Then the scientific question becomes how can spirit (a consciousness) exist without intelligence of a brain to produce it? If consciousness is part of a subatomic property of matter then what mechanisms would allow expression from there to our multicellular intelligence level?

Answers to mid-size questions allows models and experiments to be constructed to answer big-questions. And religion has no problem with scientific knowledge like that. Need to head there, with whatever it takes to help better operationally define terms and keep the experimenters experimenting in that direction.

I'm not a biologist, so maybe I missed it, but could you link to the research that shows that evolution is not the best explanation for the diversity in beak shape of Darwin's Finches?
Here is some research from the last 10 years that I was able to quickly find.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5689/1383.full
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5784/224.full
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7102/full/442515a.html
Nothing there contradicts Evolution.

What you're basically saying is that the refusal of Science to commit to any theory with 100% confidence provides ABO with an excuse to hold out hope for Genesis. And yeah, we know. That's what lazy ideologues do when they have no evidence to support their claims. Just watch ABO in this thread. He can't provide evidence to support his weird beliefs, so he just repeats, "Can't prove the Bible isn't true. Can't prove the Bible isn't true." The "problem" as you call it, is not with science. Its with ABO.

You can keep deluding yourself, Gary, but Evolution is not a theory in crisis. Anti-evolution folks have been repeating that line since the first edition, and yet here it is, strong as ever.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/moreandmore.htm

"Unevidenced explanations?" Like a 6000 year old Earth? Like two naked teenagers magically appearing in the woods with a talking snake?

It's not about whether it "contradicts Evolution" it's whether the theory you are trying to explain how this works with has any real explanatory power here. Over and over repeating that natural-selection-did-it does not explain the mechanisms that must be better explained at a systems biology level:

http://classic.the-scientist.com/article/display/56251/

Uh, Gary, people don't just say over and over, "natural selection did it." You're tilting at straw windmills.

Yes there are many imaginative ways to make it seem that the paradigm already explained things that it never did, like Oh Henry's latest "You can keep deluding yourself, Gary, but Evolution is not a theory in crisis." or another sentence "I'm not a biologist, so maybe I missed it, but could you link to the research that shows that evolution is not the best explanation for the diversity in beak shape of Darwin's Finches?"

Instead of trying to reliably answer important scientific questions, it is somehow suggested that they were already explained as a product of natural selection, then it's left at that, with no answer at all just a scolding.

1. What's to respond to, Jack? You don't dispute that scientific theories are provisional, do you? Or, as ABO put it, tentative?

2. I don't see why any of those things would convince you. You could simply explain or dismiss them by recognizing that there are "Laws" of nature that we have not yet discovered, or as to the result of delusion or hallucination or some kind of hoax or, in the case of the rapture, to some kind of alien intervention! LOL!

In fact, even dying and finding yourself in hell would not do it! There is an easy answer to that if you are interested.

But if you are actually aware of some phenomena that are "perhaps" evidence of something beyond the physical, then perhaps you could give us some examples. Moreover, if that is the case, you are in no position to say that the Bible is "not true"...and I am distinguishing that from differences in interpretation.

But Jesus Christ explained this long ago: in speaking of his opponents, he told his disciples "They won't believe even if a man rises from the dead."

Mike, I've responded to all your statements before (I responded to the provisional nature of science in this thread - go back and reply if you actual want a discussion), and you never pay any attention to what I say - you just say the same things over and over about what you think I think.

So it's not worth responding to you.

Oh, you have responded sometimes, Jack, but I have found your responses unconvincing because they are based of presuppositions that you don't seem to want to face.

In fact, I have just responded to you in the previous post, and explained why I think your position is inconsistent, and why none of the examples you give would be proof enough.

But you simply dismiss it. Like I said, I don't think there is ANY proof that the opponents of Christianity would accept, even in principle.

Can it get any simpler , this is the basic premise. there is a creator or there isn't.


To date, no has shown the process of common human ancestry from a simple organisms. Nor has the mechanics for life arising from non life been shown, duplicate, or even understood. But yet life is here with us.

Looking at what is know, it is known that nothing arises by itself. We find nothing that creates itself, no organic organisms or materialistic thing ever shows up on it;s own. It alway takes some outside source of intelligence to make a change. Yes there is theory , but no substantial examples or answers that explain how the process of natural selection and mutation can build intelligence independent from any outside source.


It's far more plausible to assume a knowledgeable farmer could plant a row of potatoes, a row of corn, and a row of beans in that order 50' long in less than minute than is to assume that the same results could be obtained by waiting for it to happen on it's own.

Discovering the above planting in an abandoned remote area could provide evidence that it formed or grew independently over the last billion years.
But even though it could be calculated the event might happen in a billion years, there is no bases or examples to conclude the planting would ever independently take place at all, regardless of the time.
Let's address it.

Which is more feasible Lots wife was turned into a chunk of salt by a person who knew how or is it more likely that a pillar of salt will turn into Lots wife on it's own.

Back to my question can you provide something false in the bible that doesn't revolve around my faith or yours.

Mike writes

Two events that would convince me of the existence of God:

1..A booming voice commands me to walk outside at midnight and look to the northern sky. I watch as the seven stars of the big dipper become rearranged to form the initial of my first name. The same voice tells me to come back the following night and to bring witnesses. I bring 50 members of the National Academy of Science, and this time the big dipper spells the first initial of my last name.

2. The Nebraska Conhuskers men’s basketball team wins next year’s national championship.

lol .... They are prolly gunna have a bit more trouble than Jacob will ever see, trying to make that one happen.

Actually, no reason why either of these events would convince you, (and as they stand you don't say they would convince you of the truth of Christianity), if you believe that natural processes explain existence, life, mind and reason itself and that such processes hold throughout the universe. (Which is a second indemonstrable assumption.)

1. This could be attributed to either mass hallucination or outright hoax based in the use of drugs by some foreign power attempting to disrupt our thought processes or even, for a really extreme example, to the massive powers of an alien race, with technology sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic (as Arthur C. Clarke theorized).

This theoretical advanced alien race, and scientists are always telling us that there are most Probably other intelligent races in this vast universe, would have of course arisen and developed by the same natural processess mentioned in my first sentence. They could simply be a million years ahead of us technologically.

2. Now that is the toughest example to deal with I have ever read, but I think that one could definitely be attributed to the intervention of some alien race. LOL!

Clearly, if you believe in the indemonstrable assumptions about the origin of existence, life, and mind set out in my first sentence, then there is no proof you would need to accept, even in principle.

Perhaps you could try again? Some proof...at least in principle...that you would accept of the truth of Christianity?

Mike interesting thought
.

What would it take. Luke 16 19-31 The rich man and Lazarus
31 He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets,neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'"

Moses traditionally has been considered the author of Genesis. The book which describes creation. I think he is saying here if you can't see the hand of God in creation your not going to see or believe it anyway.

Nebraska Conhuskers men’s basketball team winning next year’s national championship won't do it either. But at some point I'm convinced Norm will hear that booming voice.

Jeremiah 30:7

Alas! That day is so great

there is none like it;

it is a time of distress for Jacob;

yet he shall be saved out of it.

-------------------------

Nice thread topic btw. The musings of a bullfrog.

BTW, Which parts do you disagree with? That ordinary men wrote the bible, or the age of the books, or everything I said?