₦airaland Forum

noetic:
the answers are very simple and ur fans do want us to answer them. So why dont u answer the posers we have raised to u and we will simultaneously answer this ones too. I hate to think u are a dullard.

1). Answer the posers in the first set of answers u got.
2).What is Atheism?
3).https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-251946.0.html
4).https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-250689.128.html

You asked 4 questions here which I was quite happy to answer, but I gave you the option of asking another 16, which you accepted. Now you are being advised to decline the deal which you had accepted. If that is what you want to do, fine.

But how about I don't post my questions, but you post all your questions, including the above four question and see if I am not going to answer them. You have already got 4 question, why not just add another 16 and off we go.

Bastage:
You blame everything on religion Huxley, but religion is not the direct cause of misery.

It is just a tool. Money and power are at the roots. Religion is just a means to gain that money and power and the fundamentalists are the slaves who keep the wheels turning.

Strange!!  Yes, strange indeed!!   Where have I implied that only religion is the cause of misery?   I am hard on religions and all forms of irrationalisms and supernaturalism.  Religion is but one form of irrationalism, as is corruption, exploitation of people, cults of personalities, unbridled quest for power, wealth and status, etc.   If you want my views about some of these, we can discuss them later elsewhere.

And I live my life by what I preach.  By some  good luck and hard work I happen to be relatively successful in my work and life.  I very much favour a simple lifestyle without questing for status, wealth beyond what I need for my family.  Am do not lead a flashy and flaboyant life although I could afford to.  I set greater store on personal mental wealth than material wealth.  I believe that if one is able and capable, one should seek a life in which they are less able to be manipulated by the few  corrupt in higher places. I happen to have reach that point in life where I can say that about myself. I believe that if more people made such unperturbedness and independence a goal in life, they would be less open to exploitation.

Of course, that would not put bread on your table if you are in real dire straits but many of our problems are the result of easily giving in to the exploitative and  corrupt who subsequently deprive our nations of the wealth that could alleviate some of these real problems.

My questions are now ready. Shall I post my questions. Say YES, if you are going to post your too. I don't mind if it takes you longer to get your questions sorted.

noetic:
Going by the testimonies of the brethren on nairaland, it doesnt seem lke ur word carries any weight.

Are you having cold feet? I am at question 17, with only three to go. Shall I post my questions? I shall post if you agree to post? And I shall ADDRESS your questions as I have promised.

noetic:
whats the guarantee u will respond to my questions??

My word is my bond. If I do not I shall send £100.00 to a charity of your choice and will take a leave of absence from NL for a month.

Are you gonna respond to mine?

noetic:
u are to post all ur 20 questions first. u gave me the challenge.

OK, am happy to post mine first. All I need is a promise that you will post yours as well.

davidylan:
noetic, its the classic trick. All of them will be all over huxley's questions, if u get any responses to urs hell would have frozen over.

Why don't you wait and see. By the way, you are also invited to post 20 questions, if you want.

noetic:
yes i agree

OK, thanks for taking the offer and am awaiting your question as you are mind.

noetic:
the answers are very simple and ur fans do want us to answer them. So why dont u answer the posers we have raised to u and we will simultaneously answer this ones too. I hate to think u are a dullard.

1).What is the ontology of HUXLEY? 
2).What is Atheism?
3).https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-251946.0.html
4).https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-250689.128.html

Ok, let's make a deal.

Why don't you start a separate thread and pose 20 of your most pressing questions for me and other critics of religion. I shall do the same, I will start a separate thread in which I shall pose 20 questions for you guys.

Now, you have your opportunity to grill me and other non-believers and we have the same on you. If you sign up to this, respond to this post right now by saying YES I AGREE. Once I see that I shall go away and prepare my questions.

Waiting for your response and of course, your questions.

noetic:
where is huxley?

Am here, boy. I guess you want an answer about my ontology? Here goes:


Ontology essentially deals with the nature of a being or thing and whether it is legitimate to say if such a being or thing exists. To ask about the ontology of a thing is to ask of what sort of material it is constituted and whether such a thing exists.

Given the above definition, Huxley is a person and using commonsense notion of medium-size irreducible real things, persons are constituted of materials (flesh & blood made of atoms of elements) and mind (which is a consequence of a certain arrangement of material). Further, persons (like all entities know to exists) have secondary and relational properties such as height, colour, weight, bravery, kindness, intelligence, etc, etc.

This is known as a commonsense view, in that it does not violate any ordinary notion of what personhood is. This definition would be recognise by almost everyone on the planet. But of course, there is more to what makes a person a person, than I have given above (or than is know to humans).

Hope that helps.

Whi is gonna answer thes questions? There have been here for more that 8 hours and NOT a single attempt yet. C'mon Christian. Where is Davidylan, Pastor AIO, neotic? C'mon guys, you are letting the side down. Soon you will accuse me to running away from my posts

1) Jesus's claim that he will come in his listeners lifetime

2) Why he advised his followers to physically maim themselves

3) Why he advise his followers to NOT defend themselves against aggressors

4) Why the two versions of the 10 commandments are discrepant

5) The there are two narratives of the Noah Flood event massarading as one

6) Why the narrative of the birht of Jesus are conflicting

7) Why the narrative of his trial/conviction and execution and resurrection/ ascension are conflicting

8.) Why the god of the bible is so vengeful and bloodthirty, killing millions of innocent children

9) Why the main thrust of the religious narrative conflict of what we are now finding out about reality from science.

10) Why the religious does not seem to have any over "advantage" over the non-religious although god promised rewards here on earth for his followers?

davidylan:
My private understanding of creation is what it is - personal opinion, you have a duty to read the bible and ask God for insight.

A muslim's understanding of creation equally as valid as yours. A Sangosians understanding of creation is equally as valid as yours. A Sossicornian understanding of creation is equally as true as your.

All they need to do is read the Koran, the Sango holy book and the entrails of two lions, a turtle and a camel for real insight from their gods.

I will just cut to the chase, as they say in Nollyhood;

Pastor AIO:
I hope with this response to the Paul Kurtz video to make an exposé of some of my main beefs with Humanism.  Due to the length of the entire video I will be unable to address everything but the first 10 minutes.  Hopefully this will afford me with a great opportunity to not only express my views on his thoughts but also to cast light on some of my other posts and threads.

Before we get down to the main course let's start with some hors d'oeuvres.  At 02:35 the interviewer says, "you have spent the lion share of your career, Paul, searching for ethical alternatives to religiosity".  And here we find my first beef.  Religion is NOT about ethics but rather ethics is a side product of the spiritual life.  That argument that we need religion to be good people is just dumb.  Why would you want to be a good person anyway?  So when that is countered by demonstrating that actually many people without religion are 'good' people ('good' being by the definition in vogue in that particular context) one might as well be attacking a straw man.

Look the history that humanity has traversed, a history in which religion and various forms of supernaturalisms and spiritualism have defined the way in which humans have lived.  There is no gainsaying that from this history, it would appear that there is no possibility or morality and ethics without religions/spiritualism.  Time was when if you were not with the eclesiastic  you would be branded a witch/wizard, bad person and your character would be maligned by the very religious.

The religious were in charge of all aspect of life, from what type of sex was legitimate, to the food you eat, to when to work, to the type of clothes to wear, to what sort of medical attention one could receive.  If you did not toe the religious line you were branded immoral and unethical. Even though morality and ethic are/were not necessarily bounded together with religion, it paid the religious authorities handsomely to portray it as though they possess the moral and ethical high ground on all aspects of life.

This deference to religion is still prevalent in most societies today.  Whenever they is a great human issue at stake, you see they always wheel out the clerical authorties to pontificate on the matter - not that they should not have a say.  They should as members of the general public.  But why are they also treated as experts on morality and ethics.  Why is the archbishop always the first to be contacted for things like stem-cell research, capital punishments, artificial insemination, euthenasia, etc, etc, etc.   Why do we see relatively fewer professional philosopher on the public media dealing with these issues.   And why do these religious authorities always have to find an approach that they think will please their various gods.

Does this not smack of the religious claiming territory as though they have sole right to the moral and ethical space.  See how for nearly eight years, reseach in stem-cell was hampered because of religio-ethical agendas of President Bush. I think this is what Paul Kurtz is getting at.

In the minds of many people, if you are without religions, you might as well be thrown into "hell".  In fact, I have heard religious people say that if there is no god, they would go out there and kill, steal, and commit all sorts of crime and offense against the person and the state.  They take the view that without religion/god ALL things are possible.

So you are right in saying that you can be good without religion/spiritualism, but the religious leaders would not want that to be heard and known widely because it would undermine their position and authority, which position is already so threatened with the spread of general skepticism about the religious narratives.

Pastor AIO:
The purpose of spirituality is not to give you a moral code or ethics.  Spirituality is based on experience.  To say it was invented to give us ethics is like saying light was invented so that we can play darts.  Of course not.  We can see light because it exists and we have an organ with which to perceive it.  It is a happy consequence of this that we can therefore play darts.  If one now claims to be able to play darts blindfolded and then argues that subsequently there is no need for sight . . . well . . . I don't know what to say about that.  An alternative approach to ethics does not invalidate religion as neither does the ability to play darts blindfolded invalidate sight.
Let's look at what wikipedia has to say about ethics in philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics first discusses Socrates.  It explains that according to socrates Ethics is a natural consequence of self knowledge and it is ignorance that leads to evil actions.  Aristotle too places self realisation as the core of his ethical system.  Religion says that Spirituality is a part of man's self.  Now if that is true then how does one achieve an ethical alternative that does not recognise an essence of humanity.  This all rests on whether or not there is an experiential basis for spirituality.

You keep throwing this word about- Spirituality.  What is it and why do we need it?  How does it benefit man?  Can one be spiritual without a belief in god / deity?   Who can avail themselves of spirituality?

I cannot make any headway into what you are talking about until I understand what you mean by spiritual.

Pastor AIO:
Looks like I've over gorged myself on the hors d'oeuvres a bit. So I'd better move on to my main beef which is the appropriation and then misappropriation of terms and lexicons, especially in this case from the philosophical tradition.  First there is a claim around 03:27 that Humanism (his brand of humanism because I would distinguish it from the humanities that preceded the renaissance in Italy) harks back to Athens and it's philosophic traditions.  But how true is that?  Is there really a lineage harking back and how much do they have in common with GrecoRoman philosophy.

There are many definition of Humanism, but central to each definition is the view that humans are alone (as in without a god to watch over us)  on the planet and that our plight and future is all in our hands. Thus we had better stand and rely on ourselves as brothers and sister who share a common lot.  This view goes back a long time, with philosophers like Epicurus, Lucretius, etc, etc.  The Epicurean school was a central school of greco-roman philosophy before they were maligned by the christians.

Pastor AIO:
Now at 05:33 of the video he says that for humanity to prevail we need to develop 'Reason, critical intelligence and some Wisdom'.  Now I am very aware of how language evolves from generation to generation.  Listen to the youths talk today.  A kid goes to see a band in a club.  Afterwards he says, "I saw the Fratellis last night, man, they were Sick!"  Sick!?, you might first think with alarm.  "What, they were vomiting on stage?".  "No they were sick, it was the best gig I've ever seen in my life."  So sick means good now?  Na wa o.  Before it was Wicked.  Wicked?  I like you shirt it looks wicked?   Gay people used to be happy now they are homosexuals.  I can't even sing my favourite song anymore without causing sniggers.  My favourite song is Lush Life written by Billy Strayhorn.  It goes:
I used to visit all those very gay places
those come what may places
where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life
to get the thrill of life
from jazz and cocktails.

But as this man claims to hark from a tradition of Greek philosophy can I assume that when he talks about Reason and Intelligence he is referring to the same Faculties that Socrates was referring to?  How does Plato define these terms?

Let us look at how Plato used these terms in Timaeus. 

We must in my opinion begin by distinguishing between that which always is and never becomes (ie. the eternal) from that which is always becoming but never is (the temporal).  The one is apprehensible by INTELLIGENCE with the aid of REASONING, being eternally the same, the other is the object of opinion and irrational sensation, coming to be and ceasing to be, but never fully real.  . . . . Thus a description of what is changeless, fixed and clearly intelligible will be changeless and fixed - will be, that is, as irrefutable and incontrovertible as a description in words can be; but analogously a description of a likeness of the changeless, being a description of a mere likeness will be merely likely; for being has to becoming the same relation as truth to belief.  Don't therefore be surprised, Socrates, if on many matters concerning the gods and the world of change we are unable in every respect and on every occasion to render consistent and accurate account.  You must be satisfied if your account is as likely as any, remembering that both I and you who are sitting in judgement on it are merely human, and should not look for anything more than a likely story in such matters.

We find that Plato says that Reason and Intelligence are used to apprehend eternal things while the world of change is apprehended by 'irrational sensation'.  Sensation in his understanding is IrRational.  So on one hand you have[b] Reason/Intelligence/Rational[/b] and on the other hand you have Sensation/irrational/opinion.  Yet I doubt the Paul Kurtz is referring to our need to apprehend the eternal when he says that we need to develop 'Reason, critical intelligence and some wisdom'.   Are these attributes not of a different order?  Do I not have a point when I say it takes a christian to be logical?  For have these terms not been Appropriated (along with the word philosophy) or rather misappropriated.

Lest this post gets too long I will move on to a quick pudding.  At 06:13 he says that altruism is a quality of humans and it has a biological basis.  I agree with him.  Yet I believe it is just one of many qualities.  You cannot pin all of your hopes for the future on the fact that some people are altruistic sometimes.  Does that make me a Cassandra?  While I agree with him that those doomsayers are wrong, afterall what is life but ups and downs.  There will always be downs which we will bounce back up from, but this Cassandra is saying something different.  It is Human nature that this Cassandra is prophesying against.  That some people may be nice once in a blue moon is not enough to pin all your hopes for humanity on.  To keep this brief I am going to have to continue on another post later.

Was hard to make any sense to what you were saying here.  To help me out, can you give your understanding of the following words/concept and how they relate to what you just said and to what Paul Kurtz is saying.  Please, don't beat about too much as you have done above.

1) REASON
2) INTELLIGENT
3) WISDOM
4) RATIONALISM/IRRATIONALISM
5) ILLOGICAL

Pastor AIO:
I've nearly passed out from holding my breath for your reply.  Anyway, Like I promised I have a part 2 which brings us up to the first 10 minutes of his interview.  I hope that I'll have demonstrated why I refuse to acknowledge that he's an intellectual but rather a conjecturer.  My dismissal of him was not without reason, or just to be rude and I do not want to discourage you from posting links or suggest that I don't appreciate your links because I do appreciate them, probably more than what anybody else on this forum has to offer. 


Part II)
At 7:20 he makes some humungous sweeping comments that convinces that not only does he know little about philosophy but he also knows even less about religion. What religion tells you to look outward to God for solving your problems?  Are we not told rather to look within and that God has written his statutes in our hearts and that his will is the very substance of our natures.  I think that he is picking and choosing, like they all do, which ostensible aspects of religion he is going to pit himself against.  It is a lot easier to challenge those demagogues and religiously derived ideologies that have little in fact to do with religion. All religion and philosophy that I'm aware of teach that there is an essential nature or aspect to man.  And that man has deviated from this essential nature.

Have you lost you mind?  What religion does not said there are advantages to belonging to that religion?  Does it not say it will not only provide stairway to their deity and also make your life better here and now? 

Did Jesus not say these words?

1)   I will be with you always even till the end of times?

2)  Did Jesus not say, whatever you ask of me I shall provide you?

3)  Did god not promise riches on earth and in heaven for his followers?

4)  Have you ever read Psalm 91, where god promises protection from pestilence for his followers?  Here is it,  for your information:



Psalm 91:

1 ¶ He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

6. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

8. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9. ¶ Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

10. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

11. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

14. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

15. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

16. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation






Have you never seen these passages from your bible were god promises really benefits to his followers:

Mark 16:

16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
19So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

Luke 10:

17And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.
18And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
19Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
20Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

1 Peter 5:
7  Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.




In fact, it was this carricaturing of your own religion, blatantly refusing to acknowledge what YOUR religions says that caused me to not respond.  What is the point of responding when you are being blatantly dishonest.  Was this willful dishonesty or was it out of ignorance? The latter is excusable, but the former is NOT.   



Almost daily, followers of the various gods, prostrate themselves in prayers before him to ask for all manner of favours - material and immaterial.   Now, I know what you are going to say - you are going to say that this is correpted religion and that these people have been misled to expect god to solve their problems, and that all god wants is a relationship with us.  But it is stated clearly in god's own words that he is there for us?

Does god like to sit in this heavenly thrown happily smiling over the fate of a starving, sickly babe at her mothers breast?  If you did not know, a relationship is by itself an entity that if good is beneficial to the parties in the relationship, for it solves the problem of loneliness.  Are you saying that god and religions does not want to solve the problem of loneliness for us?

Man, straighten up and be honest and begin to take responsibility for your belief rather than re-interprete, carricature, to the point of uselessness.



I shall deal with the rest later when you have address this and you begin to straighten up and present your religion as it is ordinarily understood, rather than the carricature you are wont to present.

Anyone to answer this one again?

hello guys,

I shall respond fully, when I get some time later today, cus am just finishing off my lunch break now at work.  In the meantime, why don't you go deal with my threads about:

1)  Jesus's claim that he will come in his listeners lifetime

2) Why he advised his followers to physically maim themselves

3)  Why he advise his followers to NOT defend themselves against aggressors

4)  Why the two versions of the 10 commandments are discrepant

5)  The there are two narratives of the Noah Flood event massarading as one

6)  Why the narrative of the birht of Jesus are conflicting

7)  Why the narrative of his trial/conviction and execution and resurrection/ ascension are conflicting

8.)  Why the god of the bible is so vengeful and bloodthirty, killing millions of innocent children

9)  Why the main thrust of the religious narrative conflict of what we are now finding out about reality from science.

10) Why the religious does not seem to have any over "advantage" over the non-religious although god promised rewards here on earth for his followers?


I have raised plenty of threads which have remained largely unaddress by you guys.  We have plenty of time to go back to these and discuss them if you want.


See you soon and sharpen your minds.

None of your have answered the questions I raised. Which of this insane acts of Jesus would be tolerated and go unpunished by the law today?

1) Curses an innocent fig tree that did not belong to him, thus killing it.

This is simply silly, vengeful impetuousness from a god. And why did he curse the tree? Because it was out of fruits and it was not the season for fig fruits. Why did Jesus NOT know this?


2) Cast some demons out and sent them into a herd of pigs that did not belong to him. The pigs were thus driven insane and ran and threw themselves off a cliff. I bet, you the owner of the pigs would have got really mad with Jesus.

If he had to cast the demons out, could he not have done so without causing gratuition cruelty to the pigs, that he created. For goodness sake, and these pigs did not belong to him and would have belonged to some locals who relied on them for their lifelihood. So not only did he cause suffering to the pigs, he would have caused unnecessary hardship to the owners of these innocent pigs.


3) Stole (or took without permission) someone else's donkey.

Is this behaviour respectful of people's properties and the law on properties?


4) Allowed his disciples to walk through someone else's corn field and harvesting corn for themselves without the owner's permission. Worse still, this happened on the Sabbath.

Another instance of lack of respect for other people's properties.

5) Caused a commotion at the temple by overturning the tables of some businessmen.

Another instance of unrestrained madness on Jesus's part. Not only has this tale not got one once of verrisimilitude, it is just sheer madness. If Jesus was all about a new dispensation, a new covenant, why would he have cared about the old temple, which he called "My father's house"? In what sense did it represent his father's house and what relation did he have with the temple.

If he was soon gonna do away with temple worshiping of god why would he care about what took place in there?


[size=18pt]People who venerate this jerk have simply lost their minds.[/size]

Stop wasting your time, jesus and already come and gone and will NEVER come again.

The stupid and ignoramus Jesus does not know what causes sin. He thinks it is parts of the body. Did he know that all sins are the results of thoughts and that thoughts originate in the brain? Why did he not advise his followers to remove their heads instead of their limbs, eyes, etc. This is capital stupidity. For a god it is inexcusable.

Read above what religion does to people's minds

papa giddy:
infact, dis guy is pure anti christ!!!

More like anti superstition, anti-delusion, anti irrationalism, anti gullibility, anti-falsehood and anti-the-stinking-shit-that-is-the-bible.

OLAADEGBU, an evangelical Christian, believes that the world, and all therein (trees, animals, dinosaurs, sharks, mountains, humans, and galaxies, etc, etc) was created by god about 6000 years ago in a single act of creation as narrated in Genesis 1 & 2.

Davidylan, on the other hand, believes the earth is several million years old and that god created the world in several spurts of creative escapades. Under this view, the dinosaurs, neanderthals, woolly mammoths, trilobites, whales, all came about in different creative episodes, and that modern humans are the results of his recent creative powers.

Now, both of these accounts cannot be right - either one is right and the other is wrong or they are both wrong. Who is right and who is wrong?

OLAADEGBU:
@wirinet, mazaje, MrCrackles, ow11  

It does not surprise me at all that these atheists and evolutionists cannot understand the obvious, and this is because Satan your master has done damage by blinding your eyes, darkening your hearts and stopping your ears so that you cannot see, perceive or understand the light of the gospel.  I will be expecting too much from you to think that you will understand how Mathematics can crunch the numbers and prove evolution to be a fallacy.

I am neither a mathematician nor a scientist and I am not claiming that the post is my own work, all I am doing is to show what the real scientists are coming up with that supports the biblical account of creation.  Sanctified scientists and mathematicians are able to do real science as opposed to the false science you atheists call evolution.  And as you can see that these scientists come up with scientific facts that verifies the biblical knowledge as recorded in the book of Genesis.  And above all the Almighty Scientist, who gave you the intelligence that you now worship instead of Him.  He has left us us His signature both in His Word and in creation for those who will receive and accept His Son.

As long as you guys (atheists, evolutionists, theist evolutionist and all who see through the evolutionists worldview) refuse to see through the biblical creation worldview but insist to see through the evolutionist spectacles, you will remain in your blindness and continue to grope in darkness because you have rejected the truth of the word of God.  But if and when you decide to remove those evolution goggles from your faces and then watch and understand how ludicrous it will be for at least one man and one woman 500,000 years ago (according to the The Theory of Evolution) that reproduces and average of 2.5 children will result in 2.45 x 10⁹⁹⁰ today, it does not take a rocket scientist to realise that that the universe will struggle to contain that amount of people.  But the Biblical account in the holy Scriptures has recorded for us that 8 survivors of the global flood reproducing and average of 2.5 children at the growth rate of 1.7% will give you 6.5 billion people today which fits in with the current population figure today.  For you to say you can't see it only goes on to prove the inspired word of God that says "a fool says in his heart, there is no God" Ps.53:1 It is only fools and this time around crazy people that will continue to propagate the theory of evolution as a fact instead of a fallacy.

Can you cite your so-called "scientists" in peer-reviewed publications?    We ALL await your citation of your scientists in the scientific press,  journals, etc.   In fact,  if your find such citation, I will contribute £100.00 sterling to a charity of your choice.

davidylan:
Oluwa o! another thread? Oh boy what happened to this - Creationism Or Evolution - Post Your Peer-review Articles Here And Lets Discuss 

Have we finished "discussing"? why spamming the forum?

You have you opportunity here but I know you will cry foul and escape.  Just provide answers here.   

In fact, let's do a deal.  If any of the creationists (ie Davidylan et al) provide answers to these questions I shall take a leave of absence from Nairaland for a month, starting 28th March, ending 28th April.  If in addition they provide citations from peer-reviewed publications, I shall extend my absence for 6 (yes, six ) months and contribute £100.00 (yes, one hundred pounds) to the charity of their choice.

Do evangelical Christians read their bibles? Well, if they did they would know about some of the rather difficult and controversial passage that are littered therein. If they come across such difficult passage, how do they handle it? The answer is, the don't. They do NOT have a mind to handle anything that may have as little as a tangential contact with their belief. They have been so thoroughly brainwashed by the Christian society they cannot deal with any matters that may be questioning their beliefs.

Take for instance, my thread questioning the integrity of Jesus . Have any Christians been able to stand for the crimes and sins committed by Jesus as narrated in the bible? No. They most likely have never read these passages.

A poster on that thread accused my of telling lies about Jesus. I have asked be to demonstrate that I have lied, and obvious he cannot. These are the questions I asked:

Interesting. Can you show that I am lying? I think you are the one lying and denying the obvious. I got ALL my indictments against Jesus from the rotten bible. Are you saying that these things are not in the bible?

1) Did Jesus not send demons into someones pigs, forcing them to throw themselves off a cliff. Is this loving behaviour or cruel behaviour?

2) Did Jesus not kill someone's fig tree at a time of the year when figs are fruitless anyway? Is that behaviour respectful of other people's properties?

3) Did Jesus and his followers not walk through someone's field, stealing corn from the field?

4) Did he not tell his followers to abandon their families?

5) Did he not advise parents to stone to death their recalcitrant children?

6) Did he not say "Bring my enemies and slay them at my feet"? Is that humane behaviour?

I still await his response with bated breath.


Now, you might think that as a non-believer, I am being particularly un charitable to the Christian and the Christian mindset. OK, let me tell you what a leading evangelical Christian scholar, Mark A. Noll, has to say about his very own community;

"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."


Also see:

http://www.ttf.org/index/journal/detail/scandal-evangelical-mind-fourteen/


Now, you decide.

KAG:
"Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot, qui l'admire" - Boileau

Nice one

[size=18pt]Basic Created Kinds and the Fossil Record of Perissodactyls[/size]


Creation Evolution Journal
Title:
Basic Created Kinds and the Fossil Record of Perissodactyls
Author(s):
James S. Monroe
with illustrations by Daniel G. Warren
Volume:
5
Number:
2
Year:
1985
Quarter:
Summer
Page(s):
4–30
This version might differ slightly from the print publication.

"Original kinds have been stable" is a tenet of "scientific" creationism, and scientific evidence can be given to support this tenet. At least, this is the claim of creation "scientists." Evidence usually cited includes probability, thermodynamics, the "impossibility" of beneficial mutations, and the fossil record, all of which are intended to show that evolution from "kind" to "kind" could not have occurred. The intent of this article is to show that the concept of a "basic created kind" is without meaning, especially when applied to fossil animals, and to demonstrate that the fossil record shows all perissodactyls are interrelated, therefore must all be of the same "kind" based on the only logical criterion for assigning fossils to "kinds."

Basic Created Kinds

Creationists conceive of a "basic created kind" as an organism which when created possessed considerable genetic potential for variation. This is commonly cited as "creative forethought" to allow these "kinds" to adapt, within limits, to changing environments (Morris, 1974; Hiebert, 1979). These "basic created kinds" have varied within limits thus accounting for the diversity of modern life forms. Common examples are a basic dog "kind" that gave rise to all varieties of dogs, from jackals to coyotes, a basic finch "kind" to account for Darwin's finches, and a basic horse "kind" that varied to give rise to all modern horses and many, or perhaps all, fossil horses. So variation, or microevolution, is allowed, but creationists emphatically deny that one "kind" could give rise to another "kind" (macroevolution).

- page 5 -
The absolute number of "basic created kinds" would probably be irrelevant to creationists were it not for two things. One is the demonstrated ability to induce variation by artificial selection and controlled experiments. The second, and probably most important, is that the size of Noah's Ark is known, at least approximately, and so the number of kinds must be reduced to something manageable. To accomplish this, aquatic "kinds" are usually not included as passengers on the ark. But this still leaves a space problem, and far too many "kinds" for Noah and his family to care for. Accordingly, "kinds" are further reduced to a dog "kind," a cat "kind," and so on.

The estimates of "basic created kinds" vary enormously. Jones (1973, p. 104) equates "kinds" roughly with the family and concludes (p. 107) that, "The number of animals under Noah's care probably did not exceed 2,000. . . ." These 1000 "kinds" (actually Jones p. 105 argues for 700 kinds) include mostly reptiles, birds and mammals. At the other extreme is Hiebert's (1979, p. 16) conclusion that ". . . species correspond roughly to original created kinds in Genesis chapter one." He does amend this statement by saying biological species ". . . do not always correspond to original kinds."

It is difficult to see how creationists could take either author's concept of a "kind" very seriously, but at least one (Moore, 1983) sees some value in Jones' ideas. Using Jones' concept, it would seem that goats, sheep, musk ox, bison, wildebeests and gazelles all were derived from an ancestral bovid "kind." And of course the okapi and giraffe also must have been derived from a single "kind."

Hiebert simply overloads the ark, even if aquatic kinds are omitted. In addition, Hiebert's formalization of what a "kind" is must surely be too restrictive for most creationists. For example, he insists (p. 114) that new species cannot arise because the chromosome number of each is "rigidly fixed." On p. 113 he argues that more complex animals should show an increasing number of chromosomes if evolution is true, and since there is no such correlation, each organism possessing a different number of chromosomes represents a separately created "kind." The problem is that the basic horse kind of most creationists now has no meaning since the chromosomes vary from 32 in Hartman's zebra, to 46 in Grevy's zebra, to 56 in the onager, to 66 in Przewalski's horse (Gould, 1983, p. 362). Perhaps Hiebert thinks each is a "basic created kind" (he seems to contradict this on p. 60), but it is doubtful that other creationists would agree.

Between Jones' 700 "kinds" and Hiebert's unspecified but undoubtedly large number of "kinds" are somewhat more moderate estimates. Whitcomb and Morris (1961) and LaHaye and Morris (1976) argue for 35,000 and 50,000 animals on the ark respectively. The former estimate seems to be taken from Mayr's list of 17,600 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, although Whitcomb and Morris (p. 69) say: ". . . but undoubtedly the number of original 'kinds' was less than this." Continue here

Truth11:
None of you guys are answering the questions.
After so many posts if you still cannot hear then the problem is within and not outside.

The way you are writing Huxley, I feel you are not behaving like a normal person and spewing out so much hatred against Jesus only shows the amount of hatred is in your heart. Any person reading these posts can tell what you are going through - you are hurting yourself badly with every statement, please dont do it.

You are hurting yourself, nobody else, and much less God. But after all this and even if you were to go on Jesus still loves you, and so much love for you that he died for all the dirt and sin that you now have in you. If you give it to him, he can clean you up. I had a similar life like yours, or ever worse, I hated Christ once but he touched me with his love and transformed me. I hated the Bible but in 1993 he changed me with his love and cleansed me with his blood. I had more questions than you had, today I have peace, joy, love, hope, salvation, eternal life, and much much more here and hereafter.

You want answers, then do this and you will get all the answers.
All those 8 statements you wrote and many others before you wrote are LIES, and devil is the father of lies who has so filled you with these thoughts. If only you decide to stop this, get down on your knees now and repent of all the vulgar and wicked things you have spoken, then invite Jesus Christ into your life, you will be saved, filled with unspeakable joy and will be a complete holy person just now.

blessings Huxley,

Interesting.   Can you show that I am lying?   I think you are the one lying and denying the obvious.   I got ALL my indictments against Jesus from the rotten bible.  Are you saying that these things are not in the bible?

1)  Did Jesus not send demons into someones pigs, forcing them to throw themselves off a cliff.  Is this loving behaviour or cruel behaviour?

2)  Did Jesus not kill someone's fig tree at a time of the year when figs are fruitless anyway?  Is that behaviour respectful of other people's properties?

3)  Did Jesus and his followers not walk through someone's field, stealing corn from the field?

4) Did he not tell his followers to abandon their families?

5) Did he not advise parents to stone to death their recalcitrant children?

6) Did he not say "Bring my enemies and slay them at my feet"?  Is that humane behaviour?


Do you want me to go on?   You Christians have been so thoroughly brainwashed you cannot think and don't even read your own stinking bible.   Just think about it - Would you behave like Jesus or advise anyone to behave like him today?

[size=18pt]New Proteins Without God's Help[/size]

*
* Creation/Evolution Journal
* Printer-friendly version

Creation Evolution Journal
Title:
New Proteins Without God's Help
Author(s):
William M. Thwaites
Volume:
5
Number:
2
Year:
1985
Quarter:
Summer
Page(s):
1–3


This version might differ slightly from the print publication.

Creationists seem to be proud of their calculations that supposedly show how thermodynamics and probability prevent the chance formation of biologically useful macromolecules such as enzymes. Their "evidence" usually consists of quotations from such authors as Hubert P. Yockey, who agrees that catalytically active proteins cannot occur by chance. Yockey (1977a and b), looking at fully evolved proteins, says that their information content is too high for their chance formation.

Creationists do their own calculations to show that the chance formation of biologically useful proteins is impossible. These calculations almost always involve the erroneous assumption that each of the many amino acid positions in a protein must be filled by the one particular amino acid suitable for that position. Since there are twenty different amino acids available for each position, the chance of randomly getting a string of 200 amino acids all in the right order is (1/20)200. If you plug this expression into a calculator, it will tell you that it equals essentially zero. Thus, the creationists say, you can't get such a protein by a chance ordering of amino acids. As Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) put it (1976), "The time required for a single catalytically active protein molecule to arise by pure chance would be billions of times the assumed age of the earth."

But proteins, even modern highly evolved specialized proteins, are not built with that degree of specificity. What's more, many proteins show in their structure that they were built of smaller subunit sequences of amino acids (Doolittle, 1981) or they have a simple metalo-organic core that could have functioned alone as a primitive precursor of today's complex enzyme. So the creationist calculations give an answer of zero probability because the creationists make at least two major errors in their assumptions: they assume a degree of specificity that has not been shown to exist in real proteins, and they insist that newly formed proteins must be as efficient as their older and highly evolved counterparts.

— page 2 —

We've been trying to explain all this to the protein "experts" at ICR for the last seven years. We have told them that new proteins could indeed form from the random ordering of amino acids. We have warned them that their calculations were based on faulty assumptions and soon someone would document the natural formation of a new protein from the random association of amino acids.

Now it has happened! Not one, but two, new proteins have been discovered. In all probability new proteins are forming by this process all the time, but this seems to be the first documentation of this phenomenon. The newly discovered proteins are enzymes that break down some of the byproducts produced during nylon manufacture. Since nylon first came into commercial production in 1940, we know that the new enzymes have formed since that time.

When the enzymes were first discovered about 1975 (Kinoshita, et al, 1981), it was at first thought the new enzymes arose through the modification of preexisting enzymes that had similar functions. To test this notion, the discoverers looked to see if the other enzymes in the same organism would react to antibodies made against the new enzymes. But by this criterion the new enzymes were unique. Antibodies against them found nothing similar with which to react among the array of other enzymes in the organism.

Again it was reasoned that if the new enzymes were just old enzymes with minor changes to allow digestion of nylon byproducts, they should retain at least a slight amount of activity with their original substrates. But the new enzymes had no activity on biologically derived molecules having similar chemical structures. So, by this attribute as well, the new enzymes were seen to be unique.

It seemed that if the new enzymes were indeed derived from randomly ordered amino acids, they would be very inefficient compared to the usual highly evolved enzyme, since the new enzymes would not have had billions of years of natural selection to reach a pinnacle of biological perfection. It has been shown that one of the new enzymes (the linear oligomer hydrolase) has about 2% of the efficiency demonstrated by three other enzymes that perform similar reactions with biologically derived substrates (Kinoshita, et al). Thus, by this criterion, as well as the others, the enzyme appears to be newly formed.

— page 3 —

More recently, another analysis (Ohno, 1984) added further evidence that at least one of the proteins was formed from an essentially random sequence of amino acids. This evidence is a little bit more difficult to understand since its comprehension involves some understanding of how the genetic code works. I'll just have to refer readers who do not have this background to an explanation such as Suzuki, et. al, 1976. It appears that the DNA that formed the gene was somewhat unusual since it could be "read" without finding a "stop" word in any of the three "reading frames." It can be shown that such DNA sequences could easily occur through the well-known process of duplication. The DNA sequence suggests that a simple "frame-shift" mutation could have brought about the chance formation of at least this one enzyme. "Frame-shift" mutations are known for forming totally new and essentially random arrays of amino acids since the code is "read" in a new reading frame. Usually the proteins that are formed by frame-shift mutations are totally useless sequences of amino acids that have no structural, antigenic, or enzymatic relationship to the original protein. This time, however, the new protein was useful. Being useful, it was retained by natural selection and was finally discovered by biochemists who noticed a bacterium that could live on industrial waste.

All of this demonstrates that Yockey (1977a and b), Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (1981), the creationists (Gish, 1976), and others who should know better are dead wrong about the near-zero probability of new enzyme formation. Biologically useful macromolecules are not so information-rich that they could not form spontaneously without God's help. Nor is help from extraterrestrial cultures required for their formation either. With this information in hand, we can wonder how creationists can so dogmatically insist that life could not have started by natural processes right here on earth.
References

Doolittle, R. 1981. "Similar Amino Acid Sequences: Chance or Common Ancestry?" Science 214:149-159.

Gish, D. 1976. "The Origin of Life: Theories on the Origin of Biological Order." ICR Impact #37.

Hoyle, F., and N. C. Wickramasinghe. 1981. Evolution from Space. J. M. Dent, London.

Kinoshita, S., T. Terada, T. Taniguchi, Y. Takene, S. Masuda, N. Matsunaga, H. Okada. 1981. "Purification and Characterization of 6-Aminohexanoic-Acid-Oligomer Hydrolase of Flavobacterium sp. K172." European Journal of Biochemistry 116:547-551.

Ohno, S. 1984. "Birth of a Unique Enzyme from an Alternative Reading Frame of the Preexisted, Internally Repetitious Coding Sequence." Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences 81:2421-2425.

Suzuki, D. T., A. J. F. Griffiths, R. C. Lewontin. 1976. An Introduction to Genetic Analysis. W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco.

Yockey, H. P. 1977a. "A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory." Journal of Theoretical Biology 67:377-398.

Yockey, H. P. 1977b. "On the Information Content of Cytochrome c." Journal of Theoretical Biology 67:345-376.
About the Author(s):
Dr. Thwaites is a professor of biology at San Diego State University where he conducts a two-model creation-evolution course. He has debated creationists on various occasions.
© Copyright 1985 by William M. Thwaites

None of you guys are answering the questions.   You have been blinded by the stench and darkness of the cesspit that is the bible and religion as you have buried your heads in that shit for far too long.   Deal with the issues:

1)   Why is Jesus so wicked and vengeful?

2)   Why does he plan on murdering tiny little babies from day-old, month-old, year-old, etc and consigning them to HELL for eternity?  Is that LOVE?

3)   Why does he want to smash the heads of little babies against a rock?

4)    Why does he come with a sword instead of love ?

5)   Why does he damage other people's properties ?

6)   Why does he give poor life-planning advice?

7)   Why is he so blood-thirsty ?

8,)   Why does he advise parents to stone to dead their children?




These are the thing you have got to deal with rather than stick you stinky brain-washed head in the bible cesspit and leave your stinky arse up in the air pollute the world with the stinky doctrine you are ingesting from the shit in the bible.

Yes, we are all Africans NOT from the garden of bloody Eden.

davidylan:
I provided my own scientific publication as the old fool (you know those who say there is no God) called Huxley asked me to do . . . why has he REFUSED to comment on it?

Speaking of mtDNA . . . did we really evolve from neanderthals? Science tells us the answer - [url=http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020057&ct=1]No Evidence of Neandertal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern Humans[/url]

The retrieval of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from four Neandertal fossils from Germany, Russia, and Croatia has demonstrated that these individuals carried closely related mtDNAs that are not found among current humans.

Sorry, I saw this but missed addressing it.   Nowhere I have I seen anyone assert that Homo Sapiens evolved from Neanderthal. In fact I posted a thread to this effect about 7 months ago.  Modern humans and Neanderthals are thought to be cousins on the evolutionary tree, but not on a  direct lineage line.   DNA studies have confirm that.

At some point it was thought that the two groups might have interbred, but that too has been discounted with genetic studies results.

1)  How old is the earth?

2)  Define The Theory of Evolution as accepted by the vast majority of the biological scientitific community

3)  Why are mammalian fossils never found in pre-cambrian and cambrian rocks?

4)  What conclusion can one draw from that fact that one shares more genetic material with one's siblings, then cousins, than with non-related friends or other people?

5)  Is it conceivable that humans could develop feathers as a malfunctioning gene just as some humans have developed tails and tailbones?

6)  Why are some whales born with fully developed hind legs?

In fact, let's do a deal.  If any of the creationists (ie Davidylan et al) provide answers to these questions I shall take a leave of absence from Nairaland for a month, starting 28th March, ending 28th April.  If in addition they provide citations from peer-reviewed publications, I shall extend my absence for 6 (yes, six ) months and contribute £100.00 (yes, one hundred pounds) to the charity of their choice.


The price money is only available to NLders who have a record here of supporting creationism.  The first 10 entrants will receive the price if their answers meet the requirements.  Yes, so the price fund is up to a max of £1000.00 Sterling.