Atheist Q/A (because everyone else has one)

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Post by church »

I'm hesitant to post this because this is much more debate oriented than Q&A, but that line has been crossed already, and I'm hesitant because I only know a few off hand and one that I'm not sure I'd consider a prophecy but it does make an interesting prediction.

I'll start with the one that isn't really a prophecy as much as a prediction.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=ESV

This has 2 interpretations. The first is that the 120 years refers to the time until the flood, because when it was written people were living 600+ years, and now people live around 80. But I wouldn't buy that really. Another interpretation has only come up recently, and it'll become apparent why.

First a little background. On DNA there are sections called telomeres, which are basically junk DNA that cap coding sequences of DNA on the tips of strands. The reason they are important is that in humans along with a lot of other creatures, DNA strands shorten as they replicate. So the telemeres shorten instead of coding sequences so the DNA can still produce proteins even though it's losing sequences. Why is this important?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviro ... -limit.htm
http://journals.lww.com/obgynsurvey/Abs ... an.11.aspx
http://www.rps.psu.edu/time/humans.html

There is what's called the Hayflick limit. Which is what's considered the longest DNA can continue to replicate. In humans, that comes to be about 120 years. And despite critics over the last 50 years to the concept of a programed lifespan limit, this conclusion continues to be supported by research on humans. Regardless of when you believe Genesis was written, it was definitely written before the 20th century when the research into these concepts was performed.


The next one is one that I wouldn't blame you for considering vague. It uses a metaphor.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=ESV

The metaphor is the scepter. You can interpret it any way you want, but a lot of people see it as the authority of rule and self governing.

http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-t ... -of-judah/
https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcont ... rticle=172
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/in ... 324AAgw63i

Even under captivity they did not lose that until the Romans took control of Isreal around Jesus' time.


The last one I'm going to put on here is from Daniel. There's a lot of controversy over when Daniel was written, either 6th century BC or 2nd century BC. For this prophecy however, it doesn't matter.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=ESV

This site explains it much better than I can.

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/weeks.htm

It basically predicts or records (depending on when you think Daniel was written) the decree to rebuild the temple
Predicts the coming of the messiah (regardless of when you think Daniel was written)
Predicts another destruction of Jerusalem and temple



Another question unrelated

What do you think about the view that Christians are nuts?
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

church wrote:I'm hesitant to post this because this is much more debate oriented than Q&A, but that line has been crossed already, and I'm hesitant because I only know a few off hand and one that I'm not sure I'd consider a prophecy but it does make an interesting prediction.
Please do post whatever you wish, I'm trying to encourage debate and discussion.

I'd also like to make it perfectly clear that I really do not know very much about this history at all. I honestly don't. I just have to issue this disclaimer because I definitely don't know much about this. It's just like the astrophysics all over again. I also don't know a whole lot about prophecy or prediction especially. I honestly don't feel comfortable trying to talk about things and not really knowing what I'm talking about. So I'm going to refer you to other sources simply because I don't want to talk about something I don't know about.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Prophecy
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Daniel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuEbFFdKckw
These two go together:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swi ... phecy.html
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swi ... sults.html

I would like to applaud you, however, for really thinking through this. That is what I've been trying to encourage, and I apologize for being hesitant to talk about it because I myself haven't spent a lot of time on prophecy or this history that you are talking about either.

Again, even if there was an accurate prophecy, that doesn't mean that the entire Bible is somehow true. It just means that there is an accurate prophecy.

Also, I'd like to point out that we get fewer and fewer prophecies about things the closer we get to the modern age with things like telephones, photographs, videos, and the internet. Why do you think that is? The more vague history gets, and the fewer direct sources we have, the more prophecies we have coming out of it. I just find that interesting.

Most religious Bible scholars who come from Christian colleges believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the OT. At least that's what I thought the general consensus was.

church wrote:Another question unrelated

What do you think about the view that Christians are nuts?
Well Christians are humans just like everyone else, they're not actually plants...

No, I'm kidding. I don't think that all Christians are crazy. I know there are many rational people who earnestly believe that logic proves what they believe. And I am more ok with someone who's earnestly questioned than with someone who just believes because their parents did.
Last edited by jasonjannajerryjohn on Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:07 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by church »

I have to admit, I feel a little cheated here. I'm sure it's not what you meant to do, but to me it seems like you are avoiding talking about it because you don't want to take the time to look into it. Which is exactly what you're trying to get us to stop doing... Again I'm sure that's not what you meant, but it feels like it.

The links don't seem like they make a decent argument against what I put down.

I'll do the first link last because I want to explain that one in more depth.
The second link was what I was talking about here:
The last one I'm going to put on here is from Daniel. There's a lot of controversy over when Daniel was written, either 6th century BC or 2nd century BC. For this prophecy however, it doesn't matter.
It explains that a number of people believe Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC so the prophecies were recordings, however, even if it were written in the 2nd century BC, it predates Jesus, who the prophecy was about.

The youtube video is a repeat of the last pair of links, which just shows how vague predictions can always come true.

Now for the final one:

A prophecy must be written before the events it predicts
There is zero question that all 3 were written before the events or evidence appeared in the case of the human lifespan occured. In fact, when the prediction that humans would have 120 years was written, either people were living 600 or more years if you believe the Bible, or were living to the ages we live now which would mean it'd be really stupid to say that if you wanted people to beilieve it.
The prediction must be both falsifiable and verifiable
All 3 meet this criteria.

Human lifespan is 120 years, either it is or it isn't. In fact, until the 1960s, there was a mountain of evidence that is was false with no evidence that it was true.

The scepter one. It's easily verifiable as to whether or not they kept the ability to self govern. Everything I read said they kept that ability even when in captivity until the Romans took it away from them roughly the 1st decade AD.

The coming of the Messiah. 476 (adjusted for differences in Jewish lunar calender) years, if not it's false, if so it's true.
The prophesied events must actually occur
All 3. I won't even go into detail.
The prophecy must not be overly vague
Human lifespan. 120 years is about as unvague as you can get.

Scepter. This is the area that you could consider it vague because of the metaphor of the scepter. I won't blame you if you do. But IMO it's clear to what it's referring to.

The coming of the Messiah. again, even assuming it was written in 2nd century BC. 476 years after the decree to rebuild the temple, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing. ( as a side note, some translations mark that "and have nothing" can also be translated to "but not for himself" As in he will be cut off not for himself (with the assumption it's for someone else)). That's about as precise as you can get...
[Not] Likely events
Lifespan. Humans will have 120 years. Not likely in the least. Even with the Haylfick limit well established no one thinks of 120 years as being how long we live. How much more so when we didn't know?

Scepter. All nations eventually are conquered or collapse. However, this says they won't lose their self governship (?) until "tribute comes to him" And this is an important note:
a.Genesis 49:10 By a slight revocalization; a slight emendation yields (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Targum) until he comes to whom it belongs; Hebrew until Shiloh comes, or until he comes to Shiloh
Daniel.
The temple will be rebuilt. Ok, likely if the Jews ever get out of captivity, or a certainty if the book was written in the 2nd century.
In this number of years someone will die. Very likely. Someone will die who people are calling the Messiah, much less so.
It's all going to be destroyed again shortly after he dies. Not that likely. In fact, that's very unlikely.
[Not be] Self-fulfilling prophecies
You tell me.

There is one more interesting one I remembered while thinking about nations eventually getting destroyed.
“For thus says the Lord God: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered, 14 and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. 15 It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations. And I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations.
Ezekiel 29: 13-15 ESV

Your turn. Does it fit the criteria? ( I honestly haven't looked. )
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

So I'm going through these one by one and I'm not going to have all of it at once. You're going to have to pardon me for this one. I'm starting on the first one you presented, the Genesis 6:3 one. All of these sources are Christian ones.

http://ponderingscripture.wordpress.com ... 120-years/
http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1122545599.htm
http://www.baptistboard.com/archive/ind ... 20711.html
http://www.levendwater.org/companion/append24.html

It seems that the verse is to vague. Nobody really knows what it's supposed to mean and I've yet to stumble upon what you're talking about. Mostly it's people thinking it refers to the amount of time before the flood, or how many years people would have before the flood, or after the flood, or when Moses was supposed to be around, or other things. Not a prophecy about the Hayflick limit. Thus it doesn't pass the test of being unambiguously one thing, one event. It could refer to several different things.

There is the fact that all of this is in English as well, so you'd want to go back to the original languages and original text to really talk about prophecy. So much could have been taken away (or added) in translation. So if we're going to deal with prophecies like this we need to talk about the originals. I know, I'm being a stickler about it, but you know how it goes.

I haven't seen anything to say that the Hayflick limit is 120 years either, though I might be missing something. We can also circumvent the Hayflick limit through technology anyway. We could, theoretically, build tiny little robots to take the place of cells. We could put our brains in robot bodies. Or really other things. Of course this is all sci fi. I'm just saying, it could happen. That limit does not have to be the be all end all of life.
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I’m curious to know what your opinion is of Christians. I mean, you basically consider my greatest desire to be a made up story. If you’re right and my God is not real, then it seems like I must be pretty stupid or crazy.
Or you could take the question to a wider demographic than just Christians. Every civilization, EVER, has worships a god or gods. For me personally, it’s hard to accept that millions upon millions of people, over hundreds of thousands of years, (some without knowledge of there being any other people in the world) all believed in an entity greater than themselves, which had no actual basis in reality.
For me, this is an indication that man has an inherent recognition and need for SOME god. For the sake of argument I’ll concede that it might not by my God. You, however, have to discount what everyone one of those billions of people ever believed.
So, basically, I want to know what argument has made you feel that you can do that?

(I tried my hardest not to word that in a way that sounded confrontational. This really isn’t a challenge, so I don’t want it to come across that way. This is just a question that I, if I were ever to become an Athiest ((which I don’t actually plan on doing)) would have to have an answer to.)
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

Pirate Oriana wrote:I’m curious to know what your opinion is of Christians. I mean, you basically consider my greatest desire to be a made up story. If you’re right and my God is not real, then it seems like I must be pretty stupid or crazy.
No I don't consider you stupid or crazy at all. I generally don't consider anyone with irrational beliefs whatever they may be (whether this one or psychics, astrologers, UFO believers, homeopathy believers, or anything else) to be crazy or stupid. I know many perfectly sane, logical, and reasonable people with various supernatural beliefs. Many scientists hold these beliefs. And they do use logic and reasonable arguments to try to back up their position. And that's something I'm more more in favor of, people who've sat down and honestly questioned.

As for the question, I don't think you're stupid or crazy. Honestly, misguided might be a better word. One people on here might want to use for me. ;)

Pirate Oriana wrote:Or you could take the question to a wider demographic than just Christians. Every civilization, EVER, has worships a god or gods. For me personally, it’s hard to accept that millions upon millions of people, over hundreds of thousands of years, (some without knowledge of there being any other people in the world) all believed in an entity greater than themselves, which had no actual basis in reality.
That's not true. There have been many people throughout history that haven't believed in a god or gods. Even religious ones. There are several religions which don't feature any gods. Buddhism has "gods" but they're not really gods in the sense we understand the word "god," and they're not nearly as important in Buddhism. You don't have to worship them and they have to be reincarnated along with everyone else.

And remember the rule that reality is not determined by majority vote. Reality really doesn't care what anyone believes. It is the way it is regardless of what we think. And because of that, it doesn't matter how many people believe something, it doesn't just appear because of wishful thinking.

Pirate Oriana wrote:For me, this is an indication that man has an inherent recognition and need for SOME god. For the sake of argument I’ll concede that it might not by my God. You, however, have to discount what everyone one of those billions of people ever believed.
Yes they do. And there are evolutionary reasons for people's belief in a god throughout history ones that I keep promising that I'm going to put here but I have to delay again because I don't have a lot of time right now. I'm late for a meeting with a teacher.
Pirate Oriana wrote:So, basically, I want to know what argument has made you feel that you can do that?
Well for the most part, my disbelief stemmed from asking questions of myself and others. I started to say that maybe what I believe isn't true. That maybe something else is true. Once I put everything on the table for cutting and asking questions, that's when I started to realize that what I believed didn't have basis in reality. When I looked at the arguments for the existence of a god, they tended to just fall flat when exposed to logic and reason.

Reality is the way it is regardless of what anyone thinks, so when someone makes an assertion, no matter what it is, they have to provide the evidence for it. If I were to say that fairies are holding up my house right now instead of the usual building materials of houses, I'd have to prove it. I couldn't say to you "Well you can't prove that fairies aren't holding up my house." I'd have to provide the evidence for it. So I don't make the arguments, I answer the arguments in favor. That's the way science works. When someone comes up with an experiment to try to prove their hypothesis, the first thing other scientists do is try to prove their experiment wrong by replicating it many times over. When it's been done many times and shown to correspond to reality, than and only than is it added to scientific knowledge and finally put into text books. Yes, things can be wrong, but when they are proven to be wrong, you simply overwrite whatever was incorrect.

Pirate Oriana wrote:(I tried my hardest not to word that in a way that sounded confrontational. This really isn’t a challenge, so I don’t want it to come across that way. This is just a question that I, if I were ever to become an Athiest ((which I don’t actually plan on doing)) would have to have an answer to.)
And you are right to ask me. Though most of what I said was in earlier answers to earlier questions, I've got no problem repeating it.
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Post by Christian A. »

jasonjannajerryjohn wrote:
Christian A. wrote:Are you sure you're an atheist and not an agnostic? An atheist, one who declaratively states that there is no God, would have to have all knowledge to be sure that there is no evidence for God. How do you know that somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't explored, there's no evidence for God? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to label yourself as an agnostic, one who doesn't know for sure that God doesn't exist, but who's not ready to believe in such a Being?
And I end this answer with a question. Presumably you don't believe in many gods that people have worshiped over the millennia. I would assume you don't believe in Krishna, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra, or the Muslim version of the Christian god. And what about Egyptian Pharaohs? Do you believe they were gods as well? You are an atheist about many gods as well. Isn't it appropriate to label yourself an agnostic about these gods and say, well maybe they exist and maybe they don't because maybe there's something you haven't looked at?
I think the difference between your atheism and mine is that I believe I have an infallible source for my atheism. Just like with the Christian God, you have no basis of definitively denying the existence of those gods, because you have no absolute evidence, nor do you have all knowledge, so you can't know for sure that there isn't absolute evidence to prove their existence.

I, however, have a book written to me from my God which tells me that He is the only God. Therefore, I believe I can definitively deny the existence of all other gods. You don't have that kind of assurance. Therefore, my atheism is quite different than yours, I believe.
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Post by ~JCGJ~ »

jasonjannajerryjohn wrote:Ya, this seems as likely to me as anything. As I said, I'm not an astrophysicist and I definitely don't know a whole lot about it. I'd suggest looking up people like Neil Degrass Tyson or other astrophysicists for more information.

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/
If you like Neil Degrass Tyson, you may enjoy this:



I highly reccomend this Youtube series (Symphony of Science), because MelodySheep does a great job of compiling many different lectures and debates (many from TED, and other sorces), and auto-tuning the voices into wonderfully catchy songs. Many of the lyrics come from Brian Cox (D:Ream RULES!), Carl Sagan, Neil Degrgass Tyson, Stephen Hawking, etc. as well as other, lesser known scientists, like (my personal favorite), Jill Bolte Taylor, and Carolyn Porco, and many others.
Check them out!

http://symphonyofscience.com/

The main reason I share this, though, is because of what Tyson says at the end:
“When I reach for the edge of the Universe[...] I do so, knowing, that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at-least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves.”

This statement is just so powerful on its own.
It just shows that we can't have all the answers, and while, yes, we should look for the answers, we shouldn't let looking for the answer overide the reasons why we are looking for the answer: To find out why we are here.
At-least, that's how I loosely interpreted it... If you see it another way, please, let me know.
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Post by Kait »

What is your view of the Ontological argument for God? I frankly find it quite fascinating and just wonder what you make of it or how you would respond to it.
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Post by church »

jasonjannajerryjohn wrote:So I'm going through these one by one and I'm not going to have all of it at once. You're going to have to pardon me for this one. I'm starting on the first one you presented, the Genesis 6:3 one. All of these sources are Christian ones.

http://ponderingscripture.wordpress.com ... 120-years/
http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1122545599.htm
http://www.baptistboard.com/archive/ind ... 20711.html
http://www.levendwater.org/companion/append24.html

It seems that the verse is to vague. Nobody really knows what it's supposed to mean and I've yet to stumble upon what you're talking about. Mostly it's people thinking it refers to the amount of time before the flood, or how many years people would have before the flood, or after the flood, or when Moses was supposed to be around, or other things. Not a prophecy about the Hayflick limit. Thus it doesn't pass the test of being unambiguously one thing, one event. It could refer to several different things.

There is the fact that all of this is in English as well, so you'd want to go back to the original languages and original text to really talk about prophecy. So much could have been taken away (or added) in translation. So if we're going to deal with prophecies like this we need to talk about the originals. I know, I'm being a stickler about it, but you know how it goes.

I haven't seen anything to say that the Hayflick limit is 120 years either, though I might be missing something. We can also circumvent the Hayflick limit through technology anyway. We could, theoretically, build tiny little robots to take the place of cells. We could put our brains in robot bodies. Or really other things. Of course this is all sci fi. I'm just saying, it could happen. That limit does not have to be the be all end all of life.

Yeah yeah, making me hunt down this site I forgot a long time ago... It's going to take me a long time to find it again, so I'm going to hold off on trying to go into hebrew to look at it because I don't have the time right now to find the site again. I bookmarked it on my old computer, but that one, she is kaput.

To your argument that it is vague. I'm going to go ahead and point out you're using the letter but not the spirit of the rules. The reason it can't be vague is so that it can't be applied to mean anything, that lets people pick which one turns out to be right. This is to keep the prophecy from several meanings that are wrong, and one that is right. However, every meaning in this one turned out to be right so it defeats the reasoning behind that rule.

Although personally I don't see it as making sense to say it's the time until the flood. I would guess that came out of an attempt to make sense of it without the understanding of genetics and the idea about the hayflick limit hasn't spread much.
I haven't seen anything to say that the Hayflick limit is 120 years either, though I might be missing something. We can also circumvent the Hayflick limit through technology anyway. We could, theoretically, build tiny little robots to take the place of cells. We could put our brains in robot bodies. Or really other things. Of course this is all sci fi. I'm just saying, it could happen. That limit does not have to be the be all end all of life.
Sorry, I really thought I posted one that showed that. it must have been the journal article that was mixed in with a dozen other articles in the same pdf so I left that one out.

http://www.prlog.org/10272124-hayflick- ... aging.html

there ya go

Now, to the idea of extending telemeres. Cells already have a machine in them to extend telemeres. It's telemerase. It rebuilds the ends of DNA effectively making them immortal, however, only two types of cells have activated telemerase, germ cells (baby ingredients) and cancer cells. When telemeres are extended in somatic cells it results in cancer. Not something you mentioned, but considerring what you came up with, I'm suprised you didn't think of that one. : P

As for replacing cells with robots, first, really? That's a legitimate argument? Second, the machinary itself is as important as what the machinary does. Even with mass production and interchangeable parts, no two machines are exactly the same. There are many subtle differences in the machines. So while you may be able to get a human that moves, or eats, you will likely not get the subtlties of yourself such as liking orange fonts or have the same personality.
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

Christian A. wrote:
jasonjannajerryjohn wrote:
Christian A. wrote:Are you sure you're an atheist and not an agnostic? An atheist, one who declaratively states that there is no God, would have to have all knowledge to be sure that there is no evidence for God. How do you know that somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't explored, there's no evidence for God? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to label yourself as an agnostic, one who doesn't know for sure that God doesn't exist, but who's not ready to believe in such a Being?
And I end this answer with a question. Presumably you don't believe in many gods that people have worshiped over the millennia. I would assume you don't believe in Krishna, Vishnu, Zeus, Ra, or the Muslim version of the Christian god. And what about Egyptian Pharaohs? Do you believe they were gods as well? You are an atheist about many gods as well. Isn't it appropriate to label yourself an agnostic about these gods and say, well maybe they exist and maybe they don't because maybe there's something you haven't looked at?
I think the difference between your atheism and mine is that I believe I have an infallible source for my atheism. Just like with the Christian God, you have no basis of definitively denying the existence of those gods, because you have no absolute evidence, nor do you have all knowledge, so you can't know for sure that there isn't absolute evidence to prove their existence.

I, however, have a book written to me from my God which tells me that He is the only God. Therefore, I believe I can definitively deny the existence of all other gods. You don't have that kind of assurance. Therefore, my atheism is quite different than yours, I believe.
And where is the proof that your god is the one true god? And where is the proof that your book was actually written by god? And where is the proof that god exists at all? It's not the skeptic's responsibility to prove something incorrect, as you can't actually do that. It's the believer's responsibility to prove what they think correct. If someone told me that Santa Clause was real, it would be that person's responsibility to prove that to me, not the other way around. The same is true for any assertion. I simply listen to the assertion and reject it based on evidence.

There's also the fact that many verses in the Bible imply the existence of more than one god. The fact that God is always jealous and does some rather not nice things to people because they worship other gods suggests that God, at least, believes those gods are real.


skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/gods.html
~JCGJ~ wrote:If you like Neil Degrass Tyson, you may enjoy this:

I honestly don't know a whole lot about him. I just know he's an astrophysicist and I was deferring to him because I'm dreadfully ignorant on astrophysics and most of it is way beyond my understanding.

~JCGJ~ wrote:I highly reccomend this Youtube series (Symphony of Science), because MelodySheep does a great job of compiling many different lectures and debates (many from TED, and other sorces), and auto-tuning the voices into wonderfully catchy songs. Many of the lyrics come from Brian Cox (D:Ream RULES!), Carl Sagan, Neil Degrgass Tyson, Stephen Hawking, etc. as well as other, lesser known scientists, like (my personal favorite), Jill Bolte Taylor, and Carolyn Porco, and many others.
Check them out!

http://symphonyofscience.com/
I quite like that video, I'll have to check the series out. Ok so that channel is easily one of the greatest on youtube I think. Wow.

~JCGJ~ wrote:The main reason I share this, though, is because of what Tyson says at the end:
“When I reach for the edge of the Universe[...] I do so, knowing, that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at-least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves.”

This statement is just so powerful on its own.
It just shows that we can't have all the answers, and while, yes, we should look for the answers, we shouldn't let looking for the answer overide the reasons why we are looking for the answer: To find out why we are here.
At-least, that's how I loosely interpreted it... If you see it another way, please, let me know.
I'm not sure there is a "why" people search for answers. They're just extremely curious. Curiosity is one of the great driving forces throughout history, and it's really why we have science at all. We probably won't ever have "all" of the answers just because we live in a universe that is constantly expanding faster than we can move so it'd be extremely difficult to explore. However we can get a very large amount of answers, for sure, and that's what I support.

I do love that quote. It's very true that you really have to love the questions to be a physicist. But we want to know those answers as well being vastly curious.

Kait wrote:What is your view of the Ontological argument for God? I frankly find it quite fascinating and just wonder what you make of it or how you would respond to it.
I've been through this one and the other two that make up the "big three" many many times over. This one in particular struck me as self evidently wrong when I first heard it, but I actually had to think quite a lot to figure out why. It almost sounds like a child's nursery game: "the most perfect perfect thing you can think of has to exist and since god is so perfect he exists." It just doesn't make any sense. But here's specific reasons why I reject it:

Let's take the argument in it's simplest form:

1. God is the greatest imaginable being.
2. All else being equal, a being or entity that exists is greater than one that doesn't.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Here's the main problem. The argument is a form of circular reasoning. First of all you have to define what "greatest" means. What does that even mean anyway? That would seem to be simply a judgement call. I think this is greater than that, basically. However, that's not as important. Merely existing is not an attribute of an entity because if something doesn't exist it doesn't have attributes. It has attributes in stories, but the stories are not real, the things that happen in said stories don't really happen. So if something doesn't exist, than it doesn't have attributes to talk about. So existence is not an attribute. However in the argument, number 2, the author assumes that existence is an attribute which creates the circular reasoning that "god exists therefore god exists."

Let me put it another way because I'm not the greatest at philosophy. Let's try something else. Say:

1. Let us imagine a fairy as a winged small scantily clad creature with the attribute of existing.
2. By that definition of "fairy" such a being must exist because existence is in the definition.
3. Therefore fairies exist.

Or we can try a variation:

1. Atlantis is the greatest place on earth.
2. A place that exists is greater than a place that doesn't exist.
3. Therefore Atlantis exists.

There's also the fact that you can't prove something exists merely with a definition of the thing. If that were the case, we could go around proving anything's existence, like I did above, but that just doesn't work. Reality doesn't conform to whatever definition we decide to use, we have to conform our definitions to reality.

And God isn't the greatest imaginable thing. Two Gods surely must be greater. If one God is the greatest thing than two gods must be greater than one alone. But than God by itself is not the greatest thing anymore. Which contradicts the first premise.

There have been numerous others but these are things I remember off the top of my head. Sorry if I'm not the best at explaining them.

church wrote: To your argument that it is vague. I'm going to go ahead and point out you're using the letter but not the spirit of the rules. The reason it can't be vague is so that it can't be applied to mean anything, that lets people pick which one turns out to be right. This is to keep the prophecy from several meanings that are wrong, and one that is right. However, every meaning in this one turned out to be right so it defeats the reasoning behind that rule.
You're going to have to explain this again because it doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you're trying to change the rules of what has to happen for something be a prophecy.

The prophecy is very vague. 120 years can refer to anything. I can come up with several interpretations right now:

1. It could refer to 120 years before a big catastrophic event.
2. It could refer to 120 years before someone dies.
3. It could refer to 120 years of life that someone has all together.
4. It could be a big pronouncement that in 120 years everyone is going to die.

And all four of those could refer to anything at any time. I'm not impressed with it because so many people have so many different interpretations and none of them have guessed on your Hayflick limit. Now if it had said:

"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be discovered in the year 1961 to be an hundred and twenty years because of the Hayflick limit."

I would have been much more impressed because it is extremely specific. Granted it could be that someone who read that verse named it the Hayflick limit in 1961 because of the verse, but I would be much more impressed with that than with what we have here. It's just to general and easily interpretable to many things.

As for your idea that every single interpretation of the prophecy is actually true, you're going to have to prove that. And in the meantime, I'm just going to keep coming up with more interpretations for it all the time because it's loose as to what it could mean.

church wrote:Although personally I don't see it as making sense to say it's the time until the flood. I would guess that came out of an attempt to make sense of it without the understanding of genetics and the idea about the hayflick limit hasn't spread much.
Yes, and that is because the prophecy is to general as to be able to refer to anything.
church wrote:Sorry, I really thought I posted one that showed that. it must have been the journal article that was mixed in with a dozen other articles in the same pdf so I left that one out.

http://www.prlog.org/10272124-hayflick- ... aging.html

there ya go

Now, to the idea of extending telemeres. Cells already have a machine in them to extend telemeres. It's telemerase. It rebuilds the ends of DNA effectively making them immortal, however, only two types of cells have activated telemerase, germ cells (baby ingredients) and cancer cells. When telemeres are extended in somatic cells it results in cancer. Not something you mentioned, but considerring what you came up with, I'm suprised you didn't think of that one. : P
Well, as I've said before, I'm no scientist. I certainly don't know this stuff and have very little understanding of the way this biology works. Most of it just goes over my head.
church wrote:As for replacing cells with robots, first, really? That's a legitimate argument? Second, the machinary itself is as important as what the machinary does. Even with mass production and interchangeable parts, no two machines are exactly the same. There are many subtle differences in the machines. So while you may be able to get a human that moves, or eats, you will likely not get the subtlties of yourself such as liking orange fonts or have the same personality.
Yes that is a legitimate argument. We have the nanite technology now, it just isn't in the mass marketable stage yet.

http://www.counterbalance.org/nanoethx/index-frame.html
Last edited by jasonjannajerryjohn on Sun Aug 19, 2012 7:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Tea Ess »

Firstly, greetings and salutations to both of you. I have found this topic quite interesting since its beginning. I have watched you for quite a while now.

So, I have several questions for you, jasonjannajerryjohn.

One, are you familiar with the basic testing for historical documents (internal, external, bibliographic)? Have you studied how these apply to the Bible?

What is your general opinion C.S. Lewis, and, through common reasoning, what do you think of his Trilemma argument?

Have you heard of Dr. Jay Wile or Dr. David Shormann? (in the homeschooling world, he is a rather familiar name)

Based on what you've read, how would you say the state of the earth has progressed? (sorry for the unclear wording. I am interested in whether you would consider yourself a catastrophist, uniformitarianist, or a gradualist.)

How would you explain the lack of transitionary evidence?

Do you consider the study of origins a science? I am curious as to your opinion on this.

Could I post here my response to your argument against a question on another topic? I believe it was from snubs and had to do with the discussion of whether the benefits of Christianity outweighed the costs.

Replacing cells with robots? I haven't heard that one. Considering our efficiency to the efficiency of a cell, I doubt this will happen. Even if we could create such delicacy, wouldn't our materials wear down relatively quickly? How would the cells/robots replicate, or be replaced?

Despite your argument, well made as it was, for the non randomness of evolution due to natural selection, how would the first life have originated without complete randomness? Or does this not count as evolution?
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Post by John Chrysostom »

Since you are new I will let you know that quad J has answered your first three questions and your question about lack of transitionary evidence multiple times in past threads and possible in this thread as well.
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Post by Tea Ess »

Thank you, Ayn Rand. Would it be possible to direct me to the forementioned threads so I may read the answers? Thank you.
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Post by church »

1. It could refer to 120 years before a big catastrophic event.
2. It could refer to 120 years before someone dies.
3. It could refer to 120 years of life that someone has all together.
4. It could be a big pronouncement that in 120 years everyone is going to die.
1 is only legitimate if the catastrophe kills everyone or possible almost everyone. So either 1 needs to be thrown out, or you have to put a caveat that it's nearly identical if not identical to 4.
2 does not make sense. The verse says man, not a man, or this man etc. The bible always has the term "man" without qualifier to mean mankind or human.
Yes, and that is because the prophecy is to general as to be able to refer to anything.
You yourself were only able to come up with 4 interpretations, one which does not make sense, and 2 are but a hair's breadth apart. I don't see how that qualifies as "anything".

If someone said, "George Bush will win the election" in July of 2000, would you say that it didn't come true because the person failed to say George W Bush so it could be his father, the presidential election, so it could be for governor or senator, or november election so it could be the presidential election in 2012?

If I were to say right now that Obama will win the election would you say that is a meaningless statement because I did not say which Obama, which election, which year, or which country? Or could you understand what I meant in that statement? If you look at everything spoken or written with the type of literalism you are taking then nothing would have any meaning.

What you are asking for is the semantic equalivant to proving something does not exist. It is not possible to define something so exact that it can refer to only one thing because it is not possible to prove that a second "thing" that fits all the criteria I say does not exist no matter how specific I get. If I say "this elephant, which is 600 pounds, is standing at this latitude and longitude, is grey, has half of his left tusk missing, and has a broken leg" I could actually be refering to an invisible and intangible elephant that fits those criteria rather than the visible one I am pointing at.

Now after that detour in to absurdistan, you, specifically you QJ, have 3 legitimate interpretations

1) Almost everyone will die in 120 years
2) Everyone will die in 120 years
3) Man's lifespan will be 120 years

Of those 3, 1 was fulfilled from what is generally accepted in scripture, 3 was fullfilled by the Hayflick limit. You're actually doing what skeptics accuse theists of doing. You're digging for an interpretation that is false.


I'm going to cut my arguments short because I just had an idea. Let's try an experiment to see how vague it is. I'm going to post a rough equivelant of the second part of that verse somewhere on the ToO. Specifically

"Humans will live 120 years."

to be equal to "his [man's] days shall be 120 years." Let's see how the people who read it interpret what I said. I am certain no one interpret it as a flood will happen in 120 years. I seriously doubt anyone will interpret what I said in any way to mean everyone will die in 120 years from now. I am betting everyone who reads it will see it as me saying humans will live 120 years.

I am asking anyone who's been reading this thread to not post or mention this to other people on the ToO.
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

T.S. (myself) wrote:Firstly, greetings and salutations to both of you. I have found this topic quite interesting since its beginning. I have watched you for quite a while now.

So, I have several questions for you, jasonjannajerryjohn.
Most of these questions I'm going to have to say quite simply I don't know. I'm not a historian. I'm not a scientist. I've said this many times before. Many things in the science world go over my head even when I do attempt to understand them. That's why I generally defer to experts in their field when it comes to questions of science and history. So most of what I say here is not necessarily true. I'd encourage you to google around and find someone who does know what they're talking about.
T.S. (myself) wrote:One, are you familiar with the basic testing for historical documents (internal, external, bibliographic)? Have you studied how these apply to the Bible?
That one I would have to say no, I'm not familiar with it. If you're talking about testing them to see if they correspond to real events, that's going to be different than testing to see what year they come from I'm sure. No I haven't studied how these are applied to any historical document. I can ask the same of you, have you studied how these apply to the Koran? Or the Bag-avid Gita? Or any other religious text? This one I would be more able to talk about than scientific things because they do tend to just go straight over my head. I can talk about scientific things, but it takes awhile for me to "get it." However for this, I'm more readily able to talk about whatever evidence you have for the Bible having historical accuracy.
T.S. (myself) wrote:What is your general opinion C.S. Lewis, and, through common reasoning, what do you think of his Trilemma argument?
I'm a big fan of him, actually. His Narnia books were instrumental to my childhood and my love of fantasy. I do not think he was ever an atheist, as he claims because of this quote:
I was at that time living like many atheists; in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with him for creating a world. Why should creatures have the burden of existence forced on them without their consent?
You can't actually be angry at something that doesn't exist. I'm not angry at fairies for not holding up my house (a favorite example argument of mine ;) ). I'm not angry at Atlantis for not being a real city. I'm not angry at Superman for not protecting the world. I'm not angry at Santa Clause for not delivering my presents. Lewis believed in God the entire time he said he was an atheist, otherwise he wouldn't have been angry at said god. People who believe is God are angry at said god all the time. I've met plenty of people angry at God. But they're not atheists, they still believe in God.

As for his Trilemma argument, it's full of contradictions. The basic argument is that Jesus was either a liar, lunatic, or lord as it is often paraphrased. The first, and most obvious, contradiction is that it is a false trichotomy. There are more than three options. For example, he could have been a legend, passed on through word of mouth or some other type of thing. Have you ever played the game telephone? When you give one person a message and tell them to pass it down along the row of people, the message is significantly different from the original message when it gets to the last person in the line. Stories change and get exaggerated over time. The story of Jesus's magical abilities could be a legend like so many other legends throughout history.

The statements could have been misinterpreted, another objection. If Jesus actually said them he could have meant something different when he said them. Misinterpretation seems to be a common theme in this thread lately... Apparently, the current historical belief is that Jesus never actually claimed to be divine. I don't know how accurate that is, I just read it on wikipedia so don't take my word for that. ;)

Jesus could also have sincerely believed he was divine. Or he could have believed that everything is divine, in the Hindu sense. There really are more than three options here.

Another objection is that Jesus could have not said that he was divine at all. That part could have been added later to make him out to be the messiah or something else. That's what the religious Jewish people believe.

Another objection is that nobody ever really rules out the other two possibilities: liar and lunatic. After all, if someone came up to you on the street today and told you that they were God and that you couldn't get to heaven except through putting your trust in faith in them, than you would think they were insane. The time in which Jesus would have existed would have been a time when people were eager to hear such claims because they wanted to rebel against the Roman government and establish an independent country of Israel. Thus they were looking for a leader to guide them towards such a goal, they would have been eager to follow someone like that.

T.S. (myself) wrote:Have you heard of Dr. Jay Wile or Dr. David Shormann? (in the homeschooling world, he is a rather familiar name)
My goodness it always fascinates me to look at all the little subcultures. No, I hadn't heard of them, but after a little short expedition into google, I know who they are. Pretty similar to superstars like Ken Ham and Kent Hovind it would seem. I'm open to their arguments, as far as talking about them, of course, as I'm open to anything. Just be aware that I really am not a scientist and if we start talking about things that go over my head, I'm going to have to use my phone a friend lifeline. ;)

I would also like to ask this before this conversation gets started: If evolution is so obviously not real and the evidence for it not being real is clearly right there, than why do you think scientists still keep it as a theory? And I should clarify, a theory in science is different from the word theory in everyday use. When scientists use the word theory, they mean an explanation to explain a large body of evidence and experiments. There's gravitational theory, quantum theory, atomic theory, germ theory, and many others. When non-scientists use the word, they generally mean "just a guess."

T.S. (myself) wrote:Based on what you've read, how would you say the state of the earth has progressed? (sorry for the unclear wording. I am interested in whether you would consider yourself a catastrophist, uniformitarianist, or a gradualist.)
Now I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean so a quick google search will do the trick. Well, again, I'm not a scientist, but from what I've dug up it would seem that uniformitarianism is the same as gradualism in that they both say that the laws of nature are the same as they've always been and operate everywhere in the universe. Catastrophism is the idea Earth has been affected by sudden, short lived, violent events. Now from what I see, I don't see a confliction between the two. And it would make sense for both to be true, that catastrophes do happen, but the laws of nature still work the same regardless of where you stand in the universe or in time.

Again, no scientist. I don't take a position on this one because I don't know nearly enough geology to begin to talk about it.

T.S. (myself) wrote:How would you explain the lack of transitionary evidence?
Again, no scientist, but from my understanding there is transititonary evidence. It's just that every time a new fossil shows up there are still gaps on either side and everyone just keeps demanding for them to be filled. There's also the fact that not all living things become fossilized. For me, I don't use fossils as evidence that evolution happens. I use modern day experiments and hypothesis. Since evolution is simply the change that happens over generations, we can see changes happen much better in things like bacteria because bacteria have a very short lifespan and can make hundreds of generations very quickly. We can see the biological arms race that happens in our bodies.

If we didn't have an understanding of evolution, we wouldn't know how vaccines work. Vaccines are a little bit of the bacteria or virus or whatever, just enough to try to make the cells adapt to the bacteria, since they have short lifespans as well, so that when the bacteria come in, they can already defend against it. I'm not that good at explaining it, if you like I can find another of my posts on the topic of evolution.

T.S. (myself) wrote:Do you consider the study of origins a science? I am curious as to your opinion on this.
I would say so, if you can devise experiments and form hypothesis. You'd have to go through the scientific method. I know that we can create amino acids, the building blocks of proteins which are the building blocks of life in general, from non-life in a laboratory. So that would be part of the scientific part. I don't consider sitting around philosophizing about how the universe began to be a science, no. However, we can find things like that out by exploring and testing.
T.S. (myself) wrote:Could I post here my response to your argument against a question on another topic? I believe it was from snubs and had to do with the discussion of whether the benefits of Christianity outweighed the costs.
You mean Pascal's Wager. Of course you can post whatever responses to whatever arguments I have. I don't mind where it is or what's being talked about or who I was originally talking to. Information should run freely here, so feel free.

In anticipation, I would like to say that Pacal's Wager doesn't actually prove God's existence. It only says it is better to believe that God exists to avoid hell. Saying it is better to believe something rather than not to believe it is a judgment of value. It has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.

T.S. (myself) wrote:Replacing cells with robots? I haven't heard that one. Considering our efficiency to the efficiency of a cell, I doubt this will happen. Even if we could create such delicacy, wouldn't our materials wear down relatively quickly? How would the cells/robots replicate, or be replaced?
Again, not a scientist, though I do know that anything is possible. Not everything is probable, but anything is possible. Just because we don't know how to do something now doesn't mean we won't in the future. History is full of examples of discoveries of things we didn't know at one point. Just because we don't know now doesn't mean we'll never know.
T.S. (myself) wrote:Despite your argument, well made as it was, for the non randomness of evolution due to natural selection, how would the first life have originated without complete randomness? Or does this not count as evolution?
That doesn't have to do with evolution. Evolution is simply something that happens in nature. It doesn't have anything to do with the origin of life, simply how life works. That's why I always say that the IDers are arguing over a misunderstanding. It isn't evolution that they should have a problem with, it's ideas on how life can come from non-life. Once there is a complete scientific theory for how that works, IDers and creationists (they're the same thing, but they like to have different names to disguise that fact) will accept evolution and move on to that new theory, whatever it will be, and than will say that they accepted evolution all along.

-- 20 Aug 2012 01:02 am --
church wrote:
1. It could refer to 120 years before a big catastrophic event.
2. It could refer to 120 years before someone dies.
3. It could refer to 120 years of life that someone has all together.
4. It could be a big pronouncement that in 120 years everyone is going to die.
1 is only legitimate if the catastrophe kills everyone or possible almost everyone. So either 1 needs to be thrown out, or you have to put a caveat that it's nearly identical if not identical to 4.
Why does it have to be everyone or almost everyone? Why can't it be referring to a group of people?
church wrote:2 does not make sense. The verse says man, not a man, or this man etc. The bible always has the term "man" without qualifier to mean mankind or human.
You'd have to look at the original words that the original author used and see what they actually mean. It's just a battle of semantics.
Yes, and that is because the prophecy is to general as to be able to refer to anything.
church wrote:You yourself were only able to come up with 4 interpretations, one which does not make sense, and 2 are but a hair's breadth apart. I don't see how that qualifies as "anything".
Those were the general categories that you can come up with. The specific ones would fit into that category. Like Noah will die in 120 years. Or a big earthquake will wipe out a village. Or something like that. There are many specific examples you can come up with. That's why it could mean anything.
church wrote:If someone said, "George Bush will win the election" in July of 2000, would you say that it didn't come true because the person failed to say George W Bush so it could be his father, the presidential election, so it could be for governor or senator, or november election so it could be the presidential election in 2012?
Ya, I'd probably say it's not literal enough. But I'd be impressed by it. It depends on if the person claims they knew it was going to happen because of some supernatural intervention. There's a big difference between claiming that and predicting something based on knowledge. I'll go into that in more detail after the jump.
church wrote:If I were to say right now that Obama will win the election would you say that is a meaningless statement because I did not say which Obama, which election, which year, or which country? Or could you understand what I meant in that statement? If you look at everything spoken or written with the type of literalism you are taking then nothing would have any meaning.
There is a huge difference between prediction and prophecy. I predict that Romney is going to win the Presidential election in 2012. I do so because I have a good general grasp on economics, politics, sociology, psychology, history, and other things. Scientists predict things all the time, they use a hypothesis to predict the way they think they're experiment will go. That's the way science works.

But we're talking about a claim that someone thousands of years ago had foreknowledge that people were going to discover a limit to human life as 120 years in the future. That's an extraordinary claim. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In order to think that a prophecy such as that actually really did predict this specific event, the prophecy has to be so specific that it could not possibly refer to anything else to show that someone really did have foreknowledge on that scale. That's why I require it be that specific.

church wrote:What you are asking for is the semantic equalivant to proving something does not exist. It is not possible to define something so exact that it can refer to only one thing because it is not possible to prove that a second "thing" that fits all the criteria I say does not exist no matter how specific I get. If I say "this elephant, which is 600 pounds, is standing at this latitude and longitude, is grey, has half of his left tusk missing, and has a broken leg" I could actually be refering to an invisible and intangible elephant that fits those criteria rather than the visible one I am pointing at.
Umm... no. That's not true at all. Based on the definitions of all of the words you used there, you could only be referring to one thing. An invisible elephant could be there, but it wouldn't be in the exact spot that the non-invisible elephant is standing in. And if you added the word "visible" and "tangible" to your statement, it would make it even further conclusive as to what you mean.
church wrote:1) Almost everyone will die in 120 years
2) Everyone will die in 120 years
3) Man's lifespan will be 120 years

Of those 3, 1 was fulfilled from what is generally accepted in scripture, 3 was fullfilled by the Hayflick limit. You're actually doing what skeptics accuse theists of doing. You're digging for an interpretation that is false.
Apparently people don't generally accept that the 120 years refers to how long before a flood. They think it was a hundred years after that verse. Not like it's important. Just thought it was interesting.

http://ponderingscripture.wordpress.com ... 120-years/
http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1122545599.htm

I am digging for an interpretation that is false, yes. I'm doing what scientists do. The first thing scientists do when an assertion comes out is try to falsify it, and if they can't falsify it it's accepted. That's what I'm doing, trying to falsify it first. Call it a rigorous test to see what really is true.
church wrote:I'm going to cut my arguments short because I just had an idea. Let's try an experiment to see how vague it is. I'm going to post a rough equivelant of the second part of that verse somewhere on the ToO. Specifically

"Humans will live 120 years."

to be equal to "his [man's] days shall be 120 years." Let's see how the people who read it interpret what I said. I am certain no one interpret it as a flood will happen in 120 years. I seriously doubt anyone will interpret what I said in any way to mean everyone will die in 120 years from now. I am betting everyone who reads it will see it as me saying humans will live 120 years.

I am asking anyone who's been reading this thread to not post or mention this to other people on the ToO.
There's a problem with this. It's on the ToO, people who come here can find it and read it. But there's also the problem that you changed the wording. The actual wording is ambiguous. If you said "man's days shall be 120 years" it would sound different. But not only do you change the wording you take it out of context, which of course will change the interpretation.
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Post by church »

Why does it have to be everyone or almost everyone? Why can't it be referring to a group of people?
At this point I can't understand where you came up with that so you are going to have to show me how you can interpret that to mean a group of people.
You'd have to look at the original words that the original author used and see what they actually mean. It's just a battle of semantics.
Noooo... everywhere 'man' is used in the Bible without "a" "this" ect it refers to human or mankind... however, just to be absolutely clear, the hebrew word is 'adam' it's definition is

man, human being
man, mankind (much more frequently intended sense in OT)

There are 2 names that are that word, one being the first man, and one being a city.
Umm... no. That's not true at all. Based on the definitions of all of the words you used there, you could only be referring to one thing. An invisible elephant could be there, but it wouldn't be in the exact spot that the non-invisible elephant is standing in. And if you added the word "visible" and "tangible" to your statement, it would make it even further conclusive as to what you mean.
Intangible is defined as not having a physical presence, hence it could occupy the same space as the elephant. And even if I added 'tangible' to it, there are other possiblities I didn't account for. Such as an elephant fitting those criteria on another planet, universe, timeline, which version of latitude and longitude, which datum we're using, it's endless. It is literally proving something does not exist because I have to prove all other things possible do not exist.



I'm going to skip to the last part.
There's a problem with this. It's on the ToO, people who come here can find it and read it. But there's also the problem that you changed the wording. The actual wording is ambiguous. If you said "man's days shall be 120 years" it would sound different. But not only do you change the wording you take it out of context, which of course will change the interpretation.
Again, adam (man) means human. It's a literal translation. I did not change the wording. And before you ask about the other words, I checked. Their definitions are days and years, and both interestingly, have seperate definitions from ours to reference lifetimes in addition to the definition that the words days and years have for us.
I am digging for an interpretation that is false, yes. I'm doing what scientists do. The first thing scientists do when an assertion comes out is try to falsify it, and if they can't falsify it it's accepted. That's what I'm doing, trying to falsify it first. Call it a rigorous test to see what really is true
So if you can come up with possible alternative explanations it means we cannot accept any one explanation?
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Anna><>
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The main problem I have with science is that we never will know everything and most of the stuff we do "know" will probably be proven wrong. Atomic theory is always being changed. Every scientific theory about how the universe came to be will eventually need to be modified to fit some new discovery. Ultimately we're pretty much nothing in the universe and we know nothing because any number divided by infinity is 0.
What is your opinion on nihilism?
Also, do you believe love exists?
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Hadassah wrote: What is your opinion on nihilism?
Nothing really.
HORSE SENSE DWELLS IN A STABLE MIND.
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jasonjannajerryjohn
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Post by jasonjannajerryjohn »

So I am going to give up on this prophecy thing simply because I just don't want to go back and forth on this forever. The same reason I don't want to have to go through all of the prophecies in the Bible one by one because we'll be here forever. I don't have that kind of stamina. However, I did find another discussion of this from several years ago that I thought you might be interested in. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it. Just think of it as me deferring to them. There are actually some really good arguments in there that I never even considered. This is why I didn't want to talk about prophecy. ;)

And I really should have just done this sooner since a google search is such an easy thing, I never thought about it until I read through that forum discussion:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_th ... est_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_life_span

The oldest person to live, as far as we know, was 122 years and 164 days.

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forum ... 128.0.html

Also:
church wrote:So if you can come up with possible alternative explanations it means we cannot accept any one explanation?
That was the rule for prophecy. It has to be so specific that it can only refer to one thing. Because it's an extraordinary claim that someone had foreknowledge of something that would happen thousands of years later. Yes it could happen. Anything can happen, but it requires extraordinary evidence. I was acting as a scientist, trying to disprove you first which is what a scientist does. And, in order to disprove you, the verse would have to contradict the rule for being a prophecy, that it has to be specific enough to only refer to one thing. Thus if I found something else it could refer to than it didn't work.
Hadassah wrote:The main problem I have with science is that we never will know everything and most of the stuff we do "know" will probably be proven wrong. Atomic theory is always being changed. Every scientific theory about how the universe came to be will eventually need to be modified to fit some new discovery. Ultimately we're pretty much nothing in the universe and we know nothing because any number divided by infinity is 0.
Everything is open to change, yes, but I don't necessarily think that "everything" we know know is going to be disproven. Sure it can be, but that's just the way science has to be. The goal here is to make your ideas and thoughts correspond with reality as best you can. To do that you have to constantly check to make sure it's right. You don't generally toss out an entire theory, but you do constantly modify it when new evidence comes in. Gravity still works even though the technical details are always being ironed out.
Hadassah wrote:What is your opinion on nihilism?
That depends on what nihilism you're talking about. I generally do not take a nihilistic view on things. I do think the reality that we are in exists because the evidence we have suggests that. I made a post on the possibility of being in the matrix on like the first page and I'd suggest reading that for my view on the matter.

http://thetoo.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=31996#p1042295
Hadassah wrote:Also, do you believe love exists?
Well that of course depends on your definition of "love." Love is an emotion, like any other, that comes from the brain. I'd have to defer to a neurobiologist who knows how the brain works because I certainly can't explain it. I don't think it's some force that floats around out there, though, if that's what you're talking about.
Josef1004 wrote:
Hadassah wrote: What is your opinion on nihilism?
Nothing really.
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.
Last edited by jasonjannajerryjohn on Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:32 am, edited 8 times in total.
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