₦airaland Forum

thehomer:
Also, you're using a bad analogy because we know that humans write computer programs. This is not enough reason to assume that therefore humans must have been "created" by some other humanoid character.

Please study what I wrote well.
The analogy was to prove that if 2 objects are similar it does not necessarily mean that one of the objects evolved into the other.

thehomer:
That's a big if. So are humans your God's highest achievement?

Is it the ability to think that decides the ranking on the scale?

OK, do you think bacteria are of a higher order than You using any kind of classification?

thehomer:
How would you go about making this classification? What are the other beings in the universe?

Please demonstrate this classification.

Ok.

Simplified classification according to rank.

1. God
2. Human beings
3. Apes
4. Reptiles
5. Bacteria

thehomer:
You're exchanging one word for another without explaining what you mean by its usage here so I still don't understand what you mean.

By order or rank I mean the relative position of an object in a classification or

The degree of importance or excellence of somebody or something in relation to other members of a group
Microsoft® Encarta® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Is this clear?

thehomer:
At what point did you establish this?

I said I have not established it and you are asking me where I established it. Have mercy. lol

thehomer:
Why should one assume there was a creator? If you assume there was one, then who created this creator?

If we do not assume a creator then how do we explain how the matter and energy that were in the Universe came to be?

As was earlier pointed out by someone, historical science relies on assumptions just as we rely on the assumption of a Creator.
You've been saying that matter and Energy were always there.
I am saying that the Creator was always there.
both of us are assuming that something was always there, we only differ in what we believe was always there.

The only way then to choose among the above propositions or assumptions is to trace their logical conclusions and see which one fits reality as we know it.

I hope this is clear now.

toba:
@logic. let me say well done so far. however i still have some questions for u as regards one of the methods used by God to punish sinners.

why should one pay for sins he/she didnt commit?

I do not believe people pay for sins they did not commit.
What happens is that if someone is in the environment where a sin was committed then the person suffers the consequences of that sin because sin corrupts the environment.
The bible says that the entire creation is bound in corruption (caused by man's sin) waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.
The way a good man's actions affect the environment and people in that environment enjoy the benefits is the same way sin affects the environment and everyone in that environment suffers the consequences of that sin.

If people really understood the effects of sin they would realise why the wages of sin is DEATH.

A perfect law should not care if people are perfect or not. It stands irrespective of anything. It bends for no one. A perfect being like God shouldn't be able to lower his standards. If it can, then its inconsistent.

God is not only Perfect. God Loves us.

If God didn't love us He'd exterminate us in a whim because we deserve to be exterminated if you consider how evil mankind has become.

God loves us so even though He is perfect He created ways for the jews to atone for their imperfect actions temporarily before Jesus came to atone for all of mankind once and for all.

mazaje:
What is this? . . . .Here is a simple definition of morality from Wikipedia " Morality is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong)"

Pls tell me how human morality (or moral codes) is not always evolving?. . . . .

Morality is a SENSE of behavioural conduct not the current zietgeist or an enshrined code of justice used in the court of law.

I think we are talking about different things.
What I am refering to when I say morality is an intrinsic human quality that enables us to differentiate right from wrong or to even know that there is right and there is wrong.

mazaje:
And what does that tell you?. . . Doesn't this tell you that morality is not set in stone but keeps evolving?. . . . .People set and enforce their own moral values all the time, and its always changing. . . .Moral values and set by humans not by imaginary Gods. . . .

NO! morality is not evolving.

It is Human Justice codes that are evolving.

You accept we now live in a "sane" world. Would it be too much for a God who is supposed to be a champion of morality to lead the charge in sanitizing the world rather then quenching "insanity" with "more insanity"?

Yes God is leading the charge in sanitizing the world. He sent Jesus to die in our place so that we may be able to live right.

What most people do not realise is that making people live right is not simply a case of establishing the right laws.

Humans have to be (born-again) to be able to live perfectly.
I am currently explaining in the process of explaining why Christianity is the right way on another thread (which will include a proof of the above statement) and so I won't want to repeat myself.
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-552049.99999.html

BaboonYansh:
This is untrue and you know it.
Dialouge wasnt invented today , even in ancient times they had dialouge even by sending emissaries which is akin to foreign ministers today.

Yes dialogue was not invented today.
What I think you may have overlooked is that there can only be dialogue if both parties recognize each other.

When you have a situation where one of the parties views the other as (just a group of slaves) then where do you start from?
When the situation is such that only one person can own a set of resources and there is no higher arbitrating power like what we have in the World court today, on what basis do you have dialogue?

Dialogue in ancient times was very different from what we refer to as dialogue these days.

All I am trying to say is that the justice code the jews followed during the time of moses was the most appropriate for their peculiar situation even though it may not have been perfect. The reason it would not be perfect in every sense is that because of the fallen state of mankind they would not be able to keep the laws.

A perfect law is only practical for "perfect" people and a in a perfect world!

Pastor AIO:
I knew within reading the first couple of post from the man that sooner or later his name would be called into question. I wonder what prompts people like this to use names like Logic, or Noetic . . . .

I always want to be logical in my arguments but I'm not perfect. If you notice any illogicality please point it out to me.

Another thing to note is that if God had given them a "perfect" justice code to live by, it would have been incompatible with their present living conditions.

Jesus (refering to one of the laws of moses) said that that part of their code was given to them because of the hardness of their hearts. In other words, they just couldn't meet up to God's real expectations.

If God were to call everyone to question using a perfect code no one living today would probably escape judgement.

One other thing which most people do not realise when reading the bible is that the laws of moses were not perfect, they were given as a stop gap before the coming of Jesus.

Note that Jesus had to die for humans to regain the ability to live according to God's will.

The funny thing is that the same way we can condemn practices done thousands of years ago is the same way that people who lived thousands of years would condemn us for many of the things that our modern justice codes permit.

One thing I have been reiterating is this.

Justice codes morph to accommodate the peculiar circumstances that are prevalent.

You cannot fully comprehend the circumstances faced by humanity thousands of years ago therefore you cannot use a justice code developed for modern life to judge an action carried out thousands of years ago.

Note that we are talking about THOUSANDS of years ago.

In a previous post, I listed some of the differences.

It should be noted that before 9/11 many of the laws that permit law enforcement agents to "harass" citizens of a country would have been unthinkable and considered unjust.

One other thing to note is that we had various cultures in the world at that time.
Do you have any documented justice code in any culture that existed at that time that was more humane (in your eyes) than the ones the jews were following.

If there are none then except all humans were monsters then you must be missing something.

It is usually considered hypocritical to judge a situation you have no experience about and about which you have very little information.

"Any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent, or with her consent, if the consent is obtained by force or by means of threats or intimidation of any kind, or by fear of harm, or by means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act, or in the case of a married woman, by personating her husband, is guilty of an offence which is called despoil."

The important word here is UNLAWFUL.
It was not unlawful for the men to marry women from the cities they conquered.

If it was not Unlawful then it is not rap.e

I believe the discussion is centered on whether the Justice code of the Jews was flawed or not.

Indeed. You kill my father, kill my mother, kill my sisters, kill my friends and my whole city then force me to marry you. This happened to THOUSANDS of young girls. And you tell me ALL of them took the marriage as accepted fact and acquiesce to s.ex within the marriage. Lol. This is plain DISHONESTY and you know it!

The girls in the nations conquered would not have liked the entire situation. No body likes it when another country invades their country regardless of who was at fault.

Not liking a situation is what is responsible for them acquiescing to marriage rather than doing it joyfully. And quite unlike women nowadays, it was extremely rare (if it ever happened at all) for women that lived thousands of years ago to stand up to their husbands.

Even today we have arranged marriages (of women to complete strangers) in many cultures of the world so it's not as unthinkable as you think it is.

BaboonYansh:
In other words, Forceful marriage in war and when a crime is committed is very moral and christian in the eyes of God?

Wow, the American Army really are missing free brides in Afghanistan.

Forceful marriage = forceful s.ex = rap.e, hope you know? Does your God know what is Human rights?

I indeed learn new things everyday.lol

I said MAY because there may be some situations that warrant it and War and Crime may be necessary but not sufficient conditions.

The condition in the time of the jews was war coupled with the need for racial integration (in the absence of males in the foreign race)

And Forceful marriage is not always equal to forceful s.ex
A woman or man can be forced into marriage after which they can accept the marriage as a present fact and acquiesce to s.ex within the marriage. S.ex in such cases is not equal to rap.e

mazaje:
Only that you are self projecting yourself as God and lying about what the God you claim to be representing has allegedly said. . .According to the bible Yahweh created evil. . . .

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things

Consider the context.

I form light and create darkness (a word and its opposite)
I make peace and create evil (a word and its opposite) using parrallelism. (you can do research on that)

If evil was used to mean the opposite of peace then it should be translated as war or a chaotic situation not evil in a moral sense.
God creates chaotic situations for people as a form of judgement.

mazaje:
Your evidence to show that Yahweh of the bible created human beings is WHAT?. . . . .What if I insist that Allah created all humans, how can you show me that I am wrong?. . . .

I have not given proof for that yet.
We will get there by God's grace.

step 6: Establish that evil could not have come from God therefore humans were not created evil

1. We have established in step 4 that God is Just / Morally upright.
2. A just and morally upright God cannot create evil
3. If God did not create evil and God created humans then it means that when God created Humans, humans were not evil.
4. Therefore Humans were not created evil.

Step 6a: The fact that God created the being that created evil does not mean that God created evil.
1. God decided to create a being with free will
2. That being (having free will - not manipulated by God) created evil
3. The being could have created without God's intervention because the being had free will
4. Since the created being created evil independent of God then God did not create evil and is not responsible for it.

thehomer:
Evolution is not linear it looks more like a tree with more related organisms sharing common ancestors more recently so I don't really get what you posted above.

What I am saying is that there is no documented fossil record that clearly shows one species evolving gradually into another.

Check out this link http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/problems-with-the-fossil-record.htm

thehomer:
Why do you still continue with claiming that only adaptation occurs after being shown an example of evolution occurring? There are many examples of evolution occurring listed at the link I posted.

I'm sorry, maybe I missed them. Please post a few of the evidences for evolution (not adaptation) from the article at the link.

You can just post any evidence you think is important and we will determine what the evidence points to.

thehomer:
The evidence shows the similarities among species because there is similarity among the various species. Are you calling the evidence "purported" because you do not agree with it or you is it because you think they are made up?

I used the term "purported" to mean that the evidences are just evidences for similarity (as you pointed out) not evidences for evolution.

thehomer:
There is evidence for this. Consider that crystals order themselves to a solid state from a liquid state given the right conditions.

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions
1. A crystal is an ordered mass already!
2. You mentioned "given the right conditions". Those conditions were an external influence on the crystals.
3. The mass produced by crystal growth is of the same complexity as a crystal the difference is just in size.
It is apparent that a small diamond and a big diamond are of the same order.

What we are talking about here is something of a different and lower order simply morphing into something else of a higher order of its own accord without any external influence.

thehomer:
What are the objects in the Universe that you assume to be so complex as to have been designed?

You (A human being) are one of the objects I consider to be so complex.
You (A human being) are so complex that I think you must have been designed.

Your body contains trillions of cells that are different.
One of those cells is like a miniature city.

The most unnerving of it all is that all of this is built from one sperm cell and one ovum.
Imagine the complexity of the information inside the sperm cell.

This is a picture of what I describe as complex.

This could not have happened BY MISTAKE. It must have been DELIBERATE.

thehomer:
What we do know now is that the Universe started expanding and when it did, the matter and energy currently available were already present.

It affects it because you said "something" cannot come from "nothing". If "nothing" does not exist in the universe then that pillar breaks.

I think I have addressed this but for emphasis let me say it this way:

If we continue asking what created the something that created the something that created the something (and on and on) that created the matter that existed before the big bang we will go on forever and never reach a conclusion. In other words it is asymptotic.

What I believe is that God is at the beginning of the whole process.

My presupposition that God is at the beginning of the whole process cannot be proved invalid except science finds what is at the beginning of the process.

Since the situation is asymptotic it is safe to say science cannot find what is at the beginning of the process.

Therefore my presupposition stands.

When you talk about science you should realise that we have both operational and historical science. Operational science has to do with what can be observed and repeated experimentally while historical science otherwise known as origin science has to do with what you cannot observe and thereby rely on presuppositions that are either based on the Word of God or the opinions of men. Read more on how this pans out in the case of carbon 14 dating in the suggested link HERE

Thanks for pointing that out.

I want to highlight the fact that everyone INCLUDING SCIENTISTS are relying on presuppositions and so the only way to choose one presupposition over the other is to consider how those presuppositions play out if you trace their logical conclusions.

I'm not asking what you believe about the diversity I'm asking for the reasons why you believe this and if this belief is good enough to explain this diversity.

That is a subset of the original question we are trying to address.

The question is: Why do I believe Christianity is the right way.

The reason is what I am elucidating in this debate.

I have not noticed your debunking anything. All you're doing is claiming "God did it this way". I don't think you'll accept this as a reason for e.g the mechanisms for the earth having a day and night cycle.

What I debunked was the premise that if 2 things are similar then one of them evolved into the other.

The premise itself is apparently fallacious. We could keep giving examples forever. For example the fact that a Honda accord 2004 model looks like the Honda accord 2005 model does not mean the 2004 model evolved into the 2005 model. It simply means Honda created it that way.

I hope this is clear.

It could also mean that both share a common ancestor and this common descent just has a lot more going for it especially when compared with competing propositions for diversity.

Yes it could.
The problem with the common ancestory theory a la evolution is that there is no documented evidence of it happening.

There are evidences that suggest it MAY have happened, but there is NO evidence that it actually happened.

Common descent may have a lot more going for it when compared with competing propositions for diversity aside from the fact that the Creator created it that way.
The only proposition that I am advancing is that the Creator created it that way. This is not a credulous proposition if we believe there is a Creator.
I have established the fact that there is a creator therefore it is not credulous to say that the Creator created the diversity of species we have today.

This is not a simple explanation. It assumes a God and it also assumes that you know what this God wants. On a more general note, proposing a God for an action does not answer the question. If I changed the word God to Rar, does this make your answer clearer?

The argument is that If there is a Creator (and we have established that there is indeed one), then He could have created things to look similar to themselves just the same way Microsoft (the creator of windows) created windows Me to look like Windows 98.

Again, we have not yet established who this God is at this point. We will do so at a later point in the argument as we have to establish some characteristics of God for us to be able to determine who God is.