14 thoughts on “Who Said It: Marco Rubio or Barack Obama?”
rczeranko,
My purpose for continuing this tread has no relevance to the primary question at hand.
Proposed: The universe was created and thus had a creator.
Fact: The universe now exists.
Issue: The existence of said creator of the universe needs to be proven.
It is invalid circular reasoning (assuming what must be proven) to use the existence of the universe to support the existence of its creator. A creator must exist separate from and stand apart from his/hers/its creation. If the creator is not separate from his creation, it is not a creation. It is simply nothing but a continuation. Perhaps in a different form but still nothing but a continuation. For example: a caterpillar does not create a butterfly. It simply transforms into one if it lives long enough and the conditions are right.
Apparently your belief that the universe was created is based upon the big bang hypothesis. By that self same hypothesis, you cannot validly state anything about the state of the universe before that event. According to the hypothesis, information that we can access STARTED at the big bang. Though the so called big bang could have been a big rebound event from a prior collapsing universe or one of many other unprovable or as yet unsubstantiated fantasies.
However, if the universe was created, it had a creator. Be it God, Allah, Thor, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, a herd of Unicorns, or a Golden Ox, a creator of some kind had to exist to create the universe, had to use some method by which to achieve the creation, and had to stand apart from that which was created.
It is your responsibility to give the evidence supporting your assertion of the existence of any kind of a creator of the universe or an admission that you only believe. Unfortunately for you, the latter would make you indistinguishable from a garden variety Creationist. The only difference being that you made up your own story rather than relying on some multiply transliterated report of the psychotic fantasies of bronze age shepherds . I suppose that is an improvement but not much of one in my opinion.
Yet again attempt to redefine concepts to make your case. A Creationist believes the literal meaning of Genesis. I have never asserted any remotely close to a literal interpretation of Genesis. This is problem when discussing the origin of the universe.
You discount the current scientific evidence that has shown the universe had an origin point. Again, this is not in dispute. Except you choose to ignore it. What is your answer? We don’t know, so it doesn’t matter. We know that the universe is not a steady-state (In point fact, Albert Einstein believe in a steady-state universe until evidence proved otherwise. He was wise enough to change is opinion.). We know that it is not matter/energy continuing to pop into and out of existence (if it were then why doesn’t it keep happening? Why did it magically only happen approximately 13.5 biilion years ago? Indeed this so-called theory is a vioation of the Law of Conservation of Energy, yet that fact is convienently over looked.). It is not consumed in a super sized black hole and pop into a different dimension (this last one is as ludicrous as literal interpretation of Genesis.).
The objective, observable, and testable evidence clearly shows that the universe had an origin. That there was a point in the past in which the universe did not exist. You go to an emotional argument, attempting to belittle me. How is this productive.
You offer no objective, observable, or testable alternatives, other than to say it does not matter. By your continuing this thread, it does seem to matter to you.
“I have stated that universe must have had a creator, not been created by the Creator.” ????
I don’t have to paint you a creationist, you are one. You believe in a creator of the universe so that makes you a creationist.
The fundamental attribute of a creationist is that he believes the universe was created by a creator as do you. It is irrelevant that you don’t agree with the rest of the nonsense that hyper religious creationists spout. I suspect no two of them agree on the details either or with them selves on alternate Tuesdays. Such things are neither a necessary nor fundamental component of belief in a creator creating the universe: aka a creationist.
I apologize for trying to have a philosophical conversation with you. I mistook you for a being who says what he means, means what he says, and who might be capable of exercising logic and reason with some consistency. It was my mistake. You want your words to mean what you intend and are willing to switch meanings in a single sentence while dropping the context in mid stream and by the time you use the words again, your intent is different.
Like I said a long time ago, the relevant fact is that the universe exists and we need to learn enough about it so that we can live and thrive in it. That the universe had a big bang, is a steady state, has matter/energy continuing to pop into and out of existence, or may be consumed by one super sized black hole and pop into a different dimension might be interesting but there is nothing we can do about it and nothing we need to do about it for several billion years.
Now, if you still insist the universe was created, show the evidence that its creator exists WITHOUT using the fact that the universe exists. If you can’t, at least admit that you BELIEVE but do not know.
You are trying to paint into a Creationist. I have never presented anything remotely close to Creationism. Indeed, I have stated that universe must have had a creator, not been created by the Creator. This silly thing started with Marco Rubio being evasive regarding a question on the age of the earth. It is amusing that you are questioning the age of universe. How sure am I of the age of the universe? Isn’t this kind of what got Marco Rubio in trouble. Are you afraid of a ‘young’ universe? By young, I meam APPROXIMATELY 13.5 billion years old (the same approximate age I gave previously and the same approximate age that is accepted by the scientific community).
A ‘belief’ that the universe was created? What is the alternative that it wasn’t created? Cosmology has provided us the age of universe. Therefore, there was a time in which the universe did not exist. This is not indispute. And yet, you want to call that into question. You cannot conveniently ignore things because it does not fit your narrative.
And it does not lead to the case of infinite regression. Why does it have to. You are taking an old and worn out argument that has no basis in this discussion. What created the universe? Science cannot tell us. Perhaps the current experiments at CERN will yield some insight. But even those experiments will only provide insight into the first moments after the universe came into existence.
If you don’t belive that the universe was created, then what is your opinion of the experiments at CERN? Why are we bothering with this at all. What can we possibly learn? You have a lot of questions to ask yourself.
“And I never mentioned God.” You didn’t use the word but so what? When it comes to the universe, Creator == God in normal speak. They are interchangeable empty concepts intended to stop thought, discussion, questioning, or investigation.
“Science tells us …” Science tells us a lot of things. The so called age of the universe is simply something according to one set of notions about how things are. It is derived from the apparent expansion of the universe which itself is derived from the observed red shift of light. The distances associated with the red shift are derived from the brightness of certain astronomical objects that are ASSUMED to be of constant luminosity. The distance then is derived from the inverse square law applied to the observed brightness – with numerous corrections applied to make things work out. This is all used to compute the time since the starting point. Even that is based upon the assumption that time is a universal invariant which, since Einstein, it is believed not to be.
In the usual formulation of this notion, the starting point been assumed to be a singularity with the start of the expansion which is popularly called The Big Bang. There is a related notion that this assumed singularity simply popped out of the vacuum of an infinite eternal nonexistent nothingness without physical law or dimension in space or time. In this theory, your creator/god is an infinite eternal nonexistent nothingness that has no attributes nor physical laws except that, on some unknown and unknowable bases, at least one universe popped out of it and perhaps many. Unfortunately, we can only know of the one in which we reside and only based upon our observations of it interpreted by the various theories we make up as explanations of how it works.
How sure of the actual age of the universe now? Does it in fact have anymore meaning than your wonderful mystical creator that you assume made the universe? Is it anything more than an interesting story told by the tribal elders while sitting around a camp fire? I think not.
“I just pointed out that the universe cannot created itself, hence it was created.” For the universe to have been created, it must have had a creator. If the universe created itself, that is indifferent from the universe being eternal and having no creator. To assume otherwise, is to assume what must be proven aka circular reasoning. This is a primary fallacy of logic. In effect you are saying that the universe was created because it exists. BUZZZZ….wrong. It exists but that does not in anyway prove that it was created or that it took a Creator/God to do it.
My challenge to you is to prove the existence of your Creator/God without using the existence of the universe as part of your proof. After all, I don’t argue against the existence of the universe, I argue against the validity of the assumption that it was created. So far, I have seen no proof of the existence of said Creator/God other than many people BELIEVE and quite a few have died for that belief. Which proves nothing beyond that they believe.
Interestingly, given your belief that the universe was created, you are left with a problem of infinite regression. Who created the creator? Who created the creator who created the creator? Who….. If one of those creators could be eternal, what evidence do you have of that? You don’t. You simply BELIEVE! If you do have actual evidence, present it as I have challenged you. Circular Reasoning is not admissible.
Why not simply start with the secure knowledge that the universe exists and get on with the task of discovering what it is and how to live and thrive within it? The use of a mythical sky warrior or an assumed undefined and undefinable creator adds nothing to to that task. Historically, it has greatly interfered with it.
I never mentioned Big Bang. I have simply pointed out the modern cosmology tells us that universe has an origin point. And I never mentioned God. I just pointed out that the universe cannot created itself, hence it was created. Science tells us that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that the universe is approximately 13.5 billion years old. If the universe has a an age, then it has an origin. What you your explanation? Stating that is just is is not an explanation and implies eternity, which science has told us the universe it not. By the by, next time address what I wrote without injecting you biases.
rczeranko: “The defacto proof that there is a creator is that the universe was created. ”
Invalid. This assumes what must be proven. All that can be shown is that the universe exists. That it was created is an unfounded assumption. It simply is.
rczeranko: “Science tells us that the universe is not eternal.’
Invalid: Argument from authority and popularity. “Science” simply has a big bang hypothesis that is popular. There are lines of evidence both for and against the big bang. Even if there was a big bang, what proof do we have that was the big beginning with not even nothing existing prior to the event? We don’t. The science is far from being settled.
The concept of God is based upon ignorance. There is no knowledge and no evidence contained within the concept. We don’t know something or we don’t understand something, so we say “God did it” and pretend that after that point, nothing can be said or thought. It is far better and far more honest simply to say “I don’t know or I don’t understand” than to say “God did it”. That way the possibility to know and to understand is still open to us. To say “God did it” is to say nothing at all. Its purpose is to shut down thought, questioning, and investigation. It has been used that way since man first invented a god.
Al Gore took an analogous position early in his run for president, but it involved creationism and evolution. Reverend Pat Robinson was a credible candidate at the time. Al Gore soon backed away from his equating biblical stories to established Science.
Lord Kelvin, the smartest man of his time and among the smartest men who ever lived, used thermodynamics to calculate that the Sun was less than 500 million years old and probably less than 100 million years old. There was a real problem at the time of Kelvin’s work in that evolution through natural selection took much longer to generate the complicated life forms seen today. It was Science vs. Science.
The conflict was overcome when radioactivity was discovered and understood. Knowing the age of the Earth to be 4.5 billion years is accessible to me and thrilling. No humans were around to record the creation of the Earth..
To appreciate Science requires an ability to grasp that long chains of proof are required to understand most concepts. Even Einstein relied on sophisticated mathematics when he came up with his theory of relativity. Without some confidence in syllogistic reasoning, Science is just another version of religion, as illustrated in the current Global Warming political debate.
To me Evolution was obvious when I was first aware of it. Having a God design life forms is ridiculous when you observe that there is a fish that feeds on Hypo dung. No self respecting God would do that.
Back to the point. If supposedly well educated persons do not know about the age of the Earth, then how sturdy could be their theories of tax rates, or of anything?.
The defacto proof that there is a creator is that the universe was created. For randomness to work, takes an eternity. Science tells us that the universe is not eternal. What is a greater leap of faith, Stephen Hawkings in ‘theory’ that there are an infinite number of universes, or that there is a creator? Hawking’s new ‘theory’ has no basis in reality and cannot be proved or disproved. So,the same arguments against a creator also apply to Hawking’s ‘theory’. Richard Feynman railed against untestable theories. Hawking’s multi-verse ‘theory’ fits that description.
Oh, I won’t diss all creationists the same way but I will diss them all. If they could come up with indisputable evidence that there exists a creator apart from the universe, existing prior to the universe, and demonstrate in real time Its/his/hers method of creation, then I might listen to their confabulations. Until then, they are all nuts. Just not all the same kind of nut. Some are delusional, some are hallucinatory, some are paranoid, some are schizophrenic, some are simply functionally illiterate, and the rest are willfully ignorant of anything that matters to human life on earth.
I really do believe this with all my heart, so it must be true. That is, according to the creationists theory of knowing. Why then should I argue with a creationist or even offer him evidence of the truth of what I say? I BELIEVE!
PS: I don’t have to explain the origin and existence of the universe. Its existence is implied by the the request to explain it as well as any other question. It simply is. What it is, is a different matter and that is left as an exercise for the student to work out the details.
Obviously this is not a scientific question, or a religious question. It’s a political question. Which is way weird. BTW the Catholic Church, which is of course creationist, accepts the geologic/scientific age of the Earth as factual and true. So you can’t diss all creationists the same way.
Hysterical atheism, for the win.
“No – not if you believe that all evidence to the contrary was created in-situ.”
Apparently belief is supposed to trump physical evidence. If so, what do we need science for? All we need to do is BELIEVE and it shall be so.
Oh, I have a great deal on some gold mine stock. I will sell 100,000 shares for only a dollar a share. By the way, there is no gold in the mine, the mine does not exist, and I will print the stock certificate after you send me the money. I might even send you the certificate. If you believe very very hard and send me the money, just maybe you will hit it big. If you send me enough, I will hit it big. That is almost the same, isn’t it? All you need to do is believe and it shall be so or maybe not.
As I’ve always said myself, the most important phrase to take away from Genesis 1:1 is “In the beginning God created….” The rest all being nitpicking at the details.
Does the Scientific Evidence point to an old earth? Yes. Does the scientific evidence preclude the creation of the Universe last Thursday afternoon? No – not if you believe that all evidence to the contrary was created in-situ.
Ever notice that it’s only the LEFT that ask such questions, and they only hyperventilate over the answers given by the RIGHT?
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rczeranko,
My purpose for continuing this tread has no relevance to the primary question at hand.
Proposed: The universe was created and thus had a creator.
Fact: The universe now exists.
Issue: The existence of said creator of the universe needs to be proven.
It is invalid circular reasoning (assuming what must be proven) to use the existence of the universe to support the existence of its creator. A creator must exist separate from and stand apart from his/hers/its creation. If the creator is not separate from his creation, it is not a creation. It is simply nothing but a continuation. Perhaps in a different form but still nothing but a continuation. For example: a caterpillar does not create a butterfly. It simply transforms into one if it lives long enough and the conditions are right.
Apparently your belief that the universe was created is based upon the big bang hypothesis. By that self same hypothesis, you cannot validly state anything about the state of the universe before that event. According to the hypothesis, information that we can access STARTED at the big bang. Though the so called big bang could have been a big rebound event from a prior collapsing universe or one of many other unprovable or as yet unsubstantiated fantasies.
However, if the universe was created, it had a creator. Be it God, Allah, Thor, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, a herd of Unicorns, or a Golden Ox, a creator of some kind had to exist to create the universe, had to use some method by which to achieve the creation, and had to stand apart from that which was created.
It is your responsibility to give the evidence supporting your assertion of the existence of any kind of a creator of the universe or an admission that you only believe. Unfortunately for you, the latter would make you indistinguishable from a garden variety Creationist. The only difference being that you made up your own story rather than relying on some multiply transliterated report of the psychotic fantasies of bronze age shepherds . I suppose that is an improvement but not much of one in my opinion.
Yet again attempt to redefine concepts to make your case. A Creationist believes the literal meaning of Genesis. I have never asserted any remotely close to a literal interpretation of Genesis. This is problem when discussing the origin of the universe.
You discount the current scientific evidence that has shown the universe had an origin point. Again, this is not in dispute. Except you choose to ignore it. What is your answer? We don’t know, so it doesn’t matter. We know that the universe is not a steady-state (In point fact, Albert Einstein believe in a steady-state universe until evidence proved otherwise. He was wise enough to change is opinion.). We know that it is not matter/energy continuing to pop into and out of existence (if it were then why doesn’t it keep happening? Why did it magically only happen approximately 13.5 biilion years ago? Indeed this so-called theory is a vioation of the Law of Conservation of Energy, yet that fact is convienently over looked.). It is not consumed in a super sized black hole and pop into a different dimension (this last one is as ludicrous as literal interpretation of Genesis.).
The objective, observable, and testable evidence clearly shows that the universe had an origin. That there was a point in the past in which the universe did not exist. You go to an emotional argument, attempting to belittle me. How is this productive.
You offer no objective, observable, or testable alternatives, other than to say it does not matter. By your continuing this thread, it does seem to matter to you.
“I have stated that universe must have had a creator, not been created by the Creator.” ????
I don’t have to paint you a creationist, you are one. You believe in a creator of the universe so that makes you a creationist.
The fundamental attribute of a creationist is that he believes the universe was created by a creator as do you. It is irrelevant that you don’t agree with the rest of the nonsense that hyper religious creationists spout. I suspect no two of them agree on the details either or with them selves on alternate Tuesdays. Such things are neither a necessary nor fundamental component of belief in a creator creating the universe: aka a creationist.
I apologize for trying to have a philosophical conversation with you. I mistook you for a being who says what he means, means what he says, and who might be capable of exercising logic and reason with some consistency. It was my mistake. You want your words to mean what you intend and are willing to switch meanings in a single sentence while dropping the context in mid stream and by the time you use the words again, your intent is different.
Like I said a long time ago, the relevant fact is that the universe exists and we need to learn enough about it so that we can live and thrive in it. That the universe had a big bang, is a steady state, has matter/energy continuing to pop into and out of existence, or may be consumed by one super sized black hole and pop into a different dimension might be interesting but there is nothing we can do about it and nothing we need to do about it for several billion years.
Now, if you still insist the universe was created, show the evidence that its creator exists WITHOUT using the fact that the universe exists. If you can’t, at least admit that you BELIEVE but do not know.
You are trying to paint into a Creationist. I have never presented anything remotely close to Creationism. Indeed, I have stated that universe must have had a creator, not been created by the Creator. This silly thing started with Marco Rubio being evasive regarding a question on the age of the earth. It is amusing that you are questioning the age of universe. How sure am I of the age of the universe? Isn’t this kind of what got Marco Rubio in trouble. Are you afraid of a ‘young’ universe? By young, I meam APPROXIMATELY 13.5 billion years old (the same approximate age I gave previously and the same approximate age that is accepted by the scientific community).
A ‘belief’ that the universe was created? What is the alternative that it wasn’t created? Cosmology has provided us the age of universe. Therefore, there was a time in which the universe did not exist. This is not indispute. And yet, you want to call that into question. You cannot conveniently ignore things because it does not fit your narrative.
And it does not lead to the case of infinite regression. Why does it have to. You are taking an old and worn out argument that has no basis in this discussion. What created the universe? Science cannot tell us. Perhaps the current experiments at CERN will yield some insight. But even those experiments will only provide insight into the first moments after the universe came into existence.
If you don’t belive that the universe was created, then what is your opinion of the experiments at CERN? Why are we bothering with this at all. What can we possibly learn? You have a lot of questions to ask yourself.
“And I never mentioned God.” You didn’t use the word but so what? When it comes to the universe, Creator == God in normal speak. They are interchangeable empty concepts intended to stop thought, discussion, questioning, or investigation.
“Science tells us …” Science tells us a lot of things. The so called age of the universe is simply something according to one set of notions about how things are. It is derived from the apparent expansion of the universe which itself is derived from the observed red shift of light. The distances associated with the red shift are derived from the brightness of certain astronomical objects that are ASSUMED to be of constant luminosity. The distance then is derived from the inverse square law applied to the observed brightness – with numerous corrections applied to make things work out. This is all used to compute the time since the starting point. Even that is based upon the assumption that time is a universal invariant which, since Einstein, it is believed not to be.
In the usual formulation of this notion, the starting point been assumed to be a singularity with the start of the expansion which is popularly called The Big Bang. There is a related notion that this assumed singularity simply popped out of the vacuum of an infinite eternal nonexistent nothingness without physical law or dimension in space or time. In this theory, your creator/god is an infinite eternal nonexistent nothingness that has no attributes nor physical laws except that, on some unknown and unknowable bases, at least one universe popped out of it and perhaps many. Unfortunately, we can only know of the one in which we reside and only based upon our observations of it interpreted by the various theories we make up as explanations of how it works.
How sure of the actual age of the universe now? Does it in fact have anymore meaning than your wonderful mystical creator that you assume made the universe? Is it anything more than an interesting story told by the tribal elders while sitting around a camp fire? I think not.
“I just pointed out that the universe cannot created itself, hence it was created.” For the universe to have been created, it must have had a creator. If the universe created itself, that is indifferent from the universe being eternal and having no creator. To assume otherwise, is to assume what must be proven aka circular reasoning. This is a primary fallacy of logic. In effect you are saying that the universe was created because it exists. BUZZZZ….wrong. It exists but that does not in anyway prove that it was created or that it took a Creator/God to do it.
My challenge to you is to prove the existence of your Creator/God without using the existence of the universe as part of your proof. After all, I don’t argue against the existence of the universe, I argue against the validity of the assumption that it was created. So far, I have seen no proof of the existence of said Creator/God other than many people BELIEVE and quite a few have died for that belief. Which proves nothing beyond that they believe.
Interestingly, given your belief that the universe was created, you are left with a problem of infinite regression. Who created the creator? Who created the creator who created the creator? Who….. If one of those creators could be eternal, what evidence do you have of that? You don’t. You simply BELIEVE! If you do have actual evidence, present it as I have challenged you. Circular Reasoning is not admissible.
Why not simply start with the secure knowledge that the universe exists and get on with the task of discovering what it is and how to live and thrive within it? The use of a mythical sky warrior or an assumed undefined and undefinable creator adds nothing to to that task. Historically, it has greatly interfered with it.
I never mentioned Big Bang. I have simply pointed out the modern cosmology tells us that universe has an origin point. And I never mentioned God. I just pointed out that the universe cannot created itself, hence it was created. Science tells us that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that the universe is approximately 13.5 billion years old. If the universe has a an age, then it has an origin. What you your explanation? Stating that is just is is not an explanation and implies eternity, which science has told us the universe it not. By the by, next time address what I wrote without injecting you biases.
rczeranko: “The defacto proof that there is a creator is that the universe was created. ”
Invalid. This assumes what must be proven. All that can be shown is that the universe exists. That it was created is an unfounded assumption. It simply is.
rczeranko: “Science tells us that the universe is not eternal.’
Invalid: Argument from authority and popularity. “Science” simply has a big bang hypothesis that is popular. There are lines of evidence both for and against the big bang. Even if there was a big bang, what proof do we have that was the big beginning with not even nothing existing prior to the event? We don’t. The science is far from being settled.
The concept of God is based upon ignorance. There is no knowledge and no evidence contained within the concept. We don’t know something or we don’t understand something, so we say “God did it” and pretend that after that point, nothing can be said or thought. It is far better and far more honest simply to say “I don’t know or I don’t understand” than to say “God did it”. That way the possibility to know and to understand is still open to us. To say “God did it” is to say nothing at all. Its purpose is to shut down thought, questioning, and investigation. It has been used that way since man first invented a god.
Al Gore took an analogous position early in his run for president, but it involved creationism and evolution. Reverend Pat Robinson was a credible candidate at the time. Al Gore soon backed away from his equating biblical stories to established Science.
Lord Kelvin, the smartest man of his time and among the smartest men who ever lived, used thermodynamics to calculate that the Sun was less than 500 million years old and probably less than 100 million years old. There was a real problem at the time of Kelvin’s work in that evolution through natural selection took much longer to generate the complicated life forms seen today. It was Science vs. Science.
The conflict was overcome when radioactivity was discovered and understood. Knowing the age of the Earth to be 4.5 billion years is accessible to me and thrilling. No humans were around to record the creation of the Earth..
To appreciate Science requires an ability to grasp that long chains of proof are required to understand most concepts. Even Einstein relied on sophisticated mathematics when he came up with his theory of relativity. Without some confidence in syllogistic reasoning, Science is just another version of religion, as illustrated in the current Global Warming political debate.
To me Evolution was obvious when I was first aware of it. Having a God design life forms is ridiculous when you observe that there is a fish that feeds on Hypo dung. No self respecting God would do that.
Back to the point. If supposedly well educated persons do not know about the age of the Earth, then how sturdy could be their theories of tax rates, or of anything?.
The defacto proof that there is a creator is that the universe was created. For randomness to work, takes an eternity. Science tells us that the universe is not eternal. What is a greater leap of faith, Stephen Hawkings in ‘theory’ that there are an infinite number of universes, or that there is a creator? Hawking’s new ‘theory’ has no basis in reality and cannot be proved or disproved. So,the same arguments against a creator also apply to Hawking’s ‘theory’. Richard Feynman railed against untestable theories. Hawking’s multi-verse ‘theory’ fits that description.
Oh, I won’t diss all creationists the same way but I will diss them all. If they could come up with indisputable evidence that there exists a creator apart from the universe, existing prior to the universe, and demonstrate in real time Its/his/hers method of creation, then I might listen to their confabulations. Until then, they are all nuts. Just not all the same kind of nut. Some are delusional, some are hallucinatory, some are paranoid, some are schizophrenic, some are simply functionally illiterate, and the rest are willfully ignorant of anything that matters to human life on earth.
I really do believe this with all my heart, so it must be true. That is, according to the creationists theory of knowing. Why then should I argue with a creationist or even offer him evidence of the truth of what I say? I BELIEVE!
PS: I don’t have to explain the origin and existence of the universe. Its existence is implied by the the request to explain it as well as any other question. It simply is. What it is, is a different matter and that is left as an exercise for the student to work out the details.
Obviously this is not a scientific question, or a religious question. It’s a political question. Which is way weird. BTW the Catholic Church, which is of course creationist, accepts the geologic/scientific age of the Earth as factual and true. So you can’t diss all creationists the same way.
Hysterical atheism, for the win.
“No – not if you believe that all evidence to the contrary was created in-situ.”
Apparently belief is supposed to trump physical evidence. If so, what do we need science for? All we need to do is BELIEVE and it shall be so.
Oh, I have a great deal on some gold mine stock. I will sell 100,000 shares for only a dollar a share. By the way, there is no gold in the mine, the mine does not exist, and I will print the stock certificate after you send me the money. I might even send you the certificate. If you believe very very hard and send me the money, just maybe you will hit it big. If you send me enough, I will hit it big. That is almost the same, isn’t it? All you need to do is believe and it shall be so or maybe not.
As I’ve always said myself, the most important phrase to take away from Genesis 1:1 is “In the beginning God created….” The rest all being nitpicking at the details.
Does the Scientific Evidence point to an old earth? Yes. Does the scientific evidence preclude the creation of the Universe last Thursday afternoon? No – not if you believe that all evidence to the contrary was created in-situ.
Ever notice that it’s only the LEFT that ask such questions, and they only hyperventilate over the answers given by the RIGHT?