

The fact that light slows in a medium does not change the fact that the speed of light is constant. Moreover, we are talking about light that is travelling through the vacuum of space.

[megimoo]

Appearances can be deceiving, but for the sake of argument, let us accept your idea that DNA appears to have been designed. If DNA appears to have been designed, then why should we assume that it was designed by God and not by extraterrestrials?



I don't claim to know that God does not exist. The believers are the ones who make the extravagant claims. I'll remain open to the God hypothesis, but I'm not going to believe it unless someone provides evidence or a theory to support it.

By the way, your posts are great. I don't agree with most of what you're writing, but I admire the fact that you really think this stuff through.

Anyway, here is a short video you might find interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9_dHjH34nY

How many corkscrew bends are you going through before you admit the ever so slight possibility of GODS existence .Everything including your aliens were created by GOD and nothing that exists existed before his creation !

[The Night Owl]

This got me thinking. Actually it is not the speed of like being wrong that would shake up science. It is the red shift data of the doppler effect. Say that one day they discover that gravity in deep space pulls more strongly on light then the red shift would appear to be greater than it actually is and the distances between stars and galaxies would be greately exaggerated. This would turn modern cosmology on it's head and many of the assumptions based on the age of the universe would need to be re thought or thrown out all together. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. I've seen nothing to make be believe that this is so but I wonder if anyone has ever done a study of the possibility.

We have more than one way to estimate the age of the Universe...

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/bbage.html#cluster

[The Night Owl]

How many corkscrew bends are you going through before you admit the ever so slight possibility of GODS existence .Everything including your aliens were created by GOD and nothing that exists existed before his creation !

I have already acknowledged the ever so slight possibility that God exists.

[Sonnabend]

God is dead- Nietszche

Nietszche is dead - God

[LogansPapa]

And man never walked the Earth with the dinosaurs: The knowledge of any school boy.

[FlaGator]

We have more than one way to estimate the age of the Universe...

http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/bbage.html#cluster

I understand that... but here I am going assume the naturalist view which is, has anyone every visited a global cluster to verify that the assumptions of their structure and age are correct?

Since no one has actually traveled to a globular cluster then its condition and state are unknown and its makeup and age is assumed based on circumstantial evidence, much like some theists infer the existence of God based on the preponderance of circumstantial evidence. The point I am making here is that in the debate between the existence or non existence of God, methods that you use to validate one point can also be used to invalidate another supporting point. This is true of theism as well. However I believe that you are asking for irrefutable proof of the existence of God but you apply a lesser standard of evidence to the scientific proofs. To be truly fair you should determine your standard and apply them equally.

BTW, the use of Cepheid variables seem to be the most accurate way of determining distance in space but unfortunately Cepheid’s cannot be detected as far away as the edge of the universe.

[The Night Owl]

I understand that... but here I am going assume the naturalist view which is, has anyone every visited a global cluster to verify that the assumptions of their structure and age are correct?

Since no one has actually traveled to a globular cluster then its condition and state are unknown and its makeup and age is assumed based on circumstantial evidence, much like some theists infer the existence of God based on the preponderance of circumstantial evidence.

Your concerns about one of the methods used to estimate the age of the Universe would carry more weight if the results were not in agreement with results from other methods... but they are.

No, the Earth is not thousands of years old. It is billions of years old. The only way for the Creationist estimate of Earth's age to be correct is if reality itself were some kind of illusion... which is not likely in my opinion.

However I believe that you are asking for irrefutable proof of the existence of God but you apply a lesser standard of evidence to the scientific proofs. To be truly fair you should determine your standard and apply them equally.

No, I'm not asking for irrefutable proof of God. In fact, even insufficient evidence of God might be enough to persuade an impressionable person such as me to believe.