28 thoughts on “Yes, but the cross (Part 3a)”

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  Reply ↓

  bob March 24, 2020 at 1:03 pm

  There is so much to respond to.  I will grab this one tidbit:

  “Before the Fall, the Bible tells us that all animals ate plants:
  [Gen 1:29-30 KJV] …30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green HERB for meat: and it was so.”

  Science tells us otherwise – and since you promote the Genesis creation narrative as literally true, you must be perfectly comfortable claiming that science is false.  Your only evidence for the claim that “…all animals ate plants” is found in a single short passage in Genesis 1 – an unsubstantiated and entirely unscientific passage in an ancient book, and based on that you reject over a hundred years of scientific exploration and discovery.
  So, since you completely ignore science, please explain why many animals did not / do not have teeth “designed” for eating plants, but instead, have / had teeth “designed” for eating only one thing – MEAT: Consider the domesticated cat, the great white shark, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Notice that these teeth, the teeth of predators and scavengers, are not “designed” to grip and pull plant parts, and then to grind the plant parts into suitable size for swallowing, as you claim that they did before the “fall”. These teeth are “designed” for one thing – to grip animal flesh and muscle, tear it from the body, ripping it into portions small enough to swallow.  

  So you are saying that either:
  1 – Before “the fall”, these animals ate plants with the teeth entirely unsuitable for the eating of plants
   – or –
  2 – Before “the fall”, these animals were first “designed” with plant-eating teeth, but after “the fall” (since they were now going to have to eat each other) God changed their teeth (and digestive system) from plant-eating to meat-eating.  
  Which is it?

  And – why do many animals – prehistoric and modern – show no signs of ever being meat-eaters…after “the fall”?:

  Consider: The cow, African elephant, and Woolly Mammoth – they eat / ate plants ONLY!  Why – after “the fall” – did they never begin to eat meat, but instead, just continued to eat plants ONLY, like they did before this supposed “fall” that you speak of?

  And what about certain creatures that feed ONLY on blood – like the tick?  If a tick does not find a host for blood-feeding, it will die.  What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?

  Perhaps you can see that your ancient religious beliefs offer no actual answers…?

  r.u.reasonable@gmail.com

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    Reply ↓

    TFOTF March 28, 2020 at 9:24 am

    Hi Bob,

    Thanks a lot for your comment.

    Bob: “And – why do many animals – prehistoric and modern – show no signs of ever being meat-eaters…after “the fall”?:”
    TFOTF: Sorry if I wasn’t clear. The Bible doesn’t say that all animals became carnivorous after the Fall. I did quote this verse, but this was addressed to Noah’s family, not every hungry animal:
    [Gen 9:3 KJV] 3 Every MOVING THING that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
    And yes, some animals became carnivorous. The first Biblical indication of this that I see is here:
    [Gen 9:5 KJV] 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.

    Bob: “you must be perfectly comfortable claiming that science is false”
    TFOTF: Scientists are not infallible. Can we agree on that?

    Bob: “based on that you reject over a hundred years of scientific exploration and discovery”
    TFOTF: Your comment would make more sense if I claimed that all animals living today currently eat only plants. Is that what you thought I was claiming? Or are you saying that scientists have found fossil evidence that some animals have ALWAYS been carnivorous? Seems like a pretty high bar to clear from a purely empirical perspective. If you want to try to substantiate this with documented scientific evidence, go ahead. Remember, per my position, it’s quite possible that we would NEVER find fossil evidence of a vegetarian tiger. This is because back when the tiger (or whatever feline ancestor the tiger comes from) was a vegetarian, death had not been introduced into the world. No death means no fossils. That is why I say that if you want to refute my actual position, you have a pretty high bar to clear.

    Bob: “Science tells us otherwise”
    TFOTF: In other words, the majority of mainstream scientists would say there was no Fall. Is that what you are saying? Please send a link to the research study that presents sound evidence that there was no Fall.

    Bob: “an unsubstantiated and entirely unscientific passage in an ancient book”
    TFOTF: I am going to make up a new term: You are advancing an epochist argument here. You repeatedly question the Bible because of how old it is. The implication is that (and you are in good company with Bill Nye and countless others) origins science is just as pure a science as operational science. So, you keep implying that the Bible is not very reliable because of how old it is, just as an ancient book of science would not be considered very reliable compared to a contemporary one. I wrote two blog posts about this question, so I’m definitely not going to rehash it all here. By all means, head on over here and let me know your thoughts:
    https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2017/04/29/from-the-butler-to-the-universe-part-1/
    https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2017/06/04/from-the-butler-to-the-universe-part-2/

    Bob: “Please explain why many animals did not / do not have teeth “designed” for eating plants, but instead, have / had teeth “designed” for eating only one thing – MEAT”
    TFOTF: Interesting question. My best understanding of the Bible is that there were some herbivores that God changed into carnivores and omnivores. It could be like the #2 scenario you mentioned, but I don’t know, and I’m not sure what deeper questions turn on the level of change that God made in order to effect the transformation. Please tell me: what deeper question turns on this? I guess I will say this, though: I reject your #1 scenario. God made all animals, including their teeth, well-suited to survive before the Fall. If there were any animals that had teeth unsuited for predation and God wanted them to become predators, then He changed their teeth. If there were animals that had omnivorous teeth, then He didn’t need to change their teeth (e.g., bears?), but He still had to change something. I’m not positing a supercharged Dr Moreau here, so please understand. I’m talking about an uncreated, timeless, transcendent, intelligent, omnipotent Being. So, whatever the changes were, they weren’t hard for Him to make. And since I’m positing an uncreated, uncaused Being, I don’t have to explain how He got so awesome, where He came from, or what caused or created Him….if you ask me these questions, you are not confronting my actual beliefs.

    Bob: “What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?”
    TFOTF: Check this out on wikipedia:
    Typically, both male and female mosquitoes feed on nectar, aphid honeydew, and plant juices,[35] but in many species the mouthparts of the females are adapted for piercing the skin of animal hosts and sucking their blood as ectoparasites.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito#Feeding_by_adults
    It sounds like some mosquito species actually don’t even suck blood, but rather nectar. Maybe ticks fed on something else besides blood before the Fall. Or maybe they fed on blood but in a symbiotic way.

    You conclude your comment with this smug question:
    Perhaps you can see that your ancient religious beliefs offer no actual answers…?

    Again with your epochist insinuation, which I addressed above.

    Also, I did propound to you some possible answers, while at the same time admitting some remaining mysteries….mysteries we may not get answers to this side of eternity. But I had a whole section devoted to that point, Bob: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that? But the questions themselves are great, so thank you.

    In any case, I’m OK living with mystery. I’m not OK living with nonsense. The idea that a bubbling swamp and some solar radiation produced an iPhone is nonsense. Claiming that the bubbling swamp or radioactive beach or thermal vent at the bottom of the ocean FIRST produced an intelligence that could make an iPhone is nonsense. You know this is nonsense, Bob. Your frustrations will not end until you admit this.

    So yes, I’m fine living with uncertainty about what ticks ate before the Fall, but it’s interesting to ponder.

    Thank you VERY much for your comment.

    God bless,

    TFOTF

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      Reply ↓

      bob March 30, 2020 at 10:26 am

      TFOTF: Scientists are not infallible. Can we agree on that?
      bob: Every scientific conclusion can potentially be shown to be incorrect – happens all the time – and who usually discovers that a scientific conclusion is incorrect…other scientists.  It is illogical to assume a scientific finding is incorrect because it is not in-line with your biblical beliefs – and that is exactly what you do with shameful consistency.

      Bob: “based on that you reject over a hundred years of scientific exploration and discovery”
      TFOTF: Your comment would make more sense if I claimed that all animals living today currently eat only plants. Is that what you thought I was claiming? Or are you saying that scientists have found fossil evidence that some animals have ALWAYS been carnivorous?
      bob: There is scientific evidence that animals that lived thousands of years, millions of years, before your claimed “fall”, ate other animals. They did not magically start eating other animals a mere 6,000 years ago.  In other words – there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that your claim of “no death” before the “fall” (6,000 BCE).  There are mountains of evidence that creatures had been living, dying, and eating each other for hundreds of millions of years before your supposed “fall” (6,000 BCE).

      TFOTF: If you want to try to substantiate this with documented scientific evidence, go ahead. Remember, per my position, it’s quite possible that we would NEVER find fossil evidence of a vegetarian tiger. This is because back when the tiger (or whatever feline ancestor the tiger comes from) was a vegetarian, death had not been introduced into the world. No death means no fossils. That is why I say that if you want to refute my actual position, you have a pretty high bar to clear.
      bob: Remember, you are not interested in scientific evidence – because – all the evidence goes contrary to your religious beliefs.  The “high bar” is in your head.

      Bob: “Science tells us otherwise”
      TFOTF: In other words, the majority of mainstream scientists would say there was no Fall. Is that what you are saying? Please send a link to the research study that presents sound evidence that there was no Fall.
      bob: “Mainstream”?  In other words – scientists.  Actually, if there were any evidence for the “fall”, I guarantee that scientists in the appropriate fields, would be examining the evidence – but since there is no evidence for the “fall”, there is nothing to investigate.  In the fields of the hard sciences, they usually avoid myths and legends. But again, you are not interested in scientific evidence.  You came to your conclusions as a child, being taught from the bible. You were taught beliefs, not facts.  You did not come to these conclusions after reading scientific publications on biological evolution or paleontology. The evidence indicates that long before 6,000 BCE, many animals ate other animals – animals were dying long before you believe death started.  They did not eat only “every green herb”.  If you were the slightest bit interested you would look it up yourself.  If you had any integrity, you would admit that you have a psychological problem – that being – your beliefs are tenacious, and based entirely on a few pages at the beginning of your ancient book, ignoring the mountains of counter evidence gathered by scientists over hundreds of years.

      Bob: “an unsubstantiated and entirely unscientific passage in an ancient book”
      TFOTF: I am going to make up a new term: You are advancing an epochist argument here. You repeatedly question the Bible because of how old it is. The implication is that (and you are in good company with Bill Nye and countless others) origins science is just as pure a science as operational science. So, you keep implying that the Bible is not very reliable because of how old it is, just as an ancient book of science would not be considered very reliable compared to a contemporary one.
      bob: The bible is not a science book, just as it is not a history book.  Once upon a time archaeologists relied quite heavily on the bible as a guide for digging in and around the areas mentioned in the bible, but they eventually discovered that it is not reliable, historically.  Science learned fairly quickly that the bible was not reliable, scientifically.
      So you can take my use of the word “ancient” any way you like, but note: the bible isn’t wrong because it is old – the bible is wrong because it is wrong.

      Bob: “Please explain why many animals did not / do not have teeth “designed” for eating plants, but instead, have / had teeth “designed” for eating only one thing – MEAT”
      TFOTF: Interesting question. My best understanding of the Bible is that there were some herbivores that God changed into carnivores and omnivores.
      bob: The bible is not a history or science book – so your “understanding” is limited to what the bible says, not what is scientifically accurate.  Wouldn’t it be more honest to call it a “belief”, rather than an “understanding”?

      TFOTF: If there were any animals that had teeth unsuited for predation and God wanted them to become predators, then He changed their teeth.
      bob: No death before the “fall”, means we will not have any evidence at all, of any predators – not a single carnivore tooth, fragment of a carnivore tooth, not a single jaw bone from an animal with sharp carnivore teeth before 6,000 BCE – and yet, we have an incredible amount of fossils, teeth, and jaw bones including teeth, and claws used for capturing and restraining prey – all that predate the “fall” by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and hundreds of millions of years. We have scientific evidence that animals died long before 6,000 BCE.  Please present evidence that what you claim to be true, is true.

      Bob: “What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?”
      TFOTF: Check this out on wikipedia:
      Typically, both male and female mosquitoes feed on nectar, aphid honeydew, and plant juices,[35] but in many species the mouthparts of the females are adapted for piercing the skin of animal hosts and sucking their blood as ectoparasites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito#Feeding_by_adults  It sounds like some mosquito species actually don’t even suck blood, but rather nectar.
      bob: Thank you for muddying the waters.  I asked nothing about the mosquito.  I specifically asked about the tick.  I can not find any documentation that ticks feed on anything other than blood.  If they don’t feed on blood they will not survive and mate.  Mosquito – who cares?  Mosquito’s are not ticks.  I asked about ticks.

      TFOTF: Maybe ticks fed on something else besides blood before the Fall. Or maybe they fed on blood but in a symbiotic way.
      bob: Isn’t speculation fun? 
      Maybe there was a lot less gravity before the “fall”, so that falling was a lot less painful and dangerous.
      Maybe space aliens built the pyramids.
      Maybe Jesus wasn’t actually born of a virgin and didn’t rise from the dead.

      TFOTF: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
      bob: Your young earth Christian world view is fatally flawed.  My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before. 

      TFOTF: The idea that a bubbling swamp and some solar radiation produced an iPhone is nonsense. Claiming that the bubbling swamp or radioactive beach or thermal vent at the bottom of the ocean FIRST produced an intelligence that could make an iPhone is nonsense.
      bob:  Your incredulity is showing.  Fortunately science progresses even when the findings are difficult to accept.  How about the stone spear-head?  Since there was a time in human evolution that we didn’t have glass, plastics, metals, or rubber to fashion an iPhone, and we were a tad distracted with just surviving – but – we did have wood and stone for making spears.  
      The earliest spear heads date to about 400,000 BCE.  
      The earliest boats were dugouts made about 392,000 years later. Copper smelting wasn’t invented for another 3,000 years after the boat.  It took another 1,000 years before the wheel was invented. 
      Another few thousand years before the first manned hot-air balloon flight. 
      Another 100+ years before the first winged flight of a human. 
      Another 50 years before we landed on the moon.
       – then – 
      Almost 50 years later, the first iPhone is released.
      So, you are equally incredulous about the “bubbling swamp” eventually producing an intelligence capable of fashioning a stone spear-head, aren’t you?  You know what is really funny – the fact that most modern humans who carry iPhones would likely fail at making a usable stone spear-head and would likely starve in the wilderness.

      TFOTF: You know this is nonsense, Bob. Your frustrations will not end until you admit this.
      bob: yawn…

      TFOTF: So yes, I’m fine living with uncertainty about what ticks ate before the Fall, but it’s interesting to ponder.
      …free thought means that you’re literally free to believe whatever makes sense to you, and you’re free to change your mind when it doesn’t make sense anymore. You’re neither damned nor saved according to anything you do or do not believe, because the goal is not to believe but to improve understanding. The only way to do that is to seek out the flaws in your current perspective and correct them. Faith offers no way to do that. So it’s best to abandon faith first.
      ~Aron Ra

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        TFOTF Post author April 11, 2020 at 7:57 am

        Hi Bob,

        Thanks for getting back to me.

        BOB: Every scientific conclusion can potentially be shown to be incorrect – happens all the time – and who usually discovers that a scientific conclusion is incorrect…other scientists. It is illogical to assume a scientific finding is incorrect because it is not in-line with your biblical beliefs – and that is exactly what you do with shameful consistency.
        TFOTF: I’m curious what your opinion of Gunter Bechly is. He was on board with at least the main line of macroevolutionary explanations for the diversity of life, and then he wasn’t on board. He claims it is because he looked at the evidence as part of setting up a pro-Darwinian-evolution, anti-intelligent design exhibit at the museum he worked for. Now, at some point in there, I’m sure you would say he went off the rails. Or would you say he was never on the rails? Do you think he was never a real scientist? Or he was a legit scientist and now he’s not? Is he just too dumb to properly evaluate the evidence? To be fair, here is my answer to something like the opposite question. https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2017/06/04/from-the-butler-to-the-universe-part-2/

        BOB: There is scientific evidence that animals that lived thousands of years, millions of years, before your claimed “fall”, ate other animals. They did not magically start eating other animals a mere 6,000 years ago. In other words – there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that your claim of “no death” before the “fall” (6,000 BCE). There are mountains of evidence that creatures had been living, dying, and eating each other for hundreds of millions of years before your supposed “fall” (6,000 BCE).
        TFOTF: I guess I should sit down and try to calculate this number from the Bible. I assume you calculated it yourself or got it from a creationist website. I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe in your iPhone-from-goo theory….no matter how many other scientists agree with you. You have all saddled yourselves with an impossible problem. I’ve saddled myself with a mysterious problem. How did God do it all? I don’t know! But it’s very reasonable to believe he can handle it….because he is God. But, not wanting to be a complete ignoramus, I did read the Origin of Species…and I documented Darwin’s giddy extrapolation and statement of faith here:
        https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2017/04/08/a-divine-foot-in-the-door/

        BOB: No death before the “fall”, means we will not have any evidence at all, of any predators – not a single carnivore tooth, fragment of a carnivore tooth, not a single jaw bone from an animal with sharp carnivore teeth before 6,000 BCE – and yet, we have an incredible amount of fossils, teeth, and jaw bones including teeth, and claws used for capturing and restraining prey – all that predate the “fall” by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and hundreds of millions of years. We have scientific evidence that animals died long before 6,000 BCE. Please present evidence that what you claim to be true, is true.
        TFOTF: I’m not a creation scientist. I read their stuff and it’s interesting, but my faith is not based on their work. You want my evidence? Fair enough, here’s my evidence:
        [Heb 11:1-3 KJV] 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
        Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.

        P.S.: But, if I had more time and energy (I analyze data for a living, so I need some downtime!), I would definitely go online to find scientific evidence regarding dating methods, etc., and then I would paste it in here. I’m sure Nathaniel Jeanson (PhD in cell and developmental biology from Harvard University) or Jay Wile (PhD in nuclear chemistry, Rochester) or James Tour (PhD in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry, Purdue) would provide some relevant scientific information. Having read some of their stuff, I know that the first two would support the young earth, and the third would come down like a ton of bricks on abiogenesis.

        TFOTF: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
        BOB: Your young earth Christian world view is fatally flawed. My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before.
        TFOTF: You didn’t answer my question. Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? Your answer is that my worldview is fatally flawed. That doesn’t answer my question at all….it’s more like a restatement of my question. So, I ask again: Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? The fact that I haven’t explained, and don’t know, every detail of how an omnipotent God created the world is a fatal flaw in my worldview? If that is what you are saying, please explain how you came to that conclusion. I don’t need to know the mechanism God used for everything he did….it’s very reasonable to assume he was able to handle the mysterious parts. You are the one who is on the hook to explain the mechanisms, since you claim that your views on origins are science-driven. Established science is supposed to involve detailed mechanisms, isn’t it?

        BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
        TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it? Honestly. Please explain what you are getting at here.

        BOB: You know what is really funny – the fact that most modern humans who carry iPhones would likely fail at making a usable stone spear-head and would likely starve in the wilderness.
        TFOTF: That I will agree with 🙂

        And on that positive note, I will sign off. Thanks for stopping by, Bob. Hope you and yours are virus-free!

        TFOTF

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        TFOTF April 11, 2020 at 12:29 pm

        Actually, I will mention some evidence from the Grand Canyon I read about a few years ago. I remember this one because after reading it on the YEC website answersingenesis.org, I successfully verified all the premises via secular sources.

        It may or may not be evidence of a young earth, but it does make me wonder how strong the evidence for your claims really is:
        “To add insult to injury, the Kaibab Limestone layer at the very top of our “ladder of life” shows the only evidence to be found in the Canyon of fossilized sponges! This is embarrassing to evolutionists, because sponges are a loose collection of living cells that are believed to be the first multicellular organisms to have evolved on earth.”
        https://answersingenesis.org/geology/grand-canyon-facts/climbing-ladder-of-life-in-grand-canyon/

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          bob April 13, 2020 at 12:53 pm

          TFOTF: I’m curious what your opinion of Gunter Bechly is…at some point in there, I’m sure you would say he went off the rails…
          bob: Went off the rails is putting it mildly. Read his “world view” page – I am sure you might find one or two views you agree with. It’s funny – when I became a Christian I just listened to a few ministers on the radio and read bible. Gunter took a slightly different route. My opinion – he should stick to studying dragonfly wings.

          TFOTF: I guess I should sit down and try to calculate this number from the Bible. I assume you calculated it yourself or got it from a creationist website.
          bob: No, I did not calculate the age of the earth from the bible. It has been done. About 2,000 years from Genesis 1 to the flood, about 2,000 years from the flood to Jesus, about 2,000 years from Jesus to now. Why calculate? It doesn’t matter if you end up with 3,000 years, 6,000 years, 100,000,000 years, you would still be way, way off.

          TFOTF: I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe in your iPhone-from-goo theory….
          bob: Tell me something about you that I didn’t know.
          What you are saying is this: “I already know that there is no chance that any evidence presented to me in the future will persuade me that what I currently believe is incorrect.”
          You are not saying that this evidence will bee wrong, you are just saying that you already know that you will not accept it.
          Aren’t you glad that the brains of the vast majority of secular scientists and explorers, past and present, don’t operate like yours?
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that the earth is not flat….”
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that I should wash my hands….”
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that man will ever walk on the moon….”

          TFOTF: I’ve saddled myself with a mysterious problem. How did God do it all? I don’t know!
          bob: You don’t even know that god exists, so of course you have a “mystery”.

          TFOTF: But it’s very reasonable to believe he can handle it….because he is God.
          bob: You completely skipped the “Does god exist” question.

          TFOTF: I’m not a creation scientist. I read their stuff and it’s interesting, but my faith is not based on their work. You want my evidence? Fair enough, here’s my evidence:
          [Heb 11:1-3 KJV]
          Faith is its own evidence.
          bob: Faith is evidence of one thing – that you believe. It is not evidence that what you believe is true. Otherwise, every conflicting faith would be true, in your view. Perhaps you can’t see the conundrum that your own claim presents.

          TFOTF: P.S.: But, if I had more time and energy (I analyze data for a living, so I need some downtime!)…
          bob: Then why don’t you actually, at some point in your life, analyze the data collected by scientists that seems to indicate that the earth is 4.5 billion years old?

          TFOTF: I would definitely go online to find scientific evidence regarding dating methods, etc., and then I would paste it in here.
          bob: Do it. And don’t go to the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis web site. Don’t do like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do and quote literature from the 1970’s. Go to actual science websites or publications and read how actual scientists working in the field come to an approximate determination of how old something that they dug up is. Do yourself a favor.

          TFOTF: Nathaniel Jeanson PhD , Jay Wile PhD, James Tour PhD…
          Does names with letters after them give you a sense of security? Do you ever notice that the only names with letters after them that you post are people that, to a degree, believe what you believe? Do you notice that you never post the names with letters after them of the many, many thousands of people who do not agree with your claims?

          TFOTF: …answersingenesis.org, I successfully verified all the premises via secular sources.
          bob: Sure you did…You verified ALL the premises yet completely ignored ALL the explanations. And how do you “verify” using “secular sources” when you don’t believe what the secular sources say unless they say what you already believe? Is that how science works?

          From the AIG article: “One of the most amazing facts about the Grand Canyon is that no one has ever found a fossilized bone embedded within the layers which make up the walls of the Canyon!”
          From the National Park Svs website: “The Grand Canyon might look like the perfect place to go looking for dinosaur bones, but none have ever been found there, and for good reason. The rock that makes up the canyon walls is vastly more ancient than the dinosaurs – about a billion years more ancient, in some cases – but the canyon itself probably didn’t form until after the dinosaurs were long gone.
          While the dinosaurs might have missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, lots of other fossils have been found that suggest other creatures frequented the location. They range from ancient marine fossils dating back 1.2 billion years to fairly recent land mammals that left their remains in canyon caves about 10,000 years ago.”

          You consistently cite PhD’s who at some point in their lives came to believe some of the things that you believe. And these PhD’s usually end up in the employ of AIG or some other creationists “think-tank” like the DI. AIG requires that you sign a “statement of faith” in order to work their, that includes:
          Salvation Testimony
          Creation Belief Statement
          Confirmation of your agreement with the AiG Statement of Faith
          What better place to find people who agree with you than a place that requires people to believe as you do in order to work there.

          You guys deserve each other.

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          TFOTF Post author April 18, 2020 at 12:02 pm

          ONE
          TFOTF: I’m curious what your opinion of Gunter Bechly is…at some point in there, I’m sure you would say he went off the rails…
          bob: Went off the rails is putting it mildly. Read his “world view” page – I am sure you might find one or two views you agree with. It’s funny – when I became a Christian I just listened to a few ministers on the radio and read bible. Gunter took a slightly different route. My opinion – he should stick to studying dragonfly wings.
          **TFOTF: I read his worldview page, but I like your idea…let’s stick to dragonfly wings. He states on his anti-darwinism page: My rejection of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution was not motivated by religion, but by some very convincing and still unrefuted scientific arguments from intelligent design proponents, based on information theory (William Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer), population genetics (Richard Sternberg), molecular machines (Michael Behe), new proteins (Douglas Axe), and causal circularity (Ann Gauger, Richard Sternberg)).
          He claims that his rejection of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution was not motivated by religion. So, I’m asking for your opinion. Is he lying? Or is he too stupid to understand Neo-Darwinian macroevolution, and finds the above referenced authors easier to understand? I’ll directly give my opinion on the reverse question. I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about. So….what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly along these lines? And to be clear….I’m not asking for your opinion about ID theory, or the discovery institute, or Douglas Axe, etc. Feel free to share that, but I’m asking for your opinion about Bechly, and I’m asking for more detail than “he should stick to studying dragonfly wings.” Given his credentials below (I deleted the later portions which I assume in your book are black marks against him), how did he get so far off course from the mainstream scientific consensus that you tell us we should be reading and affirming?
          1987-1991: undergraduate studies of biology at the University of Hohenheim / Germany
          1991-1994: main and graduate studies of biology at the Eberhard-Karls-University in Tübingen / Germany (with focus on entomology, subsidiary subjects: paleontology and parasitology)
          1994: diploma degree (= M.Sc.) in biology with a diploma thesis (in German) on the morphology of dragonfly wings titled “Morphologische Untersuchungen am Flügelgeäder der rezenten Libellen und deren Stammgruppenvertreter (Insecta; Pterygota; Odonata) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Phylogenetischen Systematik und des Grundplanes der *Odonata” under supervision of Dr. Gerhard Mickoleit (Inst. Zool., Univ. Tübingen)
          1994-1998: Ph.D. student under supervision of Prof. Wolf-Ernst Reif at the institute for geology and paleontology of the Eberhard-Karls-University in Tübingen / Germany
          1999: graduation as Ph.D. in geosciences with summa cum laude degree with the paleontological Ph.D. thesis “Phylogeny and systematics of fossil dragonflies (Insecta: Odonatoptera) with special reference to some Mesozoic outcrops” under supervision of Prof. Wolf-Ernst Reif (Inst. Paleont., Univ. Tübingen), co-refereed by Prof. Carsten Brauckmann (TU Clausthal-Zellerfeld) and Prof. Rainer Willmann (Univ. Göttingen). Parts of this Ph.D. thesis have been accomplished as guest researcher at MCZ, Harvard University
          Dec. 1, 1998 – Aug. 31, 1999: Scientific trainee in the department of paleontology at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart
          Sept. 1, 1999 – December 15, 2016: scientific employee as curator for amber and fossil insects in the department of paleontology at the State Museum of Natural History (SMNS) in Stuttgart / Germany, as successor of Dr. Dieter Schlee and previously Prof. Willi Hennig
          ONE

          TWO
          TFOTF: I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe in your iPhone-from-goo theory….
          bob: Tell me something about you that I didn’t know.
          What you are saying is this: “I already know that there is no chance that any evidence presented to me in the future will persuade me that what I currently believe is incorrect.”
          You are not saying that this evidence will bee wrong, you are just saying that you already know that you will not accept it.
          Aren’t you glad that the brains of the vast majority of secular scientists and explorers, past and present, don’t operate like yours?
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that the earth is not flat….”
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that I should wash my hands….”
          “I will tell you this, though: no matter what I find, it’s not going to do anything to help me believe that man will ever walk on the moon….”
          **TFOTF:
          

          
          By Power.corrupts – Own work, Public Domain, Link

          
          By NASA, Alan L. Bean – page – http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001316.html
          image – http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/LARGE/GPN-2000-001316.jpg, Public Domain, Link

          Waiting for comparable evidence for your iPhone-from-goo theory….not fanciful notions, what-ifs, just-so stories, or hey-maybe-it-was-like-this. Give me the evidence, and I will believe. As far as my belief in a Creator God…I don’t owe you comparable scientific evidence, because I never claimed my origins beliefs were science-driven. That’s the pony **you** have saddled. But you can change your mind, Bob. You could say something like this: “I was raised a Christian, and became an atheist, but after further reflection I am a Christian again, but this time I will be the type of Christian that best conforms to my understanding of the Bible, whether that conflicts with what I was raised with or not.”
          TWO

          THREE
          TFOTF: I’ve saddled myself with a mysterious problem. How did God do it all? I don’t know!
          bob: You don’t even know that god exists, so of course you have a “mystery”.
          **TFOTF: Hmmm, I think we both know God exists. Not by examining fossils, but by simple logic.
          https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2019/03/04/does-atheism-live-in-the-heart-or-in-the-mind/
          THREE

          FOUR
          TFOTF: But it’s very reasonable to believe he can handle it….because he is God.
          bob: You completely skipped the “Does god exist” question.
          **TFOTF: I didn’t skip it.
          https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2019/03/04/does-atheism-live-in-the-heart-or-in-the-mind/
          FOUR

          FIVE
          TFOTF: I’m not a creation scientist. I read their stuff and it’s interesting, but my faith is not based on their work. You want my evidence? Fair enough, here’s my evidence:
          [Heb 11:1-3 KJV]
          Faith is its own evidence.
          bob: Faith is evidence of one thing – that you believe. It is not evidence that what you believe is true. Otherwise, every conflicting faith would be true, in your view. Perhaps you can’t see the conundrum that your own claim presents.
          **TFOTF: True, if “faith” just referred to a belief system. And sometimes it does. But I’m talking about a different kind of faith. I’m talking about the faith that Jesus authored in me (Hebrews 12:2). I’m talking about the faith implanted in me via regeneration (Ephesians 2:8). I’m talking about faith as a spiritual eye, an epistemology separate from science (Hebrews 11:1). You do acknowledge that science is not the only useful epistemology, right? Anyway, belief is the exercise of that faith. It is the exercise of that spiritual sense. I can see through faith (separately from the logical arguments linked above) that God made the worlds. Simple logic turns out to be no match for our foolish hearts…we need a spiritual eye.
          FIVE

          SIX
          TFOTF: P.S.: But, if I had more time and energy (I analyze data for a living, so I need some downtime!)…
          bob: Then why don’t you actually, at some point in your life, analyze the data collected by scientists that seems to indicate that the earth is 4.5 billion years old?
          **TFOTF: You are the one claiming that your origins views are science-driven. So, provide the link or links that convinced you the earth was 4.5 billion years old.
          SIX

          SEVEN
          TFOTF: I would definitely go online to find scientific evidence regarding dating methods, etc., and then I would paste it in here.
          bob: Do it. And don’t go to the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis web site. Don’t do like the Jehovah’s Witnesses do and quote literature from the 1970’s. Go to actual science websites or publications and read how actual scientists working in the field come to an approximate determination of how old something that they dug up is. Do yourself a favor.
          **TFOTF: Send me the link. If I read it and then find an objection to it, worded in scientific terms on a website you don’t approve of, will you simply dismiss the objection based on the URL?
          SEVEN

          EIGHT
          TFOTF: Nathaniel Jeanson PhD , Jay Wile PhD, James Tour PhD…
          Does names with letters after them give you a sense of security? Do you ever notice that the only names with letters after them that you post are people that, to a degree, believe what you believe? Do you notice that you never post the names with letters after them of the many, many thousands of people who do not agree with your claims?
          **TFOTF: There are many, many scientists who openly disagree with the small number of scientists who openly agree with me. What should I conclude from this?
          EIGHT

          NINE
          TFOTF: …answersingenesis.org, I successfully verified all the premises via secular sources.
          bob: Sure you did…You verified ALL the premises yet completely ignored ALL the explanations. And how do you “verify” using “secular sources” when you don’t believe what the secular sources say unless they say what you already believe? Is that how science works?
          TFOTF: So I’m not allowed to ask you a question based on information I find in secular, scientific sources? Seems like such a question should be on you to answer, not me. If I’m never allowed to ask you about something that seems inconsistent to me when looking at secular sources, just say so. And in that case, don’t bother sending me any links…I’m not allowed to challenge anything contained therein.
          NINE

          TEN
          From the AIG article: “One of the most amazing facts about the Grand Canyon is that no one has ever found a fossilized bone embedded within the layers which make up the walls of the Canyon!”
          From the National Park Svs website: “The Grand Canyon might look like the perfect place to go looking for dinosaur bones, but none have ever been found there, and for good reason. The rock that makes up the canyon walls is vastly more ancient than the dinosaurs – about a billion years more ancient, in some cases – but the canyon itself probably didn’t form until after the dinosaurs were long gone.
          While the dinosaurs might have missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, lots of other fossils have been found that suggest other creatures frequented the location. They range from ancient marine fossils dating back 1.2 billion years to fairly recent land mammals that left their remains in canyon caves about 10,000 years ago.”

          **TFOTF: Sorry if I’m just slow, but.I didn’t see an answer to the sponge question. Here are the secular sources I was talking about.

          First of all, Wikipedia contradicts the AIG guy, and I’m assuming Wikipedia is right..the Kaibab is not the oldest layer containing sponges. When I checked this out a few years ago, the information was different or I didn’t read the Wikipedia entry carefully enough. So, I checked wikipedia, the national park service, and grandcanyondestinations.com…the oldest sponge-containing layer mentioned is on wikipedia:

          The next formation in the Grand Canyon geologic column is the cliff-forming Redwall Limestone, which is 400 to 800 feet (120 to 240 m) thick (see 4b in figure 1).[35] Redwall is composed of thick-bedded, dark brown to bluish gray limestone and dolomite with white chert nodules mixed in.[31] It was laid down in a retreating shallow tropical sea near the equator during 40 million years of the early-to-middle Mississippian.[36] Many fossilized crinoids, brachiopods, bryozoans, horn corals, nautiloids, and sponges, along with other marine organisms such as large and complex trilobites have been found in the Redwall.[31]

          So, the Mississippian period began about 360 million years ago
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_(geology)

          When did sponges evolve?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge
          Sponges were first to branch off the evolutionary tree from the common ancestor of all animals, making them the sister group of all other animals.[3]…Early Cambrian sponges from Mexico belonging to the genus Kiwetinokia show evidence of fusion of several smaller spicules to form a single large spicule.[82]

          When was the Cambrian explosion?
          The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion

          So, sponges have been around since 541 million years ago, or longer….but they don’t show up in the Grand Canyon fossil record until about 360 million years ago, or later. Please tell me why the oldest Grand Canyon layer known to contain sponges was actually deposited 180 million years after sponges evolved. Why don’t sponges appear in the older layers, if they had already evolved when those older layers were deposited? Since naturalistic macro-evolution is supposed to be such well established science, and established science is supposed to include detailed mechanisms, and since origins science and science related to events millions of years ago are supposed to be just as purely scientific as the operational science of today, I’m asking for something more substantive from you than “maybe it was this, maybe it was that, it could have been this.”

          TEN

          ELEVEN
          You consistently cite PhD’s who at some point in their lives came to believe some of the things that you believe. And these PhD’s usually end up in the employ of AIG or some other creationists “think-tank” like the DI. AIG requires that you sign a “statement of faith” in order to work their, that includes:
          Salvation Testimony
          Creation Belief Statement
          Confirmation of your agreement with the AiG Statement of Faith
          What better place to find people who agree with you than a place that requires people to believe as you do in order to work there.
          You guys deserve each other.
          **TFOTF:
          OK, now you’re questioning (among other things) the institutions that employ the people I cited. Well, one of the three that I mentioned is James Tour. He works for Rice university. No statement of faith required there, and BTW it is a highly respected research university.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_University
          Rice is noted for its applied science programs in the fields of nanotechnology, artificial heart research, structural chemical analysis, signal processing and space science, being ranked 1st in the world in materials science research by the Times Higher Education (THE) in 2010.[56]
          As far as James Tour himself, I’m pretty sure you will not question his scientific abilities.
          Tour was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015.[41] He was named among “The 50 most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org in 2014.[42] Tour was named “Scientist of the Year” by R&D Magazine in 2013.[43] Tour won the ACS Nano Lectureship Award from the American Chemical Society in 2012. Tour was ranked one of the top 10 chemists in the world over the past decade by Thomson Reuters in 2009. That year, he was also made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Other notable awards won by Tour include the 2008 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the NASA Space Act Award in 2008 for his development of carbon nanotube reinforced elastomers, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his achievements in organic chemistry in 2007.
          He signed this dissent from Darwinism:
          “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour
          This certainly conflicts with Dawkins’s statement (reviewing The Grand Design) that “Darwin kicked God out of biology”. Oh, Dawkins and friends make it sound like such a slam-dunk case. You read science literature a lot, it sounds like. So, I ask you…which group is speaking in more scientific, careful terms about the available evidence?
          Please also look up Michael Egnor, Michael Behe and Duane Gish. They spent (or are still spending) many years at nonreligious institutions. Although David Menton is at AIG now, he spent 34 years teaching at WAshington University School of Medicine. But, if this is just about numbers (you tell me, because I’m not sure), then, OK, you win.

          ELEVEN

          TWELVE
          But, not wanting to be a complete ignoramus, I did read the Origin of Species…and I documented Darwin’s giddy extrapolation and statement of faith here:
          **TFOTF: Didn’t get a response from you on this one. However, you did respond to it back in 2018 on another blog post:
          TFOTF: Darwin professes faith in natural selection.
          Bob: I submit that he perhaps did not express himself correctly. We all have done that. Faith requires no investigation – Darwin investigated natural selection for many years.

          So, here is my 2020 followup:
          Darwin’s profession of “faith” wasn’t just a random slip of the pen, Bob. Darwin’s later verbiage regarding neuter insects should make it very plain to you.
          “I have, therefore, discussed this case, at some little but wholly insufficient length, in order to show the power of natural selection, and likewise because this is by far the most serious special difficulty, which my theory has encountered. The case, also, is very interesting, as it proves that with animals, as with plants, any amount of modification in structure can be effected by the accumulation of numerous, slight, and as we must call them accidental, variations, which are in any manner profitable, without exercise or habit having come into play.”

          Bob, without worrying about all the ramifications of the admission, can’t you admit that in this case he made a conclusion that went far beyond the available evidence? Surely you can see that. “Any amount of modification”, just because he looked at some neuter insects?? Simply put, this is not the language of science! The evidence he found does ***not*** prove what he said it proves. He was clearly getting carried away with the excitement of his theory. No one talks like this at my data-intensive, completely secular, evidence-based place of employment, and it is not just the difference between Victorian English and 2020 American English. I am well versed in 2020 American English, and I’ve read my fair share of Victorian English, and I do data analysis for a living, Bob. Doesn’t this give you any pause at all?

          TWELVE

          THIRTEEN
          Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.
          **TFOTF: Didn’t get a comment from you on this. Let me go further. Consider this from Wikipedia:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
          Abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life,[3][4][5][a] is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[6][4][7][8] While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes.[9][10][11] Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood. There are several principles and hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred.[12]

          So, the details are “unknown”, and the “possible mechanisms are poorly understood”. But, because science is the only epistemology you and other materialists seem to recognize, and science only deals with natural processes, life must have arisen from purely natural causes. So, we start by saying there is no God. Then, we conclude abiogenesis must have occurred. Is that it? Please correct me if I am wrong.

          Also, an indirect argument rests on indirect evidence. Would you agree?

          THIRTEEN

          FOURTEEN
          TFOTF: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
          BOB: Your young earth Christian world view is fatally flawed. My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before.
          TFOTF: You didn’t answer my question. Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? Your answer is that my worldview is fatally flawed. That doesn’t answer my question at all….it’s more like a restatement of my question. So, I ask again: Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? The fact that I haven’t explained, and don’t know, every detail of how an omnipotent God created the world is a fatal flaw in my worldview? If that is what you are saying, please explain how you came to that conclusion. I don’t need to know the mechanism God used for everything he did….it’s very reasonable to assume he was able to handle the mysterious parts. You are the one who is on the hook to explain the mechanisms, since you claim that your views on origins are science-driven. Established science is supposed to involve detailed mechanisms, isn’t it?
          **TFOTF: Didn’t get a response from you on this one.
          FOURTEEN

          FIFTEEN
          BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
          TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it? Honestly. Please explain what you are getting at here.
          **TFOTF: No response on this one.
          FIFTEEN

• 

  Reply ↓

  bob May 2, 2020 at 9:25 am

  This is getting way out of hand, so if I don’t address every specific question or point that you make, just assume that I don’t want to spend the time on it.

  ONE
  TFOTF: I’m curious what your opinion of Gunter Bechly is…He states…My rejection of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution was not motivated by religion, but by some very convincing and still unrefuted scientific arguments from intelligent design proponents,…So, I’m asking for your opinion. Is he lying? Or is he too stupid to understand Neo-Darwinian macroevolution…?

  bob: I don’t know if he is lying or not. And I think it obvious that he is not “stupid”. I suspect it could be that he just doesn’t realize that his conversion, at its root, was based on emotions? I have made plenty of bad decisions in my life (including becoming a Christian) and just about every bad decision was heavily influenced by emotions (including becoming a Christian) .

  From CreationWiki:
  In 2015 Bechly criticised Neo-Darwinism and expressed his support for Intelligent Design theory…Bechly is a convert to Roman Catholic theism. He says: “I am a Roman Catholic Christian…”

  Why did he become a “Roman Catholic Christian”? Why did he pick that old, very established Christian denomination? He could be a believer in ID without affiliating with any denomination. Why did he pick a denomination so full of wealth, ritual, sexual deviance, and a very long history of atrocities dating back well over a thousand years?
  Tell me TFOTF, do you think Bechly relied on “…critical evaluation of empirical data and philosophical arguments, following the evidence wherever it leads…” when he decided to become a “Roman Catholic Christian”?

  Gunter Bechly: I strongly oppose atheism…
  Bob: a·the·ism – disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
  He doesn’t just disagree with “atheism”, he doesn’t just oppose, he “strongly” opposes – why would he strongly oppose someone not believing in a god? This makes no sense. There can be a number of reasons someone doesn’t believe in god, just like there can be a number of reasons someone does believe in a god. Why would a person strongly oppose someone else’s lack of a religious belief? I might disagree with their religious belief, but “strongly oppose”? I don’t get it. And how does one “strongly oppose” atheism anyway…picket outside the Church of Atheism? Hell, there are Roman Catholic priests who are atheists.

  Gunter Bechly: I have not become a Christian in spite of being a scientist but because of it. My conversion was based on a critical evaluation of empirical data and philosophical arguments, following the evidence wherever it leads. I reject the Neodarwinian theory of evolution and support Intelligent Design theory for purely scientific reasons.
  bob: I don’t think so. I think he lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion – like just about every Christian I have ever encountered.

  TFOTF: I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at…
  bob: Perhaps. I suspect that “most” evolutionary biologists who work in their respective fields don’t spend much time searching out the peddlers of “Intelligent Design theory”. But there are many who have done just that and not only remain convinced that ID is unscientific, but also take the time to refute ID their claims.
  Tell you what – find a research project at the university level, in ID. Should be easy – just look for a Christian (biologist, physicist, chemist) at any university (Christian or secular) who has been granted funds to research:
  A – Identity of the intelligently designer of the earth and the life found on it?
  B – How the ID’r accomplished the design and creation?
  C – When did this intelligent design / creation occur?
  D – No fair using Genesis 1&2.

  TFOTF: …and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.
  bob: HOLY $H!T – So you believe scientists, who are largely responsible for finding the answers to many of the worlds problems and answering many of the questions humans ponder, are doing this because they “seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy” – and – they fear they will lose their job if they admit that they secretly believe in ID – especially those evolutionary biologists who claim to believe in abiogenesis, which is not even remotely a part of their field of study or investigation as evolutionary biologists.
  I am amazed that your reasoning still amazes me.

  TFOTF: So….what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly along these lines? And to be clear….I’m not asking for your opinion about ID theory…?
  bob: Since you are not asking my opinion on ID, but on Gunter Bechly – since I can only form my opinion on what he has claimed are his reasons, and my past experiences with the claims of Christians, and without wanting to spend the time searching to see if there are any interviews with him conducted in impartiality or from the opposing viewpoint, and since he didn’t just question the validity of macroevolution, which is reasonable, but he went the next step and began promoting “Intelligent Design theory” without presenting any evidence that an intelligent designer exists, and then he went even farther and became a Roman Catholic, a religious organization rife with corruption, misogyny, sexual deviancy, secrecy, cruelty, etc, etc., my opinion is that Gunter Bechly’s beliefs and judgment should be seriously questioned.

  From his website:
  “I personally have come to reject common ancestry as a naturalistic mode of macroevolution in favor of a sophisticated version of progressive (Old Earth) special creation…”

  So what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly, a Catholic, who apparently believes something that you do not – that the ID event took place many millions (billions) of years ago? Why are you marching out a scientist that you (I am assuming) disagree with on both scientific and scriptural grounds?
  Some Catholic beliefs:
  Immaculate conception – Mary herself was free of original sin.
  Water baptism – done by “sprinkling” or pouring and babies are eligible.
  Purgatory – kind of a lousy rest stop for us bad people, between heaven and hell…?
  Pope – infallible.
  Communion – wafer and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus.
  Human evolution – “It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance…” (Catholic.com)

  Again – what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly? I suspect that his allegiance to the Catholic church and his “old earth” views are in conflict with a few of your religious beliefs…?

  TWO
  TFOTF: Waiting for comparable evidence for your iPhone-from-goo theory….
  bob: Are you intentionally obtuse?

  TFOTF…not fanciful notions, what-ifs, just-so stories, or hey-maybe-it-was-like-this.
  You mean like this:
  BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
  TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it?
  bob: Hows that for “fanciful notions, what-ifs, just-so stories, or hey-maybe-it-was-like-this.”

  A – TFOTF: Give me the evidence, and I will believe.
  B – TFOTF: As far as my belief in a Creator God…I don’t owe you comparable scientific evidence, because I never claimed my origins beliefs were science-driven.
  bob: Interesting admission. Your confusion, dishonesty, obfuscation is on full display here. On the one hand you claim that (A) you “WILL” be persuaded by evidence, but then you admit (B) that you did not come to your current beliefs because of any evidence. Why don’t you just admit that there is no amount of evidence that you will accept, if said evidence goes against your current religious beliefs…?

  THREE
  TFOTF: Hmmm, I think we both know God exists. Not by examining fossils, but by simple logic.
  bob: yawn…

  FIVE
  TFOTF: True, if “faith” just referred to a belief system. And sometimes it does. But I’m talking about a different kind of faith. I’m talking about the faith that Jesus authored in me (Hebrews 12:2)…
  bob: yawn…
  “Man is a credulous animal and must believe something. In the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
  ~Bertrand Russell

  TFOTF: You do acknowledge that science is not the only useful epistemology, right?
  Bob: “Not once has an apparent natural event turned out to have a supernatural cause, and not once has an apparent supernatural event turned out NOT to have a natural cause.”
  ~unknown

  TFOTF: Anyway, belief is the exercise of that faith. It is the exercise of that spiritual sense. I can see through faith (separately from the logical arguments linked above) that God made the worlds. Simple logic turns out to be no match for our foolish hearts…we need a spiritual eye.
  Bob: yawn…
  “So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the gospels in praise of intelligence.”
  ~Mark Twain

  SIX
  TFOTF: You are the one claiming that your origins views are science-driven. So, provide the link or links that convinced you the earth was 4.5 billion years old.
  Bob: Seriously?
  Q – Hey google, how old is the earth?
  A – 4.54 billion years old.
  Q – Hey Christian, how old is the earth?
  A – 6,000 years old.
  Be honest – you have no interest in scientific “links”.

  SEVEN
  TFOTF: Send me the link. If I read it and then find an objection to it, worded in scientific terms on a website you don’t approve of, will you simply dismiss the objection based on the URL?
  Bob: No, I would not. I would read the link and then explain to you why I find it faulty…if I find it faulty. I am not like you. You will dismiss any information simply because it goes counter to your religious beliefs.

  EIGHT
  TFOTF: There are many, many scientists who openly disagree with the small number of scientists who openly agree with me. What should I conclude from this?
  Bob: Actually, what you “should” conclude is less germane to our discussion than what and why you “have already” concluded, based on your beliefs concerning a 2,000 year old book.

  NINE
  TFOTF: …answersingenesis.org, I successfully verified all the premises via secular sources.
  bob: Sure you did…You verified ALL the premises yet completely ignored ALL the explanations. And how do you “verify” using “secular sources” when you don’t believe what the secular sources say unless they say what you already believe? Is that how science works?
  TFOTF: So I’m not allowed to ask you a question based on information I find in secular, scientific sources? Seems like such a question should be on you to answer, not me. If I’m never allowed to ask you about something that seems inconsistent to me when looking at secular sources, just say so. And in that case, don’t bother sending me any links…I’m not allowed to challenge anything contained therein.
  Bob: My point was – I doubt your claim of verification using secular sources because you distrust secular sources – that simple.

  TEN
  TFOTF: So, sponges have been around since 541 million years ago, or longer….but they don’t show up in the Grand Canyon fossil record until about 360 million years ago, or later. Please tell me why the oldest Grand Canyon layer known to contain sponges was actually deposited 180 million years after sponges evolved. Why don’t sponges appear in the older layers, if they had already evolved when those older layers were deposited? Since naturalistic macro-evolution is supposed to be such well established science, and established science is supposed to include detailed mechanisms, and since origins science and science related to events millions of years ago are supposed to be just as purely scientific as the operational science of today, I’m asking for something more substantive from you than “maybe it was this, maybe it was that, it could have been this.”
  Bob: I’m not a trained evolutionary biologist, so all I can do is quote the conclusions of scientists who study and work in the field.
  ~ But ~
  Why are you asking about events that scientists conclude occurred hundreds of millions of years ago when you clearly don’t believe anything occurred more than a few thousand years ago?

  ELEVEN
  TFOTF: James Tour himself, I’m pretty sure you will not question his scientific abilities.
  He signed this dissent from Darwinism:
  “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
  Bob: Heck, I’m skeptical of many scientific claims I often have to read and re-read different explanations over and over again. I am in full agreement that “Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

  But, back to Mr. Tour: “On November 7, 1977, while a college student, I came to the realization that Jesus Christ is indeed the Jewish Messiah. I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me for my sins and to come into my heart. The result was an immediate and sustaining sense of his presence, peace and joy in a manner that I had never before known. These came, according to the scriptures, by an indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”
  I guess this description of his conversion explains his..?..well thought out…?.. Beliefs

  Tour: “Based upon my study of the scriptures, which I have studied more than any other topic in my life, including chemistry, I believe:”

  1-The Bible is the inspired word of God. The New Testament, particularly the record in the four Gospels, is based upon eye-witnessed historical accounts that are accurate beyond compare to any historical documents of their time.
  2-Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and God himself.
  3-Jesus Christ came to earth as the long-awaited Jewish Messiah…
  4-Although sinless himself, Jesus Christ suffered and died for the sins of humankind, he was buried, and three days later he physically rose from the dead…
  5-By the act of suffering, dying, and resurrection, Jesus provided the one and only way for any person to have an eternal relationship with God.
  7-Salvation, or eternal life in Jesus, comes through a new spiritual birth into Jesus Christ.
  8-There is nothing one can do to earn salvation, but it comes through believing and confessing the work that Jesus Christ did in dying for our sins and in his physical resurrection from the dead.
  16-The Father God will place honor upon the person who serves Jesus Christ and is willing to die for him. Willingness to die for him is a requirement for being his disciple.
  18-There will be a physical resurrection of both the followers of Jesus (those who have accepted the salvation provided by Christ) and those who have rejected him.
  20-Jesus Christ will come again, but next time he will come as the crowned King to receive his followers.

  Do you detect anything in his above list, that requires any kind of university degree, in anything? He became a Christian at age 18, in the late 70’s – so he has been a believer for quite some time, and by his own admission, he has studied the bible “…more than any other topic in my life, including chemistry.” So remind me again why I should hold his views on Darwin or biological evolution as anywhere near authoritative?

  TFOTF: This certainly conflicts with Dawkins’s statement (reviewing The Grand Design) that “Darwin kicked God out of biology”.
  Bob: I disagree – biology is one of the natural sciences – it investigates the natural, not the supernatural. The ONLY way to investigate the supernatural (the Christian god for example) is by reading the bible. So, while the investigation of the natural goes on and on and on and…the investigation of the supernatural (reading the bible) can be accomplished in a couple weeks…if you can stay awake.

  TFOTF: Oh, Dawkins and friends make it sound like such a slam-dunk case.
  Bob: Remember, biology has no ability to investigate the supernatural – so yes, it is a slam-dunk.

  TFOTF: You read science literature a lot, it sounds like. So, I ask you…which group is speaking in more scientific, careful terms about the available evidence?
  Bob: Wait a minute – is Dawkins a “group”? Has he been made de facto spokesperson for all of evolutionary biological science?

  TFOTF: Please also look up Michael Egnor, Michael Behe and Duane Gish. They spent (or are still spending) many years at nonreligious institutions. Although David Menton is at AIG now, he spent 34 years teaching at WAshington University School of Medicine. But, if this is just about numbers (you tell me, because I’m not sure), then, OK, you win.
  Bob: No, it’s not about numbers. I suggest that it is about the degree of study and the work in the field. If it was about the numbers, then almost 200 years ago it would have been Charles Darwin and perhaps one other against everyone else – meaning Darwin would lose. And I am familiar with Behe and Gish. M. Egnor, another smart guy (Catholic) who read a book and decided that ID is science and biological evolution is not. Menton, did he work in the field of biological evolution? Looking at his bio it would seem that he is just another very smart guy who was raised as a believer and for some reason, came to the conclusion that ID is a science and evolution is not.
  Listen, I know that there are some very intelligent and accomplished people who believe as you do. I mentioned to you long ago about my uncle, PhD in mathematics, formulated the calculations for tracking (predicting) orbiting satellites way back in the late 50’s, and he was a bible believing Christian. None of this is news to me, yet you continue to march out people with letters as if it is somehow supposed to have an impact on me. I don’t get it.

  David Madison, PhD, former Christian minister
  Bart Earman, PhD, former Christian
  John Loftus, M.Div, ThM, former Christian minister
  Richard Dawkins, PhD, former Christian
  Dan Barker, B.A., former Christian minister
  Michael Shermer, PhD, former Christian
  Charles Templeton, former evangelist
  Anthony Pinn, PhD, former Christian minister
  Ryan J. Bell, PhD, former Christian minister
  Terry Plank, M.Div, former Christian minister
  Joshua Bowen, PhD, former Christian
  John Laughlin, PhD, former Christian minister ( I have met him – we both spoke at the funeral of a friend )

  People leave atheism and become Christians.
  People leave Christianity and become atheists.
  Many of those people do not have college degrees.
  Many of those people have college degrees.
  Some of those people have advanced degrees.

  What do you hope to accomplish by constantly marching out people with advanced degrees who happen to believe (sort of) what you believe, when I can do the exact same thing? For every single PhD that you present, I can match you, easily. I can even offer Christian archaeologists who, as Christians, found archaeological evidence (in ancient Palestine) that biblical claims were false – and yet, they remained Christians – go figure.

  I have to wonder, what if next week you read that Gunter Bechly has recanted his previous claims concerning ID, admitted that he was wrong (had a lapse in judgment), presented evidence of his error, and gave up his Christian beliefs – would you then discount his expertise and no longer use him as a learned example in your battle against biological evolution? Of course you would. I suspect that you would have to. Your emotional attachment to your religious beliefs far out-way your desire for truth.

  TWELVE
  TFOTF: Darwin’s profession of “faith” wasn’t just a random slip of the pen, Bob. Darwin’s later verbiage regarding neuter insects should make it very plain to you.
  “I have, therefore, discussed this case, at some little but wholly insufficient length, in order to show the power of natural selection, and likewise because this is by far the most serious special difficulty, which my theory has encountered. The case, also, is very interesting, as it proves that with animals, as with plants, any amount of modification in structure can be effected by the accumulation of numerous, slight, and as we must call them accidental, variations, which are in any manner profitable, without exercise or habit having come into play.”
  Bob, without worrying about all the ramifications of the admission, can’t you admit that in this case he made a conclusion that went far beyond the available evidence? Surely you can see that. “Any amount of modification”, just because he looked at some neuter insects??
  Simply put, this is not the language of science! The evidence he found does ***not*** prove what he said it proves.
  Bob: Yes, Darwin got excited at the implications of his observations and discoveries. So freaking what!

  TFOTF: He was clearly getting carried away with the excitement of his theory.
  Bob: Again – so what! You should have seen my excitement when, after 25 years of believing in bible-god, I concluded that I had no good reason for such beliefs. I was very excited. Did that prove that there is no god, of course not – but confidence remains high.

  TFOTF: No one talks like this at my data-intensive, completely secular, evidence-based place of employment…
  Bob: How often do people at your work make discoveries that challenge thousands of years of religious belief?
  “Creationists use data the way a drunk man uses a lamp post – for support, not illumination.”
  ~unknown

  TFOTF: …and it is not just the difference between Victorian English and 2020 American English. I am well versed in 2020 American English, and I’ve read my fair share of Victorian English, and I do data analysis for a living, Bob. Doesn’t this give you any pause at all?
  Bob: NOT AT ALL! Neither my world view nor my conclusions concerning human and animal evolution rest entirely on the discoveries, conclusions, or writings of Charles Darwin.
  You are truly making a mountain out of a molehill.

  THIRTEEN
  Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.
  Bob: yawn…

  **TFOTF: Wikipedia: Abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life,[3][4][5][a] is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[6][4][7][8] While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes.[9][10][11] Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood. There are several principles and hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred.[12]
  Bob: Abiogenesis and biological evolution are two completely different fields of study – pick one please.

  TFOTF: So, the details are “unknown”, and the “possible mechanisms are poorly understood”. But, because science is the only epistemology you and other materialists seem to recognize, and science only deals with natural processes, life must have arisen from purely natural causes. So, we start by saying there is no God. Then, we conclude abiogenesis must have occurred. Is that it? Please correct me if I am wrong.
  Bob: You are wrong. Science does not address the question of the existence of a god either way. Scientists may proclaim their belief or non belief concerning the existence of a god, but to my knowledge, there are no scientific investigations into such.
  So, when it comes to how life began on Earth, since science deals with the natural, all it can do is investigate the natural. Supernatural, by its very name, can not be investigated by the natural sciences.

  TFOTF: Also, an indirect argument rests on indirect evidence. Would you agree?
  Bob: I don’t know.

  FOURTEEN
  TFOTF: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
  BOB: Your young earth Christian worldview is fatally flawed. My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before.
  TFOTF: You didn’t answer my question. Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? Your answer is that my worldview is fatally flawed. That doesn’t answer my question at all….it’s more like a restatement of my question. So, I ask again: Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? The fact that I haven’t explained, and don’t know, every detail of how an omnipotent God created the world is a fatal flaw in my worldview? If that is what you are saying, please explain how you came to that conclusion. I don’t need to know the mechanism God used for everything he did….it’s very reasonable to assume he was able to handle the mysterious parts.
  Bob: OK, I’ll answer your initial question:
  Q – I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
  A – Because I believe your young earth Christian worldview is fatally flawed.
  There…?

  TFOTF: You are the one who is on the hook to explain the mechanisms, since you claim that your views on origins are science-driven. Established science is supposed to involve detailed mechanisms, isn’t it?
  Bob: Are you saying that the science of biology has not “explained the mechanisms” of evolution? If that is what you are saying, then you don’t know how to google – or you do know but are afraid to look.

  FIFTEEN
  BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
  TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it? Honestly. Please explain what you are getting at here.
  **TFOTF: No response on this one.
  Bob: No.

  • 

    Reply ↓

    TFOTF May 23, 2020 at 11:34 am

    Well, Bob, I really blew it this time. I was just going to write a reasonably-sized response to section ONE, and then get to the other sections later. And that’s what I did, except for the “reasonably-sized” part. Anyway, here is my response just for topic #1. I’ll just work my way through the others as time allows. Up to you whether to work on a response to the below, or wait until I’ve put up responses to all of them. If you choose the latter, you could be waiting a long time! Anyway, yes, it has been almost two years since you first came on here. I still remember when your first comment popped up. Awesome…a real live atheist to talk to! Thanks for the dialogue.

    -TFOTF

    ONE
    TFOTF: I’m curious what your opinion of Gunter Bechly is…He states…My rejection of Neo-Darwinian macroevolution was not motivated by religion, but by some very convincing and still unrefuted scientific arguments from intelligent design proponents,…So, I’m asking for your opinion. Is he lying? Or is he too stupid to understand Neo-Darwinian macroevolution…?

    bob: I don’t know if he is lying or not. And I think it obvious that he is not “stupid”. I suspect it could be that he just doesn’t realize that his conversion, at its root, was based on emotions? I have made plenty of bad decisions in my life (including becoming a Christian) and just about every bad decision was heavily influenced by emotions (including becoming a Christian) .

    TFOTF: Well, we are clearly disagreeing about the nature of his conversion. Can we look at the evidence surrounding his conversion?
    http://apologetics-academy.org/online-training/2016/10/15/confessions-of-a-former-skeptic-ex-atheist-testimonies
    This is a 12 minute video where he walks us through his conversion in his own words. So, I’m not just looking for a broad statement in the video where he claims his conversion was purely evidence- and reason-based. I’m looking at the details of his conversion, including the various arguments he considered, his description of his former views, and his own recounting of pivotal, factual life events/decisions.

    So, this is what I learned:
    – His parents were completely agnostic
    – They never talked about religion
    – He never went to church or was baptized as a child
    – In a class of 30, he was the only child to opt out of religious education
    —At that time in Germany, all children had to choose between Protestant or Catholic religious education, unless they opted out
    – He had no relationship to religion whatsoever and was only interested in science and nature
    – In his 20s and 30s he developed a hostility toward religion, considering it medieval, silly, ancient supersition
    – He thought Christianity was a religion for weaklings afraid of death
    – Dawkins was his hero
    – Went to Catholic church with his wife and found it quite boring
    – Got baptized only for the purpose of church marriage

    So, that was his background. Does that sound like someone susceptible to emotional leaps into the arms of an imaginary benevolent father?
    Now, let’s look at his own testimony regarding his conversion.

    It started with modern physics, via the writings of Feynman and Greene. Bechly began to ponder the implications of relativity, string theory, and quantum mechanics. Einstein’s theory of relativity implies that everything past, present and future exists in a 4-dimensional space-time block. The origin of life is one point in that block, the origin of dinosaurs is another, and then you have humans, and then at some point the extinction of all life. The problem is with causality….there is not really a flow of time in this construct, so there is no flow from cause to effect, so evolutionary theory doesn’t work in that framework, in that static view of time.

    He also started thinking about the philosophy of mind. How could consciousness come from matter in motion and elementary particles? How could you get free will and a persistent enduring self from that?

    After a 10 year journey, he realized that materialism is incoherent. 10 years, Bob. So, again, I’m looking at his own testimony and I’m asking….when you suggest that “he lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion”, you are solely basing that on the facts that he is a Catholic and you are an atheist?

    In any case, he rejected materialism and started looking at Hinduism, other eastern religions, new age relatives, Ken Wilber, objective idealism, Alfred north Whiteside, process philosophy, and process theology. After several years and lots of books he couldn’t take the incoherencies and went back to materialism.

    He went back to materialism because his foray into the immaterial had ended in incoherence. So, again, I’m looking at his own testimony and I’m asking….when you conjecture that “he lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion”, you are solely basing that on the facts that he is a Catholic and you are an atheist? So, because he is Catholic, you are comfortable dismissing his arguments on any topic you disagree with him on? Nancy Pelosi is Catholic…would it then be rational for me to reject any idea of hers that I disagree with, regardless of the topic, just because she is Catholic? For the record, I have NEVER shrugged off any of Nancy Pelosi’s religious or political statements just because she is Catholic. By the way, biologist Kenneth Miller was the star expert witness AGAINST Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity in Kitzmiller v. Dover. But he also professes Roman Catholicism. Should we question his beliefs and judgments too, then? If I’m misrepresenting you, please tell me how.

    In any case, Bechly gave materialism another chance. He studied Daniel Dennett, he studied the multiverse, the freak observer / boltzman brain problem, the measure problem of cosmology, how to divide infinity to get finite probabilities…and he once again concluded that materialism was not a viable solution.

    His next stop was metaphysical philosophy…John Leslie, modern neoplatonism, problems inherited from platonism, the third man problem, problems caused by static view of time.

    Finally…after a long process which you think was more passionate than rational, he investigated deism, then general theism and then Christianity. He studied William Lane Craig, as well as the Kalam, fine-tuning, ontological and Leibniz arguments for the existence of God. He explored different religions and found good historical reasons for the reliability of Gospels. He struggled with the mass killings in the Old Testament, the concept of miracles, with his own pride, with the concept that Jesus is supposed to be first in your life, even before family.

    He claims his conversion was based on rational arguments…evidential apologetics arguments, philosophical arguments, and metaphysical arguments. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many years he spent pondering this, how many problems he saw with materialism, how many different options he considered. You still think he “lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion.” You suspect “that his conversion, at its root, was based on emotions”? And your reason for thinking this is that he’s a Catholic and you’re an atheist?

    I guess if you’re committed to the idea that converting to Christianity is a bad decision, then it’s easy to suspect that a convert is being driven by emotion. I thought maybe after reading the extensive thought process, and the long period of reading and investigation that he went through, and the wide variety of options he considered (including materialism), you would see that it wasn’t an emotional decision, and therefore question whether converting to Christianity is such a bad idea after all.

    Bob: From CreationWiki:
    In 2015 Bechly criticised Neo-Darwinism and expressed his support for Intelligent Design theory…Bechly is a convert to Roman Catholic theism. He says: “I am a Roman Catholic Christian…”
    Why did he become a “Roman Catholic Christian”? Why did he pick that old, very established Christian denomination? He could be a believer in ID without affiliating with any denomination. Why did he pick a denomination so full of wealth, ritual, sexual deviance, and a very long history of atrocities dating back well over a thousand years?

    TFOTF: I don’t know why he picked Catholicism. Here are his own words:
    I also thoroughly evaluated the pro and con arguments for Christianity, esp. Roman Catholic (esp. Thomism) and Reformed theology, as well as Biblical exegesis and history (just for the record: no, I was not converted by my wife, who was a Cafeteria Catholic and “Chreaster”).
    https://www.bechly.at/world-view/
    Whereas he explained in detail how he went from atheist to theist, I didn’t see any detail on his thoughts on Catholicism vs. Protestantism. And he probably has never heard of Primitive Baptists, so he hasn’t really had a chance to look at my particular Christian beliefs. But remember, he went through a 10 year journey from atheism to theism, so would you be surprised if 5 years from now he switches to another type of Christianity? That would be a smaller adjustment than switching from atheism to Christianity.

    If I can use Ravi Zacharias’s 4-point method of characterizing a worldview (origin, meaning, morality, and destiny), I would say that Bechly’s worldview has moved much, much closer to my own over the years, even if he does currently embrace Catholicism. We could probably find significant agreement on the 1st three. However, if he was still an atheist, we would certainly differ on origin, destiny and meaning. So, roughly speaking, we’re talking about 75% agreement vs. 25% agreement.

    Bob: Tell me TFOTF, do you think Bechly relied on “…critical evaluation of empirical data and philosophical arguments, following the evidence wherever it leads…” when he decided to become a “Roman Catholic Christian”?

    TFOTF: Yes, with 51% certainty. I say that because I have big problems with the “destiny” part of both the Catholic AND Reformed worldviews, but there have been times where the Catholic one (as explained by a pope or a cardinal) seemed a little closer to the Bible than the Protestant one. He seems like a nonstop thinker, so maybe he said “Materialism is incoherent. I also have issues with both Protestantism and Catholicism, but I will choose Catholicism for now because at least it does a decent job with origin, meaning and morality, and I will keep pondering the different options out there.”

    Gunter Bechly: I strongly oppose atheism…
    Bob: a·the·ism – disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
    He doesn’t just disagree with “atheism”, he doesn’t just oppose, he “strongly” opposes – why would he strongly oppose someone not believing in a god? This makes no sense. There can be a number of reasons someone doesn’t believe in god, just like there can be a number of reasons someone does believe in a god. Why would a person strongly oppose someone else’s lack of a religious belief? I might disagree with their religious belief, but “strongly oppose”? I don’t get it. And how does one “strongly oppose” atheism anyway…picket outside the Church of Atheism? Hell, there are Roman Catholic priests who are atheists.
    TFOTF: Beliefs have implications. You know this. I know you know this, for one thing because we have discussed this before. But I think you knew this before you ever connected with me. If you are willing to entertain the non-existence of God, then you are implying (whether you **wanted** to imply this or not) that you are willing to entertain the notion that a brain came from goo. Now, Bechly spent many years thinking about atheism, and ended up concluding it was incoherent. So, since he claims its incoherent, I don’t understand your surprise at a scientist strongly opposing something he has already said is incoherent.

    TFOTF: I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at…
    bob: Perhaps. I suspect that “most” evolutionary biologists who work in their respective fields don’t spend much time searching out the peddlers of “Intelligent Design theory”. But there are many who have done just that and not only remain convinced that ID is unscientific, but also take the time to refute ID their claims.
    Tell you what – find a research project at the university level, in ID. Should be easy – just look for a Christian (biologist, physicist, chemist) at any university (Christian or secular) who has been granted funds to research:
    A – Identity of the intelligently designer of the earth and the life found on it?
    B – How the ID’r accomplished the design and creation?
    C – When did this intelligent design / creation occur?
    D – No fair using Genesis 1&2.
    TFOTF: Again, I never claimed that my origins beliefs are science driven. So I do not accept this assignment. YOU are the one claiming your origins beliefs are science-driven. And I’ve tried 3 times to get a specific answer from you on the late appearance of sponges in the fossil record, to no avail. So, evidence that your origins views are truly evidence-based is wanting…

    TFOTF: …and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.
    bob: HOLY $H!T – So you believe scientists, who are largely responsible for finding the answers to many of the worlds problems and answering many of the questions humans ponder, are doing this because they “seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy” – and – they fear they will lose their job if they admit that they secretly believe in ID – especially those evolutionary biologists who claim to believe in abiogenesis, which is not even remotely a part of their field of study or investigation as evolutionary biologists.
    I am amazed that your reasoning still amazes me.
    TFOTF: You are misrepresenting me and Catholics everywhere (even though I am not Catholic!). I don’t think I spelled it out enough higher up, so let me spell out the earlier case and then address what you are doing now. Because Bechly is a Catholic (which could mean he subscribes to some beliefs that you and I would both reject), you state that his “beliefs and judgment should be seriously questioned.”, and I assume you are applying that to all theological or philosophical notions he might hold that you disagree with (correct me if I am wrong). It seems that at a minimum, you are applying it to his rejection of materialism in favor of ID. If not, please clarify. For now, let’s talk about Nancy Pelosi and Rick Santorum. They both claim to be Catholic. But there is a long list of things they would disagree on, wouldn’t you agree? I bet they even disagree on the topic of homosexuality, which is something the Bible does in fact address. So, the term “Catholic” can refer to a wide range of beliefs. So, are you sure you are being reasonable, Bob, when you call his arguments about materialism into question just because he is Catholic? How is that reasonable? In fact, according to you in this very thread, “there are Roman Catholic priests who are atheists.” So, Catholic can mean a VERY wide variety of beliefs, according to you in one paragraph, but further down, “Catholic” is enough to call a man’s general beliefs and judgments into question. Which is it? I don’t think you are being internally consistent.

    Now, you are doing the same thing when it comes to my statements about escapism. You are twisting my words. Here is what I said:
    “I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.”
    Then, you twisted it (and added some vulgarity that I already pasted in once, which was one time too many):
    “So you believe scientists, who are largely responsible for finding the answers to many of the worlds problems and answering many of the questions humans ponder, are doing this because they “seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy” – and – they fear they will lose their job if they admit that they secretly believe in ID – especially those evolutionary biologists who claim to believe in abiogenesis, which is not even remotely a part of their field of study or investigation as evolutionary biologists.”

    OK, so “most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution” became “scientists”. You threw out all my important qualifiers. Then, my “and/or” became “- and -”, so you tossed out my conjunction and then you even emphasized your twisted version of what I said by adding two dashes. This is especially grievous to me as someone who does math and programming for a living. Respect my conjunctions, Bob. They were not randomly pulled out of a hat.

    Now, you said you are on here for the benefit of my few readers, so I’m holding you to that. You really think with your vulgarity and your twisting of my statements that you are nudging anybody in the direction of Aron Ra? My exhortation to you, Bob, is to step back and look at the body of statements you have made on this public site, and ask yourself…is this **really** who I am?

    Furthermore, I want to highlight a certain naivete that comes out in your writing. Is it real or feigned? I don’t know. But it comes out, so I’m going to highlight it. In short, you seem to have trouble remembering that science is done by **humans**, and as such, they are subject to the same passions and frailties that you and I are. You say things like “science tells” and “science learned”, which is a handy way to sidestep the actual agents involved in science…namely, scientists. And, more to the point, humans. Have you read the Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (yes, I’m aware he was not a Christian…that doesn’t mean he has nothing useful to say, so don’t try that on me)? I read a page or two where he reminds us how fallible scientists can be. He assures us (yes, this should be obvious if you think about it, but reminders are always good) that scientists can be corrupted by various factors such as racism, etc. Now, don’t twist my words again; I’m not claiming that the average work of the average scientist is corrupt and unreliable. But I’m calling you out for the shock and vulgarity you express when I mention a couple different ways that some scientists in some fields could endorse certain scientific theories for non-scientific reasons. I don’t think you are discussing this topic in a mature way.

    So, no, I’m not worried that scientists in general are hoodwinking us. I get vaccines like most everybody else. Please don’t twist my words or my message.

    TFOTF: So….what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly along these lines? And to be clear….I’m not asking for your opinion about ID theory…?
    Bob: From his website:
    “I personally have come to reject common ancestry as a naturalistic mode of macroevolution in favor of a sophisticated version of progressive (Old Earth) special creation…”
    So what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly, a Catholic, who apparently believes something that you do not – that the ID event took place many millions (billions) of years ago? Why are you marching out a scientist that you (I am assuming) disagree with on both scientific and scriptural grounds?
    TFOTF: Because, the Bible says he has made significant progress down the path of wisdom. The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So, to go from atheism to theism is a great start. Since you are an atheist, I’m sorry to say this, but for all your talk of evidence and being reasonable and rational and skeptical, you have not even begun down the path of wisdom. He is much further along than you, whether he agrees with me on the age of the earth or not. That is why I present his story to you. In fact, maybe we could both learn a thing or two from him.

    Bob: Some Catholic beliefs:
    Immaculate conception – Mary herself was free of original sin. TFOTF: Show me evidence he actually believes this. I’ve already talked about the vagueness of the term “catholic” or “Roman Catholic”.
    Water baptism – done by “sprinkling” or pouring and babies are eligible. TFOTF: Show me evidence he actually believes this. I’ve already talked about the vagueness of the term “catholic” or “Roman Catholic”.
    Purgatory – kind of a lousy rest stop for us bad people, between heaven and hell…? TFOTF: Show me evidence he actually believes this. I’ve already talked about the vagueness of the term “catholic” or “Roman Catholic”.
    Pope – infallible. TFOTF: Show me evidence he actually believes this. I’ve already talked about the vagueness of the term “catholic” or “Roman Catholic”.
    Communion – wafer and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus. TFOTF: Show me evidence he actually believes this. I’ve already talked about the vagueness of the term “catholic” or “Roman Catholic”.
    Human evolution – “It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance…” (Catholic.com) TFOTF: I already addressed his own comment about progressive (Old Earth) special creation, and I imagine the same would apply here.
    Again – what is your opinion of Gunter Bechly? I suspect that his allegiance to the Catholic church and his “old earth” views are in conflict with a few of your religious beliefs…? TFOTF: I addressed this above.

    Thanks Bob!

    ONE

    • 

      Reply ↓

      bob May 24, 2020 at 12:42 pm

      This will be my last response.

      Once again, we are spending an exorbitant amount of time on Mr. Bechly. He is only one man who was a non-believer and became a believer. How does this help your cause? You became a believer without doing any investigating, so obviously, no investigation is needed to become a believer, correct?
      This entire conversation is meaningless.

      Anyway, I am going to ignore most of this noise because it does not in any way support your contention that there is a god.

      TFOTF: Well, we are clearly disagreeing about the nature of his conversion. Can we look at the evidence surrounding his conversion?…
      …So, that was his background. Does that sound like someone susceptible to emotional leaps into the arms of an imaginary benevolent father?
      bob: Clearly, his journey is not as simplistic as I intimated that it was. Obviously his was less emotionally driven than most. Heck, when I became a Christian I just accepted that I was a sinner destined for hell and accepted the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for my sins.
      If only, with all his years of research, Mr. Bechly could have actually found evidence for the existence of the God he now believes in. I wonder what evidence he found that pushed him in the direction of the Catholic Church…? I wonder how much he investigated the ancient origins of the Hebrew religious beliefs (pre Abrahamic), long before there was an “old testament”. Perhaps his next PhD should be in Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Religions, Theology, etc…? He just might come to realize that the origins of their beliefs is far more nuanced than the Garden of Eden myth.

      TFOTF: Now, let’s look at his own testimony regarding his conversion…After a 10 year journey, he realized that materialism is incoherent. 10 years, Bob.
      bob: My journey out of Christianity took me longer than that. I began questioning some of the doctrines I held dear back in the mid 80’s (water baptism, the trinity, tithing, organized religion, etc) but it wasn’t until 2000 that I finally broke free.
      15 years, TFOTF.
      From his own conversion testimony he went from being repulsed by the cruelty found in the OT to kissing the Pope’s ring – now that’s a testimony.

      TFOTF: So, again, I’m looking at his own testimony and I’m asking….when you suggest that “he lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion”, you are solely basing that on the facts that he is a Catholic and you are an atheist?
      bob: No – but I am confident that being a practicing Catholic does not help.

      TFOTF: So, because he is Catholic, you are comfortable dismissing his arguments on any topic you disagree with him on?
      bob: That’s absurd – If we disagree on art, entertainment, dining, music, etc, I doubt that his religious beliefs would cross my mind – I am a rational adult.

      TFOTF: If I’m misrepresenting you, please tell me how.
      bob: You are not misrepresenting me (though you seem to be trying very hard to do just that). You are asking me a question and I am answering – No.
      If a person – regardless of religious beliefs – dismisses facts that are based on evidence, and they dismiss these facts because of their beliefs, then I suspect that they are suffering from confirmation bias.

      TFOTF: He claims his conversion was based on rational arguments…evidential apologetics arguments, philosophical arguments, and metaphysical arguments. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many years he spent pondering this, how many problems he saw with materialism, how many different options he considered. You still think he “lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion.” You suspect “that his conversion, at its root, was based on emotions”? And your reason for thinking this is that he’s a Catholic and you’re an atheist?
      bob: Again – No.

      TFOTF: I guess if you’re committed to the idea that converting to Christianity is a bad decision, then it’s easy to suspect that a convert is being driven by emotion. I thought maybe after reading the extensive thought process, and the long period of reading and investigation that he went through, and the wide variety of options he considered (including materialism), you would see that it wasn’t an emotional decision, and therefore question whether converting to Christianity is such a bad idea after all.
      bob: I agree now that emotions probably did not play a major role in his decision. I guess you can’t understand my quandary – Why did he become a “Roman Catholic Christian”? All you can offer is “I don’t know”. You vigorously present the fact that he was educated, worked in his field (prehistoric insects – specifically dragonflies), spent years investigating claims by both those promoting ID and those against, and somehow eventually found Jesus and linked up with the Catholic faith. Why did he find Jesus – was he looking for Jesus?
      There is an incredibly huge leap from becoming convinced that ID is true, to then believing Genesis 1&2 is true, and finding Jesus – why would he become a Roman Catholic Christian…or why become a Christian at all? It’s almost as if he threw a dart at a map after doing 10 years of research. It’s almost as if he didn’t do any historical research at all before picking a religion.
      And you can’t find it in yourself to offer any criticism of his decision…? You think his choice of religious affiliation was perfectly reasonable. That speaks volumes about YOU!

      TFOTF: Bechly spent many years thinking about atheism, and ended up concluding it was incoherent. So, since he claims its incoherent, I don’t understand your surprise at a scientist strongly opposing something he has already said is incoherent.
      bob: Atheism is coherent. Anyone who claims it is incoherent does so out of ignorance “and/or” prejudice.
      Christian: “Why don’t you believe in God?”
      Atheist: “I have not been presented any convincing evidence that a god exists.”
      Christian: “That’s incoherent!”
      Atheist: “?”

      TFOTF: Again, I never claimed that my origins beliefs are science driven.
      Bob: Of course they are not “science driven”, just like your young earth creationism is not science driven, just like your rejection of biological evolution is not science driven.

      TFOTF: YOU are the one claiming your origins beliefs are science-driven. And I’ve tried 3 times to get a specific answer from you on the late appearance of sponges in the fossil record, to no avail. So, evidence that your origins views are truly evidence-based is wanting…
      bob: I don’t have any “origins beliefs” – none! And you are not concerned with sponges, so don’t pretend. Why would I waste time researching something that means nothing to you in the long run. As usual, you can not be bothered with science enough to google – https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/oldest-known-sponge-pushes-back-date-key-split-animal-evolution
      Ya know, someone who believes a god created everything 6,000 years ago doesn’t get to call 600,000,000 years ago “late”.

      TFOTF: …Bob, when you call his arguments about materialism into question just because he is Catholic? How is that reasonable?
      bob: I have never been presented a “good reason” to become a Roman Catholic, have you? I think he did not exercise good reasoning when he decided to become a Catholic, do you? I believe it is reasonable to question his religious /philosophical arguments.

      TFOTF: Now, you are doing the same thing when it comes to my statements about escapism. You are twisting my words. Here is what I said:
      “I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.”
      Then, you twisted it (and added some vulgarity that I already pasted in once, which was one time too many):
      bob: I twisted nothing. You have accused me of engaging in “escapism” numerous times. You are whining – “and/or” – projecting.

      TFOTF: Now, you said you are on here for the benefit of my few readers, so I’m holding you to that. You really think with your vulgarity and your twisting of my statements…
      bob: I did not “twist” your statements. And from my perspective, there are times when vulgarity is the best way to express oneself. Sorry if it offends your tender disposition…

      TFOTF: Furthermore, I want to highlight a certain naivete that comes out in your writing…In short, you seem to have trouble remembering that science is done by **humans**…You say things like “science tells” and “science learned”, which is a handy way to sidestep the actual agents involved in science…namely, scientists.
      bob: Oh for the love of…I am fully aware that science is a human endeavor. And I am fully aware that scientists (humans) can and do make errors, some may even promote their prejudices, just as believers do routinely. But when an error by a scientist is committed, that error is discovered by another (human) scientist.
      You actually think that I think that science is some sort of nebulous, self-guided process that once “it” makes a discovery “it” lets humans know what “it” discovered? Thanks for nothing.

      TFOTF: Now, don’t twist my words again; I’m not claiming that the average work of the average scientist is corrupt and unreliable. But I’m calling you out for the shock and vulgarity you express when I mention a couple different ways that some scientists in some fields could endorse certain scientific theories for non-scientific reasons. I don’t think you are discussing this topic in a mature way.
      bob: you are a liar. *You have accused me on numerous occasions that I, as a non believer, am engaging in “escapism”. And you are accusing the vast majority of evolutionary scientists as being willfully or unwillfully deluded. Don’t weasel out now – own it.*

      * “I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.”

      * “Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo.”

      You are engaging in typical Christian subterfuge and then blaming me when I point it out. Where do you get the arrogance?

      TFOTF: The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
      bob: yawn

      TFOTF: So, to go from atheism to theism is a great start. Since you are an atheist, I’m sorry to say this, but for all your talk of evidence and being reasonable and rational and skeptical, you have not even begun down the path of wisdom.
      bob: yawwwnnn

      TFOTF: He is much further along than you, whether he agrees with me on the age of the earth or not. That is why I present his story to you. In fact, maybe we could both learn a thing or two from him.
      bob: If he is so much wiser than me, why did he become a Catholic?
      Perhaps you should consider converting…?

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      With you, meaningful dialogue has proven impossible.
      You don’t want to talk about biological evolution, you just want to talk about converted evolutionists.
      You don’t want to talk about the origins of life, you just want me to respond to your pedestrian, oft repeated iphone/goo analogy. If you ever make it back to prime numbers (please god, no) I fear that will occupy another few months worth of completely useless dialogue.

      Christians never offer actual evidence for the existence of their god. You never have, Mr. Bechly hasn’t as best as I can tell, none of your other educated converts have. During the year that I chatted with the Jehovah’s Witnesses once a week, they never did. All you do is point to supposed “discrepancies” in the conclusions made by scientists when their conclusions conflict with your religious beliefs.

      Christians never offer “good reasons” for why they believe in God.
      Christians always offer “bad reasons” for why they don’t believe science.

      Christians never point out discrepancies in science when their beliefs agree with scientific conclusions. Christians (scientists or not) don’t produce any new discoveries that show that their god is real. Of all the scientific discoveries that have been made over the hundreds of years, in biology, archaeology, geology, astronomy, physics, etc, not a single discovery is an indicator that your god is real – not a single one.

      You have either ignored or shot down any and all attempts I have made to try to have a substantive discussion on biblical topics – and instead – you have wasted my time on educated converts, prime numbers, and iphones from goo.
      I think this is as good a time as any to call it quits. Clearly, our topics of interests are not compatible.

      bob

      Has science ever retreated? No! It is religion which has always retreated before the face of science. It is religion that will always be forced to retreat.
      ~unknown

      It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
      ~Wiliam K Clifford

      Could a being create fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?
      ~Ron Patterson

      Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest!
      ~Émile Zola

      • 

        Reply ↓

        TFOTF May 30, 2020 at 2:00 pm

        Thanks for the response, Bob. Sorry to see you go, but I’ll try to respond to what is left.
        This could go rather long, so I want to start with the bottom line, and for me the bottom line for our discussion is the sponges. I see a significant chasm between your professed skepticism and your actual skepticism, and I also see that the sponge question raised by AIG doesn’t seem to have been addressed by evolutionists.
        Now, if evolutionists actually have a good answer for this, I will preemptively eat crow now. I realize I’m not the last word on Christianity and the Bible, and you are not the last word on evolution. But I’m working with what I have found on my own and with what you, a well-read atheist, have provided.
        I gave you 3 opportunities to offer an explanation regarding the absence of sponges from the earlier periods of Grand Canyon geologic history. I didn’t know what to expect, but I saw this question mentioned on AIG and I wanted to know your response.
        Your first response referenced some information from the National Park Service and said nothing about sponges.
        Your next response seemed to point back to your first one, without adding anything new. “I’m not a trained evolutionary biologist, so all I can do is quote the conclusions of scientists who study and work in the field.” This mention of quotes from experts did nothing to address the sponge question, because the expert quotes provided in your first response said nothing about sponges.
        However, your comment did raise another question in my mind. Why won’t you quote Dr. Menton as an authority? Dr. Menton (the scientist who raised the sponge question) has a biology degree from an Ivy League university (Brown) and he has apparently worked to show that naturalistic macroevolution is false for 20 years or more. You said elsewhere that it’s not about the numbers, but rather, “I suggest that it is about the degree of study and the work in the field”. OK, well he’s been looking at this for 26 years or more; 13 years part time, 13 years full time. Here is a paper from 2000 where he debates vestigial anatomy:
        https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237531140_The_plantaris_and_the_question_of_vestigial_muscles_in_man
        Here is the 2007 article announcing his transition to full-time work at AIG, including research:
        “Dr. Menton will be writing, speaking, conducting research and offering special teaching and demonstration programs when the Museum is open”
        https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2007/01/02/dr-david-menton-begins-full-time-ministry-with-aig/
        So…he has the credentials. He has been working at this a long time; his comments on sponges were actually published back in 1994, and were based on visits he personally made to the canyon. And you agreed it is not about the numbers, so the fact that he is in the minority here is not a dealbreaker, right?
        So, when you say “I’m not a trained evolutionary biologist, so all I can do is quote the conclusions of scientists who study and work in the field”, doesn’t that mean you should also be quoting Menton, not just the National Park Service? You won’t quote Mention because he’s not an “evolutionary” biologist? But he’s been studying evolution for 20 years or more, Bob. So, the only sense in that he is not an “evolutionary biologist” is that he thinks naturalistic macroevolution is a fundamentally flawed notion. So, what you’re really saying is that you will only quote the scientists who study evidence for / mechanisms of naturalistic macroevolution AND are convinced that it really did happen. So, it doesn’t really matter whether you understand the evidence (the exchanges from this thread indicate that you don’t, at least when it comes to the topic at hand). It seems that expertise is not what you are after, but rather allegiance to an axiom….the axiom of naturalistic macroevolution. The evidence is secondary. And then you send **me** this quote:
        “Creationists use data the way a drunk man uses a lamp post – for support, not illumination.”
        ~unknown
        Hmmmmm.
        I said last time that evidence that your origins views are evidence-based is wanting, but your final response nudges me even further. Rather than a lack of evidence that your views are evidence-based, we actually have evidence that they are not. To wit, our final exchange on sponges was as follows:
        **********
        TFOTF:
        YOU are the one claiming your origins beliefs are science-driven. And I’ve tried 3 times to get a specific answer from you on the late appearance of sponges in the fossil record, to no avail. So, evidence that your origins views are truly evidence-based is wanting…
        Bob:
        I don’t have any “origins beliefs” – none! And you are not concerned with sponges, so don’t pretend. Why would I waste time researching something that means nothing to you in the long run. As usual, you can not be bothered with science enough to google – https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/oldest-known-sponge-pushes-back-date-key-split-animal-evolution
        Ya know, someone who believes a god created everything 6,000 years ago doesn’t get to call 600,000,000 years ago “late”.
        **********
        Regarding “origins beliefs”…may I post a very brief excerpt from our emails?

        Either way, I need to carefully preface my response to your final response about sponges.
        Bob, I think you are an intelligent man who cares about the Big Questions and tries to help his neighbors. But in your latest response, you betray a woeful misunderstanding of this entire discussion.
        The fact that sponges evolved so early is the very reason Menton is asking why they appear so late in the Grand canyon fossil record! In my recapitulation of his argument, I used a date of 540 million years ago and asked why they first appear in the Canyon in a layer deposited during the Mississippian (about 360 million years ago). In other words, the sponges seem to show up in the Canyon 180 million years later than one would expect.
        If I incorporate the information you sent into the discussion, this just adds fuel to my question! You’re saying 6 hundred million years ago? OK…then the 180 million year discrepancy just turned into 240 million years.
        That is why I say that our discussion contains evidence that your views are not evidence-based. Your method of Googling seems to have been: “Find something with “millions of years” in it that supports naturalistic macroevolution. It it has the word sponges, that’s bonus….regardless of what it actually says about them.”
        But, according to you, I am someone who “can not be bothered with science enough to google”.
        Further, you clouded the discussion by asking why I was using secular sources. This is a red herring. It should be obvious to you why I used secular sources…so that you wouldn’t be able to dismiss my findings as creationist claptrap. And, it worked. Also, I think it’s fair of me to ask…do you or do you not care about the internal consistency of naturalistic macroevolutionary theory? If you do, you should perk up when someone cites specific information from reputable, secular sources…regardless of what they believe about said information.
        I suggest you stop the drive-by Google searches, stop accusing me of not wanting to talk about biological evolution, and take some time to actually understand my question. Then, go back to Google and see what you find.
        Going forward, if you see **TFOTF, that means it’s my latest response.
        Bob:
        Once again, we are spending an exorbitant amount of time on Mr. Bechly. He is only one man who was a non-believer and became a believer. How does this help your cause? You became a believer without doing any investigating, so obviously, no investigation is needed to become a believer, correct?

        **TFOTF:
        How does it help my cause? Well, for one thing, it seems you did eventually see that it’s unlikely that his conversion was based on emotion. I know you are still raising the Catholicism question, but still, it feels like progress. Also, the Bechly story should lay to rest any claims (made by some people, if not by you) that naturalistic macroevolution is scientifically indisputable.

        Yes, I became a believer as a child, without investigating. Since then, I have done some investigation, but I want to do more. I have studied the Bible extensively and I have read the Origin of Species (which reads in some places like a religious text itself, as I have mentioned a couple times). I’ve listened to countless Christian / atheist / ID / anti-ID debates. I’ve had extended discussions with at least 3 atheists, you being one of them.

        As part of my exchange with you, I investigated a question about the original Hebrew under-girding the Old Testament, as well as a question about the timeline of sponge evolution. The Hebrew question was over email, but the sponge question was on this very thread, so anyone can read it.

        But, you are right, no investigation is necessary in order to become a believer. Faith (and I do NOT mean belief in this context…rather, I mean a spiritual sense) is its own evidence, and one can choose to believe based on it. But, as I said, I am the investigating type, so I *am* still investigating. Well, I’m also very privileged (like you) to have the *wherewithal* to investigate. Not everybody has internet access. Not everybody has access to books. Not everybody knows how to read, even.

        If you assume atheism, then I guess the concept of a missionary preaching to someone in that underprivileged category is automatically predatory or at best meaningless, is that right? But that’s if you *assume* atheism in the first place. By contrast, if I assume Christianity, then God is real and He is everywhere and he can speak directly into the heart, which means a poor, illiterate farmer, or a bronze-age camel herder, can have just as deep a spiritual experience as I can. Ah, I love the broadness of God’s love and mercy.

        Bob:
        Clearly, his journey is not as simplistic as I intimated that it was. Obviously his was less emotionally driven than most.
        **TFOTF:
        I salute you for acknowledging this.
        Bob:
        Heck, when I became a Christian I just accepted that I was a sinner destined for hell and accepted the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for my sins.
        If only, with all his years of research, Mr. Bechly could have actually found evidence for the existence of the God he now believes in.
        **TFOTF:
        The evidence is everywhere. This is from Bechly:
        ‘My “conversion” from atheistic naturalism and materialism to such a Neoplatonist world view did not involve any faith in holy scriptures, but was exclusively based on reason and a careful critical evaluation of empirical evidence and philosophical arguments. However, I am meanwhile convinced that even without sophisticated arguments we can simply know as a properly basic belief that materialism is wrong and that a universal mind (aka God) is the ground of all being.’
        So, he agrees with me that theism is basically a freebie (“without sophisticated arguments”). Also, he does say he looked at the empirical evidence. I can’t remember or don’t know exactly what he’s referring to, but here’s some evidence for you:
        “Everything about biology has become almost a branch of information technology because DNA is so exactly like a computer language.” That’s from Richard Dawkins.
        https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/11/richard-dawkins-interview-twitter-controversy-genetics-god
        Now, there’s certainly no scientific law that says God cannot exist. I’m pretty sure all scientists would agree with that. Furthermore, computer programs have only one known source, and that source is intelligent designers (unless it’s computer code generated by another computer program which was, again, intelligently designed). So, it’s quite reasonable (as a logical argument, not a scientific one) to conclude based on the ***evidence*** of DNA presented to us by Richard Dawkins, that we were in fact intelligently designed, using an inference to the best explanation. Continuing down the logical path, if we think that intelligent designer was an alien with its own super advanced brain, then we still have the question of who designed the alien. If we thus conclude that there has to be an uncreated, uncaused, immaterial Intelligent Designer, then we have a reasonable origin for material, intelligent beings such as ourselves.

        Bob:
        I wonder what evidence he found that pushed him in the direction of the Catholic Church…? I wonder how much he investigated the ancient origins of the Hebrew religious beliefs (pre Abrahamic), long before there was an “old testament”. Perhaps his next PhD should be in Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Religions, Theology, etc…? He just might come to realize that the origins of their beliefs is far more nuanced than the Garden of Eden myth.
        **TFOTF:
        I’d like to know much more about all of that. Maybe I will ping him and/or look into this more myself.
        Bob:
        My journey out of Christianity took me longer than that. I began questioning some of the doctrines I held dear back in the mid 80’s (water baptism, the trinity, tithing, organized religion, etc) but it wasn’t until 2000 that I finally broke free.
        15 years, TFOTF.
        From his own conversion testimony he went from being repulsed by the cruelty found in the OT to kissing the Pope’s ring – now that’s a testimony.
        **TFOTF:
        You obviously did a lot of reading and thinking before you walked away. And it’s good that you walked away from the idea that we need to do/say/believe anything in order to escape from the fires of hell. I remember a quote you sent me on this topic that really resonated with me. So, I can congratulate you for walking away from a flawed notion of salvation, while still disagreeing with the next step you took, namely atheism. Is there any possibility in your mind that Bechly may have made a reasonable conclusion to reject atheism, but then embraced a branch of theism that has some flawed notions attached to it? Have you considered the possibility that part of his journey was sound and well thought-out, but part of it wasn’t? I can acknowledge that possibility for you. Can you acknowledge that for him?
        TFOTF: So, again, I’m looking at his own testimony and I’m asking….when you suggest that “he lacks the ability to dispassionately examine his conversion”, you are solely basing that on the facts that he is a Catholic and you are an atheist?
        bob: No – but I am confident that being a practicing Catholic does not help.
        **TFOTF:
        Well, you agreed that emotions probably did not play a major role in his decision. So I think I will let this one go.
        TFOTF: If I’m misrepresenting you, please tell me how.
        Bob:
        You are not misrepresenting me (though you seem to be trying very hard to do just that). You are asking me a question and I am answering – No.
        If a person – regardless of religious beliefs – dismisses facts that are based on evidence, and they dismiss these facts because of their beliefs, then I suspect that they are suffering from confirmation bias.
        **TFOTF:
        But confirmation bias doesn’t seem to fit Bechly’s story any better than emotion does. I already provided painstaking detail of his strongly atheist background. Confirmation bias would have led him to think that every single data point supported **atheism** rather than theism, wouldn’t it?
        Bob:
        I agree now that emotions probably did not play a major role in his decision. I guess you can’t understand my quandary – Why did he become a “Roman Catholic Christian”? All you can offer is “I don’t know”. You vigorously present the fact that he was educated, worked in his field (prehistoric insects – specifically dragonflies), spent years investigating claims by both those promoting ID and those against, and somehow eventually found Jesus and linked up with the Catholic faith. Why did he find Jesus – was he looking for Jesus?
        There is an incredibly huge leap from becoming convinced that ID is true, to then believing Genesis 1&2 is true, and finding Jesus – why would he become a Roman Catholic Christian…or why become a Christian at all? It’s almost as if he threw a dart at a map after doing 10 years of research. It’s almost as if he didn’t do any historical research at all before picking a religion.
        And you can’t find it in yourself to offer any criticism of his decision…? You think his choice of religious affiliation was perfectly reasonable. That speaks volumes about YOU!
        **TFOTF:
        He goes into a lot more detail about his conversion out of atheism into theism than he does regarding his choice between Catholicism and other Christian groups. So, you and I have a more solid basis for discussing his abandonment of atheism, than we do for his choice between Catholicism and other Christian groups. Does that make sense?
        Also, something may have been lost in translation between a math geek and a layman. I certainly did **not** say his choice of Catholicism was perfectly reasonable. Here is the exchange:
        ************
        Bob: Tell me TFOTF, do you think Bechly relied on “…critical evaluation of empirical data and philosophical arguments, following the evidence wherever it leads…” when he decided to become a “Roman Catholic Christian”?
        TFOTF: Yes, with 51% certainty. I say that because I have big problems with the “destiny” part of both the Catholic AND Reformed worldviews, but there have been times where the Catholic one (as explained by a pope or a cardinal) seemed a little closer to the Bible than the Protestant one. He seems like a nonstop thinker, so maybe he said “Materialism is incoherent. I also have issues with both Protestantism and Catholicism, but I will choose Catholicism for now because at least it does a decent job with origin, meaning and morality, and I will keep pondering the different options out there.”
        ************
        So, I guessed with 51% certainty that he relied on critical evaluation of the data/arguments. That means I think it’s only slightly more likely than not that when he chose Catholicism, he relied on critical evaluation. In other words, there’s a 49% chance that he did not rely on critical evaluation when choosing Catholicism. It’s only slightly better than flipping a coin. I already explained my specific reasoning for the 51% statement, and welcome any comments regarding it.
        Again, I did not say his choice of Catholicism was “perfectly reasonable”. If he is thinking “I’m a Roman Catholic now and forever because I’ve looked at everything that needs to be looked at,”, then I would say that’s unreasonable. But I don’t know where he is on that. The fact that I don’t see much writing online from him regarding Catholicism vs. other Christian groups could mean that he is still wrestling with this internally. I don’t know. I can’t help think about the fact that he’s married with 2 kids and he may feel a need to make some sort of decision now rather than 15 years from now so that they can be part of a faith community during his kids’ formative years. That would make sense to me. If he decides next year that some other Christian group is much more reasonable and Biblical than Catholicism, a switch can be made.
        In golfing, you start a long way from the hole and you have to hit the ball super far. As you get closer, you start taking smaller strokes. What if he is getting closer to the hole this whole time and you are sitting there with your arms crossed because he didn’t get a hole-in-one?
        As far as why Jesus, well, I mentioned last time that he found “good historical reasons for the reliability of Gospels”. So, you obviously disagree with that, but you can’t say he left us in the dark regarding his “why Jesus”. Do you want to discuss said “historical” reasons?
        TFOTF:
        Bechly spent many years thinking about atheism, and ended up concluding it was incoherent. So, since he claims its incoherent, I don’t understand your surprise at a scientist strongly opposing something he has already said is incoherent.
        Bob:
        Atheism is coherent. Anyone who claims it is incoherent does so out of ignorance “and/or” prejudice.
        Christian: “Why don’t you believe in God?”
        Atheist: “I have not been presented any convincing evidence that a god exists.”
        Christian: “That’s incoherent!”
        Atheist: “?”
        **TFOTF:
        I provided evidence for God higher up, based on information from Richard Dawkins. Would love to know what you think about it.
        TFOTF:
        Again, I never claimed that my origins beliefs are science driven.
        Bob:
        Of course they are not “science driven”, just like your young earth creationism is not science driven, just like your rejection of biological evolution is not science driven.
        **TFOTF:
        My rejection of naturalistic macroevolution is not science-driven, because I’m not an expert. So, for me, I would say it’s logic-driven and faith-driven. As far as YEC, I need to study this more, but I would definitely say that I believe death entered the world after the Fall. And that is based on my belief in the Bible. So that is faith-driven.
        I know you want to think that your own position is evidence-driven….but I hope after our sponge discussion you will question whether that is actually true.
        Bob:
        I have never been presented a “good reason” to become a Roman Catholic, have you? I think he did not exercise good reasoning when he decided to become a Catholic, do you? I believe it is reasonable to question his religious /philosophical arguments.
        **TFOTF:
        No, I haven’t. If he really decided that the pope was infallible, then I don’t think that was an exercise in good reasoning. As I said, I don’t know exactly what “Catholic” means for Bechly…and neither do you.
        Also, have you ever done or thought anything stupid? If so, then I’ll just use that to question all of your arguments. I’m trying to get you to really carefully consider at Bechly’s journey out of atheism….but I guess you just want to focus on his Catholicism. Maybe 20 years from now, when he has purged all unreasonable beliefs from his worldview, thus achieving some sort of intellectual nirvana, then you will take another look at his journey.
        TFOTF:
        Now, you are doing the same thing when it comes to my statements about escapism. You are twisting my words. Here is what I said:
        “I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.”
        Then, you twisted it (and added some vulgarity that I already pasted in once, which was one time too many):
        Bob:
        I twisted nothing. You have accused me of engaging in “escapism” numerous times. You are whining – “and/or” – projecting.
        **TFOTF:
        Well, you tossed out my qualifiers and still won’t admit you twisted my words.
        So, if I take this statement of yours:
        “I agree now that emotions probably did not play a major role in his decision”
        I guess I’m free to convert it to:
        “Emotions did not play a role in his decision.”
        Fair?
        As far as conjunctions…I’m sorry for accusing you of twisting my words. It seems that you do not understand the difference between “and/or” and “and”.
        I will explain.
        “and/or” is known as a union in set theory. In programming, it’s usually just called an OR. “and”, on the other hand, is known as an intersect.
        Here’s an example.
        What’s the chance of rolling an even number on a 6-sided die?
        Answer: 3/6
        What’s the chance of rolling a number greater than 4?
        Answer: 2/6
        What’s the chance of rolling an even number **and/or** a number that is greater than 4?
        Answer: 4/6
        What’s the chance of rolling an even number **and** a number that is greater than 4?
        Answer: 1/6
        See? 1/6 is quite different from 4/6. And the 4/6, which resulted from the “and/or”, is much larger than the 1/6, which came from the “and”. That’s the reason I used an “and/or” originally.
        In the case of scientists who believe in naturalistic macroevolution, you turned my list of various possibilities into kind of a rap sheet to be applied to all of them. No, that is not what I said. You mangled my words (I won’t say “twist” in this case because maybe you really didn’t understand the distinction).
        Oh, wait…it’s worse than I thought.. You also tossed out one of my possibilities. I gave three possibilities connected with “and/or”…you tossed out the first one (scientists who just haven’t looked at the evidence carefully), and connected the remaining two with an “and”:
        ***********************
        TFOTF: …and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.
        bob: HOLY $H!T – So you believe scientists, who are largely responsible for finding the answers to many of the worlds problems and answering many of the questions humans ponder, are doing this because they “seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy” – and – they fear they will lose their job if they admit that they secretly believe in ID – especially those evolutionary biologists who claim to believe in abiogenesis, which is not even remotely a part of their field of study or investigation as evolutionary biologists.
        I am amazed that your reasoning still amazes me.
        ***********************
        At best, this is a very sloppy, inaccurate, non-representative handling of my statement, Bob. Please do the real work of confronting what I’m actually saying….not a sloppy, erroneous recap of it, which in probability terms is ***significantly*** less likely than what I actually said.
        TFOTF: Furthermore, I want to highlight a certain naivete that comes out in your writing…In short, you seem to have trouble remembering that science is done by **humans**…You say things like “science tells” and “science learned”, which is a handy way to sidestep the actual agents involved in science…namely, scientists.
        bob: Oh for the love of…I am fully aware that science is a human endeavor. And I am fully aware that scientists (humans) can and do make errors, some may even promote their prejudices, just as believers do routinely. But when an error by a scientist is committed, that error is discovered by another (human) scientist.
        **TFOTF:
        Another human scientist like Bechly?
        TFOTF: Now, don’t twist my words again; I’m not claiming that the average work of the average scientist is corrupt and unreliable. But I’m calling you out for the shock and vulgarity you express when I mention a couple different ways that some scientists in some fields could endorse certain scientific theories for non-scientific reasons. I don’t think you are discussing this topic in a mature way.
        Bob:
        you are a liar. *You have accused me on numerous occasions that I, as a non believer, am engaging in “escapism”.
        **TFOTF:
        Yes, I think you are engaging in escapism.
        Bob:
        And you are accusing the vast majority of evolutionary scientists as being willfully or unwillfully deluded. Don’t weasel out now – own it.*
        **TFOTF:
        Affirmative.
        Bob (quoting TFOTF):
        * “I believe that most scientists who do endorse Neo-Darwinian macroevolution simply haven’t carefully looked at the scientific arguments that Bechly looked at, and/or they are participating in mass escapism (especially the ones who believe in abiogenesis), and/or they have their careers to think about.”
        * “Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo.”
        **TFOTF:
        For the ones who believe in naturalistic macroevolution, I gave 3 and/or possibilities….you deleted one of them, and connected the remaining two with an “and”. Yes, you knocked down a straw man there, whether you meant to or not.
        For iphone from goo (basically, naturalistic macroevolution + abiogenesis), I mentioned escapism as my best understanding in the quote you provided above. So, you are nudging me to ask myself, could something other than escapism cause someone to believe in abiogenesis? I think the answer is yes, given Bechly’s testimony. He just hadn’t looked into it enough. So, when it comes to belief in iPhone from goo, I need to apply the same three possibilities that I applied for naturalistic macroevolution.
        Thank you for spurring me to think about this more carefully.
        For your case, though, I’ve been talking to you for two years. I still think you are engaging in escapism.
        Bob:
        You are engaging in typical Christian subterfuge and then blaming me when I point it out. Where do you get the arrogance?
        **TFOTF:
        I am an arrogant person. Guilty as charged. I like to think that it is slowly being purged out of me, but that is not for me to judge.
        As far as subterfuge? Yes, guilty of that as well. Please tell me what part of my discussion above was subterfuge.
        TFOTF: He is much further along than you, whether he agrees with me on the age of the earth or not. That is why I present his story to you. In fact, maybe we could both learn a thing or two from him.
        bob: If he is so much wiser than me, why did he become a Catholic?
        Perhaps you should consider converting…?
        **TFOTF:
        I’ve said a lot already about his decision. I was just trying to admit here my own humanity and ignorance. Debating with you and investigating Bechly is not merely a way for me to teach/persuade others…it is also an opportunity for me to learn.
        Bob:
        With you, meaningful dialogue has proven impossible.
        You don’t want to talk about biological evolution, you just want to talk about converted evolutionists.

        **TFOTF:
        I don’t want to talk about biological evolution? Wow.
        From 4/18/2020 in this same comment thread:
        Sorry if I’m just slow, but.I didn’t see an answer to the sponge question. Here are the secular sources I was talking about.
        First of all, Wikipedia contradicts the AIG guy, and I’m assuming Wikipedia is right..the Kaibab is not the oldest layer containing sponges. When I checked this out a few years ago, the information was different or I didn’t read the Wikipedia entry carefully enough. So, I checked wikipedia, the national park service, and grandcanyondestinations.com…the oldest sponge-containing layer mentioned is on wikipedia:
        The next formation in the Grand Canyon geologic column is the cliff-forming Redwall Limestone, which is 400 to 800 feet (120 to 240 m) thick (see 4b in figure 1).[35] Redwall is composed of thick-bedded, dark brown to bluish gray limestone and dolomite with white chert nodules mixed in.[31] It was laid down in a retreating shallow tropical sea near the equator during 40 million years of the early-to-middle Mississippian.[36] Many fossilized crinoids, brachiopods, bryozoans, horn corals, nautiloids, and sponges, along with other marine organisms such as large and complex trilobites have been found in the Redwall.[31]
        So, the Mississippian period began about 360 million years ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_(geology)
        When did sponges evolve?
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge
        Sponges were first to branch off the evolutionary tree from the common ancestor of all animals, making them the sister group of all other animals.[3]…Early Cambrian sponges from Mexico belonging to the genus Kiwetinokia show evidence of fusion of several smaller spicules to form a single large spicule.[82]
        When was the Cambrian explosion?
        The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
        So, sponges have been around since 541 million years ago, or longer….but they don’t show up in the Grand Canyon fossil record until about 360 million years ago, or later. Please tell me why the oldest Grand Canyon layer known to contain sponges was actually deposited 180 million years after sponges evolved. Why don’t sponges appear in the older layers, if they had already evolved when those older layers were deposited? Since naturalistic macro-evolution is supposed to be such well established science, and established science is supposed to include detailed mechanisms, and since origins science and science related to events millions of years ago are supposed to be just as purely scientific as the operational science of today, I’m asking for something more substantive from you than “maybe it was this, maybe it was that, it could have been this.”
        But according to you, I don’t want to talk about biological evolution.
        Bob:
        You don’t want to talk about the origins of life, you just want me to respond to your pedestrian, oft repeated iphone/goo analogy.
        **TFOTF:
        iPhone from goo is not an analogy Bob. It’s not a metaphor. Your beliefs literally imply it. The only thing in question is whether it was goo or a radioactive beach or whatever. Doesn’t really affect the plausibility of the notion.
        Bob:
        If you ever make it back to prime numbers (please god, no) I fear that will occupy another few months worth of completely useless dialogue.
        **TFOTF
        So…the prime number horrors I have inflicted on you have driven you to cry out to God, even if you didn’t capitalize. Success!
        🙂
        Bob:
        Christians never offer actual evidence for the existence of their god. You never have, Mr. Bechly hasn’t as best as I can tell, none of your other educated converts have. During the year that I chatted with the Jehovah’s Witnesses once a week, they never did. All you do is point to supposed “discrepancies” in the conclusions made by scientists when their conclusions conflict with your religious beliefs.
        Christians never offer “good reasons” for why they believe in God.
        Christians always offer “bad reasons” for why they don’t believe science.
        Christians never point out discrepancies in science when their beliefs agree with scientific conclusions. Christians (scientists or not) don’t produce any new discoveries that show that their god is real. Of all the scientific discoveries that have been made over the hundreds of years, in biology, archaeology, geology, astronomy, physics, etc, not a single discovery is an indicator that your god is real – not a single one.
        **TFOTF:
        Not a single one? Interesting. So, when we discovered a programming language embedded in the core of our biology, that didn’t move the needle at all, even on an Intelligent Designer? Maybe you are singling out Jesus here….not sure. Anyway, please see my Dawkins discussion above. It’s evidence for God in my book…please tell me why it isn’t in yours.
        Bob:
        You have either ignored or shot down any and all attempts I have made to try to have a substantive discussion on biblical topics – and instead – you have wasted my time on educated converts, prime numbers, and iphones from goo.
        I think this is as good a time as any to call it quits. Clearly, our topics of interests are not compatible.
        **TFOTF:
        Bob, I simply do not know how the ticks worked before the Fall. I will never understand why you think my beliefs should include a detailed pre-Fall explanation for all life forms that are now harmful. Over email, I know there is at least one Biblical topic we dug into. As far as T rex…I plan to get to that. As for your other Biblical questions, maybe, maybe not. Just a question of priorities. Also, you said you’re leaving anyway, so…
        Bob:
        Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest!
        ~Émile Zola
        **TFOTF:
        Well, correct me if I am wrong, but this is a wistful look forward to the day my pastor is martyred. On the one hand, I’m shocked by your sickening, hateful way of leaving the discussion. I certainly don’t look forward to your death, violent or otherwise. On the other hand, Jesus said to expect this. If that ever happens to my pastor, I hope he will look at you (or whomever the perpetrator is) and ask God not to lay the sin to their charge.
        Praying for you.
        TFOTF

      • 

        Reply ↓

        TFOTF Post author May 31, 2020 at 9:42 am

        Hi Bob,

        In reviewing my penultimate response, and your response to it, I noticed you didn’t make any specific comments regarding Ken Miller. Here is what I said about him:

        “By the way, biologist Kenneth Miller was the star expert witness AGAINST Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity in Kitzmiller v. Dover. But he also professes Roman Catholicism. Should we question his beliefs and judgments too, then?”

        We’ve talked at length about Catholicism, because you brought it up. So, now I’m wondering about Bechly vs. Miller.

        Bechly looks at the flagellum and agrees with Behe et al. that it’s evidence for intelligent design.

        Miller looks at the flagellum and agrees with most mainstream scientists that the flagellum should not be used as evidence for intelligent design.

        But Bechly and Miller are both Catholic.

        What do you make of this?

      • 

        Reply ↓

        TFOTF Post author May 31, 2020 at 2:18 pm

        Bob…you said our topics of interest were incompatible. It sounds like there are Bible questions you want to get to, that I’m rejecting. Can you tell me which ones? As far as biological evolution, I know we talked a lot about sponges, but if there’s something else you want to cover, let me know. Meanwhile, I’m working on responding to your remaining comments.

        TFOTF

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    Reply ↓

    TFOTF May 24, 2020 at 9:57 am

    Dear Bob, here is my response for topic #2.

    TWO

    TFOTF: Waiting for comparable evidence for your iPhone-from-goo theory….
    bob: Are you intentionally obtuse?
    TFOTF: What is intentionally obtuse about asking for evidence of somebody’s claim, especially when they make the claim in the context of science?
    Also, about those photographs I pasted in…they show strong evidence, accessible to the layman, in favor of a round earth, hand-washing, and the moon landing. Are you frustrated I won’t lower the bar for scientific claims about origins? Is that why you called me obtuse?

    TFOTF…not fanciful notions, what-ifs, just-so stories, or hey-maybe-it-was-like-this.
    You mean like this:
    BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
    TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it?
    bob: Hows that for “fanciful notions, what-ifs, just-so stories, or hey-maybe-it-was-like-this.”
    TFOTF: True, I offered a hey-maybe-it-was-like-this. Again, I am not the one who claimed that my belief in a Creator was driven by a review of the scientific literature. You are the one claiming that your atheist origins views are driven by the scientific evidence. But, you refuse to accept the resulting more detailed standard of explanation. Since I don’t have a detailed mechanism and explanation for the pre-fall and post-fall diet of ticks, you don’t think you should have to have one for abiogenesis. You think you should be able to get away with the hey-maybe-it-was-like-this stories proposed by origins scientists. Right? If so, I invite you to relinquish your claims of basing your origins views on the scientific evidence. No detailed mechanism has been SHOWN to accomplish abiogenesis. If you still believe abiogenesis occurred, then don’t call your beliefs scientifically driven. Something else must be at work here.

    A – TFOTF: Give me the evidence, and I will believe.
    B – TFOTF: As far as my belief in a Creator God…I don’t owe you comparable scientific evidence, because I never claimed my origins beliefs were science-driven.
    bob: Interesting admission. Your confusion, dishonesty, obfuscation is on full display here. On the one hand you claim that (A) you “WILL” be persuaded by evidence, but then you admit (B) that you did not come to your current beliefs because of any evidence. Why don’t you just admit that there is no amount of evidence that you will accept, if said evidence goes against your current religious beliefs…?
    TFOTF: As far as B), I will take it back if I said it wasn’t based on evidence at all. Let me say it more carefully: It’s not based on **scientific** evidence. For me, it’s based on logic (reductio ad absurdum and inference to the best explanation coupled with the simple observation of the majesty and complexity of creation) and faith. But if there was a repeatable scientific experiment that could show a human brain coming from goo without outside agency? Yes, I think I would have to question both my logic and my faith at that point. Don’t believe me? I guess we’ll have to wait until such an experiment appears…

    Thanks Bob.

    TWO

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    TFOTF June 1, 2020 at 4:31 pm

    Dear Bob, here is my response to #5.

    FIVE
    TFOTF: True, if “faith” just referred to a belief system. And sometimes it does. But I’m talking about a different kind of faith. I’m talking about the faith that Jesus authored in me (Hebrews 12:2)…
    bob: yawn…
    “Man is a credulous animal and must believe something. In the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
    ~Bertrand Russell
    **TFOTF:
    “Man is a rebellious creature and naturally refuses to acknowledge his Maker. In the absence of the gift of faith, his sinful nature overwhelms his intellectual grasp of God.”
    ~TFOTF

    TFOTF: You do acknowledge that science is not the only useful epistemology, right?
    Bob: “Not once has an apparent natural event turned out to have a supernatural cause, and not once has an apparent supernatural event turned out NOT to have a natural cause.”
    ~unknown
    **TFOTF:
    As far as your quote, I do want to dig into the Resurrection some more. Maybe a future post.
    Meanwhile, I’m not sure if you answered my question. Perhaps I’m too slow. Can I know that it’s wrong to sneak around at night and murder and rape women without science? Or do I need a scientific study? Do I need to review the psychological, sociological, or medical research before I can justifiably condemn such behavior? I haven’t read any studies on this, so I guess I can’t really say anything definitive about this behavior?
    I ask you again:
    You do acknowledge that science is not the only useful epistemology, right?

    TFOTF: Anyway, belief is the exercise of that faith. It is the exercise of that spiritual sense. I can see through faith (separately from the logical arguments linked above) that God made the worlds. Simple logic turns out to be no match for our foolish hearts…we need a spiritual eye.
    Bob: yawn…
    “So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the gospels in praise of intelligence.”
    ~Mark Twain
    **TFOTF:
    Probably right. Jesus wasn’t highbrow.

    He came for the poor. He came for the hurting. He could not care less how smart you were. He could not care less how rich you were. He could not care less how famous you were. He wasn’t impressed with physical strength or physical beauty. He wasn’t impressed with claims of righteousness.

    He was impressed with people humbling themselves, crying out to him, putting their faith in him. He gave his ear to the repentant sinner begging for mercy.

    Mark Twain…an intelligent man, a brilliant writer. I think I read both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. But God is not impressed with literary talent, either.

    Cat videos are fun…it’s been said that part of the appeal is that they project such an air of self-sufficiency. They don’t need you. They are not impressed by you. They have their own thing going on. Well, that’s how God is, but times infinity. How can you not love that!?!?

    So, no, Mr. Clemens, He Who dwells between the cherubims, He Whose goings forth are of old, He Who works His will in the armies of Heaven, The Great I Am, The One Whose throne is heaven, Who rests His feet on the earth, is not impressed by one of your key attributes, namely, your intelligence. Get over it, get over yourself, and get on your knees and worship Him!

    [Isa 57:15 KJV] 15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name [is] Holy; I dwell in the high and holy [place], with him also [that is] of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

    Thank you for your comment, Bob.

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    Reply ↓

    TFOTF June 1, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    Dear Bob, This is my response to #6.

    SIX
    TFOTF: You are the one claiming that your origins views are science-driven. So, provide the link or links that convinced you the earth was 4.5 billion years old.
    Bob: Seriously?
    Q – Hey google, how old is the earth?
    A – 4.54 billion years old.
    Q – Hey Christian, how old is the earth?
    A – 6,000 years old.
    Be honest – you have no interest in scientific “links”.
    **TFOTF:
    I feel like I haven’t studied this enough, but here are my thoughts sitting here today.

    First, I do believe that death entered into the world when Adam ate the fruit. If that excludes any possibility of an Old Earth, then I have to believe in a Young Earth.

    Secondly, a doctor examining Adam at the moment of his creation might have said, this is an 18-year-old man. But that would be incorrect…Adam was 0 years old at that point. Through trigonometry (at least that’s how Bill Nye explained it, and it made sense to me), we’ve established the stars are millions or billions of light years away. And so we look at how far away from those stars their light has traveled up to this point, and we can get a date of billions of years for the age of the universe. If you assume the starlight started at the stars, that makes perfect sense. But (and you may call this absurd, but really all I hear is frustration at the unspeakable power of an almighty God) Genesis says God made the light in verse 3, and made the stars in verse 16. So, could He have made starlight first, and THEN the stars corresponding to that light? Remember….it’s only ridiculous and stupid and absurd IF you start by ruling out the concept of an almighty God. And since Richard Dawkins informs us that there is a ***programming language*** embedded in the core of our biology, I don’t have too much trouble believing in an Almighty God.

    Third, I tried your OK Google approach and it told me 4.5 billion years. No surprise there. I wasn’t sure what link it was using though. Please send me the link or links that convinced you the earth was 4.5 billion years old. Surely you have gone further than literally asking Google “How old is the earth?”, given that you’ve been an atheist for such a long time. What links have you read for yourself that told you how old the earth was?

    Thank you for your comment, Bob.

    TFOTF

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    Reply ↓

    TFOTF June 1, 2020 at 5:11 pm

    Hi Bob, this is my response to #7.

    SEVEN
    TFOTF: Send me the link. If I read it and then find an objection to it, worded in scientific terms on a website you don’t approve of, will you simply dismiss the objection based on the URL?
    Bob: No, I would not. I would read the link and then explain to you why I find it faulty…if I find it faulty. I am not like you. You will dismiss any information simply because it goes counter to your religious beliefs.
    **TFOTF:
    Much less than dismissing the secular information I sent you regarding sponges, you showed you did not even take the time to understand it. Can you take the time to understand the secular information that I sent you, and the argument that Menton/I built on said information, and send me a response? The sponge question was not complicated. It was perfectly accessible to laymen such as us.

    Thanks for your comment, Bob

  • 

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    TFOTF June 2, 2020 at 6:37 am

    Dear Bob, This is my response to #8.

    EIGHT
    TFOTF: There are many, many scientists who openly disagree with the small number of scientists who openly agree with me. What should I conclude from this?
    Bob: Actually, what you “should” conclude is less germane to our discussion than what and why you “have already” concluded, based on your beliefs concerning a 2,000 year old book.
    TFOTF:
    Let’s make a deal. First, answer my question…There are many, many scientists who openly disagree with the small number of scientists who openly agree with me. What should I conclude from this?
    Then, expand your comment about what and why I “have already” concluded something, and I will respond.

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

  • 

    Reply ↓

    TFOTF June 2, 2020 at 6:50 am

    Hi Bob, This is my response to #9.

    NINE
    TFOTF: …answersingenesis.org, I successfully verified all the premises via secular sources.
    bob: Sure you did…You verified ALL the premises yet completely ignored ALL the explanations. And how do you “verify” using “secular sources” when you don’t believe what the secular sources say unless they say what you already believe? Is that how science works?
    TFOTF: So I’m not allowed to ask you a question based on information I find in secular, scientific sources? Seems like such a question should be on you to answer, not me. If I’m never allowed to ask you about something that seems inconsistent to me when looking at secular sources, just say so. And in that case, don’t bother sending me any links…I’m not allowed to challenge anything contained therein.
    Bob: My point was – I doubt your claim of verification using secular sources because you distrust secular sources – that simple.

    TFOTF:

    I understand your point. Actually, this is making more sense now that I step back and look at it.

    Instead of reading what I sent for yourself, you simply decided to doubt my claim of verification. You could have clicked the link to verify that I was correctly quoting/citing the information from the links, but apparently you did not do that. Perhaps this explains why, in your last sponge response, you provided a link which, rather than address the challenge I was raising, actually reinforced my challenge. You simply did not take the time to understand this discussion.

    I really thought someone like you would dive into a question about biological evolution with gusto.

    Is it fair for you to come on here and accuse me of not being interested in scientific links, and then refuse to look at the scientific links I send you, or even to understand my associated argument?

    Maybe you should spell out exactly what rules of engagement you are applying here. It seems more like a rant than a debate.

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

    P.S.: Regarding #10, I said plenty about that topic in this comment: https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2020/03/22/yes-but-the-cross-part-3/#comment-4372

  • 

    Reply ↓

    TFOTF Post author June 3, 2020 at 6:48 am

    Hi Bob,

    This is my response to #11…see the lines beginning with **TFOTF:.

    ELEVEN
    TFOTF: James Tour himself, I’m pretty sure you will not question his scientific abilities.
    He signed this dissent from Darwinism:
    “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
    Bob: Heck, I’m skeptical of many scientific claims I often have to read and re-read different explanations over and over again. I am in full agreement that “Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
    **TFOTF:
    Sounds good per se, but how do I reconcile what you just said there with what you said further down in topic #14?
    “Are you saying that the science of biology has not “explained the mechanisms” of evolution? If that is what you are saying, then you don’t know how to google – or you do know but are afraid to look.”
    In #11, you seem very skeptical. In #14, not so much. Please explain.

    Bob:
    But, back to Mr. Tour: “On November 7, 1977, while a college student, I came to the realization that Jesus Christ is indeed the Jewish Messiah. I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me for my sins and to come into my heart. The result was an immediate and sustaining sense of his presence, peace and joy in a manner that I had never before known. These came, according to the scriptures, by an indwelling of the Holy Spirit.”
    I guess this description of his conversion explains his..?..well thought out…?.. Beliefs
    **TFOTF:
    You are conflating sarcasm with argumentation. I’m not going to take the time to try to dig an actual argument out of what you just said…I have better things to do.

    Bob:
    Do you detect anything in his above list, that requires any kind of university degree, in anything? He became a Christian at age 18, in the late 70’s – so he has been a believer for quite some time, and by his own admission, he has studied the bible “…more than any other topic in my life, including chemistry.” So remind me again why I should hold his views on Darwin or biological evolution as anywhere near authoritative?
    **TFOTF:
    Tour clearly is skeptical of Darwinism, given his signing of the statement, but he is much more skeptical of abiogenesis. He is an expert on synthetic organic chemistry….building molecules and whatnot. That is why he is much more vocal about abiogenesis than biological evolution; that is why he knows more about the former than the latter. But, the relative weights assigned to his views on either topic should not have anything to do with his faith in Jesus Christ.

    Let me try to write various descriptions of your views…please tell me which one represents your views, or let me know exactly how your views should be described:

    A. It’s reasonable to dismiss so-called evidence and argumentation against abiogenesis or naturalistic macroevolution if the person presenting the so-called evidence rejects abiogenesis or naturalistic macroevolution. It does not matter how qualified or experienced the person is.

    B. It’s reasonable to dismiss so-called evidence and argumentation against abiogenesis or naturalistic macroevolution if the person presenting the so-called evidence is a theist. It does not matter how qualified or experienced the person is.

    C. It’s reasonable to dismiss so-called evidence and argumentation against abiogenesis or naturalistic macroevolution if the person presenting the so-called evidence is a Christian. It does not matter how qualified or experienced the person is.

    I noticed you made a big deal about Bechly’s Catholicism when I wanted to discuss his transition from atheism to theism. Now, you are highlighting Tour’s non-Catholic Christian faith when I mention his skepticism towards Darwinism and abiogenesis. Even if option C doesn’t represent your views, do you see where I got that impression?

    TFOTF: This certainly conflicts with Dawkins’s statement (reviewing The Grand Design) that “Darwin kicked God out of biology”.
    Bob: I disagree – biology is one of the natural sciences – it investigates the natural, not the supernatural. The ONLY way to investigate the supernatural (the Christian god for example) is by reading the bible. So, while the investigation of the natural goes on and on and on and…the investigation of the supernatural (reading the bible) can be accomplished in a couple weeks…if you can stay awake.
    **TFOTF:
    Dawkins is clearly using shorthand to make the point that Darwin showed that it’s obvious that human beings and other advanced life forms arose from much more primitive life forms via strictly naturalistic processes…specifically, mutation and natural selection. And because the process was naturalistic, it makes God irrelevant to the process. So, Darwin “kicked God out of biology” to the extent that his work was biologically valid and easy for the rational mind to accept. I use the word “easy” because that’s equivalent to Dawkins’s “kicked out”. It’s emphatic. It’s clear. It’s a slam-dunk case.

    And yet, 142 years later, a bunch of scientists clearly state their view that it’s NOT obvious that human beings originated that way.

    Let me try to take a very small step here….do you agree that the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism that Tour signed is in conflict with Dawkins’s statement that “Darwin kicked God out of biology”?

    TFOTF: Oh, Dawkins and friends make it sound like such a slam-dunk case.
    Bob: Remember, biology has no ability to investigate the supernatural – so yes, it is a slam-dunk.
    **TFOTF:
    “I assumed that a certain phenomenon happened through strictly naturalistic processes. Then, I came up with my best shot at a specific naturalistic explanation of said phenomenon.”
    Is that what you are calling a slam dunk?

    TFOTF: You read science literature a lot, it sounds like. So, I ask you…which group is speaking in more scientific, careful terms about the available evidence?
    Bob: Wait a minute – is Dawkins a “group”? Has he been made de facto spokesperson for all of evolutionary biological science?
    **TFOTF:
    Let’s say the group consists of you and Dawkins. After all, you just agreed “it is a slam-dunk”. So, which group is speaking in more scientific, careful terms about the available evidence?
    “Darwin kicked God out of biology”
    OR
    “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

    **TFOTF:
    Your next comments address the topic of believers and nonbelievers of various backgrounds. I already said a lot about this in my sponge discussion here: https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2020/03/22/yes-but-the-cross-part-3/#comment-4372
    I will just add that I’m doing more than just “marching out people with advanced degrees”. Yes, I see your list, but where are the ***arguments*** from any of those people? For both Bechly and Menton, I mentioned specific objections they had to mainstream scientific origins explanations. In the case of Menton, I both quoted him and recapitulated his question in my own words. And all the evidence indicates, as I mentioned in my sponge discussion, that you didn’t take the time to understand Menton’s ***argument*** or my recap thereof.

    Bob:
    I have to wonder, what if next week you read that Gunter Bechly has recanted his previous claims concerning ID, admitted that he was wrong (had a lapse in judgment), presented evidence of his error, and gave up his Christian beliefs – would you then discount his expertise and no longer use him as a learned example in your battle against biological evolution? Of course you would. I suspect that you would have to. Your emotional attachment to your religious beliefs far out-way your desire for truth.
    **TFOTF:
    I would be very interested to see the evidence he presented. Would you be similarly interested if Zongjun Yin, Maoyan Zhu, Eric H. Davidson, David J. Bottjer, Fangchen Zhao, and Paul Tafforeau, the scientists who wrote that research article on sponges that you cited, made the opposite transition? Or would you grab their statement of newfound Christian faith and use that to discredit anything they said that challenged the idea that naturalistic processes were enough to produce human beings?

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

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    TFOTF Post author June 6, 2020 at 6:59 am

    Hi Bob,

    This is my response to #12 (see the double *).

    TFOTF: Darwin’s profession of “faith” wasn’t just a random slip of the pen, Bob. Darwin’s later verbiage regarding neuter insects should make it very plain to you.
    “I have, therefore, discussed this case, at some little but wholly insufficient length, in order to show the power of natural selection, and likewise because this is by far the most serious special difficulty, which my theory has encountered. The case, also, is very interesting, as it proves that with animals, as with plants, any amount of modification in structure can be effected by the accumulation of numerous, slight, and as we must call them accidental, variations, which are in any manner profitable, without exercise or habit having come into play.”
    Bob, without worrying about all the ramifications of the admission, can’t you admit that in this case he made a conclusion that went far beyond the available evidence? Surely you can see that. “Any amount of modification”, just because he looked at some neuter insects??
    Simply put, this is not the language of science! The evidence he found does ***not*** prove what he said it proves.
    Bob: Yes, Darwin got excited at the implications of his observations and discoveries. So freaking what!
    **TFOTF:
    OK…so you agree with him. His observations of neuter insects proved that a single-celled organism could eventually evolve into a human. It’s hard for me to see myself ever concluding that in my wildest dreams. It’s an absurd extrapolation….but calling something absurd is not an argument.

    So, let me come up with an example that we will ***both*** agree is absurd….and then ask you what the fundamental difference is between that and Darwin’s conclusions from neuter insects.

    Consider the Pythagorean theorem. I’m sure you encountered it in high school. It applies to any triangle with a 90 degree angle in it (AKA right triangles). All it says is that if you square each of the shorter sides and add them together, you get the square of the longest side. In other words, if a and b are the lengths of the shorter sides, and c is the length of the longest side, then a^2 + b^2 = c^2.

    Simple, right?

    So…imagine I lived before the time of Pythagoras, but I measured the lengths of the sides of various right triangles and I noticed this relationship held every time. Then, I published a scroll about my discovery, and claimed I had established a relationship between the lengths of the sides of ALL triangles, not just right triangles. What if I said, hey, you can take ANY triangle, and compute a^2 + b^2, where a and b are the lengths of the shorter sides, and the result will be c^2, where c is the length of the longest side.

    Wouldn’t that be absurd?

    The ***actual*** relationship that applies to triangles in general is called the Law of Cosines…I’m not going to paste it in, but Google it if you are curious.

    Now, I do realize it’s very easy to show with an explicit example that my hypothetical scroll is wrong. You can draw a triangle that does not have a right angle and show the simple formula a^2 + b^2 = c^2 doesn’t work. So, that is a difference between my example and the example of Darwin’s insects. One of them is easier to absolutely falsify.

    However, I also see a very important ***commonality***:
    In both cases, we make certain observations in very specific circumstances and extrapolate them far beyond the original context!
    I extrapolate observations based on right triangles to ALL triangles.
    Darwin extrapolates observations of neuter insects to ALL structures of all animals and plants, including, for example, the human brain.
    If I’m not justified in my triangle extrapolation, why is Darwin justified in his evolution extrapolation?
    I don’t think his extrapolation was justified.

    Now, if you can agree it was not justified, maybe you will say that it’s justified now, since we have so much more evidence. Well, we definitely have more evidence now…including the fact that there is a literal biological programming language inside of us. Every other program we know of was created by an intelligent programmer. So, reasoning from what we know (i.e. this is not a God of the gaps argument), we conclude that there is a programmer responsible for us. So, it’s reasonable to reject Darwin’s extrapolation, based on our latest discoveries and basic logic.

    TFOTF: No one talks like this at my data-intensive, completely secular, evidence-based place of employment…
    Bob: How often do people at your work make discoveries that challenge thousands of years of religious belief?
    “Creationists use data the way a drunk man uses a lamp post – for support, not illumination.”
    ~unknown
    **TFOTF:
    Learning about neuter insects does not challenge thousands of years of religious belief. You really and truly believe that?
    As far as your creationist quote…I addressed that here:
    https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2020/03/22/yes-but-the-cross-part-3/#comment-4372

    TFOTF: …and it is not just the difference between Victorian English and 2020 American English. I am well versed in 2020 American English, and I’ve read my fair share of Victorian English, and I do data analysis for a living, Bob. Doesn’t this give you any pause at all?
    Bob: NOT AT ALL! Neither my world view nor my conclusions concerning human and animal evolution rest entirely on the discoveries, conclusions, or writings of Charles Darwin.
    You are truly making a mountain out of a molehill.
    **TFOTF:
    OK, so the Origin of Species is not a hill to die on. So, are you agreeing he made an unjustified extrapolation?

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

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    TFOTF Post author June 6, 2020 at 8:05 am

    Hi Bob,

    Here is my latest response to #13..see the ** comments.

    Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.
    Bob: yawn…
    **TFOTF:
    I’ll get to this in a later comment.

    TFOTF: Wikipedia: Abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life,[3][4][5][a] is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[6][4][7][8] While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes.[9][10][11] Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood. There are several principles and hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred.[12]
    Bob: Abiogenesis and biological evolution are two completely different fields of study – pick one please.
    **TFOTF:
    Well, we talked about biological evolution with regards to sponges, and you convinced me you did not understand what we were talking about, despite my detailed explanations based on secular sources.
    https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2020/03/22/yes-but-the-cross-part-3/#comment-4372
    If you were going to stay on here and you wanted to move on to abiogenesis, that would be fine with me. What I would really like, though, is for you to take a step back here and ask yourself some deeper questions about atheism ***and*** its logical implications.

    TFOTF: So, the details are “unknown”, and the “possible mechanisms are poorly understood”. But, because science is the only epistemology you and other materialists seem to recognize, and science only deals with natural processes, life must have arisen from purely natural causes. So, we start by saying there is no God. Then, we conclude abiogenesis must have occurred. Is that it? Please correct me if I am wrong.
    Bob: You are wrong. Science does not address the question of the existence of a god either way. Scientists may proclaim their belief or non belief concerning the existence of a god, but to my knowledge, there are no scientific investigations into such.
    So, when it comes to how life began on Earth, since science deals with the natural, all it can do is investigate the natural. Supernatural, by its very name, can not be investigated by the natural sciences.
    **TFOTF:
    From my earlier quote of Wikipedia:
    “…the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists…”
    My question to you is, why?

    I believe in naturalistic explanations for many things. My whole career is based on it. But I am more than my career, and the universe is more than atoms bouncing around.

    If I am told by one of the world’s leading biologists, Richard Dawkins, that there is a programming language embedded in our biology, why is it unreasonable to see that as evidence for a programmer? Especially since I write computer programs for a living.

    Would it be reasonable to you if I insisted on taking a mathematical approach to every single question, just because I’m a math major?

    You wouldn’t have any problem, I assume, with a group of reputable scientists presenting evidence that we were intelligently programmed by aliens.

    But you would claim that it’s not reasonable to take the next logical step and say that at some point, the first intelligent life was created by an immaterial being?

    What’s wrong with augmenting science with logic?

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

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    TFOTF Post author June 6, 2020 at 8:37 am

    Hi Bob, this is my response to #14, using **

    FOURTEEN
    TFOTF: I’m fine living with mystery. I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
    BOB: Your young earth Christian worldview is fatally flawed. My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before.
    TFOTF: You didn’t answer my question. Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? Your answer is that my worldview is fatally flawed. That doesn’t answer my question at all….it’s more like a restatement of my question. So, I ask again: Why do you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview? The fact that I haven’t explained, and don’t know, every detail of how an omnipotent God created the world is a fatal flaw in my worldview? If that is what you are saying, please explain how you came to that conclusion. I don’t need to know the mechanism God used for everything he did….it’s very reasonable to assume he was able to handle the mysterious parts.
    Bob: OK, I’ll answer your initial question:
    Q – I don’t know why you pose your questions as if you are revealing some fatal flaw in my worldview. Why is that?
    A – Because I believe your young earth Christian worldview is fatally flawed.
    There…?
    **TFOTF:
    Oh dear…I don’t like being annoying, but, no, I confess I am still mystified. If your motive is to expose fatal flaws in young earth creationism, I would expect a question that actually exposes a fatal flaw. So, let’s revisit your question and the ensuing dialogue.
    Bob: “What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?”
    We had some back and forth, after which you said this:
    “I suspect that if there was an all-powerful god, then he/she/it could exercise this all-powerfulness to accomplish anything…I suspect. And I suspect that if said god did that, created something that was harmless into a disease carrying parasite, then said god would be a cruel, uncaring, uncompassionate ass, and I would gladly tell him that to his face – but, since there is absolutely no evidence that this “omnipotent God” exists, or ever existed, this is mere speculation at best…or at worst. No – the worst thing is that I once “worshipped” this make-believe god. The worst thing is that you still worship this make-believe god.”
    OK, so, you’re agreeing it’s reasonable to think that a Being of such power could figure out how to make ticks harmless before the Fall, but harmful afterwards. So, no logical issue there…but then, you switch to the Problem of Evil. I’m just trying to follow along here…what was the fatal flaw in the YEC that you were trying to get at? I thought you were coming at this from a technical perspective…but if it was really just the Problem of Evil, shouldn’t you just say that from the beginning rather than continuing to beat the YEC drum? They are connected, yes….but they are not the same. And if the Problem of Evil is really what you want to talk about, great! That’s the whole series that I’m currently writing. Very, very important question to talk about. Agreed!

    TFOTF: You are the one who is on the hook to explain the mechanisms, since you claim that your views on origins are science-driven. Established science is supposed to involve detailed mechanisms, isn’t it?
    Bob: Are you saying that the science of biology has not “explained the mechanisms” of evolution? If that is what you are saying, then you don’t know how to google – or you do know but are afraid to look.
    **TFOTF:
    OK…give me the link that demonstrates, based on good evidence, the detailed mechanism that evolution used to invent a programming language. I write programs for a living…so I’m not afraid! Yes, I do know how to google, but I shouldn’t have to google to find evidence for ***your*** views. Waiting…

    As far as topic FIFTEEN, that was the tick discussion, so I think we’re good there.

    Thanks for your comment, Bob.

• 

  Reply ↓

  TFOTF May 2, 2020 at 11:43 am

  Hi Bob,

  Thank you very much for your response. I moved your last comment out to a top level thread. We were getting too many layers down.

  I am glad this topic is very important to you. It’s very important to me as well. At this point, it won’t surprise you to know that I have a lot to say in response to your last comment.

  You explained earlier that your questions are for the benefit of my readers:
  “My questions are for the benefit of your few readers, in the hopes that they might consider what they have never considered before.”

  I am very interested in the benefit of my readers. I think there’s more than enough dialogue between us for them to make a fair judgment of my arguments vs. yours.

  However, as you know from our even longer email exchanges, I am also interested in your individual benefit, independent of my blog readers. Despite my lengthy efforts so far, you continue to advocate atheism, and I think you are woefully wrong in this regard. I want to be a servant of the Lord, and the Bible instructs servants of the Lord to be patient. So, I want to be patient.

  I plan to labor with you, as long as you will let me, in an attempt to get you to turn away from your atheism. I don’t look at myself as “good” and you as “bad”. What I see (to the extent that you can see things like this based only on internet dialogue) is that you’re a good person that’s been overtaken by a lie known as atheism. You’ve traded rationality for an illusion….the illusion that you are not accountable to God for anything because He isn’t real.

  We’ve been discussing this for two years now! Pretty amazing. I want to thank you for talking with me, and also let you know that I have no plans to stop.

  At the beginning of your last comment, you said:
  “This is getting way out of hand, so if I don’t address every specific question or point that you make, just assume that I don’t want to spend the time on it.”

  So, I assume you don’t want to spend time on this comment…
  **TFOTF: Hmmm, I think we both know God exists. Not by examining fossils, but by simple logic.
  https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2019/03/04/does-atheism-live-in-the-heart-or-in-the-mind/
  …because your response to that was literally “yawn…”

  However, Bob, I want to remind you that I provided that link in response to something *you* said:
  bob: You don’t even know that god exists, so of course you have a “mystery”.
  **TFOTF: Hmmm, I think we both know God exists. Not by examining fossils, but by simple logic.
  https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2019/03/04/does-atheism-live-in-the-heart-or-in-the-mind/

  In a practical sense, Bob, you have several options here. You can unsubscribe to my blog (I hope you don’t). You can drop out of this discussion (I hope you don’t). Or, you can continue the discussion (I hope you do), but I will not give you the option of continuing to dialogue with me if, when I respond to your challenges, you insist on unilaterally ending that line of discussion with a “yawn”.

  Either tell me what’s wrong with my rebuttal, or tell me that it is logically sound (in which case we can move on), or ask for clarification. And when I say logically sound, I mean that the premises are true and the conclusion logically follows from the premises.

  So, I am asking you for a response to my argument before I spend time responding to the other comments in your latest reply. But I will do something to make it more convenient for you: Instead of linking you to the entire post, I will paste in kind of the summary section and ask you respond to that:

  BEGIN BLOG POST EXCERPT
  Atheists may call this argument absurd (without actually showing what’s wrong with it), but let’s you and I consider the parallels between this argument and the very well-established argument about prime numbers:

  We want to know:
  …If an Infinite being exists
  …If the prime numbers go on infinitely

  So we assume:
  …There is no infinite being
  …There is no infinite quantity of prime numbers

  This leads to the conclusion that:
  …The universe self-assembled itself, over a very long period of time, into the human brain
  …There is a number that is greater than 1 and also equals 1 at the same time

  Which is a problem because:
  …The brain-from-the-ocean idea:
  ……Has never been demonstrated by any science experiment with an appreciable level of representativeness
  ……Contradicts our (all of us, experts and lay people alike) observations about what happens when a bunch of random stuff gets randomly mixed together
  …It’s impossible for any number to be greater than 1 and equal 1 at the same time

  So, we logically reject the initial assumption and conclude:
  …That there is an Infinite Being or Beings, regardless of whether or not we can directly observe such a Being
  …An infinite number of numbers qualify as prime numbers, even though it is by definition impossible to directly observe all of them
  END BLOG POST EXCERPT

  In addition, since you left a very obvious question unanswered, I’m asking you for an answer to that question before I move on to your other comments.

  FIFTEEN
  BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
  TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it? Honestly. Please explain what you are getting at here.
  **TFOTF: No response on this one.
  Bob: No.

  So, your answer is “No.” OK, I’m sorry for misinterpreting you. Please let me know what you are getting at when you ask me about ticks. And since you said “No”, please let me know: Does this mean you ARE ok with the idea that, if there was an omnipotent God, He could figure out a way to make ticks somehow harmless at one point in history and then harmful at a later point in history? Why or why not? And if this segues into the question of the existence of God in the first place, I refer you to the discussion higher up regarding my previous blog post.

  Finally, there is one other item I ask that you expound on before I spend time responding to your other comments. Your response to this comment of mine was a “yawn…”:

  Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.

  But this comment of mine was a *response* to a comment from *you*:

  BOB: No death before the “fall”, means we will not have any evidence at all, of any predators – not a single carnivore tooth, fragment of a carnivore tooth, not a single jaw bone from an animal with sharp carnivore teeth before 6,000 BCE – and yet, we have an incredible amount of fossils, teeth, and jaw bones including teeth, and claws used for capturing and restraining prey – all that predate the “fall” by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, and hundreds of millions of years. We have scientific evidence that animals died long before 6,000 BCE. Please present evidence that what you claim to be true, is true.
  TFOTF: I’m not a creation scientist. I read their stuff and it’s interesting, but my faith is not based on their work. You want my evidence? Fair enough, here’s my evidence:
  [Heb 11:1-3 KJV] 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
  Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo. Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo? No…but you have your escapism. The iPhone-from-goo problem sums up my never-ending resistance to atheism, thus leading me towards theism. My faith in God seals the deal. The creationist and ID scientists increase my confidence, but are certainly not the foundation of it.

  So, please answer my question with something more substantive than a “yawn”: Do you have evidence that an iPhone can come from goo?

  Thanks again Bob.

  • 

    Reply ↓

    bob May 4, 2020 at 11:40 am

    Just curious – I don’t know that we have adequately addressed my one of my responses to your initial blog post.

    TFOTF: …the Bible tells us that all animals ate plants:
    [Gen 1:29-30 KJV] 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing SEED, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the FRUIT of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green HERB for meat: and it was so.

    Bob: Your contention is that before the “fall”, which is before the initial sin of Adam and Eve, animals did not eat each other – correct?
    And then after the “fall”, which was directly after the initial sin of Adam and Eve, animals then started eating each other, or did they wait until after the “flood” before they began to eat each other – note – you state and then reference this verse:

    TFOTF: Compare that idyllic arrangement to this post-Fall arrangement:
    [Gen 9:3 KJV] 3 Every MOVING THING that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

    So right after god created Adam and Eve, he notified them that fruits and herbs are “meat” for them. So, did Noah and family (and animals) eat meat while on the ark, or was there no meat-eating until Genesis 9, after the waters receded?

    How does Tyrannosaurus Rex fit into this?

    T-Rex fossils are found ONLY in north America. Every T-Rex tooth ever found is strictly a carnivore tooth. T-Rex was not equipped with teeth for eating grasses or grains, fruits or vegetables. It’s teeth are shaped for one purpose – to grasp and tear meat into chunks small enough to swallow (thank you Jesus). Google and have a look yourself. Have a look at this Wikipedia page covering how the T-Rex fed:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_behaviour_of_Tyrannosaurus

    If a god designed T-Rex, he did so in Gen 1:24-25, right before he created Adam. And he created T-Rex expressly designed to eat other animals. Just like, if a god designed a mastodon, he did so with the express desire for it to eat vegetation, because none of it’s teeth are carnivorous teeth.

    So:
    1 – If T-Rex’s were created in Gen. 1:24-25, they ate only fruits and herbs, all the while looking longingly at all the other animals and humans, just hoping for the “fall” to come soon so that it could finally eat what it was “designed” to eat – which was meat and bones.

    2 – During the flood, while T-Rex’s were on the ark, what did they eat? They were on the ark, weren’t they? Can you imagine handing T-Rex an apple or two?

    3 – As T-Rex’s left the ark after the flood waters receded, what or who do you think got eaten first? Somebody definitely got eaten. I can only imagine how fast Noah and crew got the hell out of there, because they, and T-Rex, knew that someone is gonna get eaten NOW – because after all, Noah just got notified by god that “Every MOVING THING that liveth shall be meat for you…” I suspect that Noah is not going to just walk up to T-Rex, cut off a few of it’s fingers and roast them over a fire, after he has just witnessed the creature grab one of the only two cows that were on the ark and rip it to shreds then swallow it in a matter of a few minutes.

    4 – Why are T-Rex fossils found ONLY in North America – about 7,000 miles away from where the ark rested?
    a-How did they get to North America after the flood waters receded?
    b-What did they eat as they traveled from Mt. Ararat to North America?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    May 2, 2020 at 11:43 am

    TFOTF: Despite my lengthy efforts so far, you continue to advocate atheism, and I think you are woefully wrong in this regard.
    Bob: Perhaps you misunderstand my motivation, or perhaps I have inadvertently fostered a faulty impression – I am advocating one thing – reasonable thinking.
    1 – For the one who is considering becoming a Christian (a bible believer), I just hope that they actually survey differing points of view before committing their assent.
    2 – For the one who is already a Christian (a bible believer), I am simply asking them to ponder the question of – did they exercise sound reason in becoming a Christian, and are they exercising sound reason in remaining a Christian. I don’t really think I am advocating for atheism. I believe I am advocating for people to examine what they believe and why.

    TFOTF: I plan to labor with you, as long as you will let me, in an attempt to get you to turn away from your atheism.
    Bob: I guess I have several questions concerning this:
    1 – Why? What will be the benefit of me transitioning from non believer to believer – especially in light of the fact that I was previously a believer for 25 years? I know believers. I am familiar with their beliefs, their dialogue, their actions. I see nothing in them that I desire. As I have said before, I find Christianity entirely unattractive – nothing there that I should want or need. I find the god of the book to be immoral and I am disgusted at the lengths that believers will go to justify and excuse such immorality. So, I suspect that your labor will be in vain.

    TFOTF: …you’re a good person that’s been overtaken by a lie known as atheism.
    Bob: Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god. There are many things (claims) that I don’t believe are true, and Christianity is just one of those things that I don’t believe is true. Your impression of atheism seems skewed. My atheism is a state of mind as a result of me recognizing that after 25 years of belief, I never had a good reason to believe in the first place. Hopefully you can understand – if one is honest with themselves and refuses, at last, to stifle their doubts, their skepticism, then there is no longer the psychological need to ignore facts and evidence. No longer does one have to filter everything through their long held belief system. Free at last, free at last.

    TFOTF: You’ve traded rationality for an illusion….
    Bob: Sweetheart, you do realize that my impression of you is exactly the same, don’t you? My impression of you is that you believe something that is irrational and unjustifiable. I simply don’t believe as you do. I am not a believer. I am no longer a man that can believe, just believe, based on the emotional plea’s from family, friends, and acquaintances. And lest you throw “free will” into the mix, I am no more free to believe as you are to just stop believing. I am incapable of suspending my skepticism, of vanquishing my doubts. I can’t think of anything that I “just believe”. I come to conclusions based on evidence, facts, and experience, and the only weapons that you can deploy against my skepticism and doubts are facts and evidence.

    Consider this – If I became a believer again, as you desire, it would have little impact on me. Just because I come to believe in a god would not mean that I would then believe every word in that horrible book and be able to excuse all that I find so objectionable in it. If I came to believe again, do you think I would immediately look for a church to begin attending? How would that go, when in my time attending dozens of churches during and after my long Christian experience, I look back and don’t consider a single one of those churches worth more than a single visit. And how would I decide which one to become associated with? Just about every Christian that has ever invited me to their church, has described it in glowing terms, and yet, as I am sitting there in the pew, my thoughts have been that their church is not much different than the last one I visited: dress-up, shake hands, smile, sing song, pray, sing song, pray, give money, pray, listen to sermon, pray, sing song, smile, shake hands, go out to eat.

    Perhaps you can detect that, it’s not simply that I don’t believe in god, it’s also that I find the Bible so detestable, and I find Christianity as believed and lived by Christians, to be quite far from the way I want to live my life. Not only do I find what you believe to be unbelievable, I just have no desire to believe as you, to hold important the doctrines that you hold. From my perspective, to be psychologically bound to a belief system (depending on your level of fundamentalism) can be quite destructive to the individual and family. I know because I was once a believer. I know because I have listened to and read what current and former believers have experienced.

    TFOTF:…the illusion that you are not accountable to God for anything because He isn’t real.
    Bob: I am at least, at least as confident that your god isn’t real – as you are that he is real.

    TFOTF: We’ve been discussing this for two years now! Pretty amazing.
    Bob: Two years…? Shoot me now 🙂 I ended my discussion with my Jehovah’s Witness friends at about the one year mark…that averaged about one day a week for 90 minutes, for a year. Shoot me now 🙂

    TFOTF: So, I assume you don’t want to spend time on this comment…
    **TFOTF: Hmmm, I think we both know God exists. Not by examining fossils, but by simple logic.
    https://www.theformofthefourth.com/2019/03/04/does-atheism-live-in-the-heart-or-in-the-mind/
    …because your response to that was literally “yawn…”
    Bob: Correct. I have no desire to engage in a conversation when a person claims to KNOW that I KNOW something. And I didn’t read the link. I don’t want to dive into another blog post. Not that I have no interest in it – I just know that I didn’t need a deeper distraction. I knew that I would find so much more to disagree with in yet another of your blog posts.

    TFOTF: In a practical sense, Bob, you have several options here. You can unsubscribe to my blog (I hope you don’t). You can drop out of this discussion (I hope you don’t). Or, you can continue the discussion (I hope you do), but I will not give you the option of continuing to dialogue with me if, when I respond to your challenges, you insist on unilaterally ending that line of discussion with a “yawn”.
    Bob: Sorry, but if you are going to insist that I “know” that your god is real, intimating that I am just suppressing what I know to be true, I am not going to dignify such an insult with much of a response. If that means you will attempt to force a response, then yes, I will just go away. I am not going to waste my time on that particular distraction.

    TFOTF: BEGIN BLOG POST EXCERPT
    Atheists may call this argument absurd (without actually showing what’s wrong with it), but let’s you and I consider the parallels between this argument and the very well-established argument about prime numbers:
    Bob: I dealt with this in an email response months ago. You never responded. I see no reason to delve into that once again.

    TFOTF: In addition, since you left a very obvious question unanswered, I’m asking you for an answer to that question before I move on to your other comments.
    FIFTEEN
    BOB: What did ticks feed on before “the fall”?
    TFOTF: So you’re convinced that an omnipotent, uncreated God could not figure out a way to originally make ticks to feed off other creatures in a painless, symbiotic way, or to make them originally drink nectar. Is that it? Honestly. Please explain what you are getting at here.
    **TFOTF: No response on this one.
    Bob: No.
    TFOTF: So, your answer is “No.” OK, I’m sorry for misinterpreting you. Please let me know what you are getting at when you ask me about ticks.
    Bob: your response was not an argument – it was not even a claim. It was merely a “what if”. What I was getting at was the scientific fact that modern tics MUST eat blood in order to reproduce. They must feed on animals. There is no evidence that their relationship has ever been “symbiotic”, and while it may be painless in the beginning of the feeding process (due to the chemical the tick injects into the unsuspecting host) the process eventually becomes painful and dangerous. Introducing a “what if” into this is useless and water-muddying unless you have some evidence in support of your possible theory.

    (Your claim of a possible alternative feeding for the tick is simply your attempt to rescue your religious beliefs from exposure to the facts. This is what believers do all the time.)

    I simply chose to ignore your initial response because you were introducing variables that are at this point, incomprehensible: an omnipotent tick-creating god who who made this “thing that creepeth upon the earth”, knowing full well that in a few years (few hundred years?), it would be transformed from a benign, nectar sipping, tiny brown dot feeding on a flower, into a disease carrying bug that has made life so miserable for just about any animal that it latches onto. Just google “deer infested with ticks” and click on “images” and then continue to thank your god for his wisdom in creating such a wonderful little thing that creepeth upon the earth.

    TFOTF: And since you said “No”, please let me know: Does this mean you ARE ok with the idea that, if there was an omnipotent God, He could figure out a way to make ticks somehow harmless at one point in history and then harmful at a later point in history? Why or why not?
    Bob: I suspect that if there was an all-powerful god, then he/she/it could exercise this all-powerfulness to accomplish anything…I suspect. And I suspect that if said god did that, created something that was harmless into a disease carrying parasite, then said god would be a cruel, uncaring, uncompassionate ass, and I would gladly tell him that to his face – but, since there is absolutely no evidence that this “omnipotent God” exists, or ever existed, this is mere speculation at best…or at worst. No – the worst thing is that I once “worshipped” this make-believe god. The worst thing is that you still worship this make-believe god.

    TFOTF: Finally, there is one other item I ask that you expound on before I spend time responding to your other comments. Your response to this comment of mine was a “yawn…”:
    Faith is its own evidence. However, so is escapism. That’s my best understanding of how you and many others far better educated than both of us could continue to believe that an iPhone came from goo.
    Bob:
    1 – I have no interest in discussing your iphone-from-goo analogy again. I believe it was discussed in a previous email.
    2 – As for your “escapism” accusation – it’s just another veiled insult that is not worth the time.
    3 – As for your “faith is it’s own evidence” claim…you are wrong. Your faith can be, and most definitely is, in conflict with the faith of another believer. You both can claim that your faith is actual evidence that your faith is true. That is not logical. That is a religious claim, nothing more. And presenting a bible verse is evidence of two things only – that the bible says something, and that you believe it. It is not EVIDENCE that what that bible verse says is true.

    So, here are a few topics that I am not going to discuss with you:
    1 – iphone from goo. If you want to discuss biological evolution and perhaps touch on the origins of the universe and how science is investigating how life may have come into existence, fine. But if you are insisting on continuing this line, one that I have addressed and dismissed in previous emails, over and over and over again, we may as well call it quits. You are like a 5 year old who thinks that if they just keep asking for a piece of candy, the adult will eventually give in.
    2 – Prime numbers as evidence or proof that god exists, or justification for having a belief in god. It has been discussed. (however – if you eventually respond to my email, then I’ll be glad to consider your response).
    3 – Any claim from you that you know that I “know” that god exists will be yawned at. The only way that you can know the thoughts that are inside my brain is if I tell you. If you think that you can know the thoughts inside my brain because the bible tells you so, …yawn.

    • 

      Reply ↓

      TFOTF May 15, 2020 at 6:47 am

      OK, I got your permission via email, so I’m posting our email conversation about prime numbers. I’ll post a response later.

      TFOTF:Now, about prime numbers. I’m still addressing your charge that my position is absurd. Also, when I talk about prime numbers, I’m addressing this question from you:
      “Is there a god?
      If yes, offer actual evidence.
      Can’t be more simple than that.”

      TFOTF: …numbers are not physical objects. They are just ideas.
      Bob: I understand.

      TFOTF: And it turns out that we do in fact have an infinite number of prime numbers. Mathematicians proved this by assuming the opposite….So, they proved there cannot be a finite number of prime numbers.
      Bob: Just to clarify, you know for a fact that prime numbers are infinite, and you know this because it has been proven by math?

      TFOTF: Whenever you ask me for “actual evidence” of a God (again, talking in general here, not about Jesus), it is similar in my mind to demanding that mathematicians show you all infinity of the prime numbers before you will believe them when they tell you there is an infinite number of them. But you say are willing to assume I am correct about prime numbers.
      Bob: Do you believe there are infinite prime numbers or do you know there are infinite prime numbers? It seems that you, as a university trained, working mathematician, you KNOW that there are infinite prime numbers, and I have no reason to doubt you…unless of course, I later find that you have been lying. But yes – for now – I am willing to assume that you are correct about prime numbers – numbers that don’t actually physically exist, correct? Numbers do not exist, they are not physical objects, “they are just ideas”, as you said.
      So you are basically saying that – there are an infinite number of ideas.
      So you are basically saying that – there exists an infinite number of prime numbers – that don’t actually exist – except in the minds of mathematicians.
      I hope you can see now why I tried my best to avoid your discussion on prime numbers.
      I hope you can see now that your infinite prime numbers analogy proves one thing only – that your God DOES exist, (like infinite prime numbers) as an idea. We could have saved a lot of time if you had of simply stated that in the beginning.

      TFOTF: I don’t see the difference between saying “There has to be an infinite number of prime numbers, even though we cannot see them all by definition, because otherwise we get an impossible contradiction” and saying “There has to be an sentient Being(s) underlying all other beings, even if we cannot see this Being(s) directly, because otherwise we get an impossible contradiction.”
      Bob: Wait – I thought your analogy was to show that there has to be a “first cause”, not that there has to be a first cause that has to be a “sentient Being(s)”. Which is it that you are trying to prove – a “first cause” or a “first cause” that has human attributes? EXPLAIN!
      But back to your statement above, of course you don’t see the difference because there is not a difference. Infinite prime numbers (ideas) exist, just as the idea of a sentient first cause exists. Both are fun to think about.
      …and what is this plural “s” you are now adding to “Being”?

      TFOTF: Why is this so “absurd” to you?
      Bob: Hopefully my previous email (and everything I have said above) has explained what I found absurd.

      TFOTF: And why do you keep discounting the proof by contradiction, AKA, by the impossibility of the contrary?
      Bob: I don’t think I did. I didn’t understand it, but I still believe that you are making an unjustified leap by claiming this first cause has to be a “being” – and especially a “Being”. Hopefully you will offer some justification for this.

      TFOTF: You may ask what contradiction I am referring to when I ponder atheism. Well, the contradiction I am referring to is the impossibility of everything around us just coming into being via natural processes.
      Bob: Are you claiming that the first cause was “supernatural”?
      Can you explain this “impossibility of everything around us coming into being by natural processes”? I have no idea what you are talking about when you say “everything around us”. Are you referring to the “everything” that came into being (existence?) at the moment of the “first cause”, or are you talking about the “everything” that we can see and detect “around us” at this present moment?
      I forget that you believe in a literal, Genesis 1, six day creation. This fairy tale makes it easy for believers to confuse (ignore) the actual time span between the “big bang” and the emergence and evolution of life on Earth, and to the emergence of the first humans. Instead off taking billions of years, you actually believe it took less than a week – LESS THAN A WEEK. This is literally almost like a comedy routine.

      • 

        Reply ↓

        TFOTF Post author May 31, 2020 at 1:36 pm

        You know them, you love them….they’re prime numbers!
        🙂

        TFOTF: And it turns out that we do in fact have an infinite number of prime numbers. Mathematicians proved this by assuming the opposite….So, they proved there cannot be a finite number of prime numbers.
        Bob: Just to clarify, you know for a fact that prime numbers are infinite, and you know this because it has been proven by math?
        TFOTF:
        Yes

        Bob: Do you believe there are infinite prime numbers or do you know there are infinite prime numbers?
        TFOTF:
        I know.

        Bob:
        So you are basically saying that – there are an infinite number of ideas.
        So you are basically saying that – there exists an infinite number of prime numbers – that don’t actually exist – except in the minds of mathematicians.
        TFOTF:
        First, I need to correct myself. I said earlier that “…numbers are not physical objects. They are just ideas.” I should have added that numbers are part of immaterial reality. So, they are not merely ideas.

        So, about ideas existing only in the minds of mathematicians…the fact is, if all mathematicians died tomorrow, this truth about prime numbers would still exist. It is part of reality, even if it’s not physical. If all physicists died tomorrow, gravity would still exist. The law of gravity is part of reality. Gravity did not begin on the day that the apple fell on Newton’s head. But there’s an important distinction: Physicists can directly demonstrate the law of gravity. The prime number proof I put in my blog posts does *not* use direct evidence. Rather it uses a proof by contradiction.

        Why do I keep bringing up prime numbers? Because you keep saying you need evidence for God…seeming to miss my point about a proof by contradiction. It’s also called a reductio ad absurdum argument. That’s why I asked you recently if you agreed that an indirect argument relied on indirect evidence. You said you didn’t know. OK…I will tell you. The answer is yes…and I gave you an example of that in the prime number blog post.

        Here it is again:
        ***********************
        We want to know:
        …If an Infinite being exists
        …If the prime numbers go on infinitely

        So we assume:
        …There is no infinite being
        …There is no infinite quantity of prime numbers

        This leads to the conclusion that:
        …The universe self-assembled itself, over a very long period of time, into the human brain
        …There is a number that is greater than 1 and also equals 1 at the same time

        Which is a problem because:
        …The brain-from-the-ocean idea:
        ……Has never been demonstrated by any science experiment with an appreciable level of representativeness
        ……Contradicts our (all of us, experts and lay people alike) observations about what happens when a bunch of random stuff gets randomly mixed together
        …It’s impossible for any number to be greater than 1 and equal 1 at the same time

        So, we logically reject the initial assumption and conclude:
        …That there is an Infinite Being or Beings, regardless of whether or not we can directly observe such a Being
        …An infinite number of numbers qualify as prime numbers, even though it is by definition impossible to directly observe all of them
        ***********************

        You’re conflating aspects of immaterial reality (God, infinite prime numbers, etc.) with esoteric ideas in someone’s head. I wonder if you think love is a real immaterial thing, or just electrons/protons/neutrons bouncing around, or just an esoteric idea in someone’s head. I wonder if you think “Ted Bundy did evil, morally wrong things to women” is a true statement of an ***immaterial*** reality, or of a social construct. Is it a statement we make based on a long period of Darwinian trial and error? So, as a species, we figured out that it doesn’t help our collective survival if men sneak around at night and murder and rape women. So, when we denounce what he did, as I’m sure you would, the essential reason we denounce it is that evolution has taught us that it detracts of our survival. That’s fundamentally all we’re saying about it when we call it evil. After all, it was unspeakably horrible for the women, but Bundy enjoyed it. Also, Bundy reasoned that he only murdered an infinitesimal percentage of the women on the planet. So, from a Darwinian perspective, who knows? Maybe our species is established enough at this point that a few serial killers are not really a threat to our survival. That would mean that our utter horror when contemplating the Bundys of the world could be somewhat vestigial at this point. Sure, put him an institution or execute him, but no need to actually be horrified at what he did. See why I reject atheism?

        I heard an atheist (in a public debate) say, regarding eating of babies, “It’s not for me.” It sounds like a discussion about pizza. “You want pizza?” “No, it’s not for me. I’ll have a sandwich”. “Want to rape that woman over there?” “Nah…not for me.” See why I reject atheism?

        There are aspects of fundamental, absolute reality that are not material, Bob. Your rejection of this (I think you reject this…do you reject this?) leads to confusion about God, prime numbers, and perhaps even Ted Bundy (yes, you will denounce him, but I question how consistent you are being when you do so).

        But, if you still disagree, and you want something more direct, please see my argument based on Dawkins elsewhere in this thread. It actually does rely on direct evidence!

        TFOTF: I don’t see the difference between saying “There has to be an infinite number of prime numbers, even though we cannot see them all by definition, because otherwise we get an impossible contradiction” and saying “There has to be an sentient Being(s) underlying all other beings, even if we cannot see this Being(s) directly, because otherwise we get an impossible contradiction.”
        Bob: Wait – I thought your analogy was to show that there has to be a “first cause”, not that there has to be a first cause that has to be a “sentient Being(s)”. Which is it that you are trying to prove – a “first cause” or a “first cause” that has human attributes? EXPLAIN!
        But back to your statement above, of course you don’t see the difference because there is not a difference. Infinite prime numbers (ideas) exist, just as the idea of a sentient first cause exists. Both are fun to think about.
        …and what is this plural “s” you are now adding to “Being”?
        TFOTF:
        I do see an old email that has a First Cause discussion and a prime number discussion…however, I did specify (just look higher up at the beginning of the prime number discussion) that I’m addressing your request for evidence for my claim that there is a God. I know we’ve talked about first cause, but in the case of prime numbers I’m being more specific. I do want to prove there is an intelligent Being or Beings undergirding all other beings, because of the functional, specified complexity that we see all around us. And I made it plural because when it comes to the prime number argument, I’m only working in the context of atheism vs. theism. Seems that’s as far as you can take it. If I did try to take it further than that, please show me where. As far as ideas existing, please see my comments higher up in this same response.

        TFOTF: Why is this so “absurd” to you?
        Bob: Hopefully my previous email (and everything I have said above) has explained what I found absurd.
        TFOTF:
        Sorry, I still don’t get it. I don’t see anything absurd about my argument.

        TFOTF: And why do you keep discounting the proof by contradiction, AKA, by the impossibility of the contrary?
        Bob: I don’t think I did. I didn’t understand it, but I still believe that you are making an unjustified leap by claiming this first cause has to be a “being” – and especially a “Being”. Hopefully you will offer some justification for this.
        TFOTF:
        Sorry, let me back up an infinitesimal amount. Instead of calling it proof by contradiction, I will call it Very Strong Evidence based on unfathomably low probability.
        https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/giving-up-darwin/
        If you want to entertain the notion that the First Cause was not an intelligent being, you may not get a 100% contradiction, but you get a ridiculously low probability. The expected number of stable, useful, well-shaped proteins randomly produced via mutation by ALL the organisms that have ever existed is 1/10^37. That is, basically zero. It is 1 divided by 10000000000000000000000000000000000000. You might be willing to entertain this possibility….I am not. That is one reason I say you get a contradiction if you don’t use an Intelligent Being as the First Cause. Do you have an alternate explanation for our DNA that takes into account the randomness of mutation and the difficulty of producing stable, useful, well-shaped proteins, and some approximation of how many organisms have ever existed, without appealing to an Intelligent Being as the First Cause? Remember….natural selection is powerless until a useful mutation is randomly produced!

        TFOTF: You may ask what contradiction I am referring to when I ponder atheism. Well, the contradiction I am referring to is the impossibility of everything around us just coming into being via natural processes.
        Bob: Are you claiming that the first cause was “supernatural”?
        TFOTF: Yes.

        Bob: Can you explain this “impossibility of everything around us coming into being by natural processes”? I have no idea what you are talking about when you say “everything around us”. Are you referring to the “everything” that came into being (existence?) at the moment of the “first cause”, or are you talking about the “everything” that we can see and detect “around us” at this present moment?
        TFOTF:
        Regarding the impossibility, see my 1/10^37 discussion above. Regarding your “or”, question, it’s the latter.

        Bob: I forget that you believe in a literal, Genesis 1, six day creation. This fairy tale makes it easy for believers to confuse (ignore) the actual time span between the “big bang” and the emergence and evolution of life on Earth, and to the emergence of the first humans. Instead off taking billions of years, you actually believe it took less than a week – LESS THAN A WEEK. This is literally almost like a comedy routine.
        TFOTF:
        You imply that the vast time span is long enough for natural processes to produce you and me. Well, let’s go back to the Axe calculation. For his calculation, he used 10^40 for total number of organisms that ever existed. So, do you think that was based on YEC? Or billions and billions of years? Your implication might be that his calculation was based on a young earth, and so that’s why it made naturalistic macroevolution seem so unlikely, right? Check out this mathematician’s calculation, which uses 4 billion years, and comes up with 10^42.
        https://www.quora.com/How-many-living-things-have-ever-existed
        Not that far off from what Axe used. This suggests that even billions of years is not enough time, Bob. Not even close.

    • 

      Reply ↓

      TFOTF Post author June 6, 2020 at 11:46 am

      Hi Bob,

      I think this is only one left I haven’t responded to. See my responses with **.

      TFOTF: …the Bible tells us that all animals ate plants:
      [Gen 1:29-30 KJV] 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing SEED, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the FRUIT of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green HERB for meat: and it was so.

      Bob: Your contention is that before the “fall”, which is before the initial sin of Adam and Eve, animals did not eat each other – correct?
      **TFOTF: Correct

      Bob:
      And then after the “fall”, which was directly after the initial sin of Adam and Eve, animals then started eating each other, or did they wait until after the “flood” before they began to eat each other – note – you state and then reference this verse:

      TFOTF: Compare that idyllic arrangement to this post-Fall arrangement:
      [Gen 9:3 KJV] 3 Every MOVING THING that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
      **TFOTF:
      Yes, good question. I’m not sure, but it does seem like the carnivorous behavior started after the Flood. So, maybe I was wrong before.

      So right after god created Adam and Eve, he notified them that fruits and herbs are “meat” for them. So, did Noah and family (and animals) eat meat while on the ark, or was there no meat-eating until Genesis 9, after the waters receded?
      **TFOTF:
      I think they ate plants on the ark.

      Bob:
      How does Tyrannosaurus Rex fit into this?

      T-Rex fossils are found ONLY in north America. Every T-Rex tooth ever found is strictly a carnivore tooth. T-Rex was not equipped with teeth for eating grasses or grains, fruits or vegetables. It’s teeth are shaped for one purpose – to grasp and tear meat into chunks small enough to swallow (thank you Jesus). Google and have a look yourself. Have a look at this Wikipedia page covering how the T-Rex fed:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_behaviour_of_Tyrannosaurus

      If a god designed T-Rex, he did so in Gen 1:24-25, right before he created Adam. And he created T-Rex expressly designed to eat other animals. Just like, if a god designed a mastodon, he did so with the express desire for it to eat vegetation, because none of it’s teeth are carnivorous teeth.

      So:
      1 – If T-Rex’s were created in Gen. 1:24-25, they ate only fruits and herbs, all the while looking longingly at all the other animals and humans, just hoping for the “fall” to come soon so that it could finally eat what it was “designed” to eat – which was meat and bones.

      **TFOTF:
      You said you suspected that an all-powerful God could make ticks harmless before the Fall and harmful afterwards. Surely you can extend this same assumption to the T-rex question. I’m sure God could make T-rex quite comfortable eating plants before the Fall and possibly before the Flood also. Remember…I’m openly admitting I’m taking this on faith…so I don’t owe you detailed scientific mechanisms. You are the one who owes us detailed scientific mechanisms for your views. And so far you have been AWOL. Also, you brought up the problem of evil after you admitted your suspicion that an all-powerful God could handle the tick question. Is that really what you are trying to get at here? Or do you really think you have come up with a technical problem too big for God to solve?

      Bob:
      2 – During the flood, while T-Rex’s were on the ark, what did they eat? They were on the ark, weren’t they? Can you imagine handing T-Rex an apple or two?
      **TFOTF:
      I saw a similar line of questioning from Ian Plimer in a debate with Duane Gish. It’s the ultimate straw man: Refute the twofold position that says:
      1: The Flood story in the Bible is true
      2: All supernatural events in the Flood story are explicitly labeled as such.
      This is an absolutely ridiculous position! I can see why Plimer would attack this position.
      For, example, Plimer commented how ridiculous it was to imagine Noah, using his own natural powers, rounding up all the different kinds of animals on earth. I agree!!!! Maybe he could have ***asked*** Dr. Gish if that’s what Gish actually believed.
      The Bible says:
      [Gen 6:20 KJV] 20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every [sort] shall come unto thee, to keep [them] alive.
      So, what made the animals come? It doesn’t say. What’s the most reasonable interpretation? I would say that God made them come. Do you think that is a reasonable interpretation of the passage (regardless of whether the Bible is true or not)? Or do you think we are supposed to interpret that Noah somehow gathered every kind of animal with no supernatural assistance?

      In like manner, your question is about trying to feed T rex on the ark. Well, I already gave evidence that God is influencing the behavior of the animals. I see no reason that could not continue on the ark. So, no, I see no issues with feeding any of the animals on the ark, whether they were eating meat or not, and whether they were animals that later became carnivorous or not. Please review our tick discussion.

      But as far as whether T rex was on the ark…I’m not sure. Maybe T rex was already extinct. Or maybe he was on the ark, but they brought babies instead of adults to save room. As far as what he ate, I’m going to guess plants, but I will hold that loosely.

      Also, what kind of plants were around back then? Could there have been special plants that were better suited for T rex?? I don’t know. Pretty sure that plants do not fossilize as well as bones, so it might be harder to reconstruct that aspect of natural history…

      Again…I’m not claiming these thoughts are based on scientific investigation. I take the Flood account to be true based on faith. I don’t know all the details, and that’s OK because I’m taking it on faith.

      Are you going to be providing detailed mechanisms for the iPhone from goo?

      Bob:
      3 – As T-Rex’s left the ark after the flood waters receded, what or who do you think got eaten first? Somebody definitely got eaten. I can only imagine how fast Noah and crew got the hell out of there, because they, and T-Rex, knew that someone is gonna get eaten NOW – because after all, Noah just got notified by god that “Every MOVING THING that liveth shall be meat for you…” I suspect that Noah is not going to just walk up to T-Rex, cut off a few of it’s fingers and roast them over a fire, after he has just witnessed the creature grab one of the only two cows that were on the ark and rip it to shreds then swallow it in a matter of a few minutes.
      **TFOTF:
      I get it. You think the whole thing is absurd. Do you have any actual arguments to offer?

      Bob:
      4 – Why are T-Rex fossils found ONLY in North America – about 7,000 miles away from where the ark rested?
      a-How did they get to North America after the flood waters receded?
      b-What did they eat as they traveled from Mt. Ararat to North America?
      **TFOTF:
      If God brought the animals to the ark, do you think God could have brought them back home, and made sure there was something to eat? Of course, that’s assuming T rex was not already extinct…I don’t know. Don’t you wish you could admit your origins views are not scientifically driven? It’s very freeing. My views about the Flood are ***not*** based on research by answersingenesis. They’re based on my faith in the Bible. I don’t know the detailed mechanism for everything. It’s pretty clear you are missing the detailed mechanisms under-girding your origins views as well…but you still want to claim the science mantle. That is a lot of stress to carry around!!! Let….it…..go….

      TFOTF: Despite my lengthy efforts so far, you continue to advocate atheism, and I think you are woefully wrong in this regard.
      Bob: Perhaps you misunderstand my motivation, or perhaps I have inadvertently fostered a faulty impression – I am advocating one thing – reasonable thinking.
      1 – For the one who is considering becoming a Christian (a bible believer), I just hope that they actually survey differing points of view before committing their assent.
      2 – For the one who is already a Christian (a bible believer), I am simply asking them to ponder the question of – did they exercise sound reason in becoming a Christian, and are they exercising sound reason in remaining a Christian. I don’t really think I am advocating for atheism. I believe I am advocating for people to examine what they believe and why.
      **TFOTF:
      Well, you’ve certainly prompted me to examine what I believe and why. Thank you. I used to call atheism a form of faith…now I call it escapism. I hadn’t thought too much about reasons people might believe in iPhone from goo…but now I’m comfortable saying there could be several reasons. I know more about the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 than I used to. I’ve thought more about when people and animals became carnivorous…and am no longer sure it started right after the Fall. Thank you. As far as your statement “I don’t really think I am advocating for atheism”…how do I reconcile that with your Aron Ra quote?
      “So it’s best to abandon faith first.”
      Did I exercise sound reason in becoming a Christian? Probably not….I was a kid. Am I exercising sound reason in remaining one? I think so…anyway, I think it’s good to stress test my beliefs by talking to you. As part of this discussion, I’ve done a bunch of Googling, and thinking, and digging into the Bible.

      TFOTF: I plan to labor with you, as long as you will let me, in an attempt to get you to turn away from your atheism.
      Bob: I guess I have several questions concerning this:
      1 – Why? What will be the benefit of me transitioning from non believer to believer – especially in light of the fact that I was previously a believer for 25 years? I know believers. I am familiar with their beliefs, their dialogue, their actions. I see nothing in them that I desire. As I have said before, I find Christianity entirely unattractive – nothing there that I should want or need. I find the god of the book to be immoral and I am disgusted at the lengths that believers will go to justify and excuse such immorality. So, I suspect that your labor will be in vain.
      **TFOTF:
      [Act 26:18 KJV] 18 To open their eyes, [and] to turn [them] from darkness to light, and [from] the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
      Mind you, I am not talking about eternal legal forgiveness from sins, such that you will be saved from hell. That is God’s job…not yours or mine.
      Yes, you were a believer…but certainly not in the gospel I believe in. You were taught to believe in a God that throws people into hell unless they make the right decision, the right prayer, the right baptism, the right repentance, etc. Not my Jesus…not my gospel! My Jesus got the job done, and His gospel is ACTUAL good news….not a threat to burn you forever if you don’t get on board.
      [Heb 1:3 KJV] 3 Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had BY HIMSELF purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

      I don’t have answers for all the genocide in the OT. But when you look at those and decide you are going to condemn God and call Him bad words, I think you need to consider these words from God Himself:
      [Job 40:8-10 KJV] 8 Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? 9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him? 10 Deck thyself now [with] majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
      Also…I will take the Christian worldview, even though it has some tough stuff in the narrative portions relating to a different time and place, since it makes sense of the world I live in now and makes sense of the Big Questions. Sure, atheism gets you off the hook for OT genocide…in exchange for science-ish fables like iPhone from goo and an inability to truly say that what Ted Bundy did was objectively, fundamentally, evil!

      I also note you’ve accumulated a lot of misanthropy…and I would love to see you turn away from that as well. Case in point…putting up a quote from Zola about the fantasized violent killing of ALL priests. Yikes….I don’t want any part of that…and I’m sad that you do. That hateful quote, more than anything else in this discussion, impugns your ideas, your worldview, and your level of rationality. Bob…honest to God…you need Jesus in your life. And I want nothing less than to get infected with what has infected you. I have enough trouble already battling my own natural pride, fear, lust and bitterness. So, let me rephrase…we BOTH need more Jesus!

      TFOTF: …you’re a good person that’s been overtaken by a lie known as atheism.
      Bob: Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god. There are many things (claims) that I don’t believe are true, and Christianity is just one of those things that I don’t believe is true. Your impression of atheism seems skewed. My atheism is a state of mind as a result of me recognizing that after 25 years of belief, I never had a good reason to believe in the first place. Hopefully you can understand – if one is honest with themselves and refuses, at last, to stifle their doubts, their skepticism, then there is no longer the psychological need to ignore facts and evidence. No longer does one have to filter everything through their long held belief system. Free at last, free at last.
      **TFOTF:
      One huge reason I cannot get on board with you….I would have to ignore “facts and evidence” like a programming language embedded in my biology. Ignoring implications of your beliefs is not what I call freedom. You’re an atheist….that means you are **not** free to admit God must have programmed our DNA. You ***must*** believe in some sort of naturalistic explanation. Freedom is good…walking around with blinders on your mind is not.

      TFOTF: You’ve traded rationality for an illusion….
      Bob: Sweetheart, you do realize that my impression of you is exactly the same, don’t you? My impression of you is that you believe something that is irrational and unjustifiable. I simply don’t believe as you do. I am not a believer. I am no longer a man that can believe, just believe, based on the emotional plea’s from family, friends, and acquaintances. And lest you throw “free will” into the mix, I am no more free to believe as you are to just stop believing. I am incapable of suspending my skepticism, of vanquishing my doubts. I can’t think of anything that I “just believe”. I come to conclusions based on evidence, facts, and experience, and the only weapons that you can deploy against my skepticism and doubts are facts and evidence.
      **TFOTF:
      OK, let me draw my sword for the 50th time then:
      “Everything about biology has become almost a branch of information technology because DNA is so exactly like a computer language.” That’s from Richard Dawkins.
      https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/11/richard-dawkins-interview-twitter-controversy-genetics-god
      Computers don’t program themselves, Bob…not without an intelligent human agent issuing the instructions at some level. No emotional plea there…just the facts.

      Bob:
      Consider this – If I became a believer again, as you desire, it would have little impact on me.
      **TFOTF:

      Yes and no and oh my goodness.

      Yes, because the Jesus you were taught seems like a pretty bad Father to me. If I actually believed in the Jesus you were taught I might go insane with fear, grief and anger.

      No, because the Jesus I am commending to you is a successful Savior. Everyone – regardless of religion, race, etc. – that loves one another is already born of my Jesus.
      [1Jo 4:7 KJV] 7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

      Oh my goodness because how much I have put on the line for Jesus. And oh my goodness because He has proven faithful. Yes, it has had an impact on my life! He’s the light in my darkness. The antidote to my pride. The cure for my bitterness. My hope for the future.

      Did you ever put anything on the line for Jesus, Bob? I’m not talking about going to church on Sunday and putting some money in the plate and shaking hands. I’m talking about a situation where you know what you need to do as a Christian….but you also know it could jeopardize something very very precious to you, like a career…a friendship…an admission to a school you want to go to…a marriage….a very large sum of money…

      When the chips are down, when the forces of darkness are arrayed against you, when you are shaking in your boots but then you decide to stand on the promises, to march out onto the battlefield of life in the name of Jesus Christ and hold that sword up high….then, my friend, you will see the salvation of the Lord, in His time and in His way.

      [Luk 12:34 KJV] 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
      My advice to you: Treasure something that can never be taken away from you.

      Bob:
      Just because I come to believe in a god would not mean that I would then believe every word in that horrible book and be able to excuse all that I find so objectionable in it. If I came to believe again, do you think I would immediately look for a church to begin attending? How would that go, when in my time attending dozens of churches during and after my long Christian experience, I look back and don’t consider a single one of those churches worth more than a single visit. And how would I decide which one to become associated with? Just about every Christian that has ever invited me to their church, has described it in glowing terms, and yet, as I am sitting there in the pew, my thoughts have been that their church is not much different than the last one I visited: dress-up, shake hands, smile, sing song, pray, sing song, pray, give money, pray, listen to sermon, pray, sing song, smile, shake hands, go out to eat.
      **TFOTF:
      Well, obviously I would recommend this church directory to you:
      http://marchtozion.com/church-directory
      Yes, you have been to a lot of churches and used to be a believer. But you haven’t been to a Primitive Baptist church. I dare you to try it. They’re human, and you will find some things and behaviors at their church that bother you just like at the other churches. However, they are believers in Jesus Christ who have given up ALL -not just most- claims to an instrumental role in their salvation from hell to heaven. When they say salvation is of the Lord…they mean it….probably more than any church you have ever been to. Their concern is not to make sure you said a certain prayer to punch your ticket into heaven…rather, it is to lock arms with you and fight the daily battle of life together. There is very little money or career opportunity in a PB church, and that helps cut down on the opportunism and the vanity. The preachers don’t go to seminary…they learn right there in the church, under the tutelage of an older preacher. The preachers often work secular jobs…they don’t demand a full-time salary from the church. And from what I have seen, although the church members respect the pastors and appreciate their teaching, they are more likely than in other churches to dig into a passage themselves to try to make sure they have the correct interpretation …they are less likely to throw up their hands and go with whatever the pastor said without truly vetting it.
      I recommend you give it a try….but, in parallel, I recommend you let go of the idea that you are more rational than believers. Your experience at church will go much better that way. If you still think you are more reasonable and rational than believers…I suggest you carefully reread all the comments between me and yourself on this page. Or, maybe get someone else to read them and get their opinion on it.

      Bob:
      Perhaps you can detect that, it’s not simply that I don’t believe in god, it’s also that I find the Bible so detestable, and I find Christianity as believed and lived by Christians, to be quite far from the way I want to live my life. Not only do I find what you believe to be unbelievable, I just have no desire to believe as you, to hold important the doctrines that you hold. From my perspective, to be psychologically bound to a belief system (depending on your level of fundamentalism) can be quite destructive to the individual and family. I know because I was once a believer. I know because I have listened to and read what current and former believers have experienced.
      **TFOTF:
      You find the Bible detestable…well, I want to understand some of those Bible stories better, like when they were commanded to go in and kill every human in the city. I do. I’m not sitting on an explanation that would actually make it seem all OK. This goes back to some of the Job passages I have sent you. It goes back to this question….if there really was an all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing God that created everything, should we expect this God to agree with mortal, finite Bob on everything? Or would it be more expected for this Being to **sometimes** do things that makes Bob’s and TFOTF’s heads spin?

      In other cases, I wonder if the thing you find detestable is simply a reflection of the 21st century American culture you have grown up in. But that would be a separate discussion.

      I completely agree with how destructive it can be. I’ve heard the stories too. To believe you may have a role in saving yourself or your loved ones from eternal hell fire, but you have to act before it’s too late, sounds uniquely horrifying and pyschologically scarring. Thank God I don’t believe like that.

      TFOTF:…the illusion that you are not accountable to God for anything because He isn’t real.
      Bob: I am at least, at least as confident that your god isn’t real – as you are that he is real.
      **TFOTF:
      Hehe, I doubt that, but I think we’ve been over it elsewhere on this thread.

      TFOTF: We’ve been discussing this for two years now! Pretty amazing.
      Bob: Two years…? Shoot me now 🙂 I ended my discussion with my Jehovah’s Witness friends at about the one year mark…that averaged about one day a week for 90 minutes, for a year. Shoot me now 🙂
      **TFOTF:
      Hey we are talking about the Big Questions. It’s worth it 🙂

      **TFOTF: Next, there is more tick discussion, but I responded to that elsewhere. The only thing I will say is this: when you say
      “there is absolutely no evidence that this “omnipotent God” exists, or ever existed”…I say, what about the programming language embedded in our biology? That doesn’t count at all? Even a wee bit? Like, in a suggestive way, if not a definitive way?

      As far as faith…have you considered the possibility that I have a spiritual sense? A sense I did not choose to have? As in, like my eyes and ears, which I did not choose to have, but they are just there, and they give me insights into reality? And, if I do have such a spiritual sense, which gives me insights into spiritual truths, would it make sense for me to say it is a source of evidence? Just like my nose can be a source of evidence that there is a fire nearby. To emphasize again: I’m distinguishing faith from belief. Belief is when I choose to use my faith…just like sniffing is when you choose to use your nose. I’m **not** claiming that belief is evidence. I’m claiming that my faith is evidence. I know you think this is all made-up. But do you understand what I mean at least? And do you have some way of knowing it’s false?

      Last topic….escapism. You seem a little taken aback when I implicitly or explicitly reason from Romans 1:18-28 and Psalm 14:1. Has no one ever done this with you? You were a Christian for a long time, you’ve read the Bible, and you’ve talked to a lot of believers. So, I’m surprised that this seems new to you.
      What would you expect me to conclude, as a Christian, when reading these passages? Am I not supposed to discuss my Biblical beliefs with you? Surely you don’t want me to hide my beliefs in order not to offend you.

      I guess this is it, Bob. I know there are more email questions you sent me that I have not answered. Maybe I will get to them later.

      Praying for you. No, really. Literally. you’re on my list 🙂