Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "The Babylon Bee"
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@elgatofelix8917 He does not claim Jews are the master race. He tells Jew jokes. Don't tell me you can't tell the difference. Klavan was never Judaic enough to consult a rabbi. And just because you find a commie hack rabbi who confirms your prejudices does not mean that you're right. An ethnicity is not a conspiracy.
A fundamental absurdity of Jew haters, after the absurdity of calling an ethnicity a conspiracy. Is equating anti-Zionist leftist political organizations, George Soros, SPLC, ACLU, BLM, Antifa with Zionists and Israel that all these groups are doing their best to destroy. The "party line" of these morons is that that is all a cover and that they are all on the same side. And the only argument they have to support their party line is "They are all run by Jews", in other words, they have no argument at all. The most cursory investigation of the Israel policies of these organizations shows that they have the SAME Israel policy as the "Jews are destroying the world" conspiracy theorists. In fact, every day in every way the "racist right" supports the same things the "cultural Marxists" support, from the centrality of "group identity" through the abolition of the civil rights enumerated in the Constitution (all of them, without exception) through segregation, to the ideal/goal of limited government and freedom itself. This is how you know they are false flag leftists-BECAUSE ALL OF THE THINGS THEY ADVOCATE ARE LEFTIST THINGS.
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@jupitard "Can you tidy up your post about "Jew haters"? "
"It's full of theys and thems and generalisation "[sic]
It is impossible to speak about groups of people without generalizations. To speak about groups is to argue the validity or non validity of generalizations or their fractional applicability. Tell you what, I can't do anything about the generalizations but I will do a copy with all the pronouns (except "I"=Digital Nomad) specified. The clarifications will be in brackets "[ ]". You are probably wasting my time on this since I suspect your problem is not that you don't understand, but that you disagree:
A fundamental absurdity of Jew haters [henceforth specified as JH], after the absurdity of calling an ethnicity a conspiracy is equating anti-Zionist leftist political organizations, George Soros, SPLC, ACLU, BLM, Antifa [shortened as Alphabet Soup or AS] with Zionists and Israel that all these groups are doing their best to destroy. The "party line" of these morons [JH] is that that is all a cover and that they [AS on the one hand and Israel on the other] are all on the same side. And the only argument they [JH] have to support their party line is "They [AS and Israel and Zionists] are all run by Jews", in other words, they [JH] have no argument at all. The most cursory investigation of the Israel policies of these organizations [AS] shows that they [AS] have the SAME Israel policy as the "Jews are destroying the world" conspiracy theorists.
In fact, every day in every way the "racist right" supports the same things the "cultural Marxists" support, from the centrality of "group identity" through the abolition of the civil rights enumerated in the Constitution (all of them, without exception) through segregation, to the ideal/goal of limited government and freedom itself. This is how you know they ["racist right"] are false flag leftists-BECAUSE ALL OF THE THINGS THEY ["racist right"] ADVOCATE ARE LEFTIST THINGS.
/end revision
I don't really think that this is an improvement. Pronouns are used for a reason. I did catch a false sentence ending near the start which probably confused things a little, so I thank you for letting me catch and edit that. I added a paragraph separation for "white space" eye relief.
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@jsusbdndk1362 "capitalism is based on individual initiative while socialism is based government. Both act on production of goods and services, it’s just a matter of who controls it"
As though who controls goods and services cannot possibly have any effect on the production of goods and services.
The socialist disconnect between productivity and incentives has been elaborated on. It is the aspect of socialism which impoverishes the society, and gives the lie to the altruistic pretensions of its advocates. The common folk of a socialist society are uniformly poorer than their counterparts in a free one, in addition to being sorely oppressed and hampered and proscribed at every turn.
Freedom of opportunity and property rights have created the wealthiest societies in the world. Have created societies where the "poor" have a material position far more advantageous than the kings under former systems. That is where wealth and opportunity are made. If your ideology is actually better then "improve" some 3rd world country and out-compete the rest of the world. That is how freedom proved itself, by providing the greatest benefit to all, and to the least gifted in particular. "Capitalism" is Marx's straw man, equating freedom with rule by robber barons.
If you are really concerned with human suffering and oppression, why do you always seek to "improve" the freest, most prosperous, and most equitable societies, rather than liberating the actually oppressed? It is almost as if you are more concerned with pulling down the rich than lifting up the poor.
In fact, and historically in practice, despotism results, and the reason why IS AN INHERENT FLAW OF THE THEORY. You seek to replace the free market with an arbitrary distribution of stuff. To do this you need an arbiter. The arbiter does not BECOME, he IS by nature of his function, the dictator. You, first, remove all the protections, restraints, checks and balances of the civic society, (often accompanied by the removal of checks on the conscience from religion,) give absolute power (in a sense greater even than the kings and emperors of old) to a person or a group, already acclimated to a free hand in the use of force when they steal everybody's stuff. Then you wonder why so many get murdered by your just and equitable and scientific government, and why life in your utopia is so similar to slavery.
In fact this similarity was recognized, and embraced by George Fitzhugh,19th century leftist and southern slavery advocate of the "positive good" school, that is, of those who insisted that slavery was good for the slave. (source, Dinesh D'Sousa "Death of a Nation") Like Wolff, of course, he characterizes the relationship between the wage worker and capital as oppressive. He goes further in comparing it unfavorably with slavery, claiming that the supposed freedom of choice of the wage worker is illusory and the wage worker is a "slave without a master", that is, in his construction, without a person obligated and motivated to "take care" of him. "The maxim, every man for himself embraces the whole moral code of a free society. The rich are continually growing richer and the poor poorer." Freedom is a "war of the rich, with the poor, and the poor with one another."
By way of contrast, he finds in slavery a sort of commune "in which the master furnishes the capital and skill, and the slaves the labor, and divide the profits, not according to each one's in-put, but according to each one's wants and necessities." He called the contemporary socialist theory "an ever receding and illusory Utopia." Slavery, he insists, is an existing and the only practical form of socialism, achieving "the ends all Communists and Socialists desire."
The common thread, is that to the libertarian sensibility essential freedom is freedom TO (to act), and to the socialist is freedom FROM (from responsibilities, uncertainties).
James Madison in Federalist 51, states the obvious that eludes these ivory tower theorists:
"The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
A common fallacy of utopian ideologues is that human nature is inherently good, but is being held back by some flaw in the social contract. In fact, the same flawed, imperfect, selfish, stupid nature that infests the lord, or the "capitalist", infests the revolutionary. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The "capitalist" AS SUCH, can only hire or bribe. An unchecked authoritarian government can do that (with other people's money), plus arrest, torture, and kill you or your family. It is incoherent to fear the former and not fear the latter. No "angel" is available to bear this power benignly. It is not just the resources that rampant government spending removes from the productive sector, removing incentives to productivity, it is the dangerous further unnecessary concentration of power in the most dangerous place possible. This would be harmful even if the resources spent were beamed down by well meaning space aliens.
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In the past hundred years, science has not been kind to the notions of atheism and philosophical materialism, rather science has consistently and systematically undercut those claims. Whenever an aspect of science or archaeology can be brought to bear on the questions of origins, it has favored the creationist position.
Atheism became a moderately popular alternate view of origins in the Victorian Era. Science was just getting started, and since one of the aspects which science addressed was how things worked, a hope began to be fostered among those hostile to faith that explanations of science might serve to displace the revealed truth of the Bible.
It is common sense that anything that began must have been begun by something else. Jews and Christians had long taught that physics/space/time/matter (from now on we will just call it matter) was a created thing, created by God. God's origins did not have to be explained because he did not begin. He was either eternally pre-existant, or outside time altogether. In either case he was GROUND OF BEING, the prime mover or central fact of which all other facts were derivative.
No explanation can be offered for why something exists rather than nothing. Yet, this should not give us pause because SOMETHING DOES EXIST. If in the link of causality there was ever a node where NOTHING EXISTED, then of course, nothing would exist forever thereafter. Anything which begins to exist must be caused by something else. It follows that any account of origin must either have an infinite regression, or a closed loop, or a ground of being.
Christians claimed that God was outside of time, and ground of being. The Atheists of the Victorian era countered Matter was eternally pre-existant, thus did not begin, thus required no agent of origin. They claimed Matter was Ground of Being. In the area of the origin of species they resorted to the notion of evolution, as lame as "it just happened" might seem to first order as an explanation. At first, this was not presented as a theory of the origin of life itself, because it was not yet known that life was not eternally pre-existant. This body of belief will be referred to as "materialism" in the remainder of this treatise (not to be confused with a preoccupation with the trappings of wealth, which is "materialism" in a completely unrelated sense). Though atheism and materialism almost always go together, the terms have different definitions. Atheism is the belief that no God exists. Materialism is the belief that matter is ground of being; that everything that exists is physics/space/time/matter simply, or a derivative epiphenomenon of it. It is generally recognized that atheism, in the strictest sense, stands or falls on the strength of materialism. Evolution is generally understood to be necessary for atheism/materialism, but not the reverse.
But starting in 1924, Edwin Hubble painstakingly developed a series of distance indicators to galaxies. This allowed him to estimate distances to galaxies whose red shifts had already been measured, mostly by Slipher. In 1929 Hubble discovered a correlation between distance and recession velocity—now known as Hubble's law. Lemaître had already shown that this was expected, given the cosmological principle. In the 1920s and 1930s almost every major cosmologist preferred an eternal steady state universe, and several complained that the beginning of time implied by the Big Bang imported religious concepts into physics; this objection was later repeated by supporters of the competing steady state theory. The rub is that Big Bang means that matter had a beginning, and thus cannot be ground of being. This undercuts the logical underpinnings of atheism/materialism
<This exposition will continue in my next post>
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<continued from previous post>
Also, from:
https://www.discovery.org/a/91
Almost everything about the basic structure of the universe--for example, the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial distribution of matter and energy--is balanced on a razor's edge for life to occur. As the eminent Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson notes, "There are many . . . lucky accidents in physics. Without such accidents, water could not exist as liquid, chains of carbon atoms could not form complex organic molecules, and hydrogen atoms could not form breakable bridges between molecules" (p. 251)--in short, life as we know it would be impossible.
Scientists call this extraordinary balancing of the parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe the "fine-tuning of the cosmos." It has been extensively discussed by philosophers, theologians, and scientists, especially since the early 1970s, with hundreds of articles and dozens of books written on the topic. Today, it is widely regarded as offering by far the most persuasive current argument for the existence of God. For example, theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies--whose early writings were not particularly sympathetic to theism--claims that with regard to basic structure of the universe, "the impression of design is overwhelming" (Davies, 1988, p. 203). Similarly, in response to the life-permitting fine-tuning of the nuclear resonances responsible for the oxygen and carbon synthesis in stars, the famous astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle declares that
I do not believe that any scientists who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. If this is so, then my apparently random quirks have become part of a deep-laid scheme. If not then we are back again at a monstrous sequence of accidents. [Fred Hoyle, in Religion and the Scientists, 1959; quoted in Barrow and Tipler, p. 22]
A few examples of this fine-tuning are listed below:
1. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. [See Davies, 1982, pp. 90-91. (As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.)
2. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322.)
3. Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)
4. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 )
5. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.)
Imaginatively, one could think of each instance of fine-tuning as a radio dial: unless all the dials are set exactly right, life would be impossible. Or, one could think of the initial conditions of the universe and the fundamental parameters of physics as a dart board that fills the whole galaxy, and the conditions necessary for life to exist as a small one-foot wide target: unless the dart hits the target, life would be impossible. The fact that the dials are perfectly set, or the dart has hit the target, strongly suggests that someone set the dials or aimed the dart, for it seems enormously improbable that such a coincidence could have happened by chance.
References
Barrow, John and Tipler, Frank. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Davies, Paul. The Accidental Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
____________. Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
____________. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Davis, John Jefferson. "The Design Argument, Cosmic "Fine-tuning," and the Anthropic Principle." The International Journal of Philosophy of Religion.
Dirac, P. A. M. "The evolution of the physicist's picture of nature." Scientific American, May 1963.
Hacking, Ian. The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of Early Ideas About Probability, Induction and Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Leslie, John. "How to Draw Conclusions From a Fine-Tuned Cosmos." In Robert Russell, et. al., eds., Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Press, pp. 297-312, 1988.
____________. Universes. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Sklar, Lawrence. Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Smart, J. J. C. "Laws of Nature and Cosmic Coincidence", The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 140.
Smith, George. "Atheism: The Case Against God." Reprinted in An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism, edited by Gordon Stein, Prometheus Press, 1980.
Smith, Quentin. "World Ensemble Explanations." Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 67, 1986.
Swinburne, Richard. An Introduction to Confirmation Theory. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1973.
Van Fraassen, Bas. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Weatherford, Roy. Foundations of Probability Theory. Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.
/end citation
<more about fine tuning in next post>
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<cont'd>
Another list of cosmic fine tuning dials from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
N, the ratio of the strength of electromagnetism to the strength of gravity for a pair of protons, is approximately 1036. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.[12]
Epsilon (ε), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of ε is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force.[13] If ε were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the big bang. Other physicists disagree, calculating that substantial hydrogen remains as long as the strong force coupling constant increases by less than about 50%.[10][12]
Omega (Ω), commonly known as the density parameter, is the relative importance of gravity and expansion energy in the Universe. It is the ratio of the mass density of the Universe to the "critical density" and is approximately 1. If gravity were too strong compared with dark energy and the initial metric expansion, the universe would have collapsed before life could have evolved. On the other side, if gravity were too weak, no stars would have formed.[12][14]
Lambda (λ), commonly known as the cosmological constant, describes the ratio of the density of dark energy to the critical energy density of the universe, given certain reasonable assumptions such as positing that dark energy density is a constant. In terms of Planck units, and as a natural dimensionless value, the cosmological constant, λ, is on the order of 10−122.[15] This is so small that it has no significant effect on cosmic structures that are smaller than a billion light-years across. If the cosmological constant were not extremely small, stars and other astronomical structures would not be able to form.[12]
Q, the ratio of the gravitational energy required to pull a large galaxy apart to the energy equivalent of its mass, is around 10−5. If it is too small, no stars can form. If it is too large, no stars can survive because the universe is too violent, according to Rees.[12]
D, the number of spatial dimensions in spacetime, is 3. Rees claims that life could not exist if there were 2 or 4 dimensions of spacetime nor if any other than 1 time dimension existed in spacetime.[12]
An older example is the Hoyle state, the third-lowest energy state of the carbon-12 nucleus, with an energy of 7.656 MeV above the ground level. According to one calculation, if the state's energy were lower than 7.3 or greater than 7.9 MeV, insufficient carbon would exist to support life; furthermore, to explain the universe's abundance of carbon, the Hoyle state must be further tuned to a value between 7.596 and 7.716 MeV. A similar calculation, focusing on the underlying fundamental constants that give rise to various energy levels, concludes that the strong force must be tuned to a precision of at least 0.5%, and the electromagnetic force to a precision of at least 4%, to prevent either carbon production or oxygen production from dropping significantly.[16]
REFERENCES:
1. Rees, Martin (May 3, 2001). Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe. New York, NY: Basic Books; First American edition. p. 4.
2. Gribbin. J and Rees. M, Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology p. 7, 269, 1989, ISBN 0-553-34740-3
3. Davis, Paul (2007). Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life. New York, NY: Orion Publications. p. 2. ISBN 0618592261.
4. Stephen Hawking, 1988. A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-05340-X, p. 7, 125.
5. Lawrence Joseph Henderson, The fitness of the environment: an inquiry into the biological significance of the properties of matter The Macmillan Company, 1913
6. R. H. Dicke (1961). "Dirac's Cosmology and Mach's Principle". Nature. 192 (4801): 440–441. Bibcode:1961Natur.192..440D. doi:10.1038/192440a0.
7. Heilbron, J. L. The Oxford guide to the history of physics and astronomy, Volume 10 2005, p. 8
8. Profile of Fred Hoyle at OPT. Optcorp.com. Retrieved on 2013-03-11.
9. Paul Davies, 1993. The Accidental Universe, Cambridge University Press, p70-71
10. MacDonald, J., and D. J. Mullan. "Big bang nucleosynthesis: The strong nuclear force meets the weak anthropic principle." Physical Review D 80.4 (2009): 043507. "Contrary to a common argument that a small increase in the strength of the strong force would lead to destruction of all hydrogen in the big bang due to binding of the diproton and the dineutron with a catastrophic impact on life as we know it, we show that provided the increase in strong force coupling constant is less than about 50% substantial amounts of hydrogen remain."
11. Abbott, Larry (1991). "The Mystery of the Cosmological Constant". Scientific American. 3 (1): 78.
12. Lemley, Brad. "Why is There Life?". Discover magazine. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
13. Morison, Ian (2013). "9.14: A universe fit for intelligent life". Introduction to astronomy and cosmology. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. ISBN 9781118681527.
14. Sean Carroll and Michio Kaku (2014). How the Universe Works 3. End of the Universe. Discovery Channel.
15. John D. Barrow The Value of the Cosmological Constant
16. Livio, M.; Hollowell, D.; Weiss, A.; Truran, J. W. (27 July 1989). "The anthropic significance of the existence of an excited state of 12C". Nature. 340 (6231): 281–284. Bibcode:1989Natur.340..281L. doi:10.1038/340281a0.
Creationists argue that the tuning of all these "dials" in favor of life implies a tuner that favors life. This position is called the "strong anthropic principle". Critics of the strong anthropic principle propose the "weak anthropic principle". They posit that many universes exist, enough that one just happens to exist with the dials set right by chance, and therefore this is the universe in which the discussion is taking place. The problem is that those alternate universes cannot in principle be observed from this one (thus they are not empirical, but a fudge invented without evidence to avoid a conclusion the fudger doesn't like), and it is trimmed by Occam's razor, the principle of favoring the simpler answer.
The tendentiousness of the opposition to this idea is illustrated by the title and first paragraph of this article in Evolution News & Science Today :
"TO AVOID THE IMPLICATIONS OF COSMIC FINE-TUNING, A CONTINUING QUEST" "Remember, the multiverse is the currently favored prophylactic against the theistic implications of cosmic fine-tuning. So if the following sounds a bit abstruse, remember what’s at stake."
<problems with evolution follow in next post>
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<cont'd>
In 1859, Charles Darwin published "The Origin of the Species" propounding a theory that complex organisms arose gradually over eaons from simpler forms of life by the operation of natural selection on small random mutations. This was not a theory of the origin of life itself, but a theory of the generation of the vast variety of species observed today given life's original existence. He studied fossils and noted that forms existed in the past which were different from forms present. There were problems with the theory from the start. First, it is implausible on the face of it. "It just happened" is not the sort of thing one usually would classify as a "scientific explanation". The second law of thermodynamics was still new, and its implications not well understood, but complex systems creating, or greatly improving themselves was well outside the range of empirical observation, then as now. While seeming improbable, the improbability was difficult to quantify because the workings of life were an almost complete mystery; a huge "black box" into which the problems of the theory could be swept. This is an "evolution of the gaps", the confidence that future discoveries would explain the problems away.
One problem recognized from the start even by Darwin himself is the discontinuous nature of the fossil record. While gradual transitions could be documented from about the "family" level downward, above that level the types seemed to all appear suddenly, without transitional forms from previous families. One would expect a continuous line of each species back to the earliest macroscopic antecedents, if the theory were true. Darwin notes the problem in his book:
"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species, p. 280.
"Evolution of the gaps", pesky evidence! But he was confident that the gaps would be filled by more transitional forms as the fossil record became more complete. (Update 2018-It hasn't)
Another aspect of the fossil record which was found rather early and does not fit well with Darwin's theory is the Cambrian Explosion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively short span event, occurring approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period, during which most major animal phyla appeared, as indicated by the fossil record. Lasting for about the next 20–25 million years, it resulted in the divergence of most modern metazoan phyla. Additionally, the event was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms. Prior to the Cambrian explosion, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 to 80 million years, the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today. Almost all present animal phyla appeared during this period.
It is difficult to see, with a supposed random distribution of mutations, why such a great variety of phyla would appear in such a short period, in sharp contrast to previous and subsequent periods. This has still not been adequately explained.
More and more thru the decades has been discovered about the workings of life, and at each turn the many problems in detail were swept into the black box of the yet unknown. But at long last we are opening the last box, molecular biology, and instead of explanations for old problems we are discovering new and apparently intractable problems with the problem theory. We find not just staggering absolute complexity, but indeed many examples of "irreducible complexity": complex systems with many interrelated components which are not amenable to explanation by gradual change plus natural selection, because the system needs ALL the components to convey any benefit at all, and thus be selected for. In order to provide any survival benefit, the whole system must appear in one swell foop AT THE SAME TIME and integrated. The improbability of this is far worse than the mere product of the improbabilities of the component subsystems.
https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0743290313
For other biochemical problems with the evolutionary view of the origins of life, see:
Stephen Mayer - Signature in the Cell
<continued>
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This by no means exhausts the evidence for Theism and Christianity. I haven't completed writing up a summary of such evidence. I have taken a chronological approach to writing it up, starting with cosmology and biology (I am not done with biology), and I plan to continue through archeology, history, and sociology, ethics, etc. This is what I've written up so far. In the meanwhile, if you are interested in pursuing the evidence further, I can suggest a few resources:
C S Lewis - Mere Christianity - An introduction to the actual claims of Christianity (most non-Christians today have a distorted view)
Criticism of Scientism by Agnostics:
David Berlinski - The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays
- The Devil's Delusion - From the cover blurb:
Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence? Not even close.
Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close.
Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close.
Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough.
Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough.
Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good? Not even close to being close.
Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences? Close enough.
Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even ballpark.
Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.
Atheists or agnostics who have converted to theism and/or Christianity by examining the evidence:
Lee Strobel - The Case for Christ
C. S. Lewis - Surprised by Joy
Hugh Ross - (many titles)
Anthony Flew - There is a God
Dr. Ed Feser - The Road from Atheism
Justin Brooke
David Wood - (seen on Bit Chute formerly YT Acts 17 Apologetics)
Dr. Michael Guillen
Dr. Michael Egnor
Jordan Monge
Peter Byrom
Abraham Lincoln – - "Abraham Lincoln’s Journey From Atheism To Christianity"
Bill Hayden – Australia’s second longest-serving Governor-General and was a renowned atheist for all of his life. Bill Received Jesus At 85
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield: Former Lesbian, Feminist, Atheist Professor. In what she describes as a train wreck, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse University, shares the incredible story of her journey to Christ, laying aside lesbianism, feminism and Atheism.
Michael McIntyre – Multi-Millionaire Atheist Who Hated God But Now, He Radically Accepts Jesus
Jennifer Fulwiler, Leah Libresco and Holly Ordway – Three Powerful women whose intellectual journey led to their conversion from atheism to Christianity.
Dr. Wayne Rossiter – Former atheist biologist who once described himself as a “staunch and cantankerous atheist” who sought every opportunity to destroy Christianity where it stood.
Jim Warner Wallace – Was a Smart Cold-Case homicide atheist detective who worked for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
Dr. Greg Lehman – One day, he finished a medical consultation with his usual “Do you have any questions?” The walk-in patient stared at him and asked: “Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as you personal Savior?”
Philosopher Edward Feser: The Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College, previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. Feser speaks on how Studying Philosophy Led him To God.
Prof. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker – Professor Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Western Sydney University in Australia.
In her article,“How Oxford and Peter Singer drove me from atheism to Jesus,” Sarah shares the incredible story that led her to Jesus Christ. Dr. Peter Singer is a fervent atheist and a champion of the idea that some human lives have little or no value. I am sure that if he learned he helped “drive” a fellow atheist to Jesus, he would be more than a little annoyed.
See Also: Christianity Is Spreading In My Country: Iran’s Intelligence Minister Laments
Howard Storm – Atheist Professor whose Near-death Experience drew him to Jesus Christ.
Ronald Dabdoub – As an atheist, Ronald wanted to know the truth about God. For 30 days he asked God to prove his existence with more than words. Days later, he had a vision of Jesus Christ, and that was the start of a new life for him.
Barak Lurie – Former Jewish atheist and profitable real estate/ business lawyer who found Jesus as he searched for truth. Author of Atheism Kills.
Caleb Kaltenbach: Former Atheist Raised By Gay Parents, but he embraced Jesus and today he’s a preacher of Jesus Christ.
Paul Ernest – Former Atheist Scholar, Paul Ernest has always been a deep thinker. Whether it was science or philosophy, he was the one constantly asking “Why” and “How?”.
Alexis Mason – A former Militant Atheist
Steve Tillman – Former atheist leader who did everything to suppress the idea of God.
Dezmond Boudreaux – “The whole time I was searching for peace and truth, but could never find it.” “When I found Christ, that’s when I truly found what I was looking for.” – Dezmond.
Guillaume Bignon – A Staunch Atheist Who Hated God, Visited Church “As One Visits A Zoo To See Exotic Animals” But Then God Caught Him.
Jessica Jenkins – Was a devout atheist who believed in science and the theory of evolution.
Miracles:
C. S Lewis - Miracles
Craig Keenor - Miracles
Eric Metaxas - Miracles
David Brooks - Neural Buddhist
Apologists:
C. S. Lewis
John Lennox
Josh McDowell
Hugh Ross
YouTube
Red Pen Logic
Inspiring Philosophy
I would stay away from Ken Hamm of Answers From Genesis, and Dr. Duane Gish and the Institute for Creation research. They seem to me to be supporting good conclusions by bad arguments. Sort of the way you atheists must think of Richard Carrier.
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"JOKES DO NOT HELP"
Unsupported assertions in all caps don't constitute evidence. You need an argument, statistics, focus groups, something. Before you can influence anyone at all, you must get their ear. If you were right about how to reach people and they were wrong, then you would have a million subscribers and they would have 4. Envy is the Devil's cocaine.
"tell me a joke CHRIST told."
Have you even READ the Gospels? I can think of 2 off the top of my head:
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" "Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?" "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye."
The hyperbole wasn't necessary to make the point, and the image was elaborately absurd, and obviously chosen for its absurdity. The Lord was using humor and (in the Greek) alliterations and word play to help the teaching stick in the hearers' minds.
"Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."
I am sure the crowd laughed at that one (except for the scribes and Pharisees who were the butt of the joke). Derisive humor is always funnier when it challenges the oppressive power. The sort of joke that can get you cancelled, or jailed, or killed. Because that is what God made derisive humor FOR. Remember Elijah before the prophets of Baal?
"Because it IS hat serious."
Hat serious, eh? Yes, Jesus and the Bee are serious in a way that you are not. A serious man is one whom others take seriously, not one who takes HIMSELF seriously. And apart from that, there is a fundamental fallacy in your argument. You seem to claim that we can never serve Jesus by doing something He didn't do. Did Jesus ever post videos and comments on YouTube?
I Corinthians 9:19-22
"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."
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@SponsoredbyPfizer "How much is mossad paying you for this?"
@osamudazai6435 "I'm curious how much I got paid to make this video"
@osamudazai6435 "bro got big paid for this video "
This is pure Bulverism. It's what they teach students today in school instead of critical thinking. Instead of addressing your opponents data and arguments, you invoke an irrational or ignoble MOTIVE for his statements to give yourself and your readers an excuse to dismiss his arguments without consideration.
Quote from Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is "wishful thinking." You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant — but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
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@paulhagen1002 So, yes, you do.
The cannon was closed before the second century. As early as 120 AD, (Muratori) Christians started making lists of the books written by the apostles and prophets, lest people forget which books were prophetic and get them mixed up with apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books. Clement of Rome (c. A.D. 95) mentioned at least eight New Testament books in a letter; Ignatius of Antioch (c. A.D. 115) also acknowledged about seven books; Polycarp, a disciple of John, (c. A.D. 108), acknowledged fifteen letters. That is not to say these men did not recognize more letters as canonical, but these are ones they mentioned in their correspondence. Later Irenaeus wrote (c. A.D. 185), acknowledging twenty-one books. Hippolytus (A.D. 170-235) recognized twenty-two books.
For whatever set of reasons, there is a widespread belief out there (Internet, popular books) that the New Testament canon was decided at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD—under the conspiratorial influence of Constantine. The fact that this claim was made in Dan Brown’s best-seller The Da Vinci Code shows how widespread it really is. Brown did not make up this belief; he simply used it in his book. The problem with this belief, however, is that it is patently false. The Council of Nicea had nothing to do with the formation of the New Testament canon (nor did Constantine). Nicea was concerned with how Christians should articulate their beliefs about the divinity of Jesus. Thus it was the birthplace of the Nicean creed.
When people discover that Nicea did not decide the canon, the follow up question is usually, “Which council did decide the canon?” Surely we could not have a canon without some sort of authoritative, official act of the church by which it was decided. Surely we have a canon because some group of men somewhere voted on it. Right? This whole line of reasoning reveals a fundamental assumption about the New Testament canon that needs to be corrected, namely that it was (or had to be) decided by a church council. The fact of the matter is that when we look into early church history there is no such council.
Sure, there are regional church councils that made declarations about the canon (Laodicea, Hippo, Carthage). But these regional councils did not just “pick” books they happened to like, but affirmed the books they believed had functioned as foundational documents for the Christian faith. In other words, these councils were declaring the way things had been, not the way they wanted them to be. Thus, these councils did not create, authorize, or determine the canon. They simply were part of the process of recognizing a canon that was already there.
This raises an important fact about the New Testament canon that every Christian should know. The shape of our New Testament canon was not determined by a vote or by a council, but by a broad and ancient consensus. Here we can agree with Bart Ehrman, “The canon of the New Testament was ratified by widespread consensus rather than by official proclamation.” This historical reality is a good reminder that the canon is not just a man-made construct. It was not the result of a power play brokered by rich cultural elites in some smoke filled room. It was the result of many years of God’s people reading, using, and responding to these books.
If you were to attend these early councils and congratulate the ecclesiasts there for asserting "Church authority" over the prophetic canon, it is THEY who would rebuke you in no uncertain terms. "The Church" didn't make the Bible, the Bible made the Church. "The Church" does not have authority over the Scriptures. The Scriptures are the Church's rule of faith and practice. God by His Holy Spirit gave apostolic and prophetic authority to the apostles whom Jesus chose and those who received the prophetic gift from an apostle. These had no "successors". A body is "apostolic" in so far as they follow the apostles teaching as passed down to us in the Bible.
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Trevor Brannon "Real Socialism is Germany 1933-1945. 12 years not a Slave."
There is not a dimes worth of difference between Nazism and communism. Both commies and Nazis will:
Divide the public and foster hate along class/religious/gender/class lines.
Segregate.
Central plan the economy.
Nationalize the press.
End freedom of speech.
Confiscate weapons.
Persecute all non state sponsored religions.
End all civil rights, including the rights enumerated in the US Constitution (and the Magna Carta).
Evict innocent citizens from their homes.
Mobilize the apparatus of law and tax enforcement against their political enemies.
Slander, imprison, and murder their political enemies.
Eliminate or absorb all public organizations.
Replace commercial entertainment media with a boring stream of propaganda.
That, fool, IS slavery and it was the lot of the GERMAN people in the Nazi regime. What they did to others was worse. The minor, insignificant differences between communism and Nazism are only important to communists and Nazis, not to anybody who loves freedom. You won't distract us from our fight for freedom with your internal socialist squabble over who should be our master.
"He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind."-J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"
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