If you ever get a chance you should gather the genetic data needed and see if you can explain the transition of Mollusca to Cephalopod and see if the algorithms can determine the most likely candidates appearances. See if Plectronoceras shows up. I wonder if the beak evolved from something to replace the shell.
That would interest me, too, but as long as we don’t know all the rna codes assigned to phenotypic traits by epigenetic splicing of dna, I fear that we cannot possibly find that out.
If God posts to this forum I will certainly take it into consideration.
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- God doesn’t post to this forum.
- Therefore there’s no need for me to take it into consideration.
Denying the antecedent.
- If God were to perform a miracle in front of me right now, then that would prove He exists.
- God is not performing a miracle in front of me right now.
- Therefore, He doesn’t exist.
Tadaah…
What eyewitness testimony from God do you want me to consider, and what evidence do you have that it’s from God?
Genesis is a prophetic book directed backwards into history.
2peter1:21 says: “for no prophecy (inspired word) was ever made by an act of human will, but holy men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (they said that they heard him say into their minds).”
Genesis >is< the eyewitness account of God you should consider.
What evidence do I have that it actually is from God?
Because without God I couldn’t evidence anything at all!
What evidence do you have that it is from God?
Jewish tradition states that Moses wrote Genesis, although most scholars think someone other than Moses wrote Genesis. Suffice it to say, Genesis was written by men.
That’s not evidence.
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Just say, “the devil made me do it.”
What do you want with evidence? You couldn’t account for evidence! Evidence demands for a discoverable truth. If the Genesis account wasn’t reflecting reality, everything came about by evolution and all you are is molecules in motion. Molecules don’t generate or identify truth. You want me to evidence anything? You couldn’t even be sure that your senses reflect the reality outside of your skull accurately to your mind, if Genesis weren’t true!
People like you would never tolerate supernatural explanations. You would never allow an eyewitness account saying that a snake or a donkey talked to humans! And you implicitly claim to be open for supernatural evidence?
I’m amused!
But guess what: if God exists, all these supernatural phenomena are possible! Even special creation and a global flood. 
I use evidence to determine if I will accept a claim. Do you find that strange or uncalled for?
So no evidence?
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He is saying our ability to reason is evidence for God. But of course this argument is not successful. As demonstrated by Draper, Boudry, and a host of others.
Fallacy of composition
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I mean, you can’t either. Some type of foundationalism can handle your objections.
You have it backwards. Measurement and experimentation is germane to understanding process.
Science is worthless, if there is no discoverable truth. But what is truth? It’s that which comports with reality. But the only way we can find out about reality is by our senses. To know, though, if our senses and our mind are perceiving the outer reality accurately, you need to have a meta-knowledge confirming weather your senses, your mind and reality are calibrated onto one another. In principle, if there’s a god, he could either confirm that to you or say that your perception is incorrect, but if there’s no god, you couldn’t know at all. Therefore, the only way to know if your perception aligns with reality, is by revelation from someone looking from above - from outside of reality. Now, could that revelation be given through a book? Sure. Can I know that book includes godly revelation? Only, if it verifies itself. How does it do so? By fulfilling prophecy that it contains.
So, can you make sense of evidence? No, because you have excluded the only way to be back-assured weather your perceptions align with objective reality.
No, my ability to reason isn’t the direct evidence for God. The evidence for God is, that without him, I couldn’t know if my reasoning comports with reality or only with my perception of it. Profound difference!
No. The fallacy of composition isn’t applicable here, because the complexity to which molecules can be arranged doesn’t make them “emit” something immaterial. Ever heard of the “sudden death syndrome”? What makes a suddenly death person compositional different than a living person? Nothing. Mind isn’t the same as brain! Every religious person on the planet will tell you that humans are spiritual beings in physical bodies. So, it’s clearly not an issue of material composition.
I can only be back-assured by personal revelation which I have to believe to be from God. But if they actually are from God, then at least I could be sure that my perception and reality align. You, on the other hand, couldn’t at all.
And what do you need to make sense of experimental data? Or observation? You need to know, if your mind, senses and reality are in line with one another. And that’s what has to be back-assured to you by God. That’s what atheists and even theists can’t have. Atheists can’t have this back-assurance by definition, while theists cannot know which back-assurER they should trust.
The only working way to do science is by standing on the philosophical grounds of the fundamental, Bible-true Christian worldview.
You are changing your argument. And you are also begging the question. You are too
Out there for me. So I’m backing out. All the best.
I was not changing my argument. I reacted to your argument that I’ve committed a fallacy.
This is the example of the fallacy of composition, you refer to:
- Your brain is made of molecules.
- Molecules do not have consciousness.
- Therefore, your brain cannot be the source of consciousness.
As I said: this is not a fallacious conclusion, because we know that the mere complexity of matter doesn’t suffice to cause immaterial entities. in this case we are arguing from what we know - not from what we don’t know, so it’s not logically false to conclude that way.
This statement essentially says that no working atheist has ever made a scientific discovery, which is nonsense even if it sounds good at church. Not what you meant? Then say what you mean - can you or can you not do science apart from Henry’s worldview? You arbitrarily reject geology and astronomy almost entirely, most of biology as evolution is just biology over time, and much of physics. How much of science is even left for you to do after standing on the philosophical grounds of your particular interpretation of the Bible-true Christian worldview? Why not just declare science to be worldly, retreat into a theological bubble, and be done with it?
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This deity could also lie to you and you wouldn’t know it. You are right back in the same boat.
You have already said that we can’t verify anything, so we couldn’t know if prophecy has been fulfilled.
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I never said that unbelievers “couldn’t know anything”. No. The argument is, that if God didn’t exist, you couldn’t >philosophically justify< why you should actually be able to know anything at all. Profound difference.
Of course you can know something. But that’s because you’re living in God’s universe and atheism is false! That’s why! And because God IS existing, there’s universal truth.
And if the Bible is a collection of spirituality inspired texts, and God cannot lie because he’s morally perfect, the genesis account has to be true and evolution therefore false.
So, either God exists, and therefore evolution is false or God exists but is a liar regarding Genesis - which would make him ungodly.
If God exists, theistic evolution would therefore be nothing else but idolatery. That simple.