Kerostasis

It wasn't that long... But ok, I'll take your word for it that you simply failed to notice the relevance of my clarification of position rather than intentionally choosing the wording that seemed easiest to attack.

Granted, you did ask for proof of "something". But until just now you hadn't bothered to specify what that "something" meant. Since we were referring at the time to a completely different proof/disproof, you'll have to forgive me for assuming your "something" was actually meant to be on topic.

I shall make one more attempt to clarify my argument against the FSM. I do not disbelieve the FSM because he lacks followers. I disbelieve the FSM because, after examining the theology ascribed to him, I find that theology wholly lacking in validity.

However, as I expect you to dissect and attack every word of any explanation I might put forth as to why I reached that conclusion, I point instead to a simple litmus test -- Many intelligent people have seen the teachings of the FSM before you and I, and every single one has reached the same conclusion. Every single one has decided they are bogus, including you yourself. There have been no exceptions.

Invoking the name of Zeus has no impact on this argument, because regardless of what period of history you choose to examine, this pattern has not been observed with regard to either Zeus or my God. Many were told of Zeus and believed, and many others were told of Zeus and chose not to believe. In the current day those who believe are (to the best of my knowledge) now extinct, but there were certainly those who believed in the past, which is more than the FSM can boast of. Similarly, many were told of my God and believed, and many were told of him and did not believe. Even if you could point to a period before any were told of my God to begin with (which isn't as easy as you seem to believe, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument), that would not be evidence against the credibility of the story itself, for who can be blamed for not believing a story which he has not heard? It is those who have heard and rejected the story that we are interested in.

Therefore, the complete lack of followers of the FSM is not the cause of his lack of credibility, but merely a symptom of the same. Still, the two effects are distinctly corrollated, and it is in no way fallacious to point to one in support of the other. I still claim the FSM is pure fiction due to his absurd theology, but should you choose to contest this claim the FSM's lack of followers dictates that the burden of proof should be yours to show how the FSM's claims are plausible rather than mine to show why they are implausible.

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BeSiege82

[quote=Switch;825269]1783-1853:

I watched the lord of the rings.



Well, thank you for bringing these books and it counterpart series to bear. The Lord of the Rings is a metaphor for the world in which we live. The entire series of the Middle Earth series, written by Tolkien, shows how things began and how evil began fight good. This entire series (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and another- I can't remember its name) is a metaphor of how we were created and how now we have fallen and war amongst ourselves.

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lTG-Irrl BeSiege82
A former platoon leader...

"Courage grows strong at the wound."
"Virescit Vulnere Virtus."

"{My grump-o-meter starts to make a high-pitched whine when I point it at your post, though.}" -- Axis

Requital

Switch, I am trying to locate some of those books.

And why do people keep bringing up the point of believing a fictitous book that was written as fiction? You don't have people pointing out that science books that are old and antiquated are fictitious, because at the time they were written they were intended as factual, even though now you would consider them fictitious.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...icle_id=489653

I laughed a little...and then a lot.

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Switch

I regularly point out how previous science texts are no longer valid in light of new techniques, metrics, technology, theory, etc. That was one of my criticisms of an article linked earlier. This is regularly addressed by the scientific community in the process of updating educational standards and as a matter of pedagogy in terms of making sure people think critically, regardless of what ideas are being espoused as popular.

The big difference between science and religion is that science demands that its work be scrutinized and updated as data insists. Religion often asserts its absolute truth and then furtively changes its claims to be more consistent with the time in order not to alienate a prospective constituency or make the previous believers feel foolish when a once solid pillar of a religion becomes as laughable farce in light of clear data. IE we're the center of the universe, the world is not round, dinosaurs bones are gods way of testing our faith (this is still being challenged somehow, but such is the conviction of ignorance).

Anyway, I take your attempts at finding the books i've listed in good faith and I will sincerely attempt to keep a non condescending dialog about what we discover, but I apologize in advance because im sure I'm likely to crack a few times. I've been dedicated to becoming a biologist since 7th grade, so I've developed a thorough understanding of basic biology and many of its related principles. Alot of what creationists regularly argue is just so obviously flawed or false it drives me wild.

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|TG|Switch

Better known as:
That noob who crashed the chopper.
That noob who ran over the mine.
That noob who TK'd me with a sniper rifle.
That noob who hit that APC at 300m with light AT! Our APC...

mentholated

Excellent example.

Need I mention particle theory vs. string theory?

Requital

Not sure I follow this point. Read the next part before you do anything with the previous statement they may be tied together.

The reason that I take Jesus's reference for "absolute historical truth of the story", Jesus claimed to be God and referenced the story of Jonah as a historical truth. If Jonah is not historical Truth, God just lied and can no longer be the God that the bible refers to. That is why I take it as historical Truth. It is one long chain of events that have a crazy amount of consistency and character that does not deviate from begining to end.

So, when Jesus (who is God) say's "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:39-41. I have to take that as literal, since Jesus was literaly entombed for 3 days and nights before God raised Him from the dead. Can you take that figuratively? It doesn't seem like it was figurative in context.

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Requital

Thought this was interesting in light of the Dinosaur theory....

There is also physical evidence that dinosaur bones are not millions of years old. Scientists from Montana State University found T. rex bones that were not totally fossilized. Sections of the bones were like fresh bone and contained what seems to be blood cells and hemoglobin. If these bones really were tens of millions of years old, then the blood cells and hemoglobin would have totally disintegrated.26 Also, there should not be “fresh” bones if they were really millions of years old.27 A report by these scientists stated the following:

A thin slice of T. rex bone glowed amber beneath the lens of my microscope ... . The lab filled with murmurs of amazement, for I had focused on something inside the vessels that none of us had ever noticed before: tiny round objects, translucent red with a dark center ... . Red blood cells? The shape and location suggested them, but blood cells are mostly water and couldn’t possibly have stayed preserved in the 65-million-year-old tyrannosaur ... . The bone sample that had us so excited came from a beautiful, nearly complete specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex unearthed in 1990 ... . When the team brought the dinosaur into the lab, we noticed that some parts deep inside the long bone of the leg had not completely fossilized ... . So far, we think that all of this evidence supports the notion that our slices of T. rex could contain preserved heme and hemoglobin fragments. But more work needs to be done before we are confident enough to come right out and say, “Yes, this T. rex has blood compounds left in its tissues.”28
Unfossilized duck-billed dinosaur bones have been found on the North Slope in Alaska.29 Also, creation scientists collected such (unfossilized) frozen dinosaur bones in Alaska.30 Evolutionists would not say that these bones had stayed frozen for the many millions of years since these dinosaurs supposedly died out (according to evolutionary theory). Yet the bones could not have survived for the millions of years unmineralized.

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Yanu

Nice find Requital. Carbon dating isn’t an exact science.

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|TG| Yanu - Bad handwriting since the 8th grade.

ednos

No.

Your argument is a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization]hasty generalization[/quote], a common logical fallacy. It falls under a few other categories, but this is the blatantly obvious one.

How can you NOT take that figuratively? The language just screams figurative speech. Maybe this is just me parroting my father's interpretation of the Greek instead of reading the highly accurate Authorized Version (forgive the bitter sarcasm).

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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell
I have a tendency to key out three or four things and then let them battle for supremacy while I key, so there's a lot of backspacing as potential statements are slaughtered and eaten by the victors. ~ Magna Centipede

Kerostasis

*raises hand*

Its difficult to take that entirely literally since the number "3" isn't even quite literal. The way we count it today, Jesus was buried in the earth about a day and a half. I'm not sure exactly how that parses with the clarification of "3 days and 3 nights", but I'm guessing thats just evidence of it being meant figuratively.

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mentholated

Every single thing in the bible is figurative. If the authors were to write it in the literal sense there would be no easy way for us to understand it years later.

Yanu

What???? If the authors were to write it in the literal sense there would be no easy way for us to understand it years later??? Please everyone take a moment to think that over again...

So at what point did authors stop writing in the "figurative sense"? I’m sure you don’t think Plato and Socrates wrote figuratively. How do you take the passage from John 14- Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life – figuratively? Give us some more credit than that. We couldn’t understand it unless it was written figuratively… Please.

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|TG| Yanu - Bad handwriting since the 8th grade.

Hambergler

Well, do you believe snakes can talk?

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Requital

When you say no, what are you saying no to? Jesus claim to be God, or Jonah being in a fish?

What word choice is figurative? being swallowed by a fish means what? when compared the figurative language is in buried in the earth. So you could take that figuratively, but it could easily be literal as well. Explain to me the figurative. I read up on it, but I must be missing something.

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

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bkelly

Um, Requital? You might want to read this:

www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html

(Sorry, not allowed to post links yet)

bkelly