This video is complete fantasy. Take the evolutionary animation for instance..none of that is supported in the fossil record. All of those transitions are completely inference, especially ape to man. If you believe that, you are thick..do your own investigation. There isn't any conclusive evidence for ape to man evolution what so ever.

And you don't think they're looking for true transitionals? Why do you think evolutionists trotted out piltdown man and nebraska man as proof of evolution for over 50 years, and why today the desperate search is still on to find the missing link. They thought it was neanderthal man but it turned out to be a guy with arthritus and rickets. The fossil record isn't just incomplete, it is ludicrously so..with hundreds of millions of them uncovered yet no true transitionals. I'll let real palentologists explain it to you:

Our museums now contain hundreds of millions of fossil specimens (40 million alone are contained in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum). If Darwin's theory were true, we should see at least tens of millions of unquestionable transitional forms. We see none. 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."

He continues:

The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Statis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear… 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed'. 6 The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. 7

The British Museum of Natural History boasts the largest collection of fossils in the world. Among the five respected museum officials, Sunderland interviewed Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal. Patterson is a well known expert having an intimate knowledge of the fossil record. He was unable to give a single example of Macro-Evolutionary transition. In fact, Patterson wrote a book for the British Museum of Natural History entitled, "Evolution". When asked why he had not included a single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book, Patterson responded:

...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived." I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. 2

David B. Kitts. PhD (Zoology) is Head Curator of the Department of Geology at the Stoval Museum. In an evolutionary trade journal, he wrote:

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… 3

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. 4

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. 5

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

You've been had..be intellectually honest enough to admit it and seek out the truth. Science does not support evolution.

The bible is just as much a guide to understanding geology, evolution, or the biological history of our planet, as it is to being a manual to operate my car.

Outdated. Irrelevant.

@TheGenk @Skeeve @Boise_Lib @gwiz665 @packo @IronDwarf @MaxWilder @westy @BicycleRepairMan @shuac @KnivesOut

Evolution is pseudo-science. It exists in the realm of imagination, and cannot be scientifically verified. At best, evolution science is forensic science, and what has been found not only does not support it, but entirely rules it out. I don't think any of you realize how weak the case for evolution really is. None of them quotes, as far as I know, are from creation scientists btw

No true transitional forms in the fossil record:

Darwins theory proposed that slow change over a great deal of time could evolve one kind of thing into another. Such as reptiles to birds. The theory proposed that we should see in the fossil records billions of these transitional forms, yet we have found none. When the theory was first proposed, darwinists pleaded poverty in the fossil record, claiming the missing links were yet to be found. It was then claimed that the links were missing because conditions conspired against fossilizing them, or that they had been eroded or destroyed in subsequent fossilization.

120 years have gone by since then. We have uncovered an extremely rich fossil record with billions of fossils, a record which has completely failed to produce the expected transitions. It has become obvious that there was no process that could have miraculously destroyed the transitionals yet left the terminal forms intact.

The next theory proposed was "hopeful monster" theory, which states that evolution occurs in large leaps instead of small ones. Some even suggested that a bird could have hatched from a reptile egg. This is against all genetic evidence, and has never been observed.

The complete lack of transitional forms is not even the worst problem for evolution, considering the big gaps between the higher categories, and the systemic absence of transitional forms between families classes orders and phyla.

"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?"

Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History (and a hardcore evolutionist), in a letter to Luther Sunderland, April 10, 1979 admitting no transitional forms exist.

"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory."

Ronald R. West, PhD (paleoecology and geology) (Assistant Professor of Paleobiology at Kansas State University), "Paleoecology and uniformitarianism". Compass, vol. 45, May 1968, p. 216

"Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?"

-Charles Darwin

"In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another."

-Evolutionist Stephen M. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University

Fossil record disputes evolutionary theory:

According to evolutionary theory we should see an evolutionary tree of organisms starting from the least complex to the most complex. Instead, what we do see in the fossil record is the very sudden appearance of fully-formed and fully-functional complex life.

If you examine the fossil record, you see all kinds of complex life suddenly jumping into existence during a period that evolutionists refer to as the "Cambrian explosion".

None of the fossilized life forms found in the "Cambrian period" have any predecessors prior to that time. In essence, the "Cambrian period" represents a "sudden explosion of life" in geological terms.

Evolutionists try to disprove this by stretching it over a period of 50 million years, but they have no transitional fossils to prove that theory before or during.

"The earliest and most primitive members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous series from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed"

-Paleontologist George Gaylord

What disturbs evolutionists greatly is that complex life just appears in the fossil record out of nowhere, fully functional and formed.

A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.

-Paleontologist Mark Czarnecki (an evolutionist)

"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and both reject this alternative."

-Richard Dawkins, 'The Blind Watchmaker', W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, pp. 229-230

Evolution can't explain the addition of information that turns one kind into another kind

There is no example recorded of functional information being added to any creature, ever.

"The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus)."

Species just don't change. Kind only produces kind:

"Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome....brings terrible distress. ....They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, its not evolution so you don't talk about it."

Evolutionist Stephen J. Gould of Harvard University

Not enough bones:

Today the population grows at 2% per year. If we set the population growth rate at just 0.5% per year, then total population reduces to zero at about 4500 years ago. If the first humans lived 1,000,000 years ago, then at this 0.5% growth rate, we would have 10^2100 (ten with 2100 zeroes following it) people right now. If the present population was a result of 1,000,000 years of human history, then several trillion people must have lived and died since the emergence of our species. Where are all the bones? And finally, if the population was sufficiently small until only recently, then how could a correspondingly infinitesimally small number of mutations have evolved the human race?

"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."

-Professor Louis Bounoure, past president of the Biological Society of Strassbourg, Director of the Strassbourg Zoological Museum and Director of Research at the French National Center of Scientific Research.

Try to debunk this if you can
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=tYLHxcqJmoM&feature=PlayList&p=C805D4953D9DEC66&index=0&playnext=1

More fun facts:

There are no records of any human civilization past 4000 BC

"The research in the development of the [radiocarbon] dating technique consisted of two stages—dating of samples from the historic and prehistoric epochs, respectively. Arnold [a co-worker] and I had our first shock when our advisors informed us that history extended back only for 5,000 years . . You read statements to the effect that such and such a society or archeological site is 20,000 years old. We learned rather that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known accurately; in fact, the earliest historical date that has been established with any degree of certainty is about the time of the First Dynasty of Egypt."—*Willard Libby, Science, March 3, 1961, p. 624.

Prior to a certain point several thousand years ago, there was no trace of man having ever existed. After that point, civilization, writing, language, agriculture, domestication, and all the rest—suddenly exploded into intense activity!

"No more surprising fact has been discovered, by recent excavation, than the suddenness with which civilization appeared in the world. This discovery is the very opposite to that anticipated. It was expected that the more ancient the period, the more primitive would excavators find it to be, until traces of civilization ceased altogether and aboriginal man appeared. Neither in Babylonia nor Egypt, the lands of the oldest known habitations of man, has this been the case."—P.J. Wiseman, New Discoveries, in Babylonia, about Genesis (1949 ), p. 28.

Oldest people/language recorded in c. 3000 B.C., and were located in Mesopotamia.

The various radiodating techniques could be so inaccurate that mankind has only been on earth a few thousand years.

"Dates determined by radioactive decay may be off—not only by a few years, but by orders of magnitude . . Man, instead of having walked the earth for 3.6 million years, may have been around for only a few thousand."—*Robert Gannon, "How Old Is It?" Popular Science, November 1979, p. 81.

Moonwalk disproves age of moon:

The moon is constantly being bombarded by cosmic dust particles. Scientists were able to measure the rate at which these particles would accumulate. Using their estimates according to their understanding that the age of the Earth was billions of years, their most conservative estimate predicted a dust layer 54 feet deep. This is why the lander had those huge balloon tires, to be prepared to land on a sea of dust. Neil Armstrong, after saying those famous words, uttered two more which disproved the age of the moon entirely "its solid!". Far from being 54 feet, they found the dust was 3/4 of an inch.

Evolution is a fairy tale that modern civilization has bought, hook line and sinker. Humorously, atheists accuse creationists of beiieving in myths without any evidence..when they place their entire faith in an unproven theory even evolutionists know is fatally flawed and invalid. Evolution is a meta physical belief that requires faith. Period.

Evolution is false, science affirms a divine Creator
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Books,%20Tracts%20&%20Preaching/Tracts/big_daddy.htm

Though most of this is undisputable, I'm just getting started..

I watch science videos all the time. Far from being ignorant of science, I was going to make it my career..it didn't turn out that way, but I would say I know more about science in general and astronomy in specific than the average bear. Thank you for watching it with an open mind..I found it fascinating simply of the basis of the illustration of molecular machinery. I agree with the irreducible complexity not on the basis that things like this couldn't necessarily evolve..but simply on the information content of something like DNA..which could not have evolved on its own. Information has to come from somewhere. And you have the chicken and the egg problem..DNA requires around 75 proteins to function, and those proteins require DNA to make them. Science just doesn't have any good theories on these things..nature is not matching up to darwinian evolution. And of course there is the embarassment of not having any true transitional forms..which should be abundent by now I would think.

>> ^Skeeve:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry There are more than 1.1 million biological and geological scientists in the US. You posted a video from one of the approximately 150 American biologists who are creationists.
Please (and this is a serious and humble request with all the fervor a Christian might have when trying to save someone from hell), please watch, with an open mind, one of the thousands of videos from biologists who aren't trying to convert people.
This atheist watched your video with an open mind and found it lacking. It's time for you to open yours.

@shinyblurry There are more than 1.1 million biological and geological scientists in the US. You posted a video from one of the approximately 150 American biologists who are creationists.

Please (and this is a serious and humble request with all the fervor a Christian might have when trying to save someone from hell), please watch, with an open mind, one of the thousands of videos from biologists who aren't trying to convert people.

This atheist watched your video with an open mind and found it lacking. It's time for you to open yours.

heres what nasa found out in 2010 about it http://geology.com/nasa/racetrack-playa/

its most likely the wind and slippery smooth mud surface that causes the movement.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



http://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0

*edit:damn,embed wont work.well so much for me making a funny!now my day is just ruined..RUINED i tell ya!

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



Since you continuously miss the subtleties of my critiques while avoiding the actual questions that are being posed, I will spell it out as simply as I can. (Note that my intellectual condescension, which you are right in spotting, is based entirely on your unintelligent responses and childish emotional reactions, your disregard for logic, your circular reasoning and your incessant ad hominem attacks. But please, don't let my "nasty and sarcastic attitude" get in the way of your reasoned and logical argumentation... for which we are still waiting.)


1. On the literal reading of Scripture: My question as to whether you took the Adam/Eve/Eden myth as factual and historical truth is crucial, and since you continued to base your argumentation on the assumption that it is, I followed up with questions pertaining to other literal readings of the Bible, i.e. YEC, geocentrism and flat earth theory. In later comments you dance around the issue of the Earth's age, but refuse to address one of my first questions: is all humanity the actual descendants of the fabled Adam and Eve? If not, the whole theory of original sin crumbles. You might argue, as the begrudgingly-evolution-accepting catholic church does, that "original sin" is equivalent to "human nature", which completely voids the whole "created in His image" and "free will" things.

2. On hypocrisy and cherry-picking: I wish I could say how surprised I am at you being oblivious to your hypocrisy and self-contradiction, but it is all too common among religious apologists. You accuse me of "narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant" interpretation, of arrogance, ignorance and condescension (I fully own up to that last one), and in the very same lines are guilty of all of the above. What makes your interpretation correct, and mine - which is based directly on the actual text - incorrect? Oh yes, your dogma, which declares that there is only one correct reading of the Bible, i.e. the Christian one, no matter how contrary to the text it is. You assume that any one who contradicts your creed with the help of your holy book "has no understanding" of it... and I'm the arrogant one? I could be a theology major for all you know, and while I am not, I have read the Bible thoroughly enough to know it for what it is: a collection of myths, romanticised history, laws and poetry, written by men.

Concerning the "blasphemy challenge", if I understand your reasoning cherry-picking logic, there is no need to believe in God, the Bible or any Christian creed, since we're all going to heaven anyway, right? But then, in a later comment you proclaim that only some are chosen ("many are called..." I know). What happens to those who are not and, more importantly, how will you get out of that without contradicting yourself?

3. Please do not skirt the questions: note that the "answers" to my earliest questions, repeated here, were unintelligible due to your use of terms (see below) which need clarification.

>>"So the story of Adam and Eve is not just a myth, and we are all descendants of incestuous sex (twice, if the story of Noah is taken into account)?

So God values blind obedience higher than natural curiosity, and expects Adam and Eve to obey without knowing that disobeying is "bad" (since they don't yet have the knowledge of good/evil)?

So it is moral to punish an infinity of generations of humans for what their ancestors supposedly did? And then present the "gift" of forgiveness if you submit to the god who caused you to be "sinful" in the first place??"


>>"You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:

God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit."

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.

It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"

John 6;39

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)

>> ^shinyblurry:

Atheist error #4 The history of the bible is made up, it is just mythology
The truth: In every instance where the Bible can be, or has been checked out archaeologically, it has been found to be 100% accurate. The Bible has proven so accurate that archaeologists often refer to it as a reliable guide when they go to dig in new areas.
Nelson Glueck, who appeared on the cover of Time magazine and who is considered one of the greatest archaeologists ever, wrote: “No archeological discovery has ever controverted [overturned] a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.”
The fact is there have been more than 25,000 discoveries within the region known as the "Bible Lands” that have confirmed the truthfulness of the Bible..


I chose just one to attack, not because I don't have something to say about everything, but I'm on a time budget here. So what you're saying, is that the bible has a good source of knowledge about good archeological dig sites? Let me rephrase that, as this is a question that, when asked correctly, reveals how stupid the idea contained within really is:

So what you are saying is, a book written a long time ago—by people who lived a long time ago—about the world they lived in, has a lot of information about where to find things that existed during the time that they lived? No shit?

That archeologist was simply stating that the bible has good information about where cities used to be and where he can find artifacts...I like the optimistic spin on it though.

Also, don't get archeology confused with geology, because TONS of geological findings have "controverted" biblical things.

Love,
your neighborhood atheist

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^rebuilder:
>> ^criticalthud:
Seismic activity has increased

Source, please.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2439&from=rss_home
"Scientists say 2010 is not showing signs of unusually high earthquake activity. Since 1900, an average of 16 magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes — the size that seismologists define as major — have occurred worldwide each year. Some years have had as few as 6, as in 1986 and 1989, while 1943 had 32, with considerable variability from year to year."
Increasing population densities do mean earthquakes will be more devastating than before.

yes
http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm
i'm not a geological scientist, but i think we should be concerned


*sigh*... you're doing the common alarmist and conspiracy theorist thing of ONLY looking at sites which are non professional. ONLY believing people who take whatever data there is and come to YOUR conclusion. Ignoring any that use ACTUAL proper science and CORRECT data analysis to disprove your line of thinking. You do this saying 'I don't trust the major sources of information'... which just means that you only believe those that don't grasp it properly.

Sorry, but it doesn't work like that:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php

>> ^rebuilder:

>> ^criticalthud:
Seismic activity has increased

Source, please.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2439&from=rss_home
"Scientists say 2010 is not showing signs of unusually high earthquake activity. Since 1900, an average of 16 magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes — the size that seismologists define as major — have occurred worldwide each year. Some years have had as few as 6, as in 1986 and 1989, while 1943 had 32, with considerable variability from year to year."
Increasing population densities do mean earthquakes will be more devastating than before.


yes
http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm
i'm not a geological scientist, but i think we should be concerned

>> ^notarobot:

Haiti, Chile, New Zealand, and now Japan? Is the earth trying to shake us off or what?


Don't forget the new volcanic activity in Hawaii...the plates are a'moving, and the magma plume's looking for a new path of least resistance. All in all, if there's a message, it's that we should appreciate the period of relative climatic and geological stability that have given us these wonderful tools and toys, and we should dedicate ourselves to do whatever is necessary to hold onto them a little while longer. Perhaps one should be using them less as toys, and more as tools.

I think I see what you mean: It's hard to compare Mercalli readings from different places due to the differences in structural integrity, population density, etc. ie: a mercalli intensity of VI in one place could be read as II for an earthquake of the same magnitude in a less populated area.

Similarly, an earthquake with magnitude 7 may not even cause any damage (though unlikely in a populated area).



>> ^DerHasisttot:

I mean: The Scales are almost meaningless at the point when human beings are in danger: The released energy denoted in the antiquated Richter scale can have immensely different effects from place to place. The Mercalli-scale measures damages at one specific point, if referred to in the media. (And the media often forgest to say which scale is being used.)
For example, the Christchurch earthquakes: The first earthquake had the same amount of points as the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, and was compared by the NZ media, which enraged me at the time: The quake's proximity to densely populated areas, the geology, ground water-levels and building-density+height were not taken into account. Additionally, for example, paved roads, gas-lines and other infrasctructure weigh immensely on the aid-efforts and damages.
To give accurate information using the Mercalli-scale, the media would have to tell the exact place and radius of the referred number. If they tell the Richter scale, it's only relevant for seismologists and scientists, the actual damages and consequences vary too much.

I mean: The Scales are almost meaningless at the point when human beings are in danger: The released energy denoted in the antiquated Richter scale can have immensely different effects from place to place. The Mercalli-scale measures damages at one specific point, if referred to in the media. (And the media often forgest to say which scale is being used.)

For example, the Christchurch earthquakes: The first earthquake had the same amount of points as the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, and was compared by the NZ media, which enraged me at the time: The quake's proximity to densely populated areas, the geology, ground water-levels and building-density+height were not taken into account. Additionally, for example, paved roads, gas-lines and other infrasctructure weigh immensely on the aid-efforts and damages.

To give accurate information using the Mercalli-scale, the media would have to tell the exact place and radius of the referred number. If they tell the Richter scale, it's only relevant for seismologists and scientists, the actual damages and consequences vary too much.

>> ^residue:

what do you mean by "soil, humidity and other factors outweigh the scale accuracy?" the richter scale is just the quantitative product of readings from seismometers. mercalli scale records qualitative damage from structures
>> ^DerHasisttot:
My news-sources say 8.8, previously 8.9. Although the (I guess) mercalli-scale is not sooo good either. In the end, soil, humidity and other geological factors outweigh the accuracy of such a scale any day. AS seen here vis-vis tsunami. But if you give me a source i'll change it of course.