Isn't it reasonable to doubt Young Earth Creationism?

[KingdomRose]

Sure... I will try explain. Several of us have been saying that it can't be anything other than a normal day night, because of context. I also quoted a Hebrew scholar saying the same thing. But, I will try explain further. (My answer will be apart from all of the scientific evidence that supports our young universe).


The Hebrew word YOM and the English word DAY, have a variety of meanings and in both languages the meaning is determined by the context. In the Bible we see the word also has a variety of meanings including a long time... a period of daylight... or a normal period of day and night that we call a 24-hour day. (In fact, those 3 definitions are used betwren Gen. 1:1 and 2:4). The word is used 2000+ times in the Old Testament and it is always easy to understand. Genesis 1 is the only place in the Old Testament where anyone wants to ignore the context in order to add compromising ideas of long periods of time.


In Hebrew (English also) when a number is associated with the word YOM / DAY, it ALWAYS refers to what we call a 24 hour day. YOM is associated with a number more than 350 times in the Old Testament. (40 days, the third day etc).


Then.... it seems as if the author of Genesis 1 wanted to hammer home the point of literal days for those who are hard of believing. In the O.T. the word YOM is associated with the words evening, or morning, or night 90 times... and in every one of those 90 situations everyone understands it is referring to a normal 24-hour day.


There is other context also in Genesis 1 that help us know the author is referring to literal days such as the use of cardinal and ordinal numbers.


We can also look in scripture at how various authors refer to Genesis as literal history. There is never any suggestion that it is allegorical or that it is just poetry.


We can look at how Jesus believed Genesis 1. He referred to male and female from the beginning of creation... the 6-day creation account found in Genesis 1. Jesus also connected humanity to the "foundations of the world". Surely, you don't believe our Creator would use phrases that would be misleading if our world was billions of years old.


We can look at the context of how the creation account is integrated into the gospel. Paul tells us that death entered our world because of "first Adams" sin; and death was defeated by "Last Adams" sacrifice. If a person believes that death, pain, thorns, suffering and extinctions existed before sin; then the purpose of Christ's physical death becomes meaningless.( He would not need defeat death, the "final enemy" if death was part of God's "very good" creation.

There is no scientific evidence for a young earth situation! None. You have to look more closely at what the Bible says.

Is there any credence to the idea that because Moses referred to the day that followed the 6 creative days as a model for the weekly Sabbath, that each of the creative days must be literally 24 hours long? (Exodus 20:11) Does Genesis really support this? NO it does not.

It is a fact that the Hebrew word for "day" can mean VARIOUS LENGTHS OF TIME, not just a 24-hour period. When summarizing God's creative work, Moses refers to ALL SIX CREATIVE DAYS AS ONE DAY. No one has rebutted my point about that, using any kind of logic.

Adding to that, on the first creative day, "God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night." (Gen.1:5) Here only a PORTION of a 24-hour period is defined by the term "day." Certainly there is no basis in Scripture for arbitrarily saying that each creative day was 24 hours long.

The Bible does not say how long the creative days were. The wording in the first 2 chapters of Genesis indicates that considerable lengths of time were involved. Period. No reasonable doubt about it.

 

[KingdomRose]

YEC peeps...

The Hebrew day begins and ends in the evening.

Thus, when ONLY evening and morning are mentioned on each creation 'day', this can, at best, represent a 12hr period, and NOT a 24 hr period, according to your literal, and limited, viewpoint...

Precisely one of the points I made in my last post.

 

[KingdomRose]

We all have access to the same data. The problem is that Darwinists use their ideas as evidence. Before the discussion can reach the point out should — where ideas are tested against the data — evolutionists demand that ideas they hate be thrown out.

Ice cores, for example. Stuart demands that the Earth must be accepted as at least 800,000 years old because of his assumptions and will not consider a competing idea.


Hold on a second, sunshine. You tell us why it doesn't mean 24 hours. It says "six days." Those who accept that it means what it says are not in a position where they have to defend themselves. Those who say it cannot mean six days are.




Nope.

First, I haven't dismissed anything. I ventured a few steps down the road of a conversation before you started demanding my ideas be eradicated. We got nowhere near any evidence.

Second, my possession of evidence has no relevance. You've presented a classic non sequitur.


He's got little else.

:rotfl:

Billions of dead things buried in water-deposited rock the world over. Clear, incontrovertible evidence of a global flood.

Sorry, the evidence trumps your appeal to popularity

Nope.

As you've seen: Evidence. We know you hate it.

Which would be 24 hours.



It looks like you haven't thought this through very well. :chuckle:

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In case you ignored my previous posts, I AM NOT A DARWINIST. I believe that God created without Darwinist Evolution. So you can chuck that garbage out the window.

 

[Stripe]

I don't agree with your line of thinking. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I respect your opinion and you can respect mine, right?

:rotfl:

There is no scientific evidence for a young earth situation!

So much for respecting the opinions of others.

No one has rebutted my point about that, using any kind of logic.

That's because your point is useless.

The Bible says "six days." You insist that this cannot mean "six days." The onus is on you to give good reason that "six days" cannot mean what it plainly says.

The Bible does not say how long the creative days were.

And yet you demand that they can't be days.

In case you ignored my previous posts, I AM NOT A DARWINIST. I believe that God created without Darwinist Evolution. So you can chuck that garbage out the window.

Who are you? :idunno:

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[JudgeRightly]

I don't agree with your line of thinking.

Too bad.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Compromising on TRUTH is always a bad idea.

I respect your opinion

I don't respect yours, because you reject logic.

and you can respect mine, right?

No, because compromising on truth is not in my book of abilities.

 

[Apple7]

Precisely one of the points I made in my last post.

This may be the ONLY area in which we agree!

 

[George Affleck]

There is no scientific evidence for a young earth situation!

Yes there is - but you won't hear it.

Certainly there is no basis in Scripture for arbitrarily saying that each creative day was 24 hours long.

Yes there is - but you refuse it.

The Bible does not say how long the creative days were.

Yes it does - you just don't believe it.

The wording in the first 2 chapters of Genesis indicates that considerable lengths of time were involved.

No it doesn't - but you think it does.

You are worse off than the unbelievers. They have an excuse. You do not.

 

[6days]

I don't agree with your line of thinking. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I respect your opinion and you can respect mine, right?

I respect your right to have an opinion. However your opinion contradicts God's Word (and science).

 

[Lon]

Given that I rarely, if ever, discuss theology here, I'm curious to hear what your assessment is based on. Be specific please.

There are little things that you say that show often, that you have a disdain for what you don't really know. The AWANA thing was one of them.

Where? Be specific please.

This one need none of my substantiation, but in this very thread, ask Stripe, ask 6-days.

Let's take a look....

In THIS EXCHANGE, I stated "A general good rule of thumb is to learn a subject first, then see if you can debate it." You responded "Your 'rule' is absurd."

Given the above, please explain how my characterization of that exchange is inaccurate.

Specifically this: knowledge is obtained by questions and interaction. More: you stated it is absurd to 'challenge' an idea without the wherewithal. I concede that, but said the rule is absurd when it doesn't go both ways. A professor and a theologian, equally trained, NEED to challenge one another at points. Perhaps there needs to be a bit of background work, but that is generally the idea of a core education, so that none of us are in-the-dark. It would be hard to make theology part of that core material, but it certainly would help. My point was that such goes both ways. One who is educated in both, even if not a BA, MA, or PhD in that subject, certainly has a bit to challenge thoughts.

I believe some other faiths have differing beliefs on that, but as with what we see here, they directly extend from theology rather than science.

I think it was Stripe in thread that mentioned one of the main recognized flat-earth websites was run by atheists. I just don't like all things thrown at our door. Certainly one of the doors, but not the door general.

Again, you keep acting as if I put that quote in my signature and have since tried to distance myself from it. That makes no sense, because if that were the case I could simply delete it myself.

Right. The ONLY odd thing to me, is that you seem to distance from it at times, or find it humorous that anybody would see you in that light. Sigs are meant to describe us to some degree. They aren't generally anecdotal.

So my observation remains....that signature line has clearly touched a nerve with you.

If by nerve, you mean one line that crosses my mind each and every time I dialogue with you? Sure. It is a connector in the brain that has stuck. If you mean something raw or hurts, or is irritating? :nono: Your sig is you and it sticks. Further, the tenor of it and your initial discussion with me on TOL that has you here for nothing but entertainment and 'making fun' purposes, underscores who you are in my brain. I'm dispassionate about it, but constantly reminded that your sig is in play whenever I talk to you and that I need to vest my own time and interest accordingly. It tends to be casual, though I do pray for you. -Lon

 

[6days]

There is no scientific evidence for a young earth situation! None.

Of course there is Rose!! What secular source are you getting your information from???
Would you like to discuss mutation rates? comets? C14 in coal...diamonds...dinosaurs soft tissue? Pluto's moons? Neandertals? Uranus? Distant galaxies and starlight? faint sun paradox? Sophistication in 'oldest' fossils? The planet Mercury? Our appendix? Decaying magnetic fields? Sediment on the sea floor? Titans moons? Folded rock layers? Erosion rates such as at Niagara? stalactite and stalagmites?

You have to look more closely at what the Bible says.

That's what we have been telling you. Don't rely on church doctrine and secular opinions. The Bible tells us that in six days He created everything.

Is there any credence to the idea that because Moses referred to the day that followed the 6 creative days as a model for the weekly Sabbath, that each of the creative days must be literally 24 hours long? (Exodus 20:11) Does Genesis really support this?

The whole Bible supports Genesis as literal true history. The Gospel is actually dependent on it.

It is a fact that the Hebrew word for "day" can mean VARIOUS LENGTHS OF TIME, not just a 24-hour period.

That's what we have been telling you!!!!!!!!!!! We have even showed you a variety of meanings 'day' has in the Bible. From the couple thousand times the word is used in the OT... the word DAY is always determined by context. The context around the word DAY in Genesis 1 excludes all meanings other than what we call a 24 hour day.

When summarizing God's creative work, Moses refers to ALL SIX CREATIVE DAYS AS ONE DAY.

Pardon me... but that is a STUPID point...I hope you borrowed that idea from someone else, because it certainly has not been thought through. I doubt you apply that 'stupid logic' when reading secular books that use the phrase..."in the day". The CONTEXT for that phrase is a time period. The CONTEXT of the creation days are normal day and night periods.

Adding to that, on the first creative day, "God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night." (Gen.1:5) Here only a PORTION of a 24-hour period is defined by the term "day."

Very good... You obviously do not read what others post. That exact verse was quoted to you showing we understand the various meanings of the word 'day' by CONTEXT.

The Bible does not say how long the creative days were.

The Jehovah Witness paraphrase/ translation says "God called the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day. "

 

[6days]

Yes there is - but you won't hear it.



Yes there is - but you refuse it.



Yes it does - you just don't believe it.



No it doesn't - but you think it does.

You are worse off than the unbelievers. They have an excuse. You do not.

Haha,,,, After I wasted my breath repeating things she ignores... I see you nailed it!

 

[Jose Fly]

There are little things that you say that show often, that you have a disdain for what you don't really know. The AWANA thing was one of them.

What specifically did I say about AWANA that caused you to think I don't know much about Christianity?

This one need none of my substantiation, but in this very thread, ask Stripe, ask 6-days.

Just as I thought....a baseless accusation.

Specifically this: knowledge is obtained by questions and interaction. More: you stated it is absurd to 'challenge' an idea without the wherewithal.

More accurately, when I said it's a good rule of thumb to understand an idea before trying to debate it, you said that was absurd. Then you accused me of misrepresenting what you said.

It now appears you are walking away from that accusation.

I concede that,

Ok.

I just don't like all things thrown at our door. Certainly one of the doors, but not the door general.

Would you say you spend more of your time here interacting with folks like me, or chastising your fellow Christians for bringing things like flat earthism and young earthism to your door?

The ONLY odd thing to me, is that you seem to distance from it at times, or find it humorous that anybody would see you in that light.

Again Lon, I fully expect to be seen "in that light". That's why it's there. What strikes me as humorous is how you can't seem to focus on much else.

If by nerve, you mean one line that crosses my mind each and every time I dialogue with you? Sure. It is a connector in the brain that has stuck.

Exactly.

Further, the tenor of it and your initial discussion with me on TOL that has you here for nothing but entertainment and 'making fun' purposes,

I never said anything about "making fun". Entertainment? Absolutely. After all, if participating in places like this isn't even a little entertaining, why be here?

I do pray for you.

And I'll think for you.

 

[Stuu]

First, give us an unambiguous question.

What is 2.7 + 9.4 ?

Was that helpful?

Now, perhaps you can give us one piece of unambiguous evidence in support of the hypothesis that 'we live on a planet designed for life consistent with the Bible'.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

There is no such thing as one unambiguous piece of evidence that shows fish can evolve into philosophers.

Nor is there one unambiguous piece of evidence that shows the big bang happened... or that life can come from non life... or that land animals evolved into whales. You can't even show one unambiguous piece of evidence showing reduced function of an organ from a 'common ancestor'. (vestigial). All, you have Jose Fly is beliefs...interpretations that science often shows are false.

Well, the deal always is don't Gish Gallop. So, pick one, and try making your claim with just that one. Would you like it to be the evidence for a fish ancestor of all mammals?

The best piece of evidence showing we lived in a created...designed...fine tuned universe is God's Word. The evidence from the world around us is supporting evidence (such as magnetic field, earth’s gravity, oxygen/nitrogen ratio, sophistication of vision in Anomalocaris ETC ETC)

And what is a 'god's word'?

And isn't your list of other items evidence that this was all created by Zamba, the creator god of the Yaoundé people of Cameroon? I notice you didn't mention the creation of humans in that list, and that is completely consistent with the creation responsibilities of Zamba, which didn't include humans, for which (according to Wikipedia) 'He left that job to his four sons, Ngi (gorilla) the strong, N'Kokon (mantis) the wise, Otukut (lizard) the fool, and Wo (chimpanzee) the curious - and each made human beings in his own image, which is why we are the way we are. This creation model is much more consistent with what we observe than the Judeo-christian one.

Stuart

 

[Stripe]

Give us one piece of unambiguous evidence in support of the hypothesis that 'we live on a planet designed for life consistent with the Bible'.

Give is an unambiguous question. Perhaps cut out some of the conditionals, or reword.

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[6days]

Would you like it to be the (unambiguous) evidence for a fish ancestor of all mammals?

Sure... the weekend was tough. I need a good laugh.

And what is a 'god's word'?

If you would like a copy to read, message me, and I will send you a hard copy.

 

[Stuu]

Give is an unambiguous question. Perhaps cut out some of the conditionals, or reword

Well, let me give you a gift then, with this complete reword:

Demonstrate one piece of unambiguous evidence in support of anything you believe to be true.

Stuart

 

[Stuu]

I'm not really sure how to answer your question meaningfully. Do you know of many people who have never met a scientist?

Surely this is yes or no. If you want a clearer question, have you ever knowingly met a scientist?

So no, I'm not questioning forensics because it is genuinely removed from age extrapolations. We know the age of trees by their rings, for instance. If you can't do it with a tree that is only hundreds of years old....

The oldest bristlecone pine found is over 5,000 years old, and by overlapping the patterns in one tree with older remains, dendrochronology allows you to count back 9,000 years. So much for the 'flood'.

No, I'd call that 'pre-theist' not a-theist.

Why not pre-atheist?

The "a" means 'against' as well as without, so it isn't as accurate.

You would need the word anti, so you mean antitheist. I would identify myself more as being antitheism, because I am not against humans, I am against the crazy beliefs that hijack some of their vulnerable brains.

"Atheist" is terrible,

And there isn't much future in the term, either, if christianity carries on dying at the rate it is. There is rabidly mad islam to carry on the use of the term, I suppose.

You are just prognosticating off your own platform.

No, this is very specifically about the impossibility of the historical alignment of Herod with the Census of Quirinius. The different dating systems is another example of exegetical acrobatics.

ALL good thinking starts with speculation. ALL good science begins with speculation. A flat-earth isn't bad science, it is just 'beginning' science. It is bad when evidence points away and the evidence is not followed. Same with all things.

I think good science starts with observation more often.

Agreed. The space program is so dependent upon so few, that I at least understand where the conspiracy theory is coming from (always does with government).

I wonder if the rage at the irrational arrogance of a government to behave so against the best interests of the people gets in the way of any kind of clear thinking about the consequences of the conspiracy. Do Americans believe they live in a democracy or not?

I've done so, meaningfully.

Does that mean you have established with a group of students that evolution by natural selection is the best explanation we have for the diversity of biology on the planet?

I don't tend to excuse teacher who have very good instruction for 'how' to stimulate inquiry. I have no patience, myself, for that inept teacher.

Well, surely there must be dangers. For example, a teacher cannot invite a Gish Gallop, because there is no way a curriculum is going to provide for inquiry learning when a whole list of creationist-provided claims are made with the intention of overwhelming students, as was Duane Gish's intention. That's dishonest, but I bet that gets brought to class by those deluded by their churches. One creationist claim, treated as a comparison to the corresponding scientific theory in the context of a science class? How much time should teachers be spending time on alchemy or horoscopes? Are those profitable for the purpose of inquiry learning?

Some of these statements of yours are just wrong. I KNOW God exists.

This statement, when you repeat it, always sounds desperate, as if you are trying to convince yourself more than convince anyone else. And I think that is exactly how a believer's psychology has to run. I imagine for some, life is a constant search for self-affirmation that the beliefs to which they have committed are not as barking mad as they should appear. What a dilemma, and means of self-punishment.

It seems that all humans find self-affirmation for beliefs, but what must an atheist do when confronted with unambiguous evidence for a god? The only honest response would be to become a theist.

You can ask me how, but these blanket statements disallow even the presentation of counterfactuals. In a nutshell, I am either magic, or there is a God. I'm not magic. Not even remotely. Therefore, somebody than me did some incredible things. They are anecdotal for you, undeniable for me. At the very least, you need to augment your statements to include 'most of us.' I'm not one of you. "There are no gods." I know no such thing. Clear evidence points exactly to its contrary.

No, I think the logic has to go that if there is a god of the kind you believe in, then you are magical because you can detect it while others can't.

Not if that evidence that was presented to me, was never presented to you.

We are all impressionable to some extent.

Scriptures talk about 'faith' as a sensory perception that is missing from your possession. It is more like 'red' to a blind man.

Scriptures would be that arrogant and dismissive, wouldn't they. You have to be made to believe that, or else it's obvious you are being duped. Can't allow you to think it's obvious, so the meme gives you the delusion of special metaphorical powers of vision.
The evolution of a meme, an inherited piece of culture, is adapted as effectively as any biological system is adapted by natural selection. There is supreme irony in people who are affected by this evolved memetic way of thinking also denying that natural selection could produce immense complexity and diversity. I guess that is a kind of blindness that is not perceivable by a religious believer who is an evolution denier.

It certainly can be, but when you have 20 or 30 seemingly rational people telling you the same thing, it is you, the one in 99 that might want to recheck yourself.

But they aren't acting rationally, except to the extent that if you make the absurd assumption that there really is a pink eagle, then it would be well worth your while to duck when it lands. Which is as fitting a metaphor for the 'rationality' of christianity as any.

With you, I know you are an atheist, and that more than many others, the term does apply to you.

That's like claiming that something is 'fairly unique'. Atheist is an absolute, there are not shades of atheism.

You don't always seem to be an 'angry' atheist, although at times that does come out. You aren't as snarky, which is why I don't ignore you. I have other atheists on ignore simply because there is never any discussion, just posturing and snarky/mean comments and stabs. That isn't my idea of productive or worth my time. I'm more people oriented. If I can make a connection, it is worth my time, even if a bit frustrating at times. That vaguely summarizes my interactions with you. We don't see eye to eye, but you do address the material where I can see meaningful dialogue that does interact with what the other says without disdaining it too untowardly. Obviously as an atheist/Christian, some of it cannot be helped.

Good to know there is hope in the world then.

Stuart

 

[Derf]

Because "things evolving into other things" is too vague to be meaningful.


Well then it's a good thing no one said "populations evolve, therefore universal common ancestry is true".

No, not by itself. But it was one of the premises Darwin used for his conclusion of UCA. And if the premise is invalid...what of the conclusion? If ANY premise is invalid, the conclusion that was reached via those premises is invalid. It just takes one. It doesn't make the conclusion false, necessarily, but it makes the logic invalid and CAN lead to a false conclusion?

Again you seem to be operating with a very poor understanding of evolutionary biology. No one says anything like "bird traits vary, therefore universal common ancestry".

No one except Darwin and those who agree with him. Again, it doesn't stand on its own, but it was instrumental in Darwin reaching his conclusion.

And that brings up several points...

First, the Science Daily article (and the work it describes) you cited is not about universal common ancestry of all life on earth; it's about the early evolutionary history of birds. That's what was so amusing about how you were trying to use and cite it. I'm not sure exactly how your train of logic went, but it seemed to me to be something like "Here's this paper where they redraw the early evolutionary history of birds, therefore universal common ancestry should be rejected". As I've noted several times now, that makes no sense at all.

I didn't pick the article title! What is "Tree of Life" if not a summary of UCA? Can you really say with a straight face that an article with "Tree of Life" in the title is not at least somewhat about UCA? Well, forget the title of the article. Here's the summary:

New species evolve whenever a lineage splits off into several. Because of this, the kinship between species is often described in terms of a 'tree of life,' where every branch constitutes a species. Now, researchers have found that evolution is more complex than this model would have it, and that the tree is actually more akin to a bush.

The summary seems to think the article is about
1. kinship between species
2. how species branching off is described by "tree of life"
3. how "evolution" is described by that "tree of life" model
4. how the "tree" (one of two concepts mentioned in the model, the other being "life") is really not a tree.

It is amazing the lengths you feel you need to go to to point out how the article is not talking about UCA when both the title and the summary are talking explicitly about "tree of life".

But let's forget about the title AND the summary, since those are mere delusions of the writer of the article, apparently. What do the scientists actually say?

'We can see that the very rapid rate at which various bird species started evolving once the dinosaurs went extinct, i.e. around 65 million years ago, meant that the genome failed to split into separate lineages during the process of speciation', Hans Ellegren says. 'The more complex kinship patterns that result from this phenomenon mean that the Tree of Life should often be understood as a Bush of Life', Alexander Suh and Hans Ellegren say.

Funny. The authors start talking about evolution of various bird species, and end up talking about, "the Tree of Life". So, despite all your herculean efforts to distance the evolution of birds from universal common ancestry, the article quotes the scientists as joining the two concepts. You can't get around the fact that the article, and the scientists the article is about, are in complete disagreement with you about the point of the article and the science!

Also, your version of universal common ancestry and the history of life on earth that it describes is cartoonishly simplistic.

Like this?

If you really are interested in this subject, you should take the time to actually learn it before trying to debate it. But in general, the history of life on earth is merely a series of speciation events...it's existing species giving rise to new species. And each one of those new species is very similar to the one it evolved from. So to keep things very simple, it would be species A giving rise to species B, which gives rise to species C, and so on and so on, with each new species being not very different than the one it evolved from. It isn't until you compare species Z to the original species A that you notice the sorts of transitions that you're referring to.

If you really are interested in telling me I don't understand the article we are talking about, you really ought to read the article. The whole point they were making is that they can't find the simplistic view of evolution you describe in the bird species they investigated. They CAN'T FIND IT. So they say the fundamental concept of species A evolving into species B and species B giving rise to species C, which matches the simplistic description of Darwin's tree of life cartoon, as well as YOUR description, is not that simple. Darwin was wrong in that aspect of his theory.

Now you know and I know that a bush branches exactly like a tree. So when they say it is more like a bush than a tree, we have to probe a little deeper to determine why they make a distinction. What I suggested they mean is that the branches bifurcate and conjoin, rather than just bifurcating. Maybe instead they are saying the branches trifurcate or some other kind of branching where a single species gives rise to a bunch of other species in a short amount of time. But even Darwin's cartoon of the tree of life fits that second option, which I think only leaves my suggestion to consider.

It also takes us back to the point I raised earlier....the fact that in all the centuries we've been studying living organisms, the only way we've ever seen new species arise has been via evolutionary mechanisms.

Which brings us back to the point I raised earlier--that "evolutionary mechanism" encapsulates ANY kind of change, thus your statement is a tautology. I'll rephrase it for you: "in all the centuries we've been studying living organisms, the only way we've ever seen one species change into another has been via change." Can you see how ridiculous that sounds?

In this I agree with you--we do not see God making brand new creatures out of dirt and water today. But in this I think you have to agree with me--that "in all the centuries we've been studying living organisms, we've never seen a new species arise that was also a new family". Does that bother you? That somehow evolution has lost its creative power?

So just like the geologist is justified in concluding that an ash layer is the result of a volcanic eruption, paleontologists are justified in concluding that the species they see in the fossil record are the result of evolutionary mechanisms.

Speaking of straw men....
Only if there are no other options available, especially if the fossil record shows upward progression.

And finally, if you want to talk about universal common ancestry (UCA), then you need to understand how that conclusion does not stem from a single data point, and as such is not going to be overturned by a single data point. UCA extends from an enormous variety of data, collected over centuries from a wide variety of fields. So simply pointing to a paper that describes a modified model of early bird evolution as somehow justification for rejecting UCA is ridiculous.

You mean a modified model of early bird evolution that the authors of the paper (not to mention the author of the article) see as representative of the more general model of evolution that is known as the "Tree of Life", as I have well established, despite your unwillingness to see it.

No it's not. Don't assume that your level of understanding of a subject is all there is to it.

Likewise.

And do you honestly think paleontologists just sit around making up stories? Funny...

Funny, indeed! Shall we go back to the article?

Less than a year ago, a consortium of some hundred researchers reported that the relationship between all major bird clades had been mapped out by analysing the complete genome of around 50 bird species. This included the exact order in which the various lineages had diverged.

Hahahahahahahaha! That is a funny story! (soon to be rejected by members of the group that made it up.)

Where does it say anything like that at all? Be specific.

Read my lips, "Tree........of.......Life".

Basically, "it could have been designed that way" is another way of saying "maybe God just made it that way". And yes, it could be that instead of all these bird species arising the same way we see species arising today, in the past everything was completely different and God created them all individually, kept replacing older versions with slightly different newer versions, and stopped doing all that as soon as we started looking.

I appreciate that what you said is ONE possibility for design. But another is that the ability to change within limits was designed into some original creatures, and that is what we see today. We see dogs and corn and pigeons, etc., that can become different looking dogs and corn and pigeons. But no dogs that become pigeons. We see that we can mutate flies--but the ones that live are still flies. The ones that don't live are flies until they die. Maybe we will get beyond those limits some day, but if we're going with what we've actually observed...well, you know as well as I do, Mr. Fly.

But you see, we can say that about absolutely anything. That ash layer the geologist thinks is from a volcano? Maybe God just "designed" it there. Those images of a spherical earth? Maybe God is just making it look that way. We already see various creationists here making these sorts of arguments with the "mature universe" beliefs....maybe God just made the universe look billions of years old.

Creationists can be wrong, too. Are you sure you want to look at everything every evolutionist has ever said and use it to make a judgment on evolutionary biology? I have a feeling you wouldn't let me get away with that, so why would you want to use it on me?

See the problem? No matter what, someone like you can always come in after-the-fact and declare "that's just the way God made it". But from a scientific and explanatory standpoint, it's meaningless.

Isn't it just as meaningless to ascribe "change" to "evolutionary mechanisms"? From a scientific standpoint, it's meaningless.

So why did you cite it in an attempt to justify rejecting evolution (as you were using the term)?

Because the authors INTERPRETED their study results to apply it to evolution, and not just to a side branch of evolution, but to the fundamental concept of the "Tree of Life". But I guess they are just sitting around making up stories.

It means exactly what I said earlier....the early history of bird evolution was more complex than previously thought. That's it.

Attribute:By John Snape - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28489470

 

[jsanford108]

No I'm not.....

Stuart

Okay, Stuart;

I am going to post two responses following this one. The first will be a direct quote of post 523/524, going through your response and highlighting the fallacies/errors within it, numerically. The second post will be my theist response to your anti-theist position.

I am breaking the two responses apart, due to my fear of too lengthy a response. I will try and keep my responses shorter (hopefully) from here on out, addressing major points, rather than every single minor one, in order to be as productive and progressive in discussion as possible.

Thanks.