Many religious people cite "faith" as to why they believe.

My problem with this is: anyone can say that about anything. God, Allah, Zeus…faith can be used to argue for anything. So, even when the faith
argument is invoked, there seems to be only two options: have faith in every possible god, or require evidence that one specific god exists and
all others do not.

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Why can't you have faith that your god is THE God? Why would faith only be limited to the general question of whether a god exists?

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What I mean is this: one person could have faith that the Christian god exists, and another person could have equally strong faith that Zeus exists. Does someone having
faith in a god make it real? If so, then Jesus, Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Odin, and all other gods exist at the same time. if faith in a god does NOT make it real, then faith cannot
be used as an argument for god.

If someone uses the faith argument, then they have to accept the validity of the same argument when applied to beliefs which contradict their own.

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@69,148

No, because they have faith that they are right and others are wrong.

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You cannot apply logic to faith, it simply doesn't work like that. Having faith in God doesn't make it real or unreal. It's simply faith. Whether or not the God actually exists is another question. However, it's still completely valid for someone to have faith in God, and use that as an argument for his existence. It just works that way.

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@69,152
> No, because they have faith that they are right and others are wrong.

And this is what's wrong with religion in general and why it should be abolished.

No, really. The idea that one person is right and the other wrong in a religious sense has led to some horrid atrocities. Religion is inherently poisonous.

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@69,165

> You cannot apply logic to faith, it simply doesn't work like that. Having faith in God doesn't make it real or unreal. It's simply faith. Whether or not the God actually exists is another question. However, it's still completely valid for someone to have faith in God, and use that as an argument for his existence. It just works that way.

Damn right. You cannot have a rational debate with religious elements. It shits me people do, even in politics. There is a good reason Western civilization embarked on a way of secularization. Unless you prefer middle-ages theocracy.

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> Whether or not the God actually exists is another question. However, it's still completely valid for someone to have faith in God, and use that as an argument for his existence.

How so? This is a contradiction. What would you do if i said that I had faith that god does not exist? Would you take that as evidence for his nonexistence? (Im not actually making the faith argument, im just using it as an example to point out the flaw in it).

> It just works that way.

If you make a claim, back it up.

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Faith is weird.
It isn't proof. It more like acceptance of evidence and experience.
There are many people out there that have a blind faith (without any evidence at all), but the reason it has a modifier "blind" is that they don't have anything other than a whim to support their faith.
"True" faith is wrought from evidence and experience.
I've personally found that there are a lot of people out there who are clueless as to why they believe and for them "faith" is a horrible argument.
If you don't come to your faith through making judgement calls, sifting through evidence and seeking religious experiences, then it is blind and useless as any kind of "proof".

One thing that differentiates religion and mythology is the existences of real occurances and people. We can dismiss Zeus and greek mythology by the huge amounts of unhistoric stories and bad science. This is why only a few religions are left with major amounts of followers. They are all grounded in proveable archaelogical facts, have texts that have stood up to the verifications of scholars (at least in the non religious aspects) and don't boast of just plain silly stuff like the world sitting on the back of turtles.

Once you reach that realization then you have to go beyond into the realm of faith by adding religious experience. Which will never hold much water in a logical discussion. So yes, in a way, I agree with the OP that it is silly to try and convince someone of your religion by virtue of your own personal faith.

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> What would you do if I said that I had faith that god does not exist? Would you take that as evidence for his nonexistence?

If you had faith that God doesn't exist, and I had faith that God does exist, we're both right. I wouldn't take that as evidence for his nonexistence, but you could. That's basically how faith works, you cannot apply logic to it. Faith is essentially a non-logical/scientific conclusion. You either believe it, or you don't.

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> We can dismiss Zeus and greek mythology by the huge amounts of unhistoric stories and bad science…
> They are all grounded in proveable archaelogical facts…
> and don't boast of just plain silly stuff like the world sitting on the back of turtles…

The entire human population spawned from two people.
Talking snakes exist.
The world is 6000 years old.
There was a worldwide flood.
Dead people come back to life.

*ahem*

> If you had faith that God doesn't exist, and I had faith that God does exist, we're both right.

So god exists and doesn't exist at the same time?

> That's basically how faith works, you cannot apply logic to it. Faith is essentially a non-logical/scientific conclusion.

In other words, people with faith have no real reason for believing. They do so "just because".

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> In other words, people with faith have no real reason for believing. They do so "just because".

Exactly. That's all faith is. You believe in something without evidence or proof, even when there is evidence or proof to invalidate your belief. That's why it's the strongest type of belief there is.

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Faith is illogical. Faith only requires you to believe something exists, therefore it does exist.

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> You believe in something without evidence or proof, even when there is evidence or proof to invalidate your belief.

This does nothing for the actual truth of a belief. And believing something despite evidence or proof to the contrary is just foolish.

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> So god exists and doesn't exist at the same time?
> In other words, people with faith have no real reason for believing. They do so "just because".
> This does nothing for the actual truth of a belief. And believing something despite evidence or proof to the contrary is just foolish.

Fuck, are you guys that thick? That's the whole fucking point. You guys are answering your own questions left and right, but for some reason you don't seem to realize this. To confirm those statements, yes, yes, and yes. The very concept/definition of God defies logic. Stop trying to apply logic to him/her/it.

The truth of the belief is independent of the belief itself. It is something that can probably never be proven. Whether or not you want to accept faith as a valid argument is up to you. Just realize that faith itself is non-logical and doesn't follow the rules of logic. Both parties either agree to use faith as a valid argument (in which case the argument comes to a grinding halt because of the breakdown of logic) or don't agree to use faith as a valid argument (in which case the argument suspended indefinitely because there is no reliable evidence).

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> Just realize that faith itself is non-logical and doesn't follow the rules of logic.

This is why its not a valid argument. You just admitted that your own argument is completely nonsensical.

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> This is why its not a valid argument. You just admitted that your own argument is completely nonsensical.

I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have any "faith" in anything. My argument is that faith is nonsensical, that was it. Are you saying that my argument that faith is nonsensical is itself nonsensical?

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Funny, from reading your post, it seemed like you were defending the faith argument.

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@69,403

> The entire human population spawned from two people.
Modern science has shown this to be true in general, whether you believe we "evolved" or that God created us. They have shown genetics markers that lead us to one man and one woman who all modern humans spawned from.

> Talking snakes exist.
Not talking snakes. On snake that talked. If you go by modern shows like "dog whisper" all animals can communicate in some manner. However, this is a metaphoric representation of "The Serpent" AKA the devil. Whether he was actually in the body of a snake I'll leave to those who feel like debating such trivial matters.

> The world is 6000 years old.
This is debated, heavily. If you don't think so, just do some quick google searching. Also, not that the Bible does not give us a specific age, ever. So if you make certain assumptions, you can get a date that fits from 6000 years to any number of years.

> There was a worldwide flood.
Another hotly debated item. Just look it up. There is definitely evidence that it could have happened and none that says explicitly it didn't.

> Dead people come back to life.
This happens all the time. There are many medical "miracles" where a person came back that was dead, that the doctors have no idea how or why.

Now returning to my point, there are tons of things that were talked about in the Bible LONG before any modern person came up with it.

For example, the Bible says the earth hangs on nothing.
The Bible says the earth is round (a circle in some translations).
The Bible says the blood is life.
The Bible prescribed basic hygenic laws that were unheard of for the time. Many of which we've discovered the reasons for only recently. (Such as washing your hands before you eat, not touching other people after touching a corpse, not eating pork (triconosis), etc)

Many old myths promoted the exact opposite of these things. (bloodletting was a common practice in many "old" religions now called myths.)

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> They have shown genetics markers that lead us to one man and one woman who all modern humans spawned from.

I assume you're referring to mitochondrial eve and Y-chromosomal adam. If so, you completely miss the point of this. They are merely the common ancestors of everyone alive today. There WERE other alive at this time, it's just that none of their descendents are alive today. No biologist with any sort of brain would claim that humanity started with just two people.

> Not talking snakes. On snake that talked.

As if this makes your point more valid. "Not flying spaghetti monsters. One flying spaghetti monster."

> However, this is a metaphoric representation of "The Serpent" AKA the devil.

So the bible is a metaphor? Fine. All of it? No? Which parts? Was a guy who walked on water and raised people from the dead a metaphor? No? How do you determine what parts are metaphor and what parts are literally true?

> This is debated, heavily.

Not within the scientific community, which draws its conclusions from overwhelming observable evidence. Are scientists with years of training idiots, or liars?

> Also, not that the Bible does not give us a specific age, ever.

The bible lists genealogies which include the age of biblical figures and when they had children, going from Jesus all the way back to Adam, in various books. From these you can calculate that the bible says the world is about 6000 years old. Some case can be made with the bible for an earth as old as 10000 years, but this still isn't even remotely close to the age observable evidence gives us.

> There is definitely evidence that it could have happened and none that says explicitly it didn't.

The fossil record, for one. It is sorted with the most simple life forms at the bottom(oldest), and gradually increases in complexity as you go up. Water CANNOT sort things this way, only by weight/density/etc. So why aren't elephants/whales/etc. at the bottom, with bugs at the top?

> This happens all the time. There are many medical "miracles" where a person came back that was dead, that the doctors have no idea how or why.

It's good that you have the word "miracles" in quotation marks, because they are not really miracles. Just because no one knows how or why at the moment, does not mean god did it. It just means we don't know yet. I challenge you to show me one reliable, documented case where someone suffered brain-death(NOT merely having their heart stopped for awhile), then came back to life after three days.

> there are tons of things that were talked about in the Bible LONG before any modern person came up with it.

The bible also talks about the "four corners of the earth", and says that pi=3. Also, just because the bible gets some basic facts right does not mean it is theologically accurate.

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@70,210

> I assume you're referring to mitochondrial eve and Y-chromosomal adam…No biologist with any sort of brain would claim that humanity started with just two people.
And yet, that is exactly what it is saying. ALL humans were descendants of them…plus it's basic logic that at some point, one of the apes evolved and became a homo sapiens. That "person" would have to spawn the rest of us because he/she speciated from the rest of the apes and was incompatible with the others.

> So the bible is a metaphor? … How do you determine what parts are metaphor and what parts are literally true?

Years of study. :) Just like any person who studies any text would do. Even a textbook is not completely "factual". Is an future person going to think that all hunters shoot monkeys out of trees by aiming at them directly? He would if he were to take a calculus text as rigidly as a lot of people seem to force the Bible into. You use some common sense on some things. When Yeshua says, there was a man who went on a road and got beat up…etc (the classic good Samaritan story) I don't think anyone really thinks he's referring to a real person do they?

> Not within the scientific community, which draws its conclusions from overwhelming observable evidence. Are scientists with years of training idiots, or liars?

No, biased is the word you are looking for. Scientists with years of training (and the general scientific community) have been making statements for millenia that are overturned by often just one genius with an epiphany.
Case in point: the big bang
For ages, Science denied that the universe had a beginning (because it would mean that religion was correct, they were blinded by their bias against the religious folk). Now no scientist in their right mind would deny that our universe started. Granted there are tons of theories as to what might have come before if there was a before, but this universe we live in, had a beginning.

> The bible lists genealogies …6000 years old…10000 years

Close. The genealogical thing assuming that no people were skipped, holds to around that time frame (some say 15k years), but there are a couple factors.
One: the word translated often as "begat" doesn't mean "son of" like most translations use. It means "this is the descendant of". It can mean "the son of" but it could also mean 10 generations or even 100 generations later. (This is in reference to the old testament ones. Different wording in the new.)
Two: there is much debate about the time before people. Many Jewish and Christian believers have put this to be anything from a few days to billions of years. Therefore, this is inconclusive. The evolutionists may very well be right, and from the evolving world, God chose to grant a group of apes sentience and they were the Humans.
I'll have to ask him when I get to heaven. :)

> The fossil record, for one. It is sorted with the most simple life forms at the bottom(oldest), and gradually increases in complexity as you go up. Water CANNOT sort things this way, only by weight/density/etc. So why aren't elephants/whales/etc. at the bottom, with bugs at the top?

Peer reviewed, documented science tested at a major university:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwA6CGwpTsM

And known for sometime…yet, not heard of very much. Here is where I say bias has come into play. This forces us to completely rethink how things worked.

> It's good that you have the word "miracles" in quotation marks… I challenge you to show me one reliable, documented case where someone suffered brain-death(NOT merely having their heart stopped for awhile), then came back to life after three days.

Ah see, I figured you were talking about the other returned to life stuff. :) The core of this particular death, is that this is unique. This is moving from the realm of testable science into the spiritual and "mystical". The God stuff. That part there can only be believable once you have come to accept the rest of the Book. :) Don't try to wrap your head around the God stuff until you can accept the other stuff, or that there is even a God. Because as long as you believe there is no God, of course, the idea that He came to earth is ridiculous.

> The bible also talks about the "four corners of the earth", and says that pi=3. Also, just because the bible gets some basic facts right does not mean it is theologically accurate.

Another misstranslation by idiots who at the time thought the earth was flat…the proper translation of that is four quarters of the earth. Take an orange, you can easily quarter it. If the original writer was thinking corners, why are there verses talking about the earth being a circle(also translatable as sphere, but not translatable as square)? Circles don't have corners but their spheres do have quarters.

pi=3?
Try this on for size. There are 2 explanations for this verse, both equally valid. Both of them are very accurate.
Simple architecture:
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/bibleval.htm
Interesing word study:
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/158/

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I agree with the people who say there's a difference between blind faith and real faith. Any faith is independent of right vs. wrong. Someone with blind faith doesn't realize this and consequently thinks, speaks, and acts as if their religion is "true" and all the non-believers are gonna burn in hell while all the believers get any number of good things. Someone with true faith realizes that what they believe might not be true, but they need to believe in something anyway. People with true faith can coexist peacefully with members of other religions and even atheists without attempting to shove dogma down their throats or blowing them up. Perhaps blind faith is a result of brainwashing while true faith is ultimately a result of agnosticism. I do believe in a god, I won't state which one, because it makes no difference. I've asked the hard questions of myself and my god. I don't care if my religion is true or not, I simply cannot live my life believing that it's all an accident. If I didn't have faith in something, I wouldn't have anything to anchor myself to. I don't care if it's real or not, I just need something to hold on to. If you think that makes me weak and/or stupid or whatever else you wanna think, go ahead. I realized I needed something to believe in, and I chose a god that didn't seem too ludicrous to me, and a religion that mostly refrains from brainwashing and terrorism, and I'm happy with what I've got. That's all.

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> at some point, one of the apes evolved and became a homo sapiens. That "person" would have to spawn the rest of us because he/she speciated from the rest of the apes and was incompatible with the others.

Evolution does not work that way. It's a very gradual process. Speciation occurs because a part of a population is split from the main population. Imagine a population of apes in south Africa, and a subset of that population which migrates north as the population grows. Due to some enviromental factor, perhaps warmer weather, any individual born with slightly less hair has an advantage over others of its species. The further north the population moves, the more advantage it gains from being less hairy than its neighbors farther south. Eventually, although all of these apes will be able to reproduce with their closest neighbors, the ones furthest north will NOT be able to reproduce with the ones furthest south. New species are NEVER created within one generation.

> Is an future person going to think that all hunters shoot monkeys out of trees by aiming at them directly?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. How else would you shoot a monkey out of a tree?

> When Yeshua says, there was a man who went on a road and got beat up…etc (the classic good Samaritan story) I don't think anyone really thinks he's referring to a real person do they?

That was a parable. A story meant to convey a lesson. I have studied the bible quite a bit actually, and in fact, many of the passages which could never be literally true are written as if they are(such as the flood, creation, etc.)

> No, biased is the word you are looking for.
> For ages, Science denied that the universe had a beginning

Yes, scientists are extremely biased…towards reality. The beauty of science is that it can change when new information is available. Do christians rewrite the bible when we find out that a comet hit the earth 65 million years ago and caused a mass extinction? That there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood? That people weren't created out of dust?

> the word translated often as "begat" doesn't mean "son of" like most translations use. It means "this is the descendant of".

Fair enough. Provide a source for this information and I'll admit that I cannot claim the bible says the earth is 6000 years old based on genealogies.

> and from the evolving world, God chose to grant a group of apes sentience and they were the Humans.

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Genesis 2:7, King James version. How in the world can you possibly interpret this as God giving apes sentience? Also, I'd like to take this time to point out that there are studies showing that some animals may actually be sentient, including dolphins, some birds, and yes, apes. Do all these creatures go to heaven after they die?

> Peer reviewed, documented science tested at a major university:

The debate is on. I'll have to watch this and address it later.

> That part there can only be believable once you have come to accept the rest of the Book. :)

Herein lies the problem. These are the parts which cause me to not accept the book, because they contradict reality. If there was some other source than the bible which provided evidence of god, I would be willing to accept that these fantastic things could happen. Unfortunately, there is not. We only know of god from the bible.

> Because as long as you believe there is no God, of course, the idea that He came to earth is ridiculous.

I agree. So, can you give evidence that the bible is true without invoking god, and give evidence of god without using the bible?

> Another misstranslation by idiots who at the time thought the earth was flat…

Amazing that an all-powerful god would let his holy book, which has such an important message, be mistranslated so badly and frequently.

> There are 2 explanations for this verse, both equally valid. Both of them are very accurate.

You got me on this one.

To conclude my post, I have to say that although I disagree with you, I admire you for arguing your case in a civil manner, instead of yelling "ZOMG YOUR GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" This is a very interesting thread, and I look forward to your response to this post.

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> I don't care if my religion is true or not, I simply cannot live my life believing that it's all an accident.

I understand this feeling, I used to feel the same way. Just because something is an "accident" does not mean it doesn't have value. If anything, it gives it more value. We are extremely lucky to be here against all odds. We should do all we can with our lives, because they are finite and precious.

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I define faith as belief without evidence, and sometimes in the face of contradicting evidence. Atheists have faith that there is no God, in spite of the lack of evidence. Agnostics don't have faith at all, because their beliefs can change with enough evidence. I don't see how you can distinguish between blind faith and true faith. The only difference between the two is how people react to others who don't share their faith.

I'm going to comment on something that really annoyed me:

> For ages, Science denied that the universe had a beginning (because it would mean that religion was correct, they were blinded by their bias against the religious folk).
I seriously doubt that this is the reason why science used to deny that the universe had a beginning. A good scientist doesn't let religion effect his job, he keeps both things separate with equal respect for both. A scientist who skews his observations because of his bias against religion is no scientist at all. You would go as far as to accuse scientists of doing this?

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> Atheists have faith that there is no God

Incorrect. For the vast majority of atheists, don't say they "believe that god doesn't exist". Rather, say that they "lack belief in a god". This is a subtle but important difference. Do you have faith that there isn't an invisible dragon in your garage? Most atheists are technically agnostic, but functionally they live their lives as if god didn't exist, due to lack of evidence.

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Again, I define faith as belief without evidence. Most people who say they are atheists are technically agnostics. If they are to reject other people's faith, they would be hypocritical to hold their own. In my line of thinking, a "true" atheist would be as faithful as a religious zealot. When I talk about atheists, I'm talking about these "true" atheists. Everyone else is essentially agnostic because they have no faith. That is to say that they don't believe something if there isn't enough evidence to support it, or that there is evidence contradicting.

> Do you have faith that there isn't an invisible dragon in your garage?
No, I don't have faith that there isn't an invisible dragon in my garage. If by invisible dragon you mean an utterly undetectable entity, I cannot honestly say that I believe without good evidence that it isn't in my garage, simply because it's utterly undetectable.

We both agree on the same thing, I don't understand why you're telling me I'm incorrect.

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@70,631

> Evolution does not work that way…

Please, don't think I'm ignoring this statement, just mulling it over. While I address the others.

> I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. How else would you shoot a monkey out of a tree?

Heh, I was referring to the classic, the monkey hears the shot and drops out of the tree problem. Most people who don't grasp physics would assume you have to shoot under the monkey to hit it. However, because gravity affects the bullet the same as the monkey, you would aim straight at it. (Ignoring wind and some other factors.)
And that this would be anecdotal, not a true story. So like you note below, we have to study any text for how it is written in tone.

> That was a parable. A story meant to convey a lesson. I have studied the bible quite a bit actually, and in fact, many of the passages which could never be literally true are written as if they are(such as the flood, creation, etc.)

Personally, I agree. Flood and creation are facts. :) Would love to know what the "etc" is, but this discussion is already pretty hefty.

> Yes, scientists are extremely biased…towards reality. The beauty of science is that it can change when new information is available. Do christians rewrite the bible when we find out that a comet hit the earth 65 million years ago and caused a mass extinction? That there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood? That people weren't created out of dust?

Curiously enough, asteroid impact is part of some theories on the flood. The grand canyon is evidence of a mass flood in it's very design. (But that is addressed in that video more on that later.)
Funny thought on the dust thing, according to evolution everything came from "dust" of the universe.

> Fair enough. Provide a source for this information and I'll admit that I cannot claim the bible says the earth is 6000 years old based on genealogies.

To be honest, I tossed this off the cuff from memory of some articles I've read. However, when I went back and looked at it again, the evidence that the Hebrew word yalad is that flexible is kinda weak. It's plausible, but not very probable. Also note, we don't have birth dates for the entire genealogy, so it is still somewhat flexible even if yalad is not. Ramping to thousand or so years would not be to much of a stretch. I'll grant that still doesn't fit your time scale, though. :) So we'll have to address the age of the earth.

> "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Oh, I personally agree that mankind was special creation. I don't believe in theistic evolution, however, there are plenty of Christians that do and it doesn't crimp their faith. I just put that out there because it means there are those who believe in a very old earth and even evolution who are believers.

> …We only know of god from the bible.
Millions of Hindus, shintos, hare krishnas, sikhs, Baha'is, Zoroastrians and a variety of other religious people just pitched a fit. The concept of God is way further reaching than Christians, Muslims and Jews. In fact, one of the "proofs" of the existence of a God of some sort is that we have a concept of God at all. It goes like this:
There is not one single concept that doesn't have a basis in some truth. This doesn't mean the concept is true, but rather there is truth in it. For example, a human make up a unicorn, but it is only the sum of the parts of something real: a horse with a horn. It's like trying to invent a new color. You can't. Your mind can only process colors that already exist. So there must be some truth to the God concept. The idea that there is something greater than us.
I grant this is relatively flimsy and bordering on circular, but it is interesting to ponder. It presents 2 questions: How did you come up with God? Why is the concept of God so embedded in human beings? The vast majority of humans, despite all the difficulties of believing in God, still do believe in some God. Even agnostics are a larger group than outright athiests, by every poll taken.

> I agree. So, can you give evidence that the bible is true without invoking god, and give evidence of god without using the bible?

I think that's what this thread has become about. :)

> Amazing that an all-powerful god would let his holy book, which has such an important message, be mistranslated so badly and frequently.

A very good point and it has an interesting answer. It touches on 2 very intriguing things: 1) Freewill 2) Biblical preservation.
I'm going to give the short answer on 1). Which will tail into 2).
Human beings have free will to do as they please on earth. One of those things is to distort the truth. As many translators of various texts of all kinds have done over the years. The king james translation has a myriad of subtle nuances that reveal the anti-semitic bias of the translators. (Being a Messianic Jew, this drives me nuts, I refuse to use it.) So what is a person to do? Into point 2) we go…
Despite the funky translations, the core message of the bible has been preserved over several thousand years. (There is a God and he created and cares for us, and a lot of details on that.)
However, the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek (and possibly Aramaic). When we go back to these languages, the preservation is remarkable! We now have the dead sea scrolls to compare with modern texts and find an extremely low amount of changes, all of which are very minor typos that don't affect the meaning of the passages they are in at all. This is an unheard of level of preservation in an ancient text.
So in reality, He hasn't let his word be distorted. The native language version hasn't changed. It was always available to those who looked.

> …"ZOMG YOUR GOING TO BURN IN HELL!" …
Sigh, ppl like that make me burn. I'm still trippin' that this thread hasn't been flamed yet.

One last thought, this guy has an amazing view on "proofs" of God. So rather than reiterate it or paraphrase here is a link.
http://www.ex-atheist.com/why-i-believe-god-is-real.html

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@70,634

> >For ages, Science denied that the universe had a beginning (because it would mean that religion was correct, they were blinded by their bias against the religious folk).
> I seriously doubt that this is the reason why science used to deny that the universe had a beginning. A good scientist doesn't let religion effect his job, he keeps both things separate with equal respect for both. A scientist who skews his observations because of his bias against religion is no scientist at all. You would go as far as to accuse scientists of doing this?

Yes, actually. If you go back and read the dialog of the times this was said explicitly by many major members of the scientific community. They outright made the accusation that to believe the universe was not eternal was to side with the religious nuts. It took some very strong convincing to dislodge this mistaken belief.
In fact, strangely enough there are still some scientists clinging to this notion of an eternal universe. They claim that we are miss-reading the evidence. A quick search will reveal many modern scientists making claims such as:
"The existence of God as the creator of the universe is negated by the fact that the space-time continuum is infinite. Having no beginning nor end, the universe continues into infinity, our present having arisen from an infinite past which leads into an infinite future. Thus there never was a creation and it is therefore false for God to be envisioned as creator of the universe." Lynch

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@71,236
> A scientist who skews his observations because of his bias against religion is no scientist at all. You would go as far as to accuse scientists of doing this?

Certainly there are good scientists out there who never let their religious or political opinions bias their work. There most likely are scientists who work for years on one approach, and when it's proven wrong, will abandon it and start over instead of trying to stretch it to fit their results or stretching their results to fit their ingrained approach. These are perfect scientists. If you think all scientists are perfect, you are a fool. Certainly there are some out there, but in my experience, there are many scientists who believe one thing (like global warming for instance) and when another scientist provides evidence that speaks against it, will go after their family and their reputation and discredit them as a scientist and as a human being, rather than admitting that their own judgment may be fallible, or even rather than trying to prove them wrong.
Nobody would accuse all scientists of doing this, but it would be naive and wrong to believe that it never happens. Science is perfect, but scientists are human, and therefore inherently not perfect.

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> Heh, I was referring to the classic, the monkey hears the shot and drops out of the tree problem.

Hmm, never heard that before.

> Flood and creation are facts.

I'll deal with creation later. For now, the flood(one of my favorite topics in this kind of debate, actually).

"And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."

This is how big the bible says the ark was. Now, a cubit was the length of a person's forearm. I'll be generous here and say that 1 cubit = 2 feet. That's 600 feet long by 100 feet wide by 60 feet tall, or 3,600,000 cubic feet. There are between 2 and 50 million species estimated to be alive today [Source:"Animal." World Book Encyclopedia. 16 vols. Chicago: World Book, 2003.] How can that many animals fit on a boat of that size?

And that's not counting all the extinct species, plus food/water storage, nevermind how many people would be required to care for all these animals.(Note: don't mention that the bible says Noah took 'kinds' of animals on the ark unless you can give a definition for what a 'kind' is.) It's also not counting the weight of all these animals. Was the ark made of adamantium? And what happened to all the fish and trees? A global flood would have completely wiped out all but a very few species. Unless you're claiming Noah had a tremendously huge fish tank and garden on the ark as well?

Not only that, where did all the water come from? The bible says it came from the 'fountains of the deep' and the 'windows of heaven'. Does this mean that it just rained a lot, and water seeped up from underground? This water apparently covered even the tops of the highest mountains. Even more importantly, where did it GO when the flood was finished? Why can we not locate this water today?

But here's the strongest piece of evidence against a global flood: genetic bottlenecks. If every species of animal on earth had to repopulate from only two members of that species, massive genetic mutations would occur in just a few generations, wiping out 99.9% of everything. I'm sure you know why it's not a good idea to reproduce with your cousin…

> Curiously enough, asteroid impact is part of some theories on the flood.

Do you have a link for this? And please don't tell me you're referring to Kent Hovind and his subzero ice meteor "theory"…

> The grand canyon is evidence of a mass flood in it's very design.

Then why can we see many different strata of rock there? Are you claiming that the flood laid down all these rock layers, then carved out the canyon?

Scientific consensus is that the grand canyon was formed by erosion of rock by the Colorado River over about 6 million years.

> Ramping to thousand or so years would not be to much of a stretch. I'll grant that still doesn't fit your time scale, though. :) So we'll have to address the age of the earth.

Let's do that, via radiometric dating (NOT carbon dating), specifically uranium-lead dating. This method is very accurate because it provides two methods of knowing the age of a rock: the decay of uranium-235 to lead-207, and the decay of uranium-238 to lead-206. And, there are other radiometric dating methods, such as potassium-argon and rubidium-strontium. All of these are in line with each other, there are no descrepencies when different methods are used appropriately to date rocks.

> Funny thought on the dust thing, according to evolution everything came from "dust" of the universe.

Evolution says absolutely nothing at all about how life started or where matter came from. It only explains the diversity of life. And the bible says that god made men out of the "dust" of the ground, not uneven distributions of matter after the big bang forming spheres due to gravity.

> Millions of Hindus, shintos, hare krishnas, sikhs, Baha'is, Zoroastrians and a variety of other religious people just pitched a fit.

I assumed we were talking about the judeo-christian god. Or are all the religions which directly contradict yours in their explanation of what god is proof of your god as well? Or are you arguing for the existence of a vague, deist god, in which case why are we even discussing the bible?

> How did you come up with God?

the first god ever conceived was probably not an omnipotent, invisible being, but some sort of human or animal with exceptional powers which people invented to explain natural phenomena they otherwise could not understand. For example, lightning? There is a bearded man on Mt. Olympus throwing lightning bolts down. As humans understood more and more about the world, the concept of god "evolved" into the abstract concept it is today.

> Why is the concept of God so embedded in human beings? The vast majority of humans, despite all the difficulties of believing in God, still do believe in some God.

Because parents pass their beliefs on to their children. A child raised by parents who never mention god or religion will not even think of the concept until he or she hears it from someone else.

Also, what difficulties? Religious people rarely have a difficult time in life because of it, unless they happen to move to an area where a different religion is practiced than their own. Most religious people are surrounded their whole life by family and friends who assure them over and over that their beliefs are true.

> Freewill

This opens up a whole new can of metaphorical worms. However, since this is running long already, I'll just make two short points:

1)If god is omniscient, then he knows what we will do. Therefore, we can NOT possibly do anything else, because that would take away god's omniscience.
2) Exodus 7: 1-3…And the LORD said unto Moses…[speech]…And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.
12-14…For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.

And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

This happens several more times in the exodus story. Obviously god does not care too much about people's free will.

> this guy has an amazing view on "proofs" of God.

I have quite a lot to say about this, but this post is too long already. I will come back to it, though.

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> Certainly there are some out there, but in my experience, there are many scientists who believe one thing (like global warming for instance) and when another scientist provides evidence that speaks against it, will go after their family and their reputation and discredit them as a scientist and as a human being, rather than admitting that their own judgment may be fallible, or even rather than trying to prove them wrong.

That person is not a scientist. There are only scientists or non-scientists, someone who acts like that is a non-scientist. The problem here is that the rest of the population will treat the non-scientist like a scientist and listen to his trash.

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@71,406

> How can that many animals fit on a boat of that size?
> …give a definition for what a 'kind' is…
> But here's the strongest piece of evidence against a global flood: genetic bottlenecks.

To truly address the issue of kinds, genetics and ark size, we run into a fundamental problem with evolutionary theory. It will take some progression to work thru, but I'll address this as best as I can.

> Not only that, where did all the water come from?….where did it GO

Short answer: The Oceans are where all the water went. They are obscenely deep.

> Do you have a link for this? And please don't tell me you're referring to Kent Hovind and his subzero ice meteor "theory"…

Never heard of this Hovind theory.
I do know that I've read a couple different theories on meteors breaking either an ice barrier of some sort. It sounds interesting, but I haven't had time to really focus on it.

> … then carved out the canyon?
Watch that video I linked. :) They explain it way better than I can.

> Scientific consensus is that the grand canyon was formed by erosion of rock by the Colorado River over about 6 million years.

To call it a consensus is very misleading.
http://geology.about.com/b/2008/02/22/grand-canyon-last-theory-standing.htm
> "Still, there ought to be some old river sediment on the plateau top somewhere. Pederson suggests, maybe it blew away? Throwing up his arms at this stubborn Grand Canyon problem, he says, "This remains yet another conundrum.""
Even the latest hottest papers on it still leave room for ambiguity. In my personal opinion due to the bias against the flood concept. This is also covered in the video.

> Or are you arguing for the existence of a vague, deist god, in which case why are we even discussing the bible?

It bolsters the point of the general existence of God. With so many separate groups having a belief in some God, even groups that have had no contact with any other groups, is evidence of the existence of God. Granted, it's not scientific evidence, but it is evidence. Just cause something can't be tested doesn't make it true. The very core of fields like psychology are based on untestable concepts, that we find to be true via circumstantial evidence. The kind of evidence that works in court cases and statistical evaluations. I think this is moving out of the realm of what you and I feel the strongest about though. :) I think you are like me in that you want that hard science proof.
Discussing the bible cause, IMO it's the only text that stands the test of time. With the noted exception of the Big Ones we are addressing nothing else breaks in the bible. It doesn't claim there are horses in places there weren't. It doesn't claim cities are in places they aren't, it doesn't claim sperm comes from the ribs, etc, etc. In fact, none of the Biblical archaeological facts, except the flood and creation are even in dispute anymore. (I can address any of those PI like ones, I've seen them all.)
See my "final point" below for the derail.

> the concept of god "evolved" into the abstract concept it is today.

There is a HUGE problem with that idea. The Jewish God predates all but a few other religions. And it is the most elaborate, omni-everything version of God. Those "man gods" are all newer than it. (The only possible exception being the egyptian gods, but that is hotly disputed and the Hebrew God definitely did not evolve from the egyptian concepts.)
The only known for sure older religions all have esoteric spirit gods that are all knowing, etc. And this is assumed older, based on textual age. All the old religions are known to have very long oral traditions, too. So saying for sure which is eldest is impossible.

> Also, what difficulties?
In this enlightened age of reason, religious ppl everywhere are surrounded by information forcing them to think through their belief. Just look at the discussion we are having right now. If someone were to take the statements even in this thread as off cuff totally right their "faith" would at minimum be shaken. I can't think of a time in recent history where I wasn't hit with some anti-god sentiment or logic or 'scientific' concept.
Dawkins: "a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and a belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion"

> >Freewill
I know, I started it, but I'm going to drop it, we are really rolling off the main topic with that one. :) Hope you don't mind.

Final Point: Warning, this is a derail of sorts, please, don't take it as a brush off. I still fully intend to continue the science debate. :)

How about we address the weight of this topic for a moment?
Scientifically, the Bible is 95% spot only the creation and flood are possibly not. No other religious text can claim this. Take the Pi thing! That's not just "right" that's close with deadly accuracy.
Or the circle of the earth, combined with the fact that that corners is better translated Quarters? a circle with quarters? We know the earth is a sphere…now and apparently then.
The earth hangs on nothing? Wow, way ahead of its time.
Pig is dangerous to eat? Same with bottom feeding sea creatures and fish.
Let's assume for just a second that the flood is a metaphoric or exaggerated account of the great flood of the middle east that keeps coming up.
Creation, being metaphoric for whatever happened in the beginning.

Where else lies a problem? Everything else checks out. Is it reasonable to believe a text on matters untestable in the spirit realm when all but 2 items of it check out in reference to the physical realm?
How about that facts, that the people of the book (Us Jews) are still today finding moments of power given to us?
Examples:
There is no other race on earth who has been so systematically attacked and had so many attempted genocides against them. And yet, not only are we still around, we even have our nation back! NEVER has this happened in history to any other group.
This sounds like a weird "coincidence" if you take it at face value and even weirder when you see that the Bible predicts it happenng, but becomes almost eerie when you compare it to the biblical teachings about the spiritual.
In it there is a real enemy of God and there would be no better way to discredit God then to make his promises fail. If the Jews are destroyed, then God is a liar. So he will do anything he can to increase people's hate to God's people.
Just look around you and see what is thought.
Who is accused of owning all the banks, politicians, world leaders, media companies, lawyers, etc?
I'll give you a hint: it's not the native americans, not the kenyans, not the english…
So with that in mind, if we assume the creation and flood are metaphor (like many believers do) what more proof of God do we need?
Millions of believers, thousands upon thousands dying for that belief, a text beyond reproach, a group of people set aside and protected, and prophecy fulfilled (only even referring to modern fulfillments).
Sure, you could probably pass off any one of those things (ppl die for Islam, too), but when you put them all together, you have a very strong case.
A lawyer has written a book on the concept of legal weight of the evidence and worth a read: Lee Strobel. (another ex-athiest.)

Back to science stuff in next post. :)

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@71,406

> How can that many animals fit on a boat of that size?
> …give a definition for what a 'kind' is…
> But here's the strongest piece of evidence against a global flood: genetic bottlenecks.

To truly address the issue of kinds, genetics and ark size, we run into a fundamental problem with evolutionary theory. It will take some progression to work thru, but I'll address this as best as I can.

> Not only that, where did all the water come from?….where did it GO

Short answer: The Oceans are where all the water went. They are obscenely deep.
Long answer: There are a ton of viable theories. I'll briefly touch on the ones I'm familiar with.
Links are best I could quickly find. There are better articles for each theory, but i don't have them book marked on this computer. :( Will have to dig around when i'm not at work.

The geyser theory:
Basically, a massive set of geysers blew out the water and it receded into the collapsed area the geysers created. Best version of this I could find quickly:
http://www.kjvbible.org/geysers.html
Windows of heaven just heavy rain: This proposes that it was a combination of heavy rain and high pressure environment, not some "water canopy".
http://www.kjvbible.org/windows_of_heaven.html

Plate tectonic theory:
The world was significantly flatter then and the flood was a product of a "super earth quake" or meteor impact. Since the mountains were shorter, less water is needed to cover them. And the ocean trenches were formed and that is where the water went.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/a-catastrophic-breakup

The water canopy theory:
There was either a magnetic ice barrier or a physical layer of ice in the atmosphere. Probably shattered by a meteor or collapsed with a magnetic reversal of the poles.
Not finding a good link to this one, but I will note it's a pretty weak theory. Most hold to something similar to the Pressure theory noted above.

Age of the earth stuff still to come.

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ack just realized I also did not address "kinds, genetics and ark size", oops.
I really need to get back to work though, will follow up.

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> To truly address the issue of kinds, genetics and ark size, we run into a fundamental problem with evolutionary theory.

There are no problems whatsoever with evolutionary theory that I can see. Please, enlighten me.

> To call it a consensus is very misleading.

> Even the latest hottest papers on it still leave room for ambiguity.

You might want to read your sources before using them. This link actually supports my argument, not yours. It talks about three theories on HOW the colorado river formed the grand canyon. All three theories agree that the river did in fact form the canyon. The only question is how it got around a plateau to do so. Nowhere in this article is a global flood of any sort mentioned.

> "Still, there ought to be some old river sediment on the plateau top somewhere. Pederson suggests, maybe it blew away? Throwing up his arms at this stubborn Grand Canyon problem, he says, "This remains yet another conundrum.""

A little side note here. "we don't know yet, but we're working on it" is a valid answer to a question, and is perhaps the most intellectually honest answer possible.

> The Oceans are where all the water went. They are obscenely deep.

> The world was significantly flatter then and the flood was a product of a "super earth quake" or meteor impact. Since the mountains were shorter, less water is needed to cover them. And the ocean trenches were formed and that is where the water went.

The information in that answersingenesis article is a hypothesis, not a theory. They are making a guess, and have no evidence listed to support their idea. As for kjvbible.org:
"Instead of taking the usual approach - that Noah's Flood could not have happened because of this fact or that fact - let's approach the problem from this angle: Noah's Flood did happen because the Bible is true, so let's try and find answers that can fit the facts, both scientific and Biblical. After all, Jesus Himself confirmed that the flood was a real event, so there must be an explanation."
This is outright bias. They are starting with the assumption that the bible is true, then looking for evidence that supports a conclusion they have already made. Dishonesty at its finest.

> There was either a magnetic ice barrier or a physical layer of ice in the atmosphere.

How thick? Such a layer would most likely shatter under earth's gravity, or failing that, from the constant impact of space debris, or failing that, it would have melted because of the sun's heat. I know, the "theory" claims that it did shatter, but it would have done so very soon after being formed, not however many generations it was from biblical creation to Noah.

Unless, of course, it was miles upon miles thick. But if that were the case, almost none of the sun's light would get through, plunging the earth into a constant pitch-black night with sub-zero temperatures.

> Watch that video I linked. :)

I will finally have time to watch it tonight, and will discuss it then.

> I think you are like me in that you want that hard science proof.

Indeed. I agree that some sort of god may possibly exist, but I have no reason so far to believe that one does.

> And it is the most elaborate, omni-everything version of God. Those "man gods" are all newer than it.

Why do you assume that if a god exists, it would have certain qualities? What if there really is a god, and he's a giant talking corn dog? I guess my main point is that if you take your holy book as evidence for a god, why do you not take other holy books as evidence for their gods?

> Scientifically, the Bible is 95% spot only the creation and flood are possibly not. No other religious text can claim this.

Well, that answers that question. But, is it really? Genesis says that god makes plants on day 3, and the sun on day 4. Surely you can see the problem with this. But of course, he made light on day 1…but where did it come from if not the sun?

In Numbers 22, a donkey talks.
In 2 Kings 6, iron floats.
In Matthew 4, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world from the top of a mountain. This is impossible unless the earth is flat.
There's lots more like this.

Really, the bible is not scientifically accurate at all.

> How about that facts, that the people of the book (Us Jews) are still today finding moments of power given to us?

Many people draw inspiration from works of fiction. Or are you claiming, literally, moments of power, as in some sort of miracle?

Well, I'm getting long winded. If I've missed any of your points, it was accidental. Please inform me if I have and I will address them.

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Onto the video, Drama in the Rocks. (Note: I am writing this response as I watch the video, everything here is unedited).

Part 1

Regarding the fossilized trees standing up through several strata, there are two ways in which this happens. The first IS by rapid deposit of sediment layers, although in a local area only, or we would see this all over the world. The second is that the layers of sediment are deposited one at a time over hundreds of years, but each layer is not enough to kill the tree. It will keep growing, and may even form new roots at the new ground level.

Regarding the banks forming sideways, this is evidence that the layers formed gradually, not all at once in a flood…and this is why we date rocks, dating would reveal how the banks formed. I don't see how this helps your argument?

Part 2

More on the horizontal formation of banks…yes, there are different ways that the layers could form.

Deep sea layers were formed the same way as ones in shallower waters? Well, continental drift can explain that. A long time ago when the continents were in different positions, these sea basins may not have been so deep, and so could form horizontally like the video showed a few minutes prior. I'd be pretty sure that with further research, the bottom layers were in fact formed this way, and layers on top were formed vertically.

Mount St. Helens: the video claims that a canyon was formed rather quickly by mud digging through ash deposits from the volcano. What was the time scale for this? It seems from the video that this all happened at about the same time. If so, have you ever considered that it takes some time for sediment under pressure to turn into solid rock? The mud merely had to dig through semi-loose sediment.

The rest of the video: have they never even heard of dating rocks? Or even looking at the composition of the layers? In the oldest strata, it can be seen that the atmosphere had a different chemical makeup than it has today.

Part 3

More of the same…so far nothing has been said concerning the organization of the fossil record, which was my original argument. We use various forms of radiometric dating to find out which layers are older and which are younger, then we see that the simpler organisms are in fact in the older layers, with the more complex organisms in the younger layers. We can also date the fossils directly, and get the same result as the surrounding rock. How or which direction the layers formed does not matter. All this video has done so far is show that water does not in fact sort by complexity, but only by weight/size/density/etc.

Part 4

I just had a new thought: it seems like the strata would only form the way the video claims if the sediment were moving rather rapidly. If, however, it were moving slowly, its seems much more likely to form vertically in layers.

Ooh, they're talking about evolution. This should be interesting.

Ok…even IF their argument against evolution using strata is true, how do they explain the vast genetic evidence supporting evolution, and the observed cases of evolution, specifically Richard Lenski's E. coli?

In their example of sediment being laid down from left to right, we would find simpler creatures on the left, and more complex creatures on the right.

My original argument remains: how do you explain the simple-to-complex pattern of the fossil record? The fossils we see are clearly not sorted by weight/size/etc., and are clearly not mixed up randomly. How could a global flood do this?

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@72,217

> You might want to read your sources before using them…

Oh I did read it. The point was that the evidence has not landed on a verdict. This guys study tears apart 2 of the 3 "main" theories and then leaves doubt even on the third. Could it be that they are missing a key component?
The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens ripped out a miniature version of the grand canyon in a matter of hours. It is the same, down to the layering as the Grand Canyon. If a volcano cause a powerful water movement to do that in hours, is it not feasible that a massive flood over days could do the same?

> A little side note here. "we don't know yet, but we're working on it" is a valid answer to a question, and is perhaps the most intellectually honest answer possible.

No disagreement from me on that one. :)

> The information in that answersingenesis article is a hypothesis, not a theory. They are making a guess, and have no evidence listed to support their idea.

Without going to heavily into hypothesis versus theory, what you have there is not a straight guess. That is not the only place you can find that theory. And if you scroll to the bottom of the page, there are a whole bunch of references to the various evidences they use. Granted I haven't check all of them, (my french is rather pathetic), but some of them I have reviewed in the past. And it could be a viable theory. I haven't ruled it out. Although, it's not necessarily my "favorite". :)

> As for kjvbible.org: …
> This is outright bias. … Dishonesty at its finest.

Really? How is this any less dishonest than Darwins proposal that of evolution in the first place? He flat admitted that the fossil evidence did not support his theory. There is nothing wrong with having and assumption and going to test it against the evidence. As long as you are willing to accept that your theory may very well be wrong.
Or how about Dawkins bias that there is no God and putting together a proof of such?
To be completely without bias is impossible. Don't discount their evidence because they have a bias. Take it and refute it or accept it.
I'm forced to do that every time I delve into this subject. My ideas of the world have "evolved" greatly over the years.
Also not that they aren't the only ones with this theory. I just happened to link one site with a very "pro-religious" attitude. LOL
So now that we are past that. Lets look at the science. Let's address their points instead of dismissing them because of their beliefs.

> How thick? … I know, the "theory" claims that it did shatter, …

I have to agree that so far I haven't read anything on the ice shield or water vapor thing that really sticks to me. It's just one of the theories. I tend to favor the concept that windows of heaven were opened up, simply means the heaviest rains ever witnessed and that the majority of the water came from the fountains of the deep.

> I guess my main point is that if you take your holy book as evidence for a god, why do you not take other holy books as evidence for their gods?

See below.

> Well, that answers that question. But, is it really? Genesis says that god makes plants on day 3, and the sun on day 4. Surely you can see the problem with this. But of course, he made light on day 1…but where did it come from if not the sun?
That is all part of the creation story. :) So for my particular example, exempt. However, in a quick fashion to address this. How many plants have you met that couldn't survive for one day without sunlight?
Since we don't know exactly how this works, a few theory of my own.
The light came from God himself. Seriously, the Bible says there is not a sun in heaven, that all the light comes from God himself. We are talking about a supernatural being creating all that you see around you. He could do it in any order He wants before setting it off to chug along following the laws of nature he also created.
You have to stand back for a second a realize something. The beginning is an esoteric concept that we'll never truly be able to test and confirm. This doesn't mean we don't keep trying or learning. However, what we are talking about here is the existence of a supernatural being. If it is so powerful that it created the entire universe, then what is a few days of "building" things?
The real question is how do we explain the "old" stuff. :)

> Really, the bible is not scientifically accurate at all.

Okay, we've moved into the spiritual realm again. So let me pull this away from the science for a minute. 2 of those are absolutely and totally not science facts the bible is claiming (I'll say all 3 but we'll address that from both angles in just a second.)
There is a huge difference between science claims and acts of God. Now, you have to keep in mind what we are discussing here. If the final verdict of our discussion is that there is an powerful God, then what is to stop him in doing as he wishes?
The Bible is not saying that iron floats. The verse isn't "he dropped his iron axehead and it floated." It is he prayed and God intervened and broke the natural rules to help him.
This doesn't break the science, it questions our faith. This is telling us that one of the attributes of God is that He can "interfere" with nature.
The same is true about balaam's ass. The Bible never shows us that all donkeys talk (although, I think those horse whisperers and dog whisperers might disagree with us, I think they are a bit nutty). It is giving us a very specific incident where God allowed the Donkey to express itself in a way that Balaam could understand, since he was too dense to figure it out on his own. This once again teaches about the nature of God, not the natural world.
Satan's "vision". There are 2 perfectly valid explanations here.
1) It is literally vision. Satan whisked Yeshua up to a mountain and did exactly point to the greatest kingdoms in the world: Rome. Nothing else really amounted to much at that time. And Rome was composed of multiple kingdoms brought under one emperor.
2) We're talking about Satan, an angel, a supernatural being, and Yeshua, God incarnate. Once again spiritually, satan whisks him away where he can clearly see to the horizon then gives visions of the world in a very dramatic manner. Then makes his claim.
Both of these ignore, the basic question of how Satan took him. LOL. Did they fly?
And again, this does not say that all humans can fly, see massive kingdoms at once, etc. It's not making a statement on the reality of nature, but that in a world where there is a God and other spiritual beings, they have some degree of power over the natural world.
It's back to the God thing. We are going over the natural world statements, first because those are testable, provable, etc. The spiritual stuff takes a first belief in God and how He works.
The hard facts are the things, I'm addressing. Such as the PI thing we pointed out. Or the quarters of the earth. The fact that the earth is a circular object. The fact that it hangs on nothing. The fact that we have found nearly every single archaelogical point mentioned in the Bible (a point that really helps with historical validity, since many, many of these places we had no other reference to other than the Bible).
Or statements, like the blood is life? This has been proven scientifically. Our lives are in our blood, it carries the oxygen to our body. Granted this is old news, but the Bible stated it even longer ago than we realized it. Just look at the barbaric practice of bloodletting.
Or how about hand washing? Here is a book endorsing washing you hands for all kinds of things, long before science figured out, hey, this is true!
That science all checks out. This is the science I'm talking about that points me to this Book.
My book doesn't claim there were horses, cows, goats, steel implements, chariots, etc in the new world around 600 BC (Book of Mormon).
Doesn't claim ancient Egyptians used crucifixion or the sun sets in a muddy spring at the edge of the earth or you can wash your hands with "clean dirt". (Quran)

> Many people draw inspiration from works of fiction. Or are you claiming, literally, moments of power, as in some sort of miracle?

Yes. That was exactly what I was saying. Reread my statements.
The Jewish people have survived through a bizarre set of "coincidences".
Every single world conqueror has tried to annihilate, subjugate and/or remove us from our land, Israel.
And yet, here we stand once again in the promised land. And every time, we go back it's not through our own might, but rather intervention.
The Jewish people are almost universally, disliked and libeled. This is highly illogical. Considering there is no past history. When have Jews ever controlled anything, let alone the whole world? We're treated like the rest of the world spent years of being enslaved by us. Look at all the blind accusations of Jews controlling everything from the Banks to whole governments. If this is so why do we keep getting the shaft?
We've rarely been the conquerors, and every instance of that came from reclaiming our homeland.
No other group of people has taken this kind of genocidal behaviour and survived. They were swept into the sands of history. We've been dispersed many times and yet retained our identity.
Every other ancient culture that has been conquered and dispersed multiple times has melted into other cultures. Some remnants can often be found but they are hardly an identity of its own.

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A quick sidebar note, evolution as the concept of creatures adapting and changing based on environmental pressures is not contrary to the Bible. It doesn't not say anywhere that creatures won't adapt and change. Everything about the earth is changing.
The Bible makes does make a few claims regarding that though.
1) Mankind is a "special creation". So far this appears to be right on the nose. Science has found many potential ancestral types for many creatures, but so far every single human "missing link" has not panned out. They've either been a straight out hoax or mistake, or they have turned out to be just another ape.
2) God created some basic creatures to start with. Even assuming geological age based on strata (more on that later). You come to a point of the cambrian explosion, which has many types already formed. Prior to that nothing but your most basic life. To satisfy this all we need are some early flying creatures and early land creatures and early sea creatures. It's not hard to find things that fit this that lack any solid ancestral forms.

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Well, you've given me a lot to cover…

> the point was that the evidence has not landed on a verdict. This guys study tears apart 2 of the 3 "main" theories and then leaves doubt even on the third. Could it be that they are missing a key component?

You're missing my point. Geologists agree that the river formed the canyon. The debate is HOW it got around a plateau to do so. There are several ideas on how this happened, and scientists are examining the evidence to find out the truth. You're right, there is not enough evidence for scientists to know how the river got around the plateau, which is why no scientist is claiming any of the hypotheses are true. With evolution, on the other hand, any sane biologist accepts it, because there is so much evidence supporting it.

> If a volcano cause a powerful water movement to do that in hours, is it not feasible that a massive flood over days could do the same?

There's more than one way to dig a canyon. You're right, it may have happened that way…now show evidence that it did in fact happen that way. Even if you had rock-solid proof that the colorado river could not have possibly formed the canyon, does not mean that the flood did. It is not enough to prove my explanation wrong, you must also prove yours to be true.

> there are a whole bunch of references to the various evidences they use.

I went back to the article and looked at the references (which I admit I should have done when I read it the first time). There are not "a whole bunch", just eight. Seven really, because number 7 and 5 are the same. References 1,2,3,6 and 8 are from scientific journals. However, when you look at where they are used, the information from these sources is only used to state commonly accepted scientific ideas. The only references used to actually support their "theory" were 4 and 5 (and 7). These are from "proceedings from international conferences on creationism". These are not valid scientific sources, because creationism is not science.

> He flat admitted that the fossil evidence did not support his theory.

He admitted no such thing. I'm assuming you are referring to his statement that "The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.", with the 'case at present" referring to the fossil record. I have heard this argument before, and it is demolished by reading this quote in context. you can read it here, and also the explanation:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part2.html#quote2.4

Furthermore, Darwin is not the be-all end-all of evolution. Many scientists since him have found tremendous evidence for evolution which he could not even have dreamed of.

> Or how about Dawkins bias that there is no God and putting together a proof of such?

First, Dawkins wrote about evidence, not proof. The central chapter of "the god delusion" is titled "Why there almost certainly is no god". He is a scientist, and if solid evidence that a god exists is found, he will accept that god exists. His conclusion that no god exists is based on evidence, not bias.

Second, Dawkins does not speak for anyone but himself. Even if he was biased, I am not. I look at the arguments for the existence of god and find them utterly without merit. Therefore, I do not believe in god.

> Don't discount their evidence because they have a bias.

It's not that I'm discounting their evidence because of their bias, it's that their bias causes them to not present all the evidence, only that which supports their idea. That's what bias is. What's really going on is that I discount their "evidence" because it is weak. It doesn't fit with the rest of the world.

> The beginning is an esoteric concept that we'll never truly be able to test and confirm.

I disagree. The "beginning", no matter what you or anyone thinks it was or how it happened, happened. Never say never. At one point no one ever thought we would put a human in space. Things change, there is no way anyone can know what will happen far into the future.

> The light came from God himself.

Was the earth orbiting around god before the sun was created?

Astronomy have shown us that there are many stars older than the earth. However, the bible says that god created stars on day 4 along with the sun. How do you explain this?

> There is a huge difference between science claims and acts of God.

You invoke the intervention of a supernatural being anytime the bible claims something happened that could not happen naturally. What evidence do you have, outside of the bible, that this being exists? Surely if he truly exists, there will be some evidence of it outside of a single ancient text?

> My book doesn't claim…

Genesis 30 claims that if you make cattle mate in front of striped sticks, their offspring will be striped. No divine intervention or act of god is mentioned at all.

> The Jewish people have survived through a bizarre set of "coincidences".

Sometimes coincidences are just coincidences. If the wind blows a leaf in just the right way that it flies down someone's throat and they suffocate, is it just a coincidence or did god murder that person?

> Science has found many potential ancestral types for many creatures, but so far every single human "missing link" has not panned out. They've either been a straight out hoax or mistake, or they have turned out to be just another ape.

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

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On Genesis 30:
I will grant you that at first blush this does come off a bit odd. But to get an answer, one only has to keep reading. Jacob was trying to work the system after he was conned by Laban. He did what he thought might work. We know, now, in our modern world that what he did does not work. Jacob was trying to cheat Laban cause he got cheated, but he was doing it entirely wrong. And yet, he comes out ahead. Why?
Keep reading:
Genesis 31:1-16!
Highlights:
"5 He said to them, "…, but the God of my father has been with me. … However, God has not allowed him to harm me. 8 If he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, 'The streaked ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked young. 9 So God has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me…The angel of God said to me …And he said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me… 16 Surely all the wealth that God took away from our father belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you."
Personally, I picture God up in heaven, smacking his forehead. "That's not gonna work, Jacob, but I see that you are being cheated so I'll intervene on your behalf."

I'm telling you, there aren't any spots outside the flood and creation where there is any debate. :)
The Bible has been assaulted for many, many, many years now and stood the test.

> > The Jewish people have survived through a bizarre set of "coincidences".
> Sometimes coincidences are just coincidences. If the wind blows a leaf in just the right way that it flies down someone's throat and they suffocate, is it just a coincidence or did god murder that person?
Cute analogy, but the problem is number of occurrences.
Every card player knows that if you play Blackjack "by the book" (assuming you can't count cards) you have a roughly 50% chance.
Now you go play some blackjack and you lose once. Totally within stats. Shoot if you lose 5 times in a row you are still within statistical probability. However, if you lose 100 times in a row are you going to assume it was coincidence or start thinking the dealer is cheating?
How many times have the Jews been dispersed from their land?
How many times have the Jews had someone attempt systematic genocide against them?
Well over a dozen.
The statistical probabilities are enormous already. Now, add onto it that the Book makes the claim that they will return to their ancestral home land with specific parameters and a set time frame and the odds go through the roof.
The first part is about Yeshua, scroll down for the Israel time frame.
http://www.direct.ca/trinity/problem.html
Even without a for sure starting date, that it was within a year or two would make the odds phenomenal.
http://therefinersfire.org/jews_return_to_israel.htm
Those are just icing on the cake compared to the time frame thing to me. :)

> These are from "proceedings from international conferences on creationism". These are not valid scientific sources, because creationism is not science.

Well I was hoping not to delve into enflamatory stuff, but the line has been crossed. So I'm going to tread around it very carefully. Cause I'd prefer this not roll into a flame war.
Lets assume for a second that Creationism isn't science. How does that make every statement from a scientist who believes in it invalid? Because that is what you just said.
Are we to throw away the thoughts of a person because they hold a belief we don't agree with? I certainly don't. I take things with a grain of salt, but I have a "healthy skepticism" of all works. I've met many creationists that I flat disagree with.
Now onto the second part: Is creationism a scientific?
As much so as archaeology, psychology, history and the legal system is.
All 4 of these branches take evidence to prove something that cannot be absolutely tested.
Can we physically go back to the crime scene and see it happen? No, the best we can do is recreate what happened and figure from the what, who and how.
Archaeology and his