I did refute your arguments..you glossed over them and called me names, then followed up with more ridicule. You already abandoned the debate in your last reply. I'll further refine what I said.

1. Why does God punish people for the sins of Adam and Eve:

He gives you the same opportunity as Adam and Eve, with the same consequences.

2. Reiteration of question 1, with false correlation. Why are all crimes equated?

Again, you have the same opportunity and the same choices. All crimes fall under the umbrella of sin. They are all equated because all sin leads to death.

3. God coerces you

God created you for the purpose of knowing Him, and the reality of planet Earth is that what you do in this life determines what happens in your eternal future. It's not coercion to inform you of the reality of the situation, and to let you know the consequences of either choice.

4. Already covered, and no you don't have a free pass.

5. Again, I don't believe everyone is predestined, although some people like His prophets were.

>> ^hpqp:
"There is no saying God the Don will let you live another day, so I wouldn't recommend pushing your luck."
It's great how you continually illustrate my points. Pity you had to follow up with the childish mirror-response of "no, YOU'RE not making sense!", instead of trying to refute the arguments I proposed. Oh wait, you can't without hurtling yourself against the hard wall of the internal illogic of your belief system.
Look who's running now.
>> ^shinyblurry:
There is no saying God will let you live another day, so I wouldn't recommend pushing your luck.

So where do you cross the line between "part of god's plan" and "minor errors"? What would you base your decision on? >> ^shinyblurry:

Well, I am not one of those who necessarily believes that absolutely everything in the bible we have today is inerrant. I think almost all of it, if not all of it, is accurate. I accept the possibility of minor errors. If someone were to prove that a certain staircase had 5 steps when the bible said it had 6, that wouldn't undermine the bible in my eyes.
However, the main thrust of it is what we call redemptive history. There are definite details of Gods plan which describe how creation came to be and the steps God took to correct mans error, and how this will all end. If any link in that chain could be broken, it would basically undermine everything.
If that were the case I would re-evaluate the bible as a source of truth. It would not cause me to question Gods existence, as I came to that conclusion independently, but it would cause me to question what He expected from us and what was going on on planet Earth. Hope this answers your questions.
>> ^luxury_pie:
@shinyblurry
I hope you are still there. Wouldn't disproving part of the bible then turn the bible untrue as a whole? By your logic or believe or whatever I mean.
Or doesn't it matter if some parts are proven false as long as there remains but one fact which is historically accurate? Please elaborate that part of your commentary.

Well, I am not one of those who necessarily believes that absolutely everything in the bible we have today is inerrant. I think almost all of it, if not all of it, is accurate. I accept the possibility of minor errors. If someone were to prove that a certain staircase had 5 steps when the bible said it had 6, that wouldn't undermine the bible in my eyes.

However, the main thrust of it is what we call redemptive history. There are definite details of Gods plan which describe how creation came to be and the steps God took to correct mans error, and how this will all end. If any link in that chain could be broken, it would basically undermine everything.

If that were the case I would re-evaluate the bible as a source of truth. It would not cause me to question Gods existence, as I came to that conclusion independently, but it would cause me to question what He expected from us and what was going on on planet Earth. Hope this answers your questions.

>> ^luxury_pie:
@shinyblurry
I hope you are still there. Wouldn't disproving part of the bible then turn the bible untrue as a whole? By your logic or believe or whatever I mean.
Or doesn't it matter if some parts are proven false as long as there remains but one fact which is historically accurate? Please elaborate that part of your commentary.

Indeed. They are not to scale.
>> ^MaxWilder:

>> ^Sagemind:
Oh Hell, Really?
How can they launch a rocket or another space mission with that much debris lingering out there blocking the way?

Imagine you had only 13,000 people on the planet Earth, evenly spaced all over. And you know the exact position of each person. Do you think it would still be safe to drive with all those people in the way?
Like the Guide says... "Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen..."

>> ^Sagemind:

Oh Hell, Really?
How can they launch a rocket or another space mission with that much debris lingering out there blocking the way?


Imagine you had only 13,000 people on the planet Earth, evenly spaced all over. And you know the exact position of each person. Do you think it would still be safe to drive with all those people in the way?

Like the Guide says... "Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen..."

So basically, you cannot provide a refutation to the information itself but instead try to discredit the source. I've got hundreds of these..it's not exactly a secret among palentologists that the evolutionary theory has more holes than swiss cheese. Another issue is just the dating itself..take these quotes out of context:

Curt Teichert of the Geological Society of America, "No coherent picture of the history of the earth could be built on the basis of radioactive datings".

Improved laboratory techniques and improved constants have not reduced the scatter in recent years. Instead, the uncertainty grows as more and more data is accumulated ... " (Waterhouse).

richard mauger phd associate professor of geology east carolina university In general, dates in the “correct ball park” are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are the discrepancies fully explained

... it is usual to obtain a spectrum of discordant dates and to select the concentration of highest values as the correct age." (Armstrong and Besancon)

professor brew: If a C-14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it iscompletely out of date we just drop it. Few archaeologists who have concerned themselves with absolute chronology are innocent of having sometimes applied this method.

In the light of what is known about the radiocarbon method and the way it is used, it is truly astonishing that many authors will cite agreeable determinations as 'proof' for their beliefs. The radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. "This whole blessed thing is nothing but 13th century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read.” Written by Robert E. Lee in his article "Radiocarbon: Ages in Error" in Anthropological Journal Of Canada, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1981 p:9

Radiometric dating of fossil skull 1470 show that the various methods do not give accurate measurements of ages. The first tests gave an age of 221 million years. The second, 2.4 million years. Subsequent tests gave ages which ranged from 290,000 to 19.5 million years. Palaeomagnetic determinations gave an age of 3 million years. All these readings give a 762 fold error in the age calculations. Given that only errors less than 10% (0.1 fold) are acceptable in scientific calculations, these readings show that radiometric assessment should never ever be used. John Reader, "Missing Links", BCA/Collins: London, 1981 p:206-209

A. Hayatsu (Department of Geophysics, University of Western Ontario, Canada), "K-Ar isochron age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia",-Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 16, 1979,-"In conventional interpretation of K-Ar (potassium/argon dating method) age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale. The discrepancies between the rejected and the accepted are arbitrarily-attributed to excess or loss of argon." In other words the potassium/argon (K/Ar) method doesn't support the uranium/lead (U/Pb) method.

"The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years old, based on radio-decay rates of uranium and thorium. Such `confirmation' may be shortlived, as nature is not to be discovered quite so easily. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio-decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but rather, within the age and memory of man." (“Secular Catastrophism”, Industrial Research and Development, June 1982, p. 21)

“The procession of life was never witnessed, it is inferred. The vertical sequence of fossils is thought to represent a process because the enclosing rocks are interpreted as a process. The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales.” (O’Rourke, J.E., “Pragmatism Versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,” American Journal of Science, vol. 276, 1976, p. 53) (emphasis mine)

"The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning . . because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales."—*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of science, January 1976.

Dr. Donald Fisher, the state paleontologist for New York, Luther Sunderland, asked him: "How do you date fossils?" His reply: "By the Cambrian rocks in which they were found." Sunderland then asked him if this were not circular reasoning, and *Fisher replied, "Of course, how else are you going to do it?" (Bible Science Newsletter, December 1986, p. 6.)

It is a problem not easily solved by the classic methods of stratigraphical paleontology, as obviously we will land ourselves immediately in an impossible circular argument if we say, firstly that a particular lithology [theory of rock strata] is synchronous on the evidence of its fossils, and secondly that the fossils are synchronous on the evidence of the lithology."—*Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphic Record (1973), p. 62.

"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism."—*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1976, p. 48.

"Material bodies are finite, and no rock unit is global in extent, yet stratigraphy aims at a global classification. The particulars have to be stretched into universals somehow. Here ordinary materialism leaves off building up a system of units recognized by physical properties, to follow dialectical materialism, which starts with time units and regards the material bodies as their incomplete representatives. This is where the suspicion of circular reasoning crept in, because it seemed to the layman that the time units were abstracted from the geological column, which has been put together from rock units."—*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1979, p. 49.

"The prime difficulty with the use of presumed ancestral-descendant sequences to express phylogeny is that biostratigraphic data are often used in conjunction with morphology in the initial evaluation of relationships, which leads to obvious circularity."—*B. Schaeffer, *M.K. Hecht and *N. Eldredge, "Phylogeny and Paleontology," in *Dobzhansky, *Hecht and *Steere (Ed.), Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 6 (1972), p. 39

"The paleontologist's wheel of authority turned full circle when he put this process into reverse and used his fossils to determine tops and bottoms for himself. In the course of time he came to rule upon stratigraphic order, and gaps within it, on a worldwide basis."—*F.K. North, "the Geological Time Scale," in Royal Society of Canada Special Publication, 8:5 (1964). [The order of fossils is determined by the rock strata they are in, and the strata they are in are decided by their tops and bottoms—which are deduced by the fossils in them.]"The geologic ages are identified and dated by the fossils contained in the sedimentary rocks. The fossil record also provides the chief evidence for the theory of evolution, which in turn is the basic philosophy upon which the sequence of geologic ages has been erected. The evolution-fossil-geologic age system is thus a closed circle which comprises one interlocking package. Each goes with the other."—Henry M. Morris, The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (1972), pp. 76-77

"It cannot be denied that, from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organism as has been determined by a study of theory remains buried in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain."—*R.H. Rastall, article "Geology," Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 10 (14th ed.; 1956), p. 168.

"The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales."—*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1976, p. 53.

>> ^MaxWilder:
Let us begin with this definition of "quote mining" from Wikipedia: The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.
Thank you, shinyblurry, for your cut&paste, thought-free, research-absent, quote mining wall of nonsense. The only part you got right is that you should google each and every one of these quotes to find out the context, something you actually didn't do.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even the late Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University and the leading spokesman for evolutionary theory prior to his recent death, confessed "the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology..."

This Steven J. Gould quote is discussed in talk.origin's Quote Mine Project. Gould was a proponent of Punctuated Equilibria, which proposes a "jerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace of change" in evolution. The quotes that are taken out of context are arguing that the fossil record does not indicate a gradual change over time as Darwin suggested. The specifc quote above is discussed in section #3.2 of Part 3. Far from an argument against evolution, Gould was arguing for a specific refinement of the theory.
More to the point, your own quote says "extreme rarity", contradicting your primary claim that transitional fossils do not exist.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal... ...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book... ...there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.

Dr. Patterson is discussed on a page dedicated to this quote in the Quote Mine Project. This page touches on the nature of scientific skepticism. As Dr. Patterson goes on to say, "... Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else." This is the nature of pure science. We can say that a piece of evidence "indicates" or "suggests" something, but there is nothing that may be held up as "proof" unless it is testable. As a man of principle, Dr. Patterson would not indicate one species evolving into another simply because there is no way to be absolutely sure that one fossil is the direct descendant of another. We can describe the similarities and differences, showing how one might have traits of an earlier fossil and different traits similar to a later fossil, but that is not absolute proof.
Incidentally, this is probably where the main thrust of the creationist argument eventually lands. At this level of specificity, there is no known way of proving one fossil's relation to another. DNA does not survive the fossilization process, so we can only make generalizations about how fossils are related through physical appearance. This will be where the creationist claims "faith" is required. Of course, you might also say that if I had a picture of a potted plant on a shelf, and another picture of the potted plant broken on the floor, it would require "faith" to claim that the plant fell off the shelf, because I did not have video proof. The creationist argument would be that the plant broken on the ground was created that way by God.
>> ^shinyblurry:
David B. Kitts. PhD (Zoology) ... Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of "seeing" evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them...

This quote is from 1974. Think maybe some of those gaps might have gotten smaller since then? Doesn't really matter, because the scientist in question goes on to explicitly state that this does not disprove evolution. He then discusses hypotheses which might explain his perceived gaps, such as Punctuated Equilibrium. A brief mention of this quote is found in the Quote Mine Project at Quote #54.
>> ^shinyblurry:
N. Heribert Nilsson, a famous botanist, evolutionist and professor at Lund University in Sweden, continues:
My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed… The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.

First of all, Nilsson is only famous to creationists. To scientists, he's a bit of a wack-job. But that neither proves nor disproves his findings, it only goes to show that creationsists will frequently embellish a scientist's reputation if it will increase the size of the straw man argument. His writings would naturally include his opinions on the weaknesses of what was evolutionary theory at the time (1953!) in order to make his own hypothesis more appealing. He came up with Emication, which is panned as fantasy by the scientific critics. Perfect fodder for the creationists.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even the popular press is catching on. This is from an article in Newsweek magazine:
The missing link between man and apes, whose absence has comforted religious fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures … The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.
The popular press. Newsweek Magazine. 1980!!! What year are you living in, shiny???
>> ^shinyblurry:
Wake up people..your belief in evolution is purely metaphysical and requires faith. I suppose if you don't think about it too hard it makes sense. It's the same thing with abiogenesis..pure metaphysics.
Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species.
The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us?… The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record. 2

Well, now you're just quoting some anonymous creationist. Any evidence whatsoever that the gaps between major groups are growing wider? No? Can't find anything to cut and paste in reply to that question?
>> ^shinyblurry:
You've been had..be intellectually honest enough to admit it and seek out the truth. Science does not support evolution.

I wonder, shiny, if in your "intellectually honest search for the truth" if you ever left the creationist circle jerk? Your quotes are nothing but out of context and out of date.

How do you know your god is the right one if you rely on faith?

Because He responds by direct revelation. He lets you know He exists, and who He is. It's not however like He is always standing in front of you..you have to faith day by day..a bit like a family member who went off to another country that has no lines of communication. You have no way of seeing them but you have faith that they're still alive and having fun on planet Earth.

Your analogy suggests that the evidence for god is all around us, what evidence, specifically, are you pointing to?

Romans 1:20 says this

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Personally, I can attest to this truth. I had seen Gods attributes, His power and divine love namely, all my life..I had the puzzle pieces but not the picture. It's only when I found out God is real that they all fell into place.

How do you know you're pleasing god so that the evidence will be forthcoming as you suggest?

The main sign of living a life pleasing to God is the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. When you live without sinning, you are spiritually purified. In Christ, you are a new creation. You die to your carnal, worldly self and are reborn in the Spirit. The evidence is in your own behavior, internally and externally. Myself, I have been utterly transformed..still have a long way to go obviously, but I am quantifiably better than I was before, in every way. He lets you know in other ways but this is the main evidence.

How do you know what is the will of god if the very nature of god and his decisions is mysterious and beyond our understanding?

Because He stoops to our level and lets us know personally.

The bible is flawed horrendously before you go to that easy answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cK3Ry_icJo&playnext=1&list=PL80294485C9139857

debunked: http://bible.org/article/gospel-according-bart

>> ^mxxcon:

>> ^Friesian:
That has to be some of the worst editing and voiceover work I've seen. Shame though, because the spiders were pretty cool subject matter.

at least it's not bastardized with idiotic special effects or cutesy music.
this is a perfect example that nature is awesome enough as it is that it doesn't need any fancy narratives or fake sound effects or artificial setups the way they do it on Planet Earth or Blue Oceans.
major kudos to this guy for keeping it natural.


Oh, I totally agree that it's a good thing it's not bastardised with idiotic special effects or cutesy music. However, I would disagree that he's keeping it natural. It's clearly been edited (which I have no problem with), but the edited-in narration is, in my opinion, anything but natural.

The beginning of the clip is just fine, with him talking away. It was when it got to the narration part that it irked me somewhat.

Don't get me wrong - this is indeed amazing footage, especially, as @TheSluiceGate said, considering the size of the spiders. Major kudos to Jürgen for capturing it.

>> ^Friesian:

That has to be some of the worst editing and voiceover work I've seen. Shame though, because the spiders were pretty cool subject matter.


at least it's not bastardized with idiotic special effects or cutesy music.
this is a perfect example that nature is awesome enough as it is that it doesn't need any fancy narratives or fake sound effects or artificial setups the way they do it on Planet Earth or Blue Oceans.

major kudos to this guy for keeping it natural.

Planet Earth isn't fricken Star Trek: Star Fleet head quarters.

>> ^brycewi19:

I've heard that last song before. Does anyone know who that is? It's awfully familiar and I can't place it.


The last song (Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros) was used for Planet Earth and a few trailers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopp%C3%ADpolla

>> ^brycewi19:

For that matter, what's the first song, too?
Definately music plays a part in this vid!


The one at the start... over the credits is used in Finding Nemo near the start of the movie.
The main theme they play after that though is Overture by Michael Kamen and originally from the Robin Hood (Keven Costner version) soundtrack, but a portion of that theme, the part they played here, is used by Disney/Pixar films when the Disney logo is up. Can't say I knew before just now it was in Robin Hood, I just associated it with the Disney logo.
From there it goes into Kaneda's Death, Pt. 2 (Adagio in D Minor) by John Murphy from the Sunshine soundtrack and used in tons of trailers since then. That one I was able to place instantly... he is one of my lead choices for the Dark Tower score...
Then of course goes into the last song already mentioned.

Here's the video...


Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love For Planet Earth by chtio2008

He kept his cool, he attempted to diffuse the situation, he tried to avoid fighting by taking a few hits, and when it became obvious that the assault wouldn't stop, he moved quickly, eliminated the threat in seconds without overdoing it, and calmly walked away. There was simply no better way to handle the situation...

This.

Casey was being assaulted. Little Jerk was not alone. He has a bigger friend as backup, and there were other kids (who may or may not have been Little Jerk's friends/sympathizers) both egging Little Jerk on as well as filming the event. Casey was in a position where he could have been attacked by others. He handled the situation very calmly. Little Jerk had plenty of chances to back off, but wouldn't. Casey sees his opening and puts Little Jerk down in 2 seconds. Casey gets back up, and stands tall as Big Jerk comes forward - but DOESN'T escalate the matter. Some other kid (FINALLY) steps up and intervenes - diffusing the situation. AND CASEY WALKS AWAY LIKE A BOSS.

I find nothing to criticize here. We all prefer non-violence, and it is unfortunate that Little Jerk was clocked so hard. But when you are a skinny guy you have NO BUSINESS picking a fight with someone who has over 25% on you in body mass. I can't fault Casey for his choice to put Little Jerk down fast & hard when Big Jerk is waiting in the wings.

Bullying. It sucks. It happens a lot though, and not just to kids. Bullies need to learn that if they pull this crap they will be slapped down. Problem is in today's society, we don't allow that sort of discipline. But it would be a happier world of the Little Jerk's of planet Earth were regularly and routinely given a solid Casey to the pavement.

Hooray for David Attenborough. In fact, this has inspired me to go watch Planet Earth again. Him and Patrick Stewart are two of my favourite "celebrities" (I use the term incredibly loosely)—I guess there's something about Knights which makes me like them.

Like being punched in the face by planet Earth.