Continue the debate in here

But I do know it is a sudden appearing of lots of
fossils around the same time. A sudden appearing of lots of fossils
would fit well into the creation account; God creating the Universe.


The Cambrian Explosion occurred 530 million years ago, who does that fit in with god's creation?

How do you know it occurred 530 million years? Dating methods aren’t always accurate. It is very clear that the process of evolution if it ever did occur would be a very slow process. That’s why scientists are always branding about ages for the Earth in the millions of years.

Not an accurate date but I do know they are within 100 years of the
events themselves and that this makes them reliable and trustworthy.


How do you know? What are your dating methods?

They are within 100 years because the Apostle Paul was still alive at the end of the Book of Acts and at least 3 of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) where written before that.

I keep posting them because I’m still waiting for you to answer them.
You still haven’t given me an answer to this question: Can you explain
and prove how single celled organisms became multi celled?


The why don't you read my answers and post the unanswered questions?

Ok. Here are the questions I’m still waiting for you to answer:

Can you explain and prove how single celled organisms became multi celled?

----

Why are we here?
What’s our purpose in life?
Where did we come from?
What are the origins of life?
What happens after we die?
How can our problem of sin be solved?

So what was the creature before it became a mouse?

And what is your evidence that an asteroid/comet killed the dinosaurs? One issue with this is if dinosaurs where all killed by a asteroid/comet, then why are there still crocodiles and lizards living today? Also why did any animals survive? As for Noah’s flood, animals where kept alive on the ark.

Can you show me a species of fish that has evolved into another species of fish?

Is there no room in your life for the possibility that God might exist? I’m beginning to think that you don’t believe in supernatural or miraculous occurrences. Is this assumption correct?

You ask where the water came from. I ask well if God was able to create the whole universe, then wouldn’t it have been easy for God to have just made it rain? I believe God caused it to rain.

Ok then; in your own words describe to me how you think the origin of life occurred.

What happens when you feel guilty about something? How do you deal with guilt? Do you ever get bored? I’m beginning to think you’re a humanist. Am I correct?

Have you proof that the shark was a hermaphrodite?

It is impossible that life on Earth came from nothing unless God was involved. Until scientists generate new life (in lab conditions) from absolutely nothing will they be able to prove that life originated without God being responsible. So where is the empirical evidence that life came from nothing without God being responsible?

Liam, from what you and scientists can observe nowadays, how do you know that God was not responsible for the creation of animals?

One of the issues with life on Earth is the fact that a number of things need to be present for life to occur. For example humans can’t live unless there is water to drink, food to eat and oxygen to breathe. The flagellum alone demonstrates the interaction of many finely-tuned systems. And without that interaction the flagellum could not function properly. So how can the flagellum function properly if one of those finely-tuned systems is missing?

From an evolutionary point of view, how can an unicellular or small multicellular organism propel itself if the flagellum hasn’t evolved?

If there was an oxygen–less atmosphere with the primeval soup, how could life originate or survive?

If parents are needed to seed new life, then without God creating the first life on Earth, how could the first life have come into existence? This is another reason why God must have been responsible for the creation of life on this Earth. Unless of course you can show me a creature that came into existence even though it never had any parents. Can you do that?

Is the sheer complexity found in life on Earth (for example the flagellum) not circumstantial evidence that life was designed and created by God? I believe it is circumstantial evidence that life was designed and created by God.

Liam, how do you explain the oldest living organism on the Earth; The Bristlecone Pine?

http://creationwiki.org/Bristlecone_pine

It is less than 5000 years old. If the Biblical global flood did not take place then surely there should be other living organisms that are older than the Bristlecone Pine. Unless of course there was a global flood that wiped out all life (apart from what went on the Ark) and the Bristlecone Pine just happens to be the oldest living organism since the flood.

Liam, what are your views on Dawkins calling himself a cultural Christian?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm

Liam, what about Christian revivals? A Christian revival is a time when God is clearly at work in the lives of humans on Earth. An example of this was the revivals in Wales:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/religion/sites/timeline/pages/religion_in_wales_13.shtml

These are real events that actually took place. Now if God was fake, not true and did not exist, then can you provide an explanation for events during a Christian revival? If Christianity was all a lie then I would expect there to be a lot less people who have had their lives transformed by Jesus.

Answer this question honestly: Is there any science that goes against evolution that you actually take seriously and consider not to be pseudoscience?

Also, did you watch the video I provided the link for (about our created Universe)?

http://www.nwcreation.net/media/Our_Created_Universe_high.wmv

In that video Spike Psarris mentions scientific issues and then quotes from evolutionists to prove that these issues he mentioned where not made up and where actually issues that evolutionists where trying to deal with. So how is that video pseudoscience? Could only be pseudoscience if Spike Psarris mentioned issues and he was making up the issues. But these issues where real scientific issues.

http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/science/darwin_critique1.htm
I quote:

IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY is defined as the base level of complexity below which a system no longer functions. Thus an irreducibly complex system is one comprising several unique interacting components that contribute to the basic function of the 'system' and wherein the removal of just one component renders the whole system no longer functional. An irreducibly complex system cannot 'evolve' by slight, single step successive modifications to a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part, is by definition non-functional and as such would have no purpose and presumably could not be the subject of 'natural selection'.

The human eye is an example of irreducible complexity. If one part of a human eye is missing then it cannot function as effectively. So Liam, can you show me a creature that if it missed one part could still function as effectively? If a human only had one lung instead of two lungs, yes that human might still be able to function, but nowhere as effectively. The flagellum is another example of irreducible complexity.

Certain creatures need lots of things to be present for them to function fully and without all those things being present they couldn’t function properly. Is that not a problem for the theory of evolution?

Liam, can you explain how a woodpecker (Bird with strong claws and a stiff tail adapted for climbing and a hard chisel-like bill for boring into wood for insects.) evolved? Here is a video about just how complicated a woodpecker actually is:

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=817b7893bcdeed13799b

Liam you have to answer this question; if you think there is no proof for the existence of God, then why are there any intelligent people that believe in the existence of God? All intelligent people who believe in God can’t all be deluded.

Liam, how do you know that atheism is true (or probably true)? How do you know that the criteria you use for deciding this question is the correct criteria?

What about Charles Hodge and his anti-slavery views in later life?

In regard to evolution (these questions are from the book In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation):

How can really complicated organs develop by an unplanned process?

How did evolution from simple to complex counter the tendency towards randomness that is so prevalent in nature?

Is there any mechanism that would explain the origin of complexity?

Can one really identify the evolutionary relationships of organisms?

Are evolutionary changes gradual or sudden?

Is natural selection important to the evolutionary process?

How does complexity evolve without the advantage of foresight?

In terms of the fossil evidence, how does the evolutionary scenario deal with the great scarcity of intermediate forms and the lack of geologic time for the major evolutionary changes postulated?

Can you give examples of changes in organisms that have occurred by the addition of new information?

Is there available a scientifically observable process in nature which on a long-term basis is tending to carry its products upward to higher and higher levels of complexity?

Considering that DNA carries precise information regarding most aspects of plant life, how did the original DNA come to process these intricate instructions?

Considering there is no such thing as a simple cell, is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which – a functional gene or protein – is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?

Where does new information come from?

----

Who or what provided the material for the big bang?

Why did it not implode rather that explode?

How could it coagulate into stars and how could these generate planets?

How could life appear spontaneously?

How could one kind of living creature change into another when the fossil record shows no evidence of such changes?

Can I prove God exists? Not exactly. But what I can do is give reasons
(for example: the fact that the Earth is suited for life) which I think
are strong enough to warrant belief in God. I believe answered prayer does indeed prove the existence of God.


Yes or No?

What about answered prayer? Does that prove the existence of God? I believe answered prayer does indeed prove the existence of God.

BTW Have you seen Expelled? Do you have a copy of it?

I’ve heard about it but I have neither seen it or own a copy.

Liam, I see you also haven’t dealt with the following:

If there were crops outside the garden, then it was just as pleasant a place than the garden itself.

Actually inside of the garden would have been better than outside. Inside of the garden God had provided more than enough food for them to eat but outside of the garden Adam had to start working for his food by planting and growing crops. So life was better inside the garden. Also inside of the garden Adam and Eve had close connection with God, but after the fall communication between God and humans was more difficult because of man’s sins. So all in all, life was much better inside the garden than outside.

This begs the question of why were the animals created in the first place? Also it assumes that there were animals OUTSIDE the garden, were there? If animals were created, not for human consumption, then it is a sin to eat any animal! Do you agree?

I believe they were created to showcase God’s creative power. Also God had work for Adam to do in the Garden of Eden. He was to name all the animals. Adam could never have done that if animals were not created. Also God is an omniscient and omnipotent God, therefore it would not have been difficult for God to know that after the fall animals would be required for food, clothes and for sacrifice in sin offerings. Straight after the fall, God killed animals to provide clothes for Adam and Eve:

Genesis 3:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Animals where only killed and eaten after the fall. Another mark of the fall. There was no need to eat animals before the fall and eating animals after the fall is not sinful. There where certain animals that Jews could not eat but those food laws no longer apply today.

Is that an assumption or have you any evidence to back it up?

Well there’s a lot of frozen water on Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_ice_cap

Earth
Earth's north pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean, the Arctic ice pack. Portions of the ice that don't melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about a meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km². In addition, the Greenland ice sheet covers about 1.71 million km² and contains about 2.6 million km³ of ice.
The land mass of the Earth's south pole, in Antarctica, is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet. It covers an area of almost 14 million km² and contains 25-30 million km³ of ice. Around 70% of the fresh water on the Earth is held in this ice sheet. In addition, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers 3.2 million km² and the Ross Ice Shelf covers 0.5 million km². See Climate of Antarctica.

We could assume that if all the frozen water at the north and south poles melted that most of the places on Earth where humans live would be flooded.

Again, you make the ASSUMPTION that life only exists on this planet. Out of the countless galaxies in the universe, there may well be life on other planets.

Well it’s not likely there’s life on another planet seeing as so many factors are required on Earth for there to be life here. Anyhow if there was life somewhere in one of the galaxies and they were as advanced as we are then I would expect them to be broadcasting into space and sending messages like humans are doing here.

It also begs the question, that if the universe is so fine tuned for life, why is life so rare (as we know it)?

Life is so rare because of the sheer complexity required for life. So many factors are required for there to be life that when there’s life it is very rare.

Fine tuning itself has to be defined. How fine is fine?

Perfect before the fall.

The anthropic principal says nothing about motives or methods, which is how design is defined. The scarcity of life and multi-billion-year delay in it appearing argue against life being a motive.

Multi-billion-year delay? We can’t be sure the Earth is that old seeing as dating methods aren’t always accurate. Anyhow an Earth billions of years old would contradict what Genesis says about creation. God wanted to design and create the Earth, humans and animals. God’s desire to create us is His motive for doing so.

Nature is but a name for an effect whose cause is God.

-- William Cowper

If God can do anything, he could create life in a universe whose conditions do not allow for it.

That not a valid statement. If there’s life then there are conditions to allow for it. If there is no life then the conditions to allow for life are not all there. Anyhow God did create life where the conditions did not allow for it. Look at the rest of the planets in our solar system where there’s no life, yet there is life on our planet.

How often do you share your resources with the third world?

I could give money to charity. Or leave out clothes I no longer need for a charity to pick up.

It doesn't! And how do you know it wasn't Allah, Thor, Krishna or Zeus?

How do I know God is true? Because He revealed Himself in a real living human being called Jesus and Jesus is still alive today.

For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is--limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death--He had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it was well worthwhile.
... Dorothy L. Sayers, Christian Letters to a Post-Christian World [1969]

No you don't! If you did then you should be able to give me an overview of the process? Can you? (In your own words)

Evolution is a theory where the strongest survive through natural selection.

This shows how you know NOTHING about evolution. Every fossil is a transitional fossil! And drastic changes do not happen over one generation. If you knew what evolution was you would know that natural selection occurs in the DNA.

So where are the fossils showing every stage of evolution of one creature to another? In most cases we see fossils for one creature and fossils for another different creature and the scientists just announce one evolved into the other. For example, if a horse evolved into a giraffe then I would expect there to be horses will a neck a bit longer, horses with a neck much longer and horses with a neck as long as a giraffe. Fossils showing the animal at each stage of evolving.

Liam, you might want to watch these videos:

The Way Of The Master : Evolution (Part 1 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHTN8Re1izg

The Way Of The Master : Evolution (Part 2 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGh48yt4flI

The Way Of The Master : Evolution (Part 3 of 3):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohCDWDsUefk

You said that it was the parents fault, and that THEY should have brought her to the doctor, but you claim that God is her Father, making God her parent.

Her earthly parents should have taken her to see a doctor. It was their fault.

True. But you do realise that the very earliest manuscripts of the bible, are completely different from the bible you read and use as the word of God. This makes the stories that YOU used UNRELIABLE!

Can you provide an example for that? Any errors there might be are due to errors in translating the Bible not errors in the original texts.

The Bible is very reliable. Take for example the Old Testament prophecy (contained in the book of Micah) about the destruction of Samaria:

MICAH 1:6 6 Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.

The prophecy was from 730BC and details four specific predictions; Samaria’s ruins would become a heap of rubble, the stones used to construct Samaria would be pushed into a valley, Samaria’s foundations would be laid bare and Samaria would eventually become a place where vineyards would be planted.
Even though the prophecy was from 730BC, it didn’t begin to be fulfilled until 1265AD, almost 2000 years later. Samaria was totally destroyed in A.D. 1265 when Muslims defeated the Crusaders who were defending the city, and it has never been rebuilt. Arabs living in the vicinity cleared much of the ruins in order to use the site for agricultural purposes, and in so doing, they dug up its foundations and dumped them into a valley nearby. Today, grapevines can be seen growing on this ancient site, just as prophesied by Micah over 2700 years ago.
http://www.searchgodsword.org/dic/ebd/view.cgi?number=T3202

This city, after passing through various vicissitudes, was given by the emperor Augustus to Herod the Great, who rebuilt it, and called it Sebaste (Gr. form of Augustus) in honour of the emperor. In the New Testament the only mention of it is in Acts 8:5-14, where it is recorded that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached there.

Herod rebuilt Samaria and called it Sebaste:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_the_Great

27 BC — An assassination attempt on Herod was foiled. To honor Augustus, Herod rebuilt Samaria and renamed it Sebaste.

The full name for the city was Cæsarea Sebaste:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=10&letter=C

the full name of the city was therefore "Cæsarea Sebaste" ("Ant." xvi. 5, § 1; Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv. 8 ).

It is on the outskirts of the ancient port city Caesarea Maritima:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarea

Caesarea (Hebrew: קיסריה‎, Qesarya ) is a town in Israel on the outskirts of Caesarea Maritima, the ancient port city.

Caesarea Maritima was destroyed in 1265:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarea_Maritima

The bishops did not govern: Saladin retook the city in 1187; it was recaptured by the Crusaders in 1191, and finally lost by them in 1265 this time to the Mamluks, who ensured that there would be no more battling over the site— where the harbor has silted in anyway— by razing the fortifications - in line with their practice in other formerly-Crusader coastal cities.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Caesarea.html

In 1265, Caesarea fell to Baybars, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, who destroyed the city, which remained in ruins until 1884. In 1884, a small fishing village was established on the remains at Caesarea by Muslim refugees from Bosnia. The city was abandoned by its inhabitants during the War of Independence (1948).

The fulfilment of this prophecy is one example of just how reliable the Bible is.

Also the stories of the bible (the important and miriculous ones) have no historical evidence whatsoever!

There are eye witness accounts. If Jesus never rose from the dead then the tomb with the body still in it should be available for the whole world to see. So where is the tomb with the body still in it?

In regard to the miracles of Jesus:

Christ’s healing of the paralytic was just one of numerous miracles he performed during his earthly ministry. Although sceptics typically dismiss the Gospel miracle narratives out of hand as myth or legend, there are good reasons to conclude that these accounts, at least in general, reflect historical fact. Non-Christian sources dated as early as the first century refer to Jesus’ reputation for performing miracles-although sometimes these sources denigrate Jesus’ miracles as sorcery. Although the apostle Paul does not discuss any specific miracles of Jesus, there are traces in his writings of an awareness that Jesus performed them (Rom. 15:18-19; 1 Cor. 4:20; 13:2; cf. 2 Cor. 12:12; 2 Thess 2:9). Furthermore, all of the Gospels, and all of the source materials that biblical scholars think the Gospels incorporated, attest to Jesus’ miracles. Minimally, historians can say with full confidence that the belief that Jesus performed miracles originates from his own lifetime and is not the product of later myth or legend. Internally, the Gospels exhibit remarkable restraint in their miracle narratives, lacking many of the elements common to legendary tall tales. In his cautious and thorough study of the historicity of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracles, Graham Twelftree concludes that “there is hardly any aspect of the life of the historical Jesus which is so well attested as that he conducted unparalleled wonders.”
- Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ by by Darrell L. Bock (Foreword), Robert M., Jr. Bowman (Author), J. Ed Komoszewski (Author)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Putting-Jesus-His-Place-Christ/dp/0825429838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207493982&sr=1-1

A quote about the fig tree that you might find interesting (taken from the same book):

When he was in Jerusalem, Jesus saw a fruitless fig tree and cursed it, causing it to wither. When the disciples asked him how that had happened, Jesus told them that if they had faith and no doubts, they could even tell a mountain to go jump into the sea and it would obey. The traditional understanding of this passage is that Jesus was speaking hyperbolically about the performance of extraordinary miracles. Whatever type of event Jesus means here, he says it will happen in response to prayer: “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21:18-22 NASB, likewise Mark 11:12-14, 20-24).
A similar qualification applies to Jesus’ promise that those who believe in him will do the works that he did and even greater works (John 14:12). Jesus immediately explains, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it” (John 14:13-14). Jesus is the actual miracle worker; the disciples are merely the “petitioners of numinous power” (PNP), asking Jesus in his name to perform the miracles in order to glorify the Father in the Son.
As a matter of record, the apostles do not seem to have performed any “nature miracles” after Christ’s ascension, such as walking on water. When the ship taking Paul to Rome encountered heavy seas, no miracle prevented its shipwreck, although God providentially protected Paul and his shipmates from death (Acts 27:14-44). The miracles the apostles performed appear to have consisted primarily of healings, exorcisms, and a couple of judgement miracles, inflicting blindness and death. The miracles that the Gospels report Jesus as performing go beyond anything reported of the apostles.

Jesus met far too many people on this Earth for the existence of Jesus to be a myth. 5000 people fed, 12 disciples, 10 lepers, Pilate, John the Baptist and Herod. Jesus met all these people. In regard to the existence of Jesus, did Herod or Pilate ever come out and tell the world that Jesus never existed and that He was a fake and a myth? By the way, there where coins issued by Herod and Pilate. This proves that Herod and Pilate both existed.

Exodus 12:29-30:- And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

Was this accidental or premeditated?

Neither. God was punishing the Egyptians for their sin. Do you think sin does not deserve punishment? Anyhow Liam, what right do you have to judge what God should or should not do?

I see you avoided this completly!

I showed you the example of Peter escaping from prison. That was an example of answered prayer by God.

What about this:

Leviticus 26:21-22:- And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate

Humans cannot sin and then expect God to just ignore what we do. God gives humans freedom and freewill but there are consequences to our actions.

In an age of web and cyberspace, of Mars missions and genetics, however, I still find it easy to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles. – Rob Frost

Liam, you might find this article interesting:

http://christiananswers.net/evangelism/responses/comfort-suffering.html

Ultimate confidence in the goodness of life cannot rest upon confidence in the goodness of man. If that is where it rests, it is an optimism which will suffer ultimate disillusionment. Romanticism will be transmuted into cynicism, as it has always been in the world's history. The faith of a Christian is something quite different from this optimism. It is trust in God, in a good God who created a good world, though the world is not now good; in a good God, powerful and good enough finally to destroy the evil that men do and redeem them of their sins. This kind of faith is not optimism. It does not, in fact, arise until optimism breaks down and men cease to trust in themselves that they are righteous.
... Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), Beyond Tragedy [1938]