How can we have a substantive conversation if you're not willing to put in any effort to actually understand the subject matter, either for or against? If you're content with your blind faith in whatever scientists tell you, then you're just as dogmatic as you accuse me of being. The video I provided is very good and it chronicles the history of deep time, as well as the science behind it, in exacting detail using the methodology of geologists. You could watch 10 minutes of it, and if you decided you didn't like it, you could turn it off.

As far as the paradigm shift goes, here is a quote from the father of uniformitarianism, Charles Lyell:

I am sure you may get into Q.R. [Quarterly Review] what will free the science from Moses, for if treated seriously, the [church] party are quite prepared for it. A bishop, Buckland ascertained (we suppose [Bishop] Sumner), gave Ure a dressing in the British Critic and Theological Review. They see at last the mischief and scandal brought on them by Mosaic systems … . Probably there was a beginning—it is a metaphysical question, worthy of a theologian—probably there will be an end. Species, as you say, have begun and ended—but the analogy is faint and distant. Perhaps it is an analogy, but all I say is, there are, as Hutton said, ‘no signs of a beginning, no prospect of an end’ … . All I ask is, that at any given period of the past, don’t stop inquiry when puzzled by refuge to a ‘beginning,’ which is all one with ‘another state of nature,’ as it appears to me. But there is no harm in your attacking me, provided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the probability of a beginning … . I was afraid to point the moral, as much as you can do in the Q.R. about Moses. Perhaps I should have been tenderer about the Koran. Don’t meddle much with that, if at all.

If we don’t irritate, which I fear that we may (though mere history), we shall carry all with us. If you don’t triumph over them, but compliment the liberality and candour of the present age, the bishops and enlightened saints will join us in despising both the ancient and modern physico-theologians. It is just the time to strike, so rejoice that, sinner as you are, the Q.R. is open to you.

P.S. … I conceived the idea five or six years ago [1824–25], that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must abstract mine, in order to have as little to say as possible yourself. Let them feel it, and point the moral.”

As you can plainly see, Charles was scheming to deceive the church into accepting his uniformitarian theories even though he knew they contradicted scripture. He wasn't interested in a scientific investigation of the facts:

From a lecture in King’s College London in 1832

I have always been strongly impressed with the weight of an observation of an excellent writer and skillful geologist who said that ‘for the sake of revelation as well as of science—of truth in every form—the physical part of Geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the Scriptures were not in existence

He had an agenda and his bias is plain to see. He completely excluded the testimony of scripture apriori before he even began. That is the beginning of why there was a shift in geology as the intelligentsia embraced his theories and began to teach it at Universities. There was no spectacular confirmation of any of this; in fact the evidence he gave about Niagra Falls to supprt his theory has been completely falsified.

That doesn't sound like circular reasoning to you?

It would sound circular if none of those had any other basis for their timelines other than each other, which, not being an expert, I have to guess is not the case. You, the one making the enormous claim that the entire field of geology is unscientific, have to demonstrate that.

I found some more cherry-picking. From that article about mudstones, you take this one quote: "One thing we are very certain of is that our findings will influence how geologists and paleontologists reconstruct Earth's past" and determine from it that the age of the planet will be scientifically revised from many billions of years to a few thousand. You have no basis for that. Also, why are you quoting geologists? That isn't even a science, I thought, right? Is it just because these ones happen to sound like their story could be twisted to agree with yours?

Your argument from incredulity not-withstanding, I think Max Planck sums it up rather nicely: " A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

If by that quote you mean that old people tend to have a hard time changing their minds about things in face of contradictory evidence, you're right -- that's human nature. If you mean that scientific theories change randomly because new opinions grow and the old ones die out like cultural habits, you're wrong.

There was a paradigm shift from catastrophism to uniformitarianism in the late 19th century. It was a deliberate move away from the idea of a global flood. To make their theories worked, they needed vast amount of time

This is another grand claim. Can you give a verifiable non-biased (non ID) reference as to the deliberateness of the shift, and the pre-formed idea that they needed to conjure up vast amounts of time? Science doesn't become conventional wisdom without a preponderance of evidence to back it up. It doesn't mean any of it is correct, just that there's a lot of supporting evidence.

In other words, you believe whatever the scientists say and there is no reason to understand the alternative viewpoint.

No. You're the one making ridiculous claims. I'm rebutting for fun, for sport. I don't believe your religion is real. I trust scientists more than dogmatists, and if I have to choose how to spend 1.5 hours, it's going to be reading Feynman or watching TYT or studying math or practising card tricks. You brought up the topic, and I happen to only care enough about it to rebut a bit, not to dedicate hours to it. Also, you have a history here of providing horribly unscientific quotes and references without any attempt at intellectual honesty, and based on that, I can guess the quality of that video, and I don't need to spend 1.5 hours only to be disappointed in myself for trying. If I were really that curious, I would go to the geology department of my university and ask some professors about the circular argument, and what the original basis was for the dating. If you care that much about actually finding the truth, you'll do just that. But I think you're too afraid to learn something contradictory to your dogma.

It's all predicated upon the philosophy of deep time. Deep time is the cornerstone of modern research, and it supported by flimsy, circumstantial evidence.

Non-ID reference for the flimsiness required for grand claims.

You're cherry-picking. That sentence isn't the key one. I'm not sure what is meant by that sentence (the use of "constraint" is ambiguous), but it would be utterly unscientific if it meant that the stratigraphic position pre-determined the outcome. Geology would be scientistic nonsense like ID, not science.

Yes, and that is the point. If Geology worked like that it would be scientific nonsense, and it does work like that. The stratigraphic position is determined by the index fossils and radiometric dating. The age of the index fossils is determined by the stratigraphic position and radiometric dating. Radiometric dating itself is "checked" by stratigraphic positioning. That doesn't sound like circular reasoning to you?

On the other side the date is determined by the uniformitarian assumptions about radioactive decay rates in the past, and many other things. It assumes, among other things, that the rate will never change. As I showed in my reply the Bicyclerepairman, the rates can indeed change.

Even the next two sentences demonstrate this: "There is no way for a geologist to choose what numerical value a radiometric date will yield, or what position a fossil will be found at in a stratigraphic section. Every piece of data collected like this is an independent check of what has been previously studied."

Now this is the intellectually dishonest part. They say they can't choose where a fossil will be, but they have already the determined that the presence of certain fossils and radiometric dating igneous layers above and below it determines the age of that layer. They don't choose where a fossil is, but they do choose what the age of the layer is that contains the fossil based on their assumptions. So they are basically saying that radiometric dating and stratigraphy is validated by index fossils and radiometric dating, and vice-versa.

The date that is returned is indeed chosen by the scientists as it is based on uniformitarian assumptions that they've made about the past. Perhaps you don't understand how it works, but there is nothing about the rock which reveals its age. They use the secondary evidence of how much radioactive decay of certain elements they believe have occurred, but if the rates aren't always constant, the measurement is worthless. As I showed in my reply to Bicyclerepairman, even secular scientists have acknowledged the rates can change. Therefore it is unreliable on its own, and what is essentially happening is that they are propping up one unprovable assumption with the evidence interpreted through another unprovable assumption.

If geologists were in the habit of treating data this way, scientifically-minded people who entered the field would be disgusted and leave, and form their own new scientific discipline of the study of the earth. The fact that this hasn't happened means the geological method appears scientific to scientific-minded people, if not dogmatists.

It's far more likely that you, a dogmatist and a non-geologist, are cherry-picking information to come up with data that supports your dogma. Dogmatists, by definition, cannot be relied upon for unbiased information that either challenges or confirms their dogma. Their dogma pre-disposes them to coming to wrong conclusions far more than non-dogmatists.

Your argument from incredulity not-withstanding, I think Max Planck sums it up rather nicely:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it

There was a paradigm shift from catastrophism to uniformitarianism in the late 19th century. It was a deliberate move away from the idea of a global flood. To make their theories worked, they needed vast amount of time. Most of the contention comes down to how fast or slow certain geological features take to form. Scientists have staked all of their modern research on the theory of deep time, and they interpret all of the evidence through that conclusion. In other words, it has become conventional wisdom..IE, dogma. Please read my reply to Bicyclerepairman to see how bias effects interpretation.

If you examine the history of science, you will see that scientists have had it wrong many times and wasted decades and decades of research on things ultimately proven to be false. The near universal agreement of scientists on any issue is not any indicator of truth.

I'll take 10 minutes to respond to your comments, but I'm not taking 1.5 hours to watch more non-scientific nonsense framed in scientific terms. If there were strong enough evidence that the Earth were a few thousand years old, there would be a branch of geologists studying it. And I'm excluding the dogmatic "creation geology". It is pseudoscience.

In other words, you believe whatever the scientists say and there is no reason to understand the alternative viewpoint. Your dismissal of the material as "non-scientific nonsense framed in scientific terms" flatly shows your intellectual incuriousity, not even having looked at it. Dr. Emil is an accomplished geologist and his discussion is framed in the terminology and methodology used in that field. If you want to debate this subject, you should at the bare minimum understand the basics of the position you are defending and the position you are arguing against. Also, the video is about 1 hour with 30 minutes of questions.

FWIW, according to Wikipedia: "Flood geology contradicts the scientific consensus in geology and paleontology, chemistry, physics, biology, geophysics and stratigraphy". Do you think you can knock all those scientific fields down as well? Have at it.

It's all predicated upon the philosophy of deep time. Deep time is the cornerstone of modern research, and it supported by flimsy, circumstantial evidence. If you can show deep time is false, then all of it crumbles.

Also, "former atheist" means "current dogmatist". You don't find it astounding that his conversion happened to coincide with his discovery that the evidence didn't hold up? I do. Evidence of non-scientific thinking.

It's interesting you're still inventing reasons why you shouldn't watch the video. You don't know anything about the man but you make wrongheaded assumptions about him. Such as that he converted because he had doubts about the evidence in Geology not holding up. Yet, that isn't the reason he converted, and it had nothing to do with his work as a geologist. Your conclusions here are evidence of non-scientific thinking.

Missing his point VoodooV- Weath (comfortable, social and political environment=stable) as opposed to Poverty (constant struggle, unstable living conditions and government, etc).
Wealth provides access to information, education, and comfort in our temporarily-fucked paradigm. Unfortunately, knowledge and the leisure to pursue a higher path of consciousness is not something "endowed to all men by their creator" but something to be kept in a museum or private collection....or maybe even an entire city in ROME??? ..hint,hint??

Religions are wealthy because they have duped humans that they have a handle on their spirituality, or are a direct conduit to God herself. How do you think they got wealthy??
Oh and YES, it does take a higher education than that of a base, instinctual, meatbot (not talking about "University" per-se, either), because in order to HAVE have the questioning nature to reject religion you must first understand what it is about an institution's take on God, that you have a problem with....Harder to do that when you are poor and stupid BY DESIGN!

Religion has lasted as long as it has because people are herded, worked like cattle, and fed a continual stream of partial or outright disinformation. The average person may not have the information to make an informed decision, or even access to it.

There's a reason for the adage, "Knowledge is Power"
Control the dissemination of information and you can control a shitload of human bean!!

Oh, and a hearty down vote for Stink Uraguay's continual, smugly-smugstein rant(z). ...(everything he offers up is a rant right, and never are they either witty, or eloquent. MEH

>> ^hpqp:

Oh please, this is just bad science. It's barely even worth cheap sci-fi. Where do you get the energy to run the replicator, eh? Does entropy ring a bell? Even without replicators humans are draining the earth of it's energetic resources (including the "sustainable" ones)...
Nice philosophical mindgame, like all utopias for that matter, but nowhere near hard science.
philosophy


Our world is full of achievements that were once beyond the ability of hard science.
How can humans possibly communicate over hundrends of miles? We're already yelling as loud as we can.
How can we possibly run faster than cheetahs? Our legs can't move any faster!
How can I kill Og standing all the way over there? Rock not throw farther!!!

Ultimately, all life shares one common goal; the quest for energy. From single cell creatures harvesting light, heat or chemical reactions to survive...all the way to modern humans with their agriculture, technology and complex social structures; the journey of evolution has been the race for more efficient means of acquiring and managing energy.
Our economies are elaborate means of trading energy.
Our societies organized to maximize the collection of energy.
Our governments created to ensure equitable distribution or energy.

The result of millenia of advancement is that we now expend much less energy to acquire a larger return of energy. And all that excess energy creates the complex world we live in.

But there is the potential, in the future, for technological advancements in science that will create a massive paradigm shift. There is the potential for accessible energy to become inexhaustable. And when the cost, in terms of human effort, of energy approaches Zero....everything changes.

Will the end of human need result in a utopia?
LOL...never. Because we'll always have griefers.

Don't try and pawn this off on me. It's not my "excuse". I'm closed only to one idea: of my being absolutely certain about anything. I'm not closed to any other idea, period. You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story. And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

Let me get this straight..you're completely closed to the idea of being absolutely certain of something. Think about that for a minute and see if you can spot the inherent contradiction contained within this idea.

If I say there is absolute truth, and someone says no there isn't, and I say are you absolutely sure about that?, this isn't a trivial question. That's what I used to think, that it was some kind of cheap trick, and ultimately meaningless. Don't be like I was and just dismiss this without giving it a great deal of thought. The fact is, you can't deny the idea of absolute truth without confirming it. It's not a cheap parlor cheap of logic, it is a revelation of the framework of reality, of how things really work. That there really is a certain truth, and everything you ultimately believe, flawed logic and all, ultimately points to it. It actually could be no other way. There is a ground for everything we know and understand. The atheist says though that's he is standing on air. The issue is that subjective beings can't know anything about objective reality so they grope around in the dark trying to understand what truth is. An atheism has no route to get beyond his subjective understanding. The only way you can understand truth then is by the light of revelation. IE, someone without objective understanding (an omniscient being) would have to enlighten you. If you've never seen light then you won't understand what darkness is. Jesus said if the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

What I believe is that you were not systematic in trying to understand your experience. When you woke up from it and figured out that you were being led down a path to insanity, you just wrote the whole thing off as being entirely in your mind. I would liken this to coming home one day and finding a group of thieves moving furniture out of your house and loading it into a truck. You ask them what they're doing and they say that they are a moving company and that you called them and set up an appointment 2 weeks ago to move you out, and don't you remember? Oh wow, you say, it must have skipped my mind! It looks like it was just a rash idea of mine, really sorry for this inconvenience! You then proceed to help them move your furniture back into your house.

As you're moving everything back in, you notice the door has been busted open and the house has been ransacked. You ask them about this and they say that just earlier you were here trying to let them into house but you couldn't find your key so you kicked the door in because you didn't want to keep them waiting. You then tore the house apart looking for your keys, and when you found them you left to go get something to eat and that's where you've been this whole time. Pondering this you decide that if you could forget about calling them in the first place then you could most certainly forget about doing all of those other things too.

So you finally get everything back in the house and you again apologize profusely for wasting their time, but as they are leaving, they say don't worry about it because we were never here. We're just part of a dream you're having. Goodbye! You think to yourself, considering the memory problems I've been having, this seems very reasonable. The next day a friend stops by and asks you what happened to your house. Oh, it was all a bad dream, you say. I apparently did all of this in my sleep, but it's over now, not to worry!

I don't know what your experience was; typically, they try to convince you that you're some kind of Messiah-like figure, or that reality is centered around you in some way. What I do know is that things happened to you which you cannot explain; signs and wonders, strange "coincidences", etc. These were the signposts in your journey that reinforced your paradigm and kept you on that road. You want to believe that it was all in your head rather than a strategic plan to destroy you, so you chalk it up to delusion. It wasn't all delusion, though; you were being herded down a path, probably with the goal of getting you to kill yourself, and it's only because they went too far that you woke up from that spell.

You have failed to convince me. That's why I don't accept your story.

I can't convince you of anything. This isn't an intellectual problem that you're having, it is an issue of your heart. Only God can convince you, but your heart is hardened towards Him and you refuse to come near to Him.

And after all this, you revealed yourself to be absolutely certain of your own judgement that your numinous experiences are coming from God.

That's just what I've been saying all along, that there is a certain truth, and God reveals it to those who seek Him. That truth is Jesus Christ. You've admitted that God could convince me, so it isn't an inherently irrational position.

All you're telling me is that you are convinced of something, and FWIW, I believe that you are. You have no grounds to believe that your human perceived conviction is warranted, especially given that you know of many other humans who are equally convicted about things that contradict what you believe. That alone should give you doubt about your convictions, as it gives me doubt. If it doesn't give you doubt, you're not being rational. What's more likely: that you alone are correct among all the millions of equally convicted people, or that all equally convicted people, including you, are wrong? What makes you so special?

Nothing makes me special; I simply responded to Gods calling. I can explain why people follow false religion in imitation of the true God, which is that Satan blinds the eyes of unbelievers so that they cannot know the truth about God. He backs up their experiences with supernatural signs and wonders so that they believe they are on the right path. Satan is an imitator of God:

2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

I DO doubt my own existence -- at least, I don't take it as fact that I exist. I could be a brain in a vat, etc. I don't accept my own senses either as categorical evidence. I live as if they're accurate because it's instinctive and it serves me to do so. Skepticism is not ignorance. Accepting something absolutely and uncritically is ignorance. You expect me to accept your word on faith. Why should I believe you? You're just some random person on their internet soapbox who claims to have visions of god. See how stupid it would be for me to change my life because of that? You wouldn't.

I don't think you're actually that skeptical, because I haven't really seen you critically examine your own presuppositions. You say that you don't have any preference for the truth, but that is clearly not true. You are very slanted in favor of a liberal/humanistic/naturalistic mindset, and you oppose any ideas which contradict it. You clearly do accept some things, like evolution for instance, as the gospel truth. This is very inconsistent with your statements about uncertainty. You've seen the human capacity to delude itself, so you keep saying, but you don't seem to question the thought process that leads you to any of these conclusions.

The reason I came to be a Christian, and no one ever witnessed to me by the way, is because I wanted to know the truth and God showed me what it is. I had sufficient evidence from God to give my life to Jesus, and then Jesus completely transformed me and made me a new person. I didn't expect any of that to happen. I had no idea what it would mean to become a Christian. But it did happen, supernaturally, and I found out later that it matched up to everything the bible said would happen. It's one thing to use confirmation bias to make a bunch of coincidence and happenstance into some kind of experience of God. It's another to be transformed at the core of your being into an entirely new person, losing all the negatives and gaining an unlimited supply of peace, joy, hope and love. Even more so when it happens within a moment in time. I've seen miracles, and I've seen things like demon possession. I am certain because God made me certain, but there is plenty of evidence to justify my certainty.

You are certain about God's revelation to you because God has given you certainty of it. That's tautology, if you're a rational agent.

Actually, it's circular reasoning. You will find that every inductive argument suffers from this problem. You cannot actually ultimately justify a single one of your beliefs to me. The conversation could go like this:

You: (objection to a stated fact or belief)
Me: Is that a rational statement?
You: Yes, it is logical.
Me: How do you know it is logical?
You: Because I reason it to be so.
Me: How do you know your reasoning is valid?
You: Because I reason it to be so.

Repeat ad infinitum. You've admitted that you can't trust your senses, and you just assume that you're rational because it's instinctive, which provides you no ultimate justification for anything you believe. That you're telling me it's wrong to use circular reason is absurd since everything you believe is based on it.

Circular reasoning is not necessarily fallacious because you cannot point to an ultimate authority for any claim without using it. Look at the issues this problem of induction causes when it comes to proving scientific theory:

"Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that “using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning”. Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. However, per David Hume's problem of induction, science cannot be proven inductively by empirical evidence, and thus science cannot be proven scientifically. An appeal to a principle of the uniformity of nature would be required to deductively necessitate the continued accuracy of predictions based on laws that have only succeeded in generalizing past observations. But as Bertrand Russell observed, “The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

You cannot use empirical evidence to prove empiricism is valid, just as you can't use the scientific method to prove the scientific method is valid. Therefore science cannot be proven scientifically! It needs an ultimate justification which cannot be proven inductively. Therefore, you would have to use a deductive argument by presupposing the uniformity of nature to justify the continued accuracy of the predictions of science. But again, just assuming the uniformity in nature leads you to the same problem. The only evidence you have that the future will be like the past is in the past. Therefore it would be fallacious reasoning to say the future will be like the past because of the past.

This is where the problem comes in for the atheist, because he must use viciously circular reasoning, which is always fallacious. I can point to God to justify logic, truth, the uniformity in nature, and my own rationality. These concepts don't make any sense in an atheistic worldview, because there is no way to justify them. My reasoning isn't viciously circular..I can point to an ultimate authority. Your reason is viciously circular because you must point to yourself as the authority.

You want God to be real so you deny all evidence even to other *possibilities*, let alone facts.

I didn't originally go looking for God. He tapped me on the shoulder. I didn't become a Christian because I wanted God to be real, I became a Christian because the evidence indicated He is real.

I don't want anything in particular to be real. I only want to be as sure as possible of what I do believe.

I don't think you want the Christian God to be real, and would prefer that He wasn't. What you can be sure of is that you cannot ultimately justify any of your beliefs.

Yes, of course a god could convince you, but just because you're convinced, doesn't mean it was God who did it. That would be a faulty syllogism. Minds can play the most amazing tricks on people. That's documented fact.

How is it that when you have evidence that confirms your belief, it's faulty, but when you reject that evidence, it's rational? Just because you can potentially falsify an idea doesn't mean it has been falsified. I have a path to the truth, as you've admitted. God could make me certain, and He could reveal truth, so it isn't irrational to believe it, considering the overwhelming evidence that I have received, and continue to receive, each and every day. When God touches your life, you have a justified true belief in Him. In every case, when God makes someone certain, they are going to justified in saying that they're certain. You would say all these people are delusional, but you have no way to be able to tell the difference. Only the individual could really know that they've been touched by God. The only way you could find out is if you were yourself touched by God. That's what I've been trying to tell you all along. I can't convince you, but God can. He loves you and He is waiting for you to soften your heart and seek His face. That is the only thing which will prove or disprove my claim.


>> ^messenger:

stuff

I would test it, if I could. By “God”, I’m assuming you’re still talking about Yahweh specifically, and not just any random god-type entity. If that’s the case, then I’ve already falsified the claim that the Bible is perfect, so that argument is gone.

You haven't falsified it. If you have, show me where. If you're referring to Matthews lineage using Chiastic structure, that isn't an imperfection. Chaistic structure is a literary device, so Matthews genealogy is not giving us the entire line, but rather like an artistic summation of it. To say it is wrong would be like telling a painter his painting is wrong.

If you’re merely making a deist claim, then I can’t argue with you. I take no position on deism other than if some deity created the universe and set it in motion, I have no reason to believe it cares about humans, and it certainly has made no edicts that I perceive as to how I should live my life.

Since you have no argument against a potential God, and couldn't tell whether you were living in His Universe or not, then how would you know if this God cares about humans or if it has laid down any edicts about how you should live your life?

You’re not listening to me. Seriously. I do have ways of determining which story is more likely. Occam’s razor is the best for this problem. The complexities introduced by faith in Yahweh and the Bible are necessarily more complex than the problems they solve. They are also blind faith (I'm talking about the vast majority of the faithful, and about what you're recommending I do), which is willful self-delusion. The theories that physicists and biologists have come up with are quite convincing, especially if you understand how science works.

I have been listening to you and what I have found is that if you can find some kind of excuse to dismiss something that seems even potentially legitimate, then you run with it. You only seem interested in trying to falsify the question, because you apparently have already decided it isn't true. You don't have any real evidence to prove it, but in previous conversations you have said you see no reason to bother thinking about it. In short, you don't care.

You say I'm talking about blind faith, and I'm not. I believe what I believe because God convinced me of its truth. I had no reason to believe it otherwise, and I wouldn't. I am telling you that if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you. He loves you and wants you to know Him. You just don't want to know Him and that is the problem.

Neither do you understand the law of parsimony. The law states that in explaining a given phenomenon, we should make as few assumptions as possible. Therefore, if we have two theories which are equal in explanatory power, but one has fewer assumptions, we should choose the one with fewer assumptions. However, a more complex theory with better explanatory power should be chosen over a more simplistic theory with weaker explanatory power. I think John Lennox kind of sums this all up at 3:00



Agreed. I find myself in an environment in which my species was capable of evolving. It says nothing of how statistically improbable it is.

You were created in your parents womb; this says nothing about evolution. It only says that you have some way to come into existence, personally. It says nothing about the particulars of how that came to be.

Disagree. I’m lucky that of all the possible combinations of molecules that could have come together to create our terrestrial environment, the right ones came together to create life, then the right DNA strands combined to eventually create me. I’m lucky, sure, but given the length of time we’ve had, there’s no reason I should be surprised, especially when there's no reason to assert that this is the only universe.

There is no reason to assert it isn't, either. In a finely tuned Universe, it is more plausible to believe it was designed rather than it just happened to be one Universe out of trillions that implausibly just looks like it was designed because if you have enough Universes eventually one will form that appears that way. Remember Occams Razor?

You ask why multiple universes are more likely than a deity? Because you and I both know for sure there is at least one universe, so positing some more of them is less of a stretch than asserting a self-contradictory entity, alien to our objective experience, defying any consistent and meaningful description, so vastly complex that it cannot be properly understood, and so full of human failings that it looks man-made.

That would be true if God were any of those things. I can agree with you though that your understanding of God is self-contradictory, alien to your experience, etc. You believe you have God figured out, when you don't know Him at all. You would actually do anything to know God, but you are rejecting Him out of ignorance.

In the scenario between multiple universes or God as a theory to describe a finely tuned Universe, God wins every time. It doesn't matter how complex God might be; the explanatory power afforded by the theory is by far superior.

I’m sceptical of all your claims because that’s how I roll. I’m sceptical of everything, especially big claims. It’s the smartest way to avoid being duped.

You're skeptical of everything that doesn't agree with your presuppositions about reality. Those I have rarely if ever seen you seriously question in all the time I have spoken to you. Regarding knowledge that agrees with those presuppositions, you feel free to speculate about that all day long and will say that virtually any of it is more plausible with no evidence. The thing is, I used to be on your side of the fence, and I know what a search for the truth looks like. This isn't it.

The smartest way to avoid being duped is to understand that you might be duped at this moment and not realize it. That's the trouble with being deceived; you think you're right when you are really wrong.

You have been telling me that I must believe in the one true thing that is true that is Yahweh and the Bible and creation because it’s true because it’s true because it’s true because it’s the only possibility.

What I've been telling you is that God is not hiding from you. You are hiding from Him. It's not that you don't know there is a God so much as you don't want to know that there is. You simply want to do whatever you think is right and you automatically reject any possibility that says this is wrong and you are in fact accountable to a higher authority. In short, your attitude towards God is not skeptical but rebellious.

Now, I conceive of another possibility: my 10^trillion universes. You agree it’s possible, so there’s no reason for me to believe yours is necessarily true. If I have to choose between them, the one that doesn’t require the further explanation of a sentient deity more complex than 10^trillion universes is simpler. And even then, I DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE one or the other. I can remain sceptical. To me, it’s foolish not to.

I concede its possible that God could have created other Universes, but I don't concede the idea that Universes just happen by themselves. This is really a very foolish idea. It's like coming across a coke can and believing wind and erosion created it. It only seems plausible to you because you must have a naturalistic explanation for your existence to make sense of your reality.

I don't expect you to believe in God unless He gives you some kind of revelation. I frequently pray that you will receive this revelation, both for you and the sake of your family.

Since I already pointed out this flawed understand of the law of parsimony, I won't reiterate that argument here.

While we’re talking about being honest with ourselves, I’d like to hear it from you that the following things are *at least technically possible*: that Yahweh doesn’t exist; that your relationship with Yahweh is an illusion created by you inside your head because you are human and human minds are prone to occasional spectacular mistakes; that the Bible was created by deluded humans; that the universe is around 14 billion years old; that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old; that life on Earth started 1-2 billion years ago; and that all species evolved from primitive life forms. To be clear, I’m not asking you to accept them as true or even probable, just state whether this collection of statements is possible or impossible.

This is what Paul said:

1 Corinthians 15:17,19

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I wasn't there at the resurrection; I take it on faith. My faith has been borne out by the evidence, such as being born again, witnessing miracles, and experiencing the presence of God in my daily life. I don't admit any of those things; I have most definitely received revelation from God, and there is no other plausible explanation for the evidence. If you can concede that God can give you certain knowledge then you can understand why I don't doubt that knowledge.

Notice what George Wald said?

I notice that you only quote scientists out of context, or when they’re speaking poetically. I guarantee he never said that in a scientific paper. Life may be a wonder, not a miracle.

I *only* do? That's a false generalization. This quote is right on target, and I challenge you to show me where I have taken George out of context. This is what scientists believe, that time + chance makes just about anything possible. Has life ever been observed coming entirely from non living matter? That's a miracle, and that's what you must believe happened either here or somewhere in the Universe.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

Near the end, you’ll find this gem: “The history of physics has had that a lot, … Certain quantities have seemed inexplicable and fine-tuned, and once we understand them, they don’t seem to [be] so fine-tuned. We have to have some historical perspective.”

If you haven't done so already, watch the first 10-20 minutes of this: http://videosift.com/video/The-God-of-the-Gaps-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson. It's "creationism/intelligent design" laid bare as a position of weakness. Your "fine tuning" trope is part of "intelligent design" and has the same historical flaw.

It's the God of the gaps argument which is flawed. It's not a God of the gaps argument when the theory is a better explanation for the evidence.

It's just a bare fact that there is a number of physical constants in an extremely narrow range which conspire to create a life permitting Universe. It's even admitted on the wikipedia page:

Physicist Paul Davies has asserted that "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life".[2] However he continues "...the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

What do you mean, “they hate that possibility”? Why should a scientist hate any possibility? If there were science that pointed to the real existence of God, that’s exactly the way their investigations would go. That’s what motivated early modern scientists – they believed unravelling the laws of the universe by experiment would reveal God’s nature. It was only when the scientific path of experimentation split conclusively away from the biblical account that anybody considered that religious faith and scientific endeavour might become separate enterprises.

The roost of the scientific establishment today is ruled by atheistic naturalists, and they very much hate the idea of God polluting their purely naturalistic theories. They consider science to be liberated from religion and they vigorously patrol the borders, expelling anyone who dares to question the established paradigm. A biologist today who questions the fundamentals of evolutionary theory commits professional suicide. It is now conventional wisdom and you either have to get with the program or be completely shut out of the community.

Here are some other interesting quotes for you:

Richard Lewontin “does acknowledge that scientists inescapably rely on ‘rhetorical’ proofs (authority, tradition) for most of what they care about; they depend on theoretical assumptions unprovable by hard science, and their promises are often absurdly overblown … Only the most simple-minded and philosophically naive scientist, of whom there are many, thinks that science is characterized entirely by hard inference and mathematical proofs based on indisputable data

Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.

As for the “much” stronger evidence, as stated in the article, every time scientists solve a mystery of something they thought was “finely tuned”, they realized that there is a much simpler explanation than God. Evolution, for instance, eliminates the question of "fine tuning" in life. “God” is a metaphor for “things outside my understanding”. Once they move within our understanding, nobody claims that they’re God anymore. And FWIW, some of the most famous scientists ever came to the same "Because God" conclusion, which held until someone else got past it and solved what they couldn't.

I'm glad you understand that the whole enterprise of science was initially driven by the Christian idea that God created an orderly Universe based on laws, and thus we could reason out what was going on by investigating secondary causes. Yet God wasn't a metaphor for something we didn't understand; God was the reason we were interested in trying to understand in the first place, or even thought that we could.

You say there is this "because God" brick wall that we break down by determining the operations of the Universe. We can then see that it was never God at all, but X Y Z, yet what does that prove? Genesis 1 says "God created", and that He controls everything. What you're confusing is mechanism with agency. Can you rule out a clockmaker by explaining how the clock works? That's exactly what you're saying here, and it is an invalid argument.

You also act as if evolution has been indisputably proven. Let me ask you this question, since you claim to understand science so well. What is the proof and evidence that evolution is a fact? Be specific. What clinches it?

So to your conclusion, how do you figure that the appearance of fine tuning—which seems to go away when you look close enough—is stronger evidence?

It only goes away when you come to a series of false conclusions as you have above. The evidence is there, even the scientists admit it. To avoid the conclusion multiple universes are postulated. However, this is even more implausible for this reason; the multiple universe generator would be even more fine tuned than this Universe. Therefore, you are pointing right back at a fine tuner once more.

Eh??? But in your last nine paragraphs, YOU yourself, a limited temporal creature, have been trying to prove God’s existence with your “fine tuning” argument (corrupt reasoning, like you say), even after you've repeatedly asserted in the other threads that the only possible evidence for God is that he’ll answer our prayers. Why are you bothering? It is laughable how inconsistent you’re being here.

I wouldn't know the truth on my own; only God can reveal what the truth is. There are two routes to the truth. One is that you're omnipotent. Another is that an omnipotent being tells you what the truth is. Can you think of any others?

Keep fishing. Either the patient being prayed for recovers or doesn't recover. If not, the sincere prayers weren't answered. Unless you’re suggesting God secretly removed the free will of the scientists and the people praying so that the tests would come back negative? Gimme a break.

You seem to believe that free will means God doesn't interfere in the Creation, and this isn't the case. Free will means, you have the choice to obey or disobey God. It doesn't mean you are free from Gods influences. That's the whole idea of prayer, that God is going to exert His influence on creation to change something. God is directly involved in the affairs of men, He sets up Kingdoms, He takes them away. He put you where He wanted you and He will take you out when He has sovereignly planned to do it.

Even if the prayers are sincere, God isn't going to heal everyone. Yes, either way the patient recovers or doesn't recover, and either way, God isn't going to reveal His existence outside of what He has ordained; faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Anyone trying to prove Gods existence any other way will always come away disappointed.

And all of this was written only after the prophesy was fulfilled. A little too convenient.

Actually it was written hundreds of years before hand.

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all.

I know. I'm assuming they were consecutive. How could 70 weeks be concurrent? That makes no sense at all. Even if you meant to say “not consecutive”, what does it mean to declare a time limit of 70 weeks if they're not consecutive? It means nothing. That time limit could extend to today. What's your source for saying they're not concurrent/consecutive/whatever?

This is why I suggested you become more familiar with theology. Yes, you're right, I meant to say consecutive. You would know they were not consecutive if you read the scripture. The prophecy identifies they are not consecutive. Please see this:

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/

Again, conveniently, this “prediction” doesn't appear in writing until after the fall of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem fell in 70 AD. The gospels were written beforehand. If they were written afterwards, there would have been a mention of the fall of the city, if only to confirm the prophecy, but there is no mention of it in any of the gospels.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is.

Which clearly defined prophecies did he fulfil, not including ones that he knew about and could choose to do (like riding on a donkey)?

http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/messiah.htm

Except for all the religions that aren't Christian. They don’t belong to him, and they have surely had enough time to hear his voice.

The world belongs to Christ. The difference between the Lord and the other religions is this:

1 Chronicles 16:26

For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens

You really think that’s unique to Christianity? Do you know much about Islam? And I don't mean Western stereotypes of it. I mean, really know how normal Muslim people live their lives.

Muslims don't have a personal relationship with God. Allah keeps them at arms length, and they mostly serve him out of fear. They also have no idea whether they are going to heaven or not. They only hope that at the end of time their good works will add up more than their bad ones. The reason Muslims choose martyrdom is because under Islam it is the only guaranteed way to go to Heaven.

I get it. It’s a test of sincerity. For whom? Who is going to read and understand the results? To whom is the sincerity proven that didn't know it before, requiring a test? I think you’re avoiding admitting it’s God because that would mean there’s something God doesn't know.

Why do metalworkers purify gold? To remove the dross. That's exactly what God is doing when He tests us:

1 Peter 1:6

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

@enoch,
When Chomsky said, "the stupid masses", he was characterizing an elite point of view. (I looked it up) He wouldn't be the Noam Chomsky we know and love if he had that much contempt for his species. If you agree with that sentiment, then you identify with the elites Chomsky was criticizing. Chomsky may be cynical, but he is no nihilist. He is a humanist. (and so are you!)
If the human race is truly stupid, then there is no point in seeking positive change, and we are all doomed to suffer whatever cruel horrors fate has in store for us.
Underinformed? Sure, that is fixable.
Stupid? Fuck that kind of collective self loathing.
We are all we have. Everything that happens to us -short of an apocalyptic act of nature- , good or bad, will be a result of human action. If we think ourselves stupid, then stupid we shall be. If we loathe ourselves, it only makes it that much easier for the rich and powerful to dominate us. If we think ourselves elite in a world of fools, it just makes it that much easier for the real elites to divide and conquer (yes, I'm looking at you, rightwing libertarians.)
We need to start a humanist revival. White tents. Gospel music. The whole nine. And we are going to need some rebel preachers. Are you in?
disclaimer: dft has a strong pro-human bias and should probably not be trusted.


totally agree my man.
guess i should have paid more attention to how my comment may have been misconstrued in regards to chomsky's quote.
"manufacturing consent" is the book that started it all for me and the more time that passes ...the more it seems chomsky had it right from the get-go.
the man is brilliant and i have the utmost respect for him and his work.

and if you took the metaphysical aspect out of my worldview,what you would have left is a secular humanist.
i feel very strongly that my fellow humans have been utterly and thoroughly duped into believing that their happiness is tied to what they do or what they own and that somehow their success/failure resides solely in their ability to "pick themselves up from their own boots-straps".

this paradigm is utter bullshit of course.
it was a creation.
specifically designed to create good consumers.
the carrot on the stick.
you are not smart enough...
you are not pretty enough...
your skin is too light...
too dark...
nose is too big..
too small..
everything you wanted or desired is just inches out of reach.you are so close you can almost taste it.....
buuuuuuut..
if you purchase this skin cream,or that pair of sneakers..
this make/model car..or home...
YOU can achieve happiness and everyone will love you and you will be so popular and content.
so buy NOW!operators are standing by!

the irony is that the very companies selling you this happiness are the very people who created your own discomfort in your own skin.
its the great flim-flam and it has worked brilliantly.

wait..
what were we talking about again?
sighs...*derailed

>> ^frosty:

>> ^VoodooV:
If incomes were proportional, I might agree, but they're not. The ratio of the highest pay to the lowest pay in the 20s was about 30 to 1 If I recall, but now it's 300 to 1. I could be wrong, but I think I've heard some report that might say it was 400 to 1 20 percent of a poor person's income is felt FAR more profoundly than 20 percent of a wealthy person's income. Even though it's the same percentage, it hurts the poor person WAY more.
And yes, that is part of the argument. A wealthy person tends to just sit on their money and not put it into the economy. and so a higher percentage just simply doesn't hurt them the way it would hurt the lower/middle class.
If incomes were more proportional, a flat tax might work, but they're simply not so a flat tax doesn't work. That's part of the problem, the huge income disparity.

You make a fair argument, but I don't think you addressed my original question because we are assuming two different income tax structure paradigms. Your paradigm is one which attempts to equalize the pain inflicted on those taxed, whereas mine attempts to tax based on the value of the services rendered by the government to the taxed person. With your model, you're right, a progressive system is going to be the way to go. But I will argue that under such a system the rich are paying more than the government is giving them in return, and the poor are paying less. In essence, wealth is redistributed. Whether that is okay or just is another argument entirely.


Are you arguing that the government should issue you an itemized bill for all the services you used? because that would be a logistical nightmare and would cost even more taxpayer dollars.

Taxes aren't perfect, they never will be, unless you want to strictly regulate who gets paid what and introduce some sort of tracking system for who uses what gov't service. Besides, a lot of these services benefit everyone, either directly or indirectly. As a non-business owning citizen, I may not require an interstate system and a well maintained set of roads to ship my products on. But it benefits me all the same. I get to use it for recreation and traveling, and I use it to travel to my job.

Quite frankly, I did answer your question, but now it seems you're changing your question.

Strictly speaking, I would agree that every citizen should be taxed, even the poor who would normally be exempt, Every little bit helps, but I think what happens is that the government looks at the cost of what it takes to enforce that 47 percent to pay their tax vs what they actually give in return because they're so poor and it probably just isn't cost effective. That's my guess anyway. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the poor aren't jumping up and down and saying "nyah nyah, I don't have to pay taxes and you do" They have other problems...like the fact that they're poor.

It's another situation where the solution is worse than the problem. One argument I hear from my conservative friends is that they want drug testing for welfare recipients. Sounds great right? all things being equal It's an argument that I might even support. But the reality is, drug tests aren't cheap. They cost a fuckton of money. Compare that to the money actually lost and in the end, it just costs us even more money just so we can pat ourselves on the back and say see! our money isn't going to make people high. Oh wait, why are my taxes higher?

Closing corporate loopholes is one of the few things I've heard both the left and right agree upon. Problem is, it won't happen because behind each and every one of those loopholes is a business who benefits from it and some of those businesses lean left, and some of those businesses lean right and NEITHER want their particular loopholes closed. That's why you'll always see people say they're for it, but are never specific on which ones.

Gov't isn't perfect, but if you've got a problem with it. vote. or else leave, or just STFU

We treat the office of the president as if one person can solve our problems..they can't. The two party system is a failure and only divides our country.

>> ^VoodooV:
If incomes were proportional, I might agree, but they're not. The ratio of the highest pay to the lowest pay in the 20s was about 30 to 1 If I recall, but now it's 300 to 1. I could be wrong, but I think I've heard some report that might say it was 400 to 1 20 percent of a poor person's income is felt FAR more profoundly than 20 percent of a wealthy person's income. Even though it's the same percentage, it hurts the poor person WAY more.
And yes, that is part of the argument. A wealthy person tends to just sit on their money and not put it into the economy. and so a higher percentage just simply doesn't hurt them the way it would hurt the lower/middle class.
If incomes were more proportional, a flat tax might work, but they're simply not so a flat tax doesn't work. That's part of the problem, the huge income disparity.


You make a fair argument, but I don't think you addressed my original question because we are assuming two different income tax structure paradigms. Your paradigm is one which attempts to equalize the pain inflicted on those taxed, whereas mine attempts to tax based on the value of the services rendered by the government to the taxed person. With your model, you're right, a progressive system is going to be the way to go. But I will argue that under such a system the rich are paying more than the government is giving them in return, and the poor are paying less. In essence, wealth is redistributed. Whether that is okay or just is another argument entirely.

>> ^Kofi:

I get the feeling that if you grew up with the Harry Potter paradigm then she was someone you had a crush on. Now that she is grown up it's legitimate to sexualize her. No doubt she is pretty but she still seems like a 12 year old to me. Cute, yes. Sexy? Nope.

I didn't grow up with it--I lived through the entire 80s and 90s. I have never seen a single Harry Potter anything and I have no desire to do so. I don't find her "sexy" or "attractive" or "cute" or anything like that, and suggesting that someone would dig on underage chicks says a lot more about you than it does about the person you're accusing of such a thing.

>> ^Quboid:


I think she's very hot (and I haven't seen any Harry Potter films and don't have any weird under-age mental images) but the 'net's opinion of her seems nutty. Why do people think she's any less vacuous or self centred than anyone else? I can't help but feel that it's at least 90% because they find her attractive, which is ironically vacuous.

She is slightly pretty, but hot? I'll have to disagree with you there. Her hairy upper lip doesn't really do it for me. I find her rather average. Maybe it's the "girl next door" thing she has going on that get some guys feeling all tingly. No idea.

>> ^VoodooV:

I'm ok with foreign aid especially when it comes to humanitarian aid, we're all on this planet together after all, but we can't buy good relations and times ARE tight now and that money could be put to good use here.


Naiveite. Overly-simplistic view of Government(s) in the current paradigm. Flowers in gun barrels???
Guns still fire bullets unless you fill the barrel completely. Humanitarian aid invariably involves coop.

I get the feeling that if you grew up with the Harry Potter paradigm then she was someone you had a crush on. Now that she is grown up it's legitimate to sexualize her. No doubt she is pretty but she still seems like a 12 year old to me. Cute, yes. Sexy? Nope. >> ^ForgedReality:

I honestly don't understand the big deal about her...

>> ^truth-is-the-nemesis:

I could easily spin their point the opposite way & state that
'Although you believe that an organism coming out of another individuals body is the same exact premise as what that person chooses to ingest, why then should these businesses providing abortions be restricted in the marketplace of consumer demand by governments prohibiting these services while also pertaining to be for less governmental restriction & free-market capitalism?'.
Forget soda, Reason.tv will ROT your brain.






By "organism", I assume you mean, "human"...both the law and pretty much all persons are pretty settled on this point that once it is birthed it is a human


This video isn't about restriction abortion either, it is about using the same logic in all part of our lives. The hardest part of the abortion debate is that all western talk of rights is about how states and people manage their contractual parts. Fetuses and babies are completely unable to participate in this debate...we are speaking for them. That makes these problems intractably hard to deal with. To put it another way, the birthing process is like no other process we deal with in life; the "person"/baby/fetusthingy isn't a one, and the mother is a one that brings forth another one. Birthing is the processes of making more others using a one. Ones coming out of ones, really hard to deal with with our mental tools, IMO. If the abortion issue is easy for someone, they are thinking inside a very small paradigm. Perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps it is super easy and I am making it more complex. What does seem clear is that people like to think they are right and not really exert much effort in thinking about it from the other perspective. Perhaps that is why I can look at both the video above and the daily show video and enjoy them. Sometimes, I feel like the only free man in the world.

@ChaosEngine

Oh sweet irony, I'm being called wilfully ignorant by a young-earther.

I'm not going to refute you. I don't need to; @BicycleRepairMan has already done an excellent job of it.

An excellent refutation? He cherry picked one sentence out of my reply, a reply where I had demonstrated the fallacy of his argument from incredulity by proving his assumption of the constancy of radioactive decay rates was nothing more than the conventional wisdom of our times. Is this what passes for logical argumentation in your mind? He posited a fallacious argument. I exposed the fallacy. He ignored the refutation and cherry picked his reply. You seem to be showing that in your eagerness to agree with everything which is contrary to my position that you have a weak filter on information which supports your preconceived ideas. Why is it that a skeptic is always pathologically skeptical of everything except his own positions, I wonder?

@BicycleRepairMan

...and to see an exampe of such a racket, check the flood "geology" link.

Seriously, you cant see the blinding irony in your own words? So, things like radiometric dating, fossils, geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology are all just parts of a self-perpetuating racket confirming each others conclusions in a big old circlejerking conspiracy of astronomical proportions.. well, lets assume then that it is. So they are basically chasing the foregone conclusion that the universe is over 13 billion years old and that life on this planet emerged some 3,6 billion years ago and has evolved ever since. But where did these wild conclusions come from? Who established the dogma that scientists seems to mindlessly work to confirm, and why? And why 13,72 billion years then? Why not 100 billion years, or 345 million years?

The thing is, what you have here is an alleged "crime" with no incentives, no motivation.. Why on earth would all the worlds scientists, depentently and independently and over many generations converge to promote a falsehood of no significance to anyone? it might make some kind of sense if someones doctrine was threatened unless the world was exactly 13.72 billion years old. Or if someone believed they were going to hell unless they believed trilobites died out 250 million years ago.. The thing is, nobody believes that.

The truth is pretty much staring you in the face right here. The conclusions of science on things like the age of the earth emerged gradually; Darwin, and even earlier naturalists had no idea of the exact age of the earth, or even a good approximation, but they did figure this much: It must be very, very old. So old that it challenged their prior beliefs and assumptions about a god-created world as described in their holy book. And thats were nearly all scientists come from: They grew up and lived in societies that looked to holy books , scripture and religion for the answers, and everybody assumed they had proper answers until the science was done.If scientists were corrupt conspirators working to preserve dogma, they be like Kent Hovind or Ken Ham. Ignoring vast mountains of facts and evidence, and focus on a few distorted out-of-context quotations to confirm what they already "know".

Not only was your prior argument fallacious, but I refuted it. Now you're ignoring that and cherry picking your replies here. Seems pretty intellectually dishonest to me? In any case, I'll reply to what you've said here. I was going to get into the technical issues concerning why scientists believe the Universe is so old, and the history of the theory, but so far you have given me no reason to believe that any of it will be carefully considered.

Instead I'll answer with a portion of an article I found, which was printed in "The Ledger" on Feb 17th 2000. It's interview of a molecular biologist who wanted to remain anonymous

Caylor: "Do you believe that the information evolved?"

MB: "George, nobody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by genius beyond genius, and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise."

Caylor: "Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?"

MB: "No, I just say it evolved. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold onto two insanities at all times:
One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself.
Two, it would be insane to say you don't believe evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures -- everything would stop. I'd be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn't earn a decent living.”

Caylor: “I hate to say it, but that sounds intellectually dishonest.”

MB: “The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind's worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the elephant in the living room.”

Caylor: “What elephant?”

MB: “Creation design. It's like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn't there!”

Here are some selected quotes:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin

"In China its O.K. to criticize Darwin but not the government, while in the United States its O.K. to criticize the government, but not Darwin."

Dr. J.Y. Chen,

Chinese Paleontologist

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."

S. C. Todd,
Correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999

"Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it."

Steven Pinker,
Professor of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA., "How the Mind Works," [1997]

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants."

Professor Whitten,
Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia, 1980 Assembly Week address.

"Science is not so much concerned with truth as it is with consensus. What counts as truth is what scientists can agree to count as truth at any particular moment in time. [Scientists] are not really receptive or not really open-minded to any sorts of criticisms or any sorts of claims that actually are attacking some of the established parts of the research (traditional) paradigm, in this case neo-Darwinism. So it is very difficult for people who are pushing claims that contradict that paradigm to get a hearing. They find it hard to [get] research grants; they find it hard to get their research published; they find it very hard."

Prof. Evelleen Richards,
Historian of Science at the University of NSW, Australia

Speaks for itself, I think..