Help w/ debate I'm having w/ a Christian
Posted on: May 31, 2007 - 11:45am
AModestProposal
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Help w/ debate I'm having w/ a Christian
I've been debating this Christian and here he makes all sorts of obvious mistakes, but his most recent response is so long, I don't have time to write back my whole response until later cause it'll probably take theh better part of an hour. So if anyone wants to practice and hone their debating skills, here's an opportunity, and you can save me some time later when I write my response. It goes it reverse order, so it starts with the post on the bottom.
| RE: RE: RE: RE: Intelligent Design. Only a fool believes it came by chance |
| For goo to get to you via the zoo, it needs new design information added. Natural Selection can not add this information, but only take away and select from the design information already present. To give you an e.g. I may naturally select pictures by picking out the ones I like and throwing the ones I don't into the garbage, but that doesn't make a new picture. I'm just selecting from what is already present. Mutations are entirely random, and so evolution is random chance. Miller and Urey were intelligent designers who failed in their experiment. I used to be an atheist-evolutionist and then I read www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/survivalOfTheFakest.pdf which showed everything I'd been taught as 'proof' for evolution to be fake or misleading. I of course looked for atheist rebuttals, but all they could do was very poorly attempt to explain away and name call. The more I looked, the more ridiculous evolution became. One Small Speck to Man www.OneSmallSpeck.com dismantles every single evolutionary argument I first looked at the Bible as a history book. I was impressed with statements like this from Nelson Glueck renowned archaeologist: "It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted [disproved] a biblical reference." I read about Archaeologist Sir William Ramsay who was a sceptic, who especially attacked Luke and went out to disprove the Bible from an historical standpoint. And this is what he concluded regarding Luke: "Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness" and that "Luke is a historian of the first rank ... In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." I was also impressed with the many, many scientific forsights in the Bible, than couldn't have naturally been known by the writers of those times other than special revelation, like Job 38:16 tells us about the springs of the sea (like the fast 'fish lanes' in Finding Nemo) these weren't discovered until 1977. http://www.evidencebible.com/witnessingtool/scientificfactsintheBible.shtml & http://www.evidencebible.com/witnessingtool/scienceconfirmsthebible.shtml But what impressed me most of all was so many detailed and accurate Bible prophecies predicting the future far in advance. Psalm 22 is a long & detailed prophecy of Jesus on the cross, and v16 says "They pierced My hands and My feet" David the writer had no idea what crucifixion was, as this was written 1000BC, and any form of crucifixion wasn't even invented for another 400 years in 600BC, and then it was only hands. And Isaiah 53 (starts 52 v13) is another incredibly descriptive prophecy of the Messiah on the cross. 14 "His visage was marred more than any man," 53: 3 "He is despised and rejected by men," 6 "All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." And Verse 5 "But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. " The Hebrew word Chaburaw translated here as stripes is literally "blows that cut in" I don't know if you've seen the Passion film, but when that came out there were a lot of objections to the level of violence and it certainly was, but what they showed on the Passion film was nothing like as violent as the real thing. Before Jesus was crucified the Roman's scourged Him with the dreaded flagellum, the cat of 9 tails whip, which was a whip of 9 leather strands with pieces of sharp metal and bone, attached to it, and would literally rip chunks out of the victim. Roman historians record you could literally see their internal organs. But Jesus did all that for me. And that shows how much a Holy God is angry at our sin And the Prophecy of Daniel 9, written 600 BC, predicts the very day that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem claiming to be the Messiah and be executed without taking His Kingdom yet, and cut a New Covenant. Now this prophecy was so accurate that sceptics used to claim that the Book of Daniel must have been written after Christ. This was despite that the Book of Daniel was in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament translated about 250 BC. So according the sceptics strange logic, the book of Daniel was translated into Greek over 300 years before it was even written. But then in the Dead Sea Scrolls a 200 BC copy of the Book of Daniel was found. Proving that this incredibly accurate prophecy was written hundreds of years before Christ. It was clear that the Bible is not just a normal book. There is also the amazing manuscript evidence. The New Testament was written between A.D. 40 and A.D. 100. the oldest manuscript we have dates the last quarter of the 1st century and the 2nd oldest A.D. 125. So there's a narrow gap between the original writings and the earliest manuscripts and there's also a narrow gap, between the time of the events actually occurring and people writing them down. We have some 5,300 early Greek New Testament manuscripts and altogether, including Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic, translations we have a whopping 24,633 texts of the ancient New Testament confirming that the text has not been altered in meaning. Compare this to other literature of that time: The oldest copies we have of Julius Caesar's writings are from 1000 years after he died. And we only have 10 copies. We only have 49 copies of Aristotle's Ode to Poetics and the earliest copy we have is from 1400 years after he wrote it. There are only seven extant manuscripts of Plato's Tetralogies, and the earliest copies are 1200 years after he wrote them. And nobody ever questions these. What struck me is, the events of the New Testament were written very close to the time they actually happened and our earliest copies are close to the time of the originals. Now the inbuilt proof of prophecy was enough evidence alone, but there's also The fact that Jesus rose from the dead which is testified in sources outside of the Bible, and over 500 Christians saw the risen Jesus, But if these Christians had made it all up they had nothing to gain and everything to lose including their lives, unless it was all true, because they went to torturous deaths proclaiming that Jesus is reason. Then I realized that Jesus was claiming to be God, in John 8:58 Jesus takes for Himself the divine Name of God "the I AM" and the Jews knew exactly what He meant as in the next verse they try to stone Him. In John 20:28 Thomas called Jesus "my Lord and my God." Jesus accepted this worship and blessed him. As a side note; one of the cults who knocked on my door the other day, tried to claim that Jesus said He wasn't God because in Mark 10:18 Jesus said to the Rich young ruler "Why do you call me good. God alone is good". To which I replied "Is God alone good?" Answer "Yes." Next question "was Jesus good?" Answer "Yes", He was without sin, and He Himself said "I am the Good Shepherd" The Good Shepherd also being a name for God. As C.S. Lewis pointed out someone who claims to be God and the only way to Heaven either is God and the only way to Heaven, or a liar or a lunatic, but cannot just be a good moral teacher like many people illogically perceive Jesus to be. And Jesus certainly wasn't a liar or a lunatic. A promise is only as good as the promise maker, and because God's promises had come to pass in great accuracy and detail, I know I can be certain that His future promises about Heaven and Hell will also come to pass. But for a long time, like so many in the church I was still not a Christian, because I only believed it intellectually and had never truly repented and put my faith in the Saviour. I was a religious hypocrite. Religious for 90 minutes on a Sunday, and then acted like the unconverted world for the rest of the week. This video explains True & False Conversion http://www.livingwaters.com/listenwatch/stream_truefalse_broadband.asx When I compared myself to others, I used to think I was a pretty good person, and so I thought 'of course God would let me into Heaven'. How wrong I was, it's not "my" standard that we will all be judged by on the Day God has appointed to judge the world in Righteousness, but by God perfect law the Ten Commandments, and it really helped me looking at myself in the mirror of the Ten Commandments. I'd lied, and just as it only takes one murder to be a murderer, (of course I'd not only lied once) I was a liar and "All liars will have their part in the Lake of Fire" Rev 21:8 I'd stolen, and whilst I may not have robbed a bank, I'd watched copied DVDs, took extra breaks, and whether someone stole £1 or £20 from your pocket, you'd call them a thief. And "no thief will enter Heaven" 1 Cor 6:9 I was also guilty of breaking the 2nd Commandment "You shall not make an idol" now of course I didn't bow down to a wooden idol I'd made, but what I'd done is carve a false image of God in my mind, one that was corrupt and wouldn't punish me for my sin. Of course it doesn't matter what we "imagine" God to be like, it is what He is really like that's important. Hell makes perfect sense, our conscience demands the guilty are punished. When a judge lets a child-killer go free we say he's corrupt and scream injustice. Every year thousands of murderers and rapist are never brought to justice. Hitler was never brought to justice in a human court. It makes sense that if God is good He must punish murderers and rapist, but because God is infinitely good, He demands infinite Justice and will punish all sin wherever it's found. He'll punish, liars, thieves, blasphemers, adulterers, fornicators (people who have sex outside of marriage). I'd also taken the Lord's Name in vain. I'd used the Name of the One who gave me my life and everything good, in place of a filth word to express disgust. And "The Lord will not hold Him guiltless who takes His Name in vain" and "for every idle word a man speaks he will give an account on the Day of judgement" Matt 12:36 I'd lusted, which God sees as adultery of the heart Mat 5:27 "God desires truth from our hearts" Psa 51 and so He will even judge our thought life. Imagine having your thought life being played on National TV. "Everything done in darkness will be made known" If your thought life was shown on National TV, how many people would be angry at you? But what would your reaction be against someone else with a similar thought life? Would your reaction be to suffer and die for them on a cross to pay the penalty for their sins. That's what Jesus did for all those who truly turn to Him. Despite my sin against God, He made a way for me to be saved "from the wrath that is to come". 2000 years ago, in fulfilment with prophecy, God became a man in Christ Jesus, was born of a virgin, led a sinless life and then suffered and died hanging on a cross to pay the fine for all the sins of all those who will repent and trust in Jesus to save them. And then on the third Day He rose again. "He is risen" "By His stripes we are healed" "He was bruised for our iniquities" "The chastisement for our peace was upon Him" that is "a love that passes all understanding" To be forgiven and made right with God, (and this is the important bit that changed me from a religious hypocrite to a true Christian). First of all you have to repent, that is to look at yourself in the light of God's Law, realize and be heartfully sorry that you've sinned against God, then turn fully away from your sins, forsaking them and turning fully to God, no longer trusting in your own "good works" to save you, but instead fully trusting in Jesus "finished" work on the cross, like you'd trust in a parachute. It's no good just believing that a parachute exists and has the ability to save you as you jump out of a plane, you have to put it on, and in the same way the Bible says you have to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." And the moment you do that, you'll pass from death to life, the Bible says you're are a "New Creation" forgiven and made right with God. God will grant you everlasting life and give you a new heart and new desires to seek the things of God and hate the sins you once loved. You could die at any moment. Eternity is a long time to be wrong. ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: Me Date: 31 May 2007, 01:46 No, that's not what I mean. First of all, you acknowledge that the Theory of Evolution argues natural selection and not chance to explain the incremental changes it postulates. So why do you clearly suggest otherwise in the title to your bulletin? It sounds to me like you're deliberately attempting to use a straw man argument to misrepresent the position of science, which further suggests you don't trust your own argument on it's own merits. So I wonder whether this means you're being as deceptive to yourself as you are to others or whether you don't even believe the argument you're making yourself. Why else would you find it necessary to deliberately mis-characterize the Theory of Evolution? But you're right that Evolution doesn't address the origin of life from non-life. But as the famous Miller-Urey Experiment shows, all the necessary ingredients for form life ( water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2) ) were all present on Earth. As you probably already know, in the experiment, two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids, including 13 of the 22 that are used to make proteins in living cells. Taken on a larger scale, this is a far better explanation for the possible cause of life on Earth than the magical explanations found in religious holy books. Of course, the logical fallacy found in the creation by design hypothesis is that it doesn't satisfactorily explain how life came from non-life either. It merely inserts the presence of another life-form in need of an explanation. Our good friend Dr. Dawklins perhaps stated it better than I can: "However difficult those simple beginnings may be to accept, they're a whole lot easier to accept than complicated beginnings. Complicated things come into the universe late as a consequence of slow, gradual, incremental steps. God, if he exists, would have to be a very, very, very complicated thing indeed. So to postulate a god as the beginning of the universe, as the answer to the riddle of the first cause is to shoot yourself in the conceptual foot because you are immediately postulating something far, far more complicated than that which you are trying to explain." - Dr. Richard Dawkins (from talk at Randolph Woman's College) -Michael ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: Him Date: May 30, 2007 11:50 AM Ah you don't think evolution is by chance. Well since it can't come about by natural selection as natural selection can only select from what is already present, then you must mean that an intellignent mind used evolution. ----------------- Original Message ----------------- From: Me Date: 30 May 2007, 19:15 You're right. Only a fool would believe Intelligent Design came about by chance. It's clearly a strategic political move on the part of evangelicals to dress up Creationism to sound more scientific while spreading the falsehood that the Theory of Evolution suggests life came about by "chance." It does no such thing. No evolutionary biologist says that it does. And since evangelicals continue to make the claim despite having been corrected millions of times, they are clearly being dishonest, which they claim they are against. |
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my advice:
this person is wasting your time, and if he said anything worthwhile, it's that you may die any moment. why spend even a precious nanosecond to shout at a wall? you utterly destroyed his position in your second email, and he managed to miss the point far more thoroughly than did bush in his search for wmds. there is nothing you can say to convince him of anything. his fate rests in the hands of his god, leave him to it.
then again, i'm callously pragmatic like that. somebody else might have better ideas.
if (born++) {truth=null};