Comments by "Philip Rayment" (@PJRayment) on "PragerU"
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@redblaze8700
"ID is religious based,"
Of course. Science is religious-based, as pointed out in the video.
"...all advocates for it are religious."
As are opponents, even if they hold to an atheist religion.
"It was proven to be so in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case in 2005..."
Proven in the sense that the judge sided with that view. Not on the basis of the evidence, though.
"Also: if ID is correct, and biological evolution is false,..."
ID proponents are not biblical creationists. They tend to accept evolution, except for the naturalistic aspect of it.
"...then how can the vast majority of scientists support evolution?"
Easily. Some are atheists, and those have convinced the scientific establishment that creationism is unscientific (even though it's not) and have deceptively associated ID with creationism. Most scientists only get to hear one side of the story, and also, anyone who does start to accept creationism or ID is instantly ostracised if not actually actively discriminated against. So peer pressure is one very big factor.
"Even most scientists who identifies as religious accept evolution as a fact, which it is."
It's not a fact, and science is based on evidence, not popularity.
"This who subscribes to creationism/ID are a minority, ..."
A significant minority, nevertheless.
"... haven’t done any experiments or tests to prove it,"
Completely false. Many tests and experiments have been done. But the mainstream science community censors such research, so you don't get to hear much about it. However, it can be found if you look for it in the right places.
"most of those scientists are in field unrelated to evolution,"
As are most of the scientists you cite as being "the vast majority [who] support evolution". So your point is...? But then there are also those who are or have been in fields related to evolution.
"...including Meyer here who has PhD in philosophy of science,..."
Which seems a very appropriate field to be the presenter in this video.
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@redblaze8700
1. I pointed out that the video says otherwise, and you haven't shown that to be wrong. You've simply asserted your belief.
Christianity is also about facts, and is supported by the evidence.
2. The evidence says otherwise.
3. Simply reasserting your belief does not make it so. ID does not accept a 'young' earth, nor the special creation of all kinds of living things. It is similar to biblical creationism only in the detail that there is evidence of design, but it is like mainstream science in it's acceptance of deep time and evolution.
"4. Science is not about popularity contests.
As I said.
"The reason why most scientists accepts evolution and reject creationism/design is because evolution follows the scientific method were you make an hypothesis and test it to see if the evidence supports it or not."
That's the claim, but in fact it rejects or explains away evidence that doesn't fit. For example, fossil pollen in the Precambrian, intact tissue and DNA from dinosaurs, and so on.
"ID/creationism doesn’t do that, because it is literally designed to be untestable."
What's your hard evidence of that claim. Because I completely reject the claim.
"If a scientist could disprove evolution and prove design/creation, then they would change science as we know it, and even be guaranteed a Nobel Prize."
Yes, it would change a lot of science if it was accepted, but ideology prevents it being accepted. And the Nobel Prize committee have already shown their bias against the creationary view, when they refused to award a prize to the inventor of MRI.
"And no, it’s not because of peer pressure. That’s just some conspiracy promoted by creationists because that’s all they have when they’re unable to prove their mythology."
No, it's well-documented fact. See, just for example, the book Slaughter of the Dissidents.
"And it’s not due to atheist-influence, because most people, including most scientists who accepts evolution as fact are still religious."
Yes, most are, but that doesn't mean that it's not due to atheist influence. A small groups of people can be quite influential despite their numbers.
"Even Charles Darwin remained a lifelong Christian."
Not more than nominally. He came to reject God, and his Christianity was probably only nominal in the first place.
5. See the Journal of Creation for example.
"6. Nearly 95 % of all scientists supports evolution as a fact."
Where does that figure come from? And the other 5% in America amounts to about 100,000 scientists. That's not a trivial number.
"But if you only count those in relevant field, like biologists, geologists, and paleontologist, you’ll get an impressive 99,85 %."
Again, where does that figure come from? Because I don't believe that there is any evidence for that.
"If someone disproved evolution then those numbers would be much lower."
Perhaps they are much lower. I don't believe your 99.85% figure has any basis.
"So I wouldn’t call creation/design-scientists a “a significant minority”."
If they amount to 5%, then it is a significant minority. And I believe that figure is actually significantly higher.
7. Philosophy of science can deal with how and why science is done, which is partly what this video is about, including that it is based on principles derived from Christianity. And you've shown no cherry-picking. Nor have you shown his arguments to be incorrect.
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You're right that a god could have used evolution, but, as you say, the real question is did God use evolution.
Copernicus and Galileo challenged geocentricity, but I think Kepler (contemporary with Galileo) rejected geocentricity, and Newton came later, after geocentricity had been discarded.
Yes, people found bits in the Bible that appeared to be consistent with geocentricity, but the idea was actually an ancient Greek one and didn't come from the Bible. That God created in six days is from the Bible and is explicit, repeated, and emphasised, so it's a very different case than reading geocentricity into the Bible.
Yes, Darwin may be Copernicus 2.0, but probably not in the way you mean.
Unlike Copernicus and Galileo, Darwin set out to reject the biblical account, and his observations did not refute the biblical account, but—again—an ancient Greek idea known as 'fixity of species', which said that God created all the different species in the different parts of the world where they are found today. That is what Darwin found evidence against. The Bible, on the other hand, says that the animals spread out from the ark (so not created where they are today) and (although it's not as obvious) indicates that creatures adapted into different varieties (even species, to use scientific terminology and classifications) since then. Darwin didn't find evidence against that.
"Science is to follow what's happening in nature and figure out the order of nature, patterns in nature."
True enough, but science involves observations, measurements, tests, and repeatability, which cannot be done on past events, so although it's great for discovering how things work, it's not great in determining how things came to be. Further, much of what scientists do in that area is done on the basis of methodological naturalism, a philosophical position which says that their explanations must be natural ones (i.e. exclude God as an explanation) even where the evidence supports God. As such, it is biased, and any conclusions that people draw that God didn't create are actually circular arguments.
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@tTtt-ho3tq
"Science did not show the Bible was wrong."
I agree. But many scientists and others will claim that it does, often indirectly by claiming that a competing view (e.g. evolution) is correct.
"But we may interpret it wrong. We're only humans. We make mistakes. We misinterprete. We misunderstand."
Yes! But we can also be willingly ignorant of the evidence consistent with the biblical account. In other words, we can interpret the evidence wrong, not just the Bible.
"So science may not correct him but may show some of misinterpretations of his words in the Bible..."
Or it may contradict it, as it does with the naturalistic view of the age of the world, etc.
"Danger is we tend to think his words are always correct..."
Because they are. So that's not a danger.
"...but what we mean is our interpretations of his word is always correct..."
That may be true in some cases, but not always.
"Then it becomes you're not criticizing what you interpreted but you're criticizing God ... himself."
My point is that what you appear to be saying is that if scientific claims disagree with the Bible, then they actually disagree with our interpretation of the Bible, not with God Himself. Yes, that can be true. But the problem is that you're claiming that if the scientific claims disagree with the Bible, we should re-examine our understanding of the Bible because the science is not wrong. Why not also re-examine our understanding of the science? After all, the Bible is not wrong.
"You're also right that science is consensus."
Not consensus.
"What do you mean by macro evolution?"
You used the term. I didn't. I said that there is no observed evidence of one thing evolving into something else. Such as a dinosaur into a bird. I wasn't talking about something giving birth to something else.
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@tTtt-ho3tq You're not nobody. You're a person created in the image of God, and loved by that very same God, the creator of the universe.
"Having said so ... So what confirms what?"
That's the question, isn't it? Or, more accurately, which is the one to judge the other by? Do we judge the word of the infallible, omniscient, God by the ideas of fallen man, or vice versa? Yes, we have to be sure our interpretations or understandings are correct, but that applies in both cases.
"What makes you think the we the earth goes around the sun?"
Scientific observation.
"When his words say he stopped the sun in the middle of the sky for a whole day?"
Motion is relative to the observer. I've often been on a stationary train with another stationary train next to it. Then I see the other train starting to move. Except that I then realise that it's my train that's moving, not the other one. From the perspective of a person on Earth, the sun did stop. The moon also stopped. That's supports that it was actually the earth that stopped, not both the sun and the moon.
"When he says in his own words the earth is fixed and immovable?"
That passage uses the same words as other passages saying things like a righteous man is immovable, meaning that his righteousness is immovable, not that he physically cannot move. The Earth is fixed in its orbit.
"Science is consensus of interpretations of what's happening in nature."
Science is supposed to be about evidence, not consensus. But I'll ignore that for now.
"Consensus on our interpretations of what's happening in nature..."
The emphasis there needs to be on the (contracted) "IS". What IS happening in nature. Science involves observation, measurement, testing, and repeatability. You can do that on things in the present, but not things in the past.
"How old do you think the universe is? I'm sure you'd say it's 13.8 billion years old, right?"
No.
"So it's not you but how come there're so many Christians here in the US who believe it's less than 10,000 years old?"
Because the Bible shows that it's actually about 6,000 years old. That claim has been examined closely and there is no way to interpret it any differently without doing violence to the text. The top Hebrew scholars agree on that.
This gets back to what I just said about science. Science cannot observe, test, measure, nor repeat the past. "Age" is not a property that can be measured. Age determinations are made indirectly and (like all 'science' about the past) on the basis of methodological naturalism, as I pointed out in my first response to you. I'll give you a concrete example related to dating things. I don't know how well you know how carbon dating works, so I'll explain. Plants breathe in carbon dioxide, which of course is composed of carbon and oxygen. That carbon can be normal carbon (C12) or it can be C14, which is formed by nitrogen (N14) having been hit with a neutron. But over time, C14 decays back to N14. That decay rate has been measured.
C14 exists in the atmosphere in a known proportion, and so living things have that same proportion (plants pass it onto to animals and humans). When the living thing dies, the C14 to N14 decay continues, but no new C14 is being acquired, so the ratio of C14 to C12 changes. By measuring that ratio in a once-living thing, one can determine how long it is since it died. However, that determination relies on knowing what the original ratio was, and that is known to change over time. Thanks to the industrial revolution, for example, the ratio changed. So scientists have to draw up tables of what the ratio was at times in the past. This is done by finding something that was once living that we know independently when it died. An example is a piece of wood from a building that history tells us was built in, say, 1600.
If Noah's flood occurred, that would also have changed the C12:C14 ratio. So do those scientists drawing up that table account for that? Well, no. Because they don't believe it happened, they don't account for that change. But if it did happen, that would mean that all carbon dates from around and before that period would be wrong. So when a scientist says that carbon dating shows something to be 6,000 years old (and therefore older than the flood), that date is based on the assumption that the flood never happened. To then use such dates to show that the flood never happened becomes a circular argument, as I pointed out in my first reply.
I'll just make another point before I finish. When you are driving and come to an intersection with a stop sign, do you debate what that sign really means? No. You know, unequivocally, that it means that you have to stop your car. Yes, some writing can be ambiguous or vague, but other writing can be quite clear and explicit. You can't dismiss all apparent contradictions between the Bible and the claims of scientists as cases of interpreting the Bible wrong.
It's not a case of simply determining whether we have misunderstood clear statements in the Bible. It's a case of the supposed science being done on past events that cannot be observed, measured, tested, nor repeated, and done on the basis of a philosophical view that a priori rejects the Bible's claims. It is therefore not valid to judge our understanding of the Bible on the basis of such naturalistic science.
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@tTtt-ho3tq
"Judge? We're talking about physical world. Physical things in nature. Nobody judging nobody here."
I'm not talking about moral judgment, but about judging the accuracy of something.
"Because your interpretation of the Bible is 6,000 years."
"There's on other way to interpret his words. Even the top Hebrew scholars agree on that."
No other way that has withstood scrutiny.
"And there's no physicist, no geologist, no chemist. no nuclear scientist."
What qualifications do they have to determine a correct understanding of the biblical text?
"Yet, the age of the universe or the earth there's no scientist or scientific data or observation."
Yes, because, as I said, there is no "age" attribute to observe or measure. It is simply not possible to observe or measure age.
"There's no need for them."
No, I didn't say that there is no need. I said that it's not possible.
"Just like that Islamic cleric in the video of kid's TV show. Because Allah told us."
Yes, except that God is reliable; Allah is fiction.
"Meaning I interpreted it so, thus God told us so."
No, the interpretation does not come first. God told us so, and we read what he wrote. Like the stop sign, it's quite clear.
"Wouldn't it be better to see what he created the way he did it, though? Isn't science to figure out that?"
First, science can't really do that, because, as I've pointed out, science can't observe, measure, test, nor repeat the past. Second, if you are going to use science to assist with that, you must not do it by first assuming that God didn't do it! Okay?
"It's not just carbon. There're other elements, too."
Yes, there are other decay chains that they use. Carbon dating was just an example of how naturalistic presuppositions affect the results.
"Noah's flood wouldn't affect nuclear half-life decay ..."
First, I wasn't talking about decay rates, but other assumptions, like starting values. These sorts of assumptions apply to all dating methods.
Second, what makes you think that? In fact there is good evidence of accelerated nuclear decay, likely associated with the flood. When Uranium decays into lead (one of the dating measure that is used), a byproduct is helium. Helium is such a small atom that it readily escapes the rock the uranium is in. So the more the uranium has decayed toward lead, the more helium has been produced, but the helium doesn't stay in the rock, so that cannot be measured. EXCEPT. They have measured it, and the amount of helium still there indicates that the rock is nowhere near as old as the uranium:lead ratio would suggest. When the results were plotted on a graph, it showed that the data lined up very well with a prediction of the rocks being 6000 years old, and vastly different to a prediction based on them being 1.5 billion years old. See the graph in the article "Helium evidence for a young world continues to confound critics".
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@tTtt-ho3tq
"Did I say I'm not smart enough to read, comprehend and interpret his word properly."
You obviously understand English. So you can read and comprehend it well enough. And you don't need to interpret it. The meaning is obvious.
"I meant that amongst Muslims, there're some who say Allah designed and created nature with evolution by natural selection ..."
Okay. There are plenty of Christians who say the same thing, although to do so they are rejecting what the Bible clearly states. Some even admit that the Bible teaches six days but they don't believe that because of the supposed science. That is, they don't claim that the Bible can be interpreted to mean evolution and deep time; they simply say that it is wrong or not meant to be understood as what it's actually saying, or some other rationalisation.
"Then you said you don't need science when it comes to the age of the universe."
No, I did not say that you don't need science. I said that science cannot provide the answer.
"Because you sounded you know for sure just by reading the Bible."
I also pointed out that there are differences between the texts. If I said to you "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west" and "the earth moves relative to the sun", is that a contradiction? Well, superficially it appears to be. But we know that rising and setting is a reference to appearance whereas the earth moving relative to the sun is not a reference to appearance but is a truth claim. That is, the first is phenomenological language, while the latter is literal language. Language can be poetic, narrative, literal, metaphoric, euphemistic, etc. We generally understand the style of language used in any particular situation.
"We misinterprete. We're only humans. How can you be so sure. I don't understand you."
Let me put it this way. The Bible appears to say that the sun moves around the earth. But observation tells us that the earth goes around the sun, and the earth rotates on its axis. Can we reasonably conclude that we've misunderstood the Bible, and that it could allow for what observation tells us? Yes, because the reference to the sun standing still can be understood as the language of appearance, and the reference to the earth being immovable can be understood as not deviating from the way it was designed (to orbit the sun).
The Bible also appears to say that God created the world in six days. But 'science' (not observation) tells us that the world is much older and that life evolved from a universal common ancestor. So can we reasonably conclude that we've misunderstood the Bible, and that the world could be much older, and that life evolved? Well no, because we would then face the following insurmountable problems:
* The days are actually defined as being normal days (comprising an evening and a morning).
* The week is based on that creation week (Exodus 20:11); That basis is destroyed if we haven't understood it correctly.
* Jesus said that man was made at the beginning of creation, whereas in the mainstream view man came right near the end.
* God created Eve from Adam and Adam from the dust, not from an ape-like creature.
* God created plants before the sun and before land animals, contrary to the evolutionary view.
* God created man and the animals to be vegetarian.
* There was no death before Adam sinned. That is not only contrary to evolution, but a vital part of the gospel message.
* God created living things to reproduce 'after their kind', which is contrary to evolution which says that one kind can become another.
* God created the earth before the sun and the other stars.
* God created birds before land animals.
So unlike the 'fixed' earth that can reasonably be understood in a different way, the creation account cannot be reasonably understood in a different way. Trying to fit the creation account to the mainstream view creates a whole stack of problems.
Further, as I pointed out, a rotating, heliocentric earth is known from observation. The age of the earth and evolution have never been observed. They are beliefs based (in part) on a naturalistic view, which means that you can't use them to alter our understanding of the Bible without invoking some circular reasoning.
"The science on the age of the universe is huge."
And biased by methodological naturalism.
"Almost nobody in science community would disagree with with it."
What do you mean by "almost nobody"? 100 scientists? 500? what?
"Of course, they could be wrong and you might be right, though."
Rather, they might be wrong and God might be right. I'd take God's word over man's any day.
"But you're talking his words and they're talking empirical evidence."
No, I'm talking God's infallible words, and they're talking a philosophical position that was intended to replace the biblical view. That is, they started with that position and went looking for evidence to support it.
"Nuclear half-life decay is nuclear physics reactions, not chemical reactions."
Yes. So?
"They can't chemically process it."
If you mean that they can't alter the decay rate, that is incorrect. It has been altered, albeit by small amounts in limited circumstances.
"Oh, and I'm not smart enough to claim anything."
I'm not trying to be rude, but to partly agree with you, you're not smart enough to realise that saying that you're not smart enough to claim anything is a claim. So your comment contradicts itself.
"I've got a lots of questions, though."
Fair enough. So perhaps you should ask rather than argue.
"In Islam, they say in order to read the Quran and comprehend properly you must read it in its original ancient Arabic. ... So I heard."
Yes, I've heard that too. Christians believe that in order to understand the Bible to the fullest extent possible, you should understand the original languages (mainly Hebrew and Greek), but that you can still understand it quite well in whatever language it is translated into.
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@tTtt-ho3tq
"That's what I mean. It may be obvious to you because you're much smarter than me."
No, it's obvious because the words have obvious meanings. Just like the stop sign I mentioned. (But see further comment below.)
"Especially I've no idea when it's literal or when it's not."
Do you have that same problem with everything you read, or just the creation account? Or just the Bible?
"I know what you mean by itself but in practice in reading the Bible that's when it comes hard."
Why? How is the Bible different to other writing?
"So I can't imagine how people could have read the Bible that God paused the sun in the middle of the sky not literally. It's not obvious."
I understand what you're getting at, but you're not doing the text justice. Is that mention of the sun standing still trying to tell about relative motions, or is it trying to tell us how the Israelites won a battle? Of course it's the latter. The reference is not a euphemism, nor a metaphor, nor any other figure of speech. It literally did stand still, from the perspective of the people who saw it. That doesn't mean that it stood still relative to the galaxy or anything else. To put it another way, phenomenological language is not non-literal language. It's literal, from a particular viewpoint.
"But still it's so obvious of his word that the age of the universe is young 6,000 years old."
In one sense you're correct, in that the Bible doesn't give a total with that (or similar) figure. However, it's obvious, if you read carefully, that it does give figures which anyone can add up to find out how long before, say, Abraham that creation occurred. In that sense it's obvious.
"Which would mean there's no ice ages to you."
Only if ice ages and the time between them was too long to fit in the available time. But then I've already pointed out that one can't measure age.
In fact, there is good physical evidence of an ice age. But only one. And in fact the flood helps explain it. If the earth cools, there is less evaporation and therefore precipitation and therefore ice on the land. If the earth heats, there is more evaporation and more precipitation on land, but it doesn't freeze. However, if you have a cool atmosphere (such as with lots of dust or ash in the atmosphere) and a warm ocean (from lots of volcanism), then you have a lot of evaporation and precipitation, which forms ice on the land. The flood provides just those conditions, which would produce an ice ages lasting about 500 years from soon after the flood.
"There wEre no cavemen either?"
There have always been people who live in caves. In Coober Pedy in South Australia, many of the homes are in man-made caves today. But those people who lived in caves were not primitive men, but simply people who, for whatever purpose, lived in caves either short term or long term.
"Did Adam & Eve lived in a cave first when they're thrown out of the Garden?"
Possibly, until they had time to build something.
"How did Adam know how to hunt for food?"
He was a vegetarian.
"Was it a stone age when they were out or bronze age?"
There was no such thing as a stone age or a bronze age. People were making tools and instruments from iron and bronze before the flood, but much of the technological knowhow of the time would have been lost in the flood. After God dispersed the people from Babel, whatever knowhow they might have regained since the flood would be largely lost again. They would have needed immediate shelter and food, so caves would be a good option for the shelter, and they'd need tools quickly, so would have made what they could out of sticks and stones. But after they'd had time to settle and establish themselves, they would have built homes, found ore deposits, and reinvented the technology required. This may have taken from years to generations, and it would have varied according to how long they were travelling away from Babel (around the world in some cases) and where they ended up. So they would have a period when they were living in caves, and a period when they were making tools of stone and later tools of bronze, etc. but they were just phases until they reestablished the knowledge and skills; not "ages" lasting thousands or hundreds of years as they slowly evolved.
"Many many questions when read it literally."
Where does the Bible mention a bronze age or an iron age? Many of your questions come not from reading it literally, but from trying to marry it to the secular view that you've learnt. Try and remember this: The biblical account and the secular view are competing stories about the past. They do not fit together. Read the Bible on its own merits, not by trying to fit it into the secular view of history.
"Maybe obvious to you but not easily obvious to me."
Because you're reading it through secular glasses.
"Is there free will in Heaven"
I think there'd have to be.
"How could we not to sin for ever with free will?"
I don't know the answer to that one, but I'm sure God could do it somehow. Perhaps (this is speculative) just being full time in God's presence makes it so that we have no desire to sin, even though we still could, in principle? I don't know.
"This is not what my saying so but God's saying so."
I'm not sure what you're asking, but the principle is that whatever God says is correct. I might be wrong how I understand God, but some things are quite clear (e.g. the stop sign) while other parts can be harder to follow.
"Im not well articulate either."
Is English not your first language?
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@tTtt-ho3tq
"You've got the answer for almost everything."
It might seem like it, but no, I don't. However, this topic is one that I've been studying for much of my life.
"However, I'm interested in science, especially physics, so what they say is usually supported by facts in nature."
Yes, it is, as long as they are talking about things in the present that they can observe, measure, test, and repeat.
"But the way I understand it and what I see in nature usually agree with each other."
But again, you're seeing things in the present, not in the past. And it's the past where virtually all the disagreement is.
"I'm not sure if that's what secular means or through secular glasses, though."
I'm using the word 'secular' as a synonym for the way the world generally (as opposed to people who believe the Bible) sees things. But in particular, I'm referring to the scientists who work on the principle of methodological naturalism.
"You wouldn't say Copernicus, Galileo, Newton's view they saw through the secular glasses, would you?"
No, not at all. But again, they were doing their science on things they could observe, measure, test, and repeat, i.e. things in the present.
"In science, it's relative clearer what they don't understand yet or what they do,…"
I disagree, because the scientists rarely make a distinction between things that they study in the present and things that they pontificate about the past.
"Yet, there're so many different interpretations."
True, but why? Is it because the text is hard to understand, or is it because they are trying to marry the biblical account with the views of people who don't believe the Bible. Here's a quote from a theologian, James Montgomery Boice: "We have to admit here [concerning those who take the six days of Creation as literal days] that the exegetical basis of the creationists is strong. … In spite of the careful biblical and scientific research that has accumulated in support of the creationists’ view, there are problems that make the theory wrong to most (including many evangelical) scientists. … Data from various disciplines point to a very old earth and even older universe."
As you can see, the "different interpretation" comes from taking the (naturalistic) science into account, not from the text itself.
"Even in amongst Christians, some believe in Trinity, some don't."
That depends on how you define "Christian". Most Christians would say that if you don't believe Jesus is God, you're not a Christian. Those that deny the trinity are therefore not Christians, by definition.
"Some Christmas say it's 13.8± billion years from the BB,…"
Yes, but they don't get that from the Bible. So that's not really a different interpretation of the text, but a different view of history from extra-biblical sources.
"What I hate the most is saying this is not what my saying so but what God's … saying so. It's not true."
Again, I get back to my analogy with the stop sign. Some things are quite clear. And, as I've pointed out, some of the "different interpretations" are not based on what the Bible says. But it's not just me saying that. James Barr was Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oxford University, and he wrote that "… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story…"
So it's not just me saying that it's clear. It's the world's top experts on the language saying that this is the way it was meant to be understood.
"Would you kill someone if if God's telling you to do so? (You interpreted he's saying so)"
That's a silly question, because God telling me to kill someone would contradict God saying that we should not murder. So even if, for a moment, I thought God was saying that, I'd reject it as being from God because God doesn't contradict Himself.
"Didn't God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son? Yes. God stopped him just in time. But that's because Abraham was actually going to do it for real, wasn't it?"
Actually, Abraham had faith that it wouldn't happen. God had already told Abraham that Isaac would be the ancestor of many people, and Abraham told Isaac that God would supply the sacrifice. So Abraham trusted God that it would not happen, although he didn't know until the last moment how God would arrange that. (By the way, this was before God gave the ten commandments in which it says not to murder.)
"Everything and anything in nature by nature with the order of nature or without the order of nature is possible with God…"
One of the reasons that Christians started science is because they believed that God was a God of order and consistency, so would not (like the Greek 'gods') change things (like laws of nature) on a whim.
"…this annoys me that we won't sin once we're in Heaven even though we've still free will."
Yes there are some things that we'd love to know more about now, but we'll have to wait to find out.
"Everybody was in the Garden, including all animals, right?"
There were animals in the garden, but no reason to think all the animals were. And Adam and Eve were booted from the garden before they had children, so they were the only two people ever in the garden.
"So that means there's no BBQ in Heaven."
You can barbecue things other than meat! 😁 God gave us permission to eat meat after the flood, but yes, I expect that permission will be withdrawn in heaven.
"No sex in Heaven either?"
Well, no marriage, so unless sex outside marriage is okay in heaven, I guess you're correct!
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@tTtt-ho3tq
The postulated planet was Vulcan, not Volcan.
"Actually everything we observe is pst in time."
By a fraction of a micro-second?
"It seems light travels instantaneous but it's not."
Actually, that is not certain. Find the video "Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light" by Veritasium.
However, this is all distraction. You could argue (although there are rebuttals) that you are observing the past when you observe stars explode, and that sort of thing. But we don't observe the past to see dinosaurs evolving into birds, etc.
"Jesus couldn't be God BEFORE he was crucified because if he was ... God doesn't die, does he?"
What is death? A cessation of brain activity? A cessation of biological life? Separation from God? The last one is known as spiritual death. Jesus died physically, and He was separated from God the father when He did. He didn't cease to exist, but then neither do humans when they die.
But Jesus must have been God before He was crucified, as Jesus is actually the creator of everything.
"So he joined his father after he was sacrificed and became one. I didn't know that. It makes sense, though."
God is the supreme being. There can be only one. Jesus becoming God doesn't work. Jesus is God, but per the concept of the trinity, God is three persons in one God.
"Did Jesus know he was going to scarified? Killed?"
Yes. He prayed about it before it happened.
"But also knew he's not gonna die anyways because he's God, too?"
He didn't cease to exist, but He did know that He would come back to life.
"…would you volunteer to be sacrificed too?"
I would hope so if the cause was good enough. Plenty of people have through history. Think of soldiers who threw themselves on grenades to protect their mates, for example.
"Vegetable BBQ? Are you ... it's like tofu bergers? To some it's ain't BBQ."
I was thinking more of sliced onion, eggs, etc. But vegetable patties are also another option.
"Is there alcohol in Heaven? What do you think?"
No reason for there to not be alcohol in heaven. It's a useful chemical. But why drink the poisonous drug? It does you no good.
"Canaanites? Didn't Morse told Israelites to wipe them out?"
I said that God said that we should not murder. Murder does not include self-defence or capital punishment. Both the latter, and former in the case of war, are functions of government, not individuals. Moses was the government, and killing people who were attacking them or defying God is not murder.
"God himself can kill, though. right?"
He made us, so He can destroy us. Murder is wrong because God delegated dominion over creation except for man to man. That is, as humans, all of God's creation is at our disposal to make use of (which does not mean to abuse). Except for other humans. We can't make use of them (except with their permission, such as hiring them). But God does have dominion over all of his creation, including man. He can do what He likes with us, because He owns us.
"Except Satan and demons, he didn't eliminate them with the flood. Because?"
I don't have a definite answer on that. But God didn't eliminate humanity at the flood either. Clearly God had a reason to not eliminate Satan and the demons at that time, but then why should He do that at that time anyway? The flood destroyed or damaged the physical creation; if God was to "eliminate" Satan, why wait until the flood? That doesn't seem a particularly appropriate time.
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@geryleier4577 "Of course there is a logical contradiction."
No, that's not a logical contradiction. The contradiction you're claiming is a contradiction between the claim and the evidence, not a logical contradiction.
But the word "proof" is a problem. Both sides can provide evidence, but science doesn't do proofs, and history (which that book is) is not really studiable by empirical science.
"Your argument only works if you make the presupption that god exists."
If you're referring to my particular claim of contrasting the infallible God and fallible man, then yes, that's correct. But then your argument only works if you presuppose that God doesn't exist (or doesn't get involved or similar). So both of use are working from presuppositions. Why is yours correct?
"If you look first what you can proof and what not, you will come to another conclusion."
Again, that word "proof". But no, suppositions come first. In fact science depends on Christian suppositions. Loren Eiseley: "The philosophy of experimental science … began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation … . It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption."
So if you presuppose no God, you can't do science except by adopting essentially Christian ideas for no good reason, in which case you've lost the very argument you're trying to make before you even start.
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@sweeney4727
"ok but u cant change chromosomes even with trans people"
I never said you could. Before you edited your post, you, however, indicated that that was possible. I challenged you on that, and then you conceded that it was not possible. So I don't know why you're continuing to argue something that I agree with.
"and thats legit the definition of a transphobe"
No, that's name-calling. First, a phobia is an irrational fear. So no, it doesn't simply means someone who disagrees.
Second, if all you're saying is that I disagree with transgenderism, then why not just say that, instead of using a term that is derogatory?
"look up the definition lol "Phobe doesn't always mean "Fear" but dislike or something else"
Yes, the term can be used more loosely, but a) it doesn't simply mean disagreement, and b) 'transphobia' is taking its cue from 'homophobia', a word coined in order to denigrate those who reject homosexuality. The origins of the term are in trying to denigrate. Ergo, you are, as I said, name-calling.
IDAHOBIT day is an "International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia". So are you trying to say that IDAHOBIT is a day against people even disagreeing with transgenderism (etc.)? Why?
No, clearly transphobia is supposed to be wrong. To claim that even disagreeing is wrong is bigotry.
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@100percentSNAFU
"A spoon, or anything for that matter, is indeed very complex if you break it down to the molecular level."
Not particularly, assuming a metal spoon. The molecules are arranged according to the laws of physics, and are relatively uniform. What's not arranged according to the laws of physics is the spoon shape itself. That's the bit that is (somewhat) complex, not being a natural shape, but having a particular shape designed to be able to hold a liquid, plus also a handle with which to manipulate the spoon comfortably in a human hand.
"Or, maybe, "There is no spoon" "
Well, I only need to look in my cutlery draw to prove that one wrong!
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@pope9187
"…surely it is saying something about science."
I think you are confused about what science is. It's the study of creation; or the study of things in the world. The Bible is not performing a study, it's recording historical events. Yes, it's a literal account of what happened, not a scientific study of those events.
"I mean, as far as I’m aware it’s actually mainstream Biblical scholarship to regard at least Genesis 1-11 as more of a cultural mythology."
Many Christians do see it that way, but Jesus didn't. I'll stick with what Jesus thought.
"After all, there are literally two accounts of human creation,…"
No, there is not. There is one account that starts with an overview, then focuses in on man.
"…with the account of Adam and Eve reading very clearly as figurative…"
And yet the experts disagree. James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oxford, said "… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience, the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story, and that Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark."
"…the name adam literally just means “human”…"
Which is what you'd expect. God had just created various kinds of creatures, such as the cat kind, and the elephant kind and the frog kind, and then made a kind in His own image, which He called "man" (hence 'man-kind'). So that's what he was known as: man, or Adam. That is, being the prototype, his name was the name for the kind.
"Even fundamentalist Christian apologists like William Lane Craig has conceded that these accounts from Genesis are not just straightforward history."
Craig has compromised with naturalistic science. Barr, by the way, is no fundamentalist. And as I said Jesus believed them to be straightforward history. In fact he quoted from both of the "two accounts" as though they were one, and history.
"…it does require methodological naturalism—the key word there is methodological."
And yet you don't give a good reason why, nor do you address why it should prioritise natural over correct. See my next comment.
"That is until we have a reliable methodology for investigating non-natural or supernatural or immaterial claims, which we currently do not have."
Not having a method for studying the supernatural is no reason to say that the explanations must be natural. That simply doesn't follow. And your claim is wrong in any case. We can investigate claims that involve the supernatural. In fact some critics claim that this is possible and has been done, even if they contradict themselves. Philosopher P. Quinn wrote: "In a recent collection of essays, Stephen Jay Gould claims that “‘Scientific creationism’ is a self-contradictory phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified”…Ironically, in the next sentence Gould goes on to contradict himself by asserting that “the individual claims are easy enough to refute with a bit of research.” Indeed, some of them are! But since they are so easily refuted by research, they are after all falsifiable and, hence, testable. This glaring inconsistency is the tip-off to the fact that talk about testability and falsifiability functions as verbal abuse and not as a serious objection in Gould’s anti-creationist polemics."
"That’s why ID is an “unapproved” science,…"
Given that ID doesn't make claims about the supernatural, that's a false claim. And given that I have given an example of how it could be falsified (which you've ignored), that's another reason it's a false claim.
"…not because scientists are all mean atheists that don’t want to acknowledge the possibility of a creator or designer (though some may be)…"
I literally said "Not that all those scientists are atheists, ..."
"…but because it legit doesn’t offer any coherent mechanism for the how and when supernatural intervention took place in the history of the evolution of life,…"
Why does it have to? Why isn't simply showing evidence of design enough?
"…and because such a thing is not at all verifiable or falsifiable."
You asked for something that could disprove ID. I provided it. You have ignored that and repeated your claim. That is not honest. It shows that your mind is made up and no evidence will change it. Okay, maybe you just missed it, but if that's the case it means that given that you challenged me on it then repeated the claim without checking that I'd answered the challenge, you're negligent.
"…if there is a God who made the universe and everything in it, there’s just no way that the human sciences of cosmology or biology or chemistry is going to be able to detect and say anything conclusively about that God or the nature of that God or how that God interacts with the world or any other such thing."
And yet those human scientists do just that—they claim, with certainty, that God didn't do any such thing.
"…science is the study of the natural world and is never going to be a study (or should not be regarded as such) which affirms nor denies those beliefs."
And yet those scientists do deny those beliefs. With vigor. If they actually remained agnostic on it, I wouldn't be complaining about it.
I notice that you failed to address my evidence that evolution is unfalsifiable and is contrary to the evidence. And yet you dismiss ID on essentially those grounds.
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@pope9187
"it is most definitely not a literal, historical account,…"
Definitely? Why not?
"…or if a literal account it’s not at all accurate."
Ah, that's why. It can't be because you think it's inaccurate. That's not really a reason.
"…in the second one man os made first, then all the animals,…"
In English, the first mention normally says "then", which makes the order explicit. But that word is generally not present in the second mention, so the order has to be inferred.
I think this is a case of first assuming that they are different accounts, then looking for differences. If you assume that they are the one account, then you read that second mention of making the animals in the context of the first mention, and take it to be a reference to the animals already made. A number of translations do it this way, saying things like (my emphasis): "Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; "
"(is this supposed to be a literal historical account as well, a female made from a rib?)"
Why not? If God can do anything, including making a man from the dirt, making a woman from the man's rib would be a walk in the park. But also, the marrow of the rib bone is a good source of the DNA that God might have based Eve on. Plus, Adam's rib would grow back; taking a part from almost anywhere else would have left Adam with a defect for the rest of his life.
"Like are we to take all of it as literal? Even the part about the sky being a solid firmament which has windows open up when it’s time to rain?"
A 'firmament' is an old English word which doesn't mean something solid. But the Bible does use metaphors, phenomenological language, and other figures of speech, just as we do today, so not everything should be taken literally. But just as you read a news story today and it says that a person "passed away" rather than died, you know what should be taken literally and what is a euphemism, for example.
"…just look up Hebrew Bible cosmology and tell me that that’s an accurate representation of the world."
The Bible's cosmology is accurate, but is your understanding of the biblical cosmology accurate?
Regarding Barr, criticisms of the creation account fall into two categories: 1) it's wrong, and 2) It's not meant to be taken literally, but is poetry, metaphor, or etc. Your objection ("the account of Adam and Eve reading very clearly as figurative") falls into the second of those categories, so I provided Barr's quote that also addresses the second of those categories—he is an expert on the language and is saying that the language indicates that it's indented to be understood 'literally'. So not figuratively, for example. He's not saying whether it's correct. I would only use "compromised" in relation to someone who claims to believe the Bible but doesn't believe part of it because they think that the mainstream view is correct. I don't know if Barr claims to believe the Bible, so I wouldn't use the word 'compromised' of him.
"…literary scholars generally accept the fact that Genesis and various other early books of the Hebrew Bible where redacted and smoothed out by multiple Hebrew authors over a period of time, each if whom had varying agendas…"
Like who? Are you talking about the long-discredited Documentary Hypothesis? On the contrary, the Israelites treated the text with such great reverence as God's word that they would not dare alter it, and went to great lengths to ensure that they didn't accidentally do so.
"…do you literally regard like the genealogy accounts from the Gospels (two different genealogies btw) as accurate and that in accordance with the genealogy that traces back to Adam that the earth is about 6,000 years old?"
I'm not sure precisely what you are asking there. Everyone has multiple 'genealogies'—that's why they are known as family trees rather than family lines. So Jesus had one via Joseph and one via Mary. Two different ones are therefore not an issue. Secondly, it's not those that one uses to determine the age of the earth, as they don't include chronological information, unlike the genealogies in Genesis and other places. Third, Matthew was writing for Jews, and his genealogy is known to (probably deliberately) omit a few people. His purpose was apparently to show that Jesus was legally a descendant of King David. Luke was writing mainly to non-Jews, and his purpose was apparently to show to non-Jews that Jesus was a descendant of Adam.
"And that human beings in earlier times were able to live upward of 900 years?"
Humans were designed to live forever, so 900 years is rather short. So yes, I believe that.
"I mean, this is clearly not historically accurate,…"
Why not? Because it doesn't fit with your expectations?
"And to keep it short, I don’t have time to respond to everything, ..."
Understandable, but by doing so you've avoided addressing some key questions and points I made, in particular, why science should prioritise natural explanations over correct explanations, and the evidence that evolution is unfalsifiable. I'd like both of those addressed.
"…we already have a mechanism which demonstrates this, it’s evolution by natural selection."
First, I was referring to individual claims that the ID people (or creationists) put up as to how particular things (such as the blood clotting mechanism) could not occur naturally, not how variety in living things could occur naturally. Second, no, evolution doesn't demonstrate this at all. Natural selection only selects. It doesn't create new organs, processes, etc. And mutations, supposedly the thing that generates the novelty that natural selection then selects, only destroys genetic information; it doesn't create it. So no, evolution completely fails as a mechanism. Richard Dawkins was once asked to provide an example of a mechanism that generates that new information, and was unable to provide even one example.
"…the difference between “showing evidence of design,” which you’re suggesting ID is doing, and merely claiming design, which is what ID is actually doing."
Blatantly false. It's showing evidence of things that cannot be explained naturally. That is actual evidence of design.
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@pope9187
"I said it’s not at all accurate—yeah, that’s me saying that if you regard this story as literal, that’s wrong because it is not historically accurate."
Which was not the actual claim that you made (which was of it being figurative). But also, you haven't shown that it's not accurate. What's your evidence? By the way, a competing view is not evidence.
"I’m sure plenty of Romans took the Aeneid to be historically accurate, or plenty of Hindus have taken the Mahabharata to be historically accurate, and yet I don’t think that’s actually the case based on the historical record, least of all because of the highly literary and fantastical elements found in these texts."
A reason that doesn't apply in the case of the Bible. Except for your subjective opinion of what's "fantastical".
"I mean if I told you that the Mahabharata or the Bhagavad Gita was literal history, what kind mental gymnastics (which we be highly favorable to myself) could I not say that could not be said of the Genesis account of creation?"
I'm not familiar with those documents, so I couldn't provide specifics. But you've already mentioned the literary style, which doesn't apply in Genesis.
"I mean, do we have any historical evidence independent of the Bible that would support the creation account from Genesis?"
Yes, depending on just what you mean by that. There are, for example, stories from cultures from all around the world that agree with Genesis in various specific details (despite also having difference which can be attributed to the accounts being corrupted over time). For example, there is an Australian Aboriginal story that agrees on about a dozen details, including that the first woman was tempted to eat the produce of the tree that they'd been told they couldn't eat from.
"For goodness sake, the story includes a talking snake, this is a definitional hallmark of a fable."
No, it doesn't. It includes an incident in which Satan spoke through a snake on one occasion. There is nothing there to suggest that there was a snake that was in the habit of talking.
"We can twist and turn and say “well God can do anything, so he can make a woman from a rib”…"
Except that no twisting and turning is needed. That is simply a logical statement.
"We can say “well, if God wanted to allow Muhammad to fly to Medina from Mecca, that could very well have happened,” but that provides absolutely no evidence that would affirm that account as being true at all."
Yes, we could say that, and yes, that fact (that God could have) doesn't mean that it did happen. But then nobody claims that it did. If someone did claim that, we couldn't rule it out on the grounds that it's not possible. Which is what you're trying to do.
"And no, I never said anything about the documentary hypothesis,…"
That's okay. It was a question asking you after all.
"…but this still entails the fact that multiple writers contributed to the compilation of the Pentateuch,…"
Fact? What's factual about it? (I do, however, accept that claim in a very limited way.)
"…a view which is even more so discredited than the documentary hypothesis."
As I said, I accept that claim in a very limited way, but in what way is it discredited?
"…both Luke and Matthew purport to record the genealogy of the line of Joseph, one claiming that Joseph’s father is Heli, another claiming his father is Jacob…"
See the article "The genealogies of Jesus" by Lita Sanders.
"my real question was about the fact that if we were to add up all of the alleged ages of the people named in the genealogy given in Luke, we’d find that they only add up to about 6,000 years."
Luke doesn't give ages. And of course that 6,000 year period includes the 2,000 years since then!
"If we are to literally and historically regard Adam as an actual historical figure and the first human in existence, would this mean that the earth (or at least the human race) is only about 6,000 years old as well,..."
Using the ages given in the Genesis and other genealogies, then yes. Which is where that figure comes from.
"in spite of the scientific data which would contradict this."
There is no scientific data contradicting this. There is a competing view (the naturalistic one) that contradicts this. But a competing view is not scientific data nor evidence.
"So no, it’s not that the Genesis account doesn’t fit with my “expectations,” it doesn’t fit with any objectively verifiable historical or scientific account."
It doesn't fit with your expectations, because your expectations are based on that competing view. There is no objectively verifiable historical or scientific evidence that disagrees.
"I reject the idea of early humans living for over 900 years as the Bible records (which I would take more a a motif that is used to honor the reign of one’s purported ancestors)…"
How do you then explain the ages when they had their children? And why reject it in the first place other than it not meeting your competing-view-based expectations?
"…there’s simply no good reason to suspect this as being true…"
Other than it being recorded in a proven-reliable historical document, claimed, believed, and supported as being authored by God Himself.
"…but the question is whether this did historically occur,…"
Yes, you're right. That is the question.
"…and I see no evidence that would support such an extraordinary claim."
What, other than your (competing-view-based) expectations make it extraordinary? But there IS evidence, of the Bible itself, in the form of agreement in various details from other cultures, in support from genetics which fits with the biblical account (see the video"Origins: Noah’s Flood Genetics" or the article "Adam, Eve and Noah vs Modern Genetics" by Robert Carter), in geological evidence, and so on. Yes, those things are also explained by the competing view, so the question comes down to which view makes the most sense of the evidence, but my point at the moment is that there IS evidence.
"And I have already explained this 3 times now, ..."
And I have challenged it three times.
"...science is the study of the natural world and therefore it can only operate within a framework of methodological naturalism…"
You're still avoiding a direct answer to my questions. You could for example, say that 'science can only study the natural, but should not be dogmatic that the natural explanations are the correct ones', but then you'd have to concede that scientists are not doing that, and so are being deceptive. The point is, though, that you are avoiding the critical questions.
"…science is literally incapable of verifying supernatural claims."
Despite me providing evidence that that is a false claim? You've ignored the quote from Quinn. Why?
"If you want to invent or provide us with a study or a methodology that can coherently and concisely investigate the supernatural,…"
It seems that you're still failing to see the distinction that I made. In your previous sentence, you said that "science is literally incapable of verifying supernatural claims ", but you justify that by saying that it can't "investigate the supernatural ".
The supernatural can't be studied by science, but claims that involve a supernatural element potentially can be.
"And I’ve already given an example of how evolution can be falsified."
And I've shown it to be baseless. So you are simply repeating a refuted claim.
"I’ve also said that our understanding and our models will alter in accordance with the data—this has certainly occurred,…"
I never suggested otherwise. Particular details will be altered, but the overall claim is sacrosanct; it's not allowed to be falsified.
"And you’ve literally just proved that ID is in fact just an argument from ignorance, because to say “this cannot be (or rather, is not currently able to be) explained naturally”…"
So now you're inventing quotes from me? I did not say "is not currently able to be". That was you. I said "cannot be". My basis was that it's not from ignorance, but from knowledge.
"At this point, I think we’re very clearly not going to see eye to eye,…"
Really? 😛
"I still appreciate your perspective and your good mannered nature,…"
Thank you. And I hope you had a happy Christmas too.
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@jumpmasterpadre9335
"This is a nice and substantive reply and I appreciate it."
And I feel the same way in return.
"It is simply and logically inarguable/undisputed that most - if not all - states have violence in their history."
It's not logically inarguable, but in practice, yes, one would be extremely unlikely to find a state that doesn't have violence in its history.
"…an inept attempt to advance the failed philosophy of William of Ockham."
He was responsible for the principle known as Ockham's Razor, but what was his philosophy that you're referring to?
"My contention lies in the fact that violence by definition is the use of force to comply or submit an unwilling populace to conditions established outside of their approval, etc."
I consider that definition too broad for general use. Violence is normally considered to be doing someone physical injury (or death), and perhaps only unjustified injury. The definition you provide could include laws which are enforced by means of fines and/or imprisonment that do no physical injury.
"This is not how states exist."
The problem I have with that statement is that it's ambiguous. Why does America exist? Because (simplistically) people founded it. But that only explains why it began to exist, not why it still exists. Your explanation regarding a willing populace seems to apply more to the latter: why it continues to exist. At least that's the point your reference to Marxism is making of it.
"Western Civilization was not established by and through violence."
That's simplistic, as I'm sure that there would have been some violence involved somewhere along the line. But yes, in principle and mostly in practice, I can agree with that.
"Protestantism did NOT ADVANCE society further."
And yet numerous scholars would disagree with you. In fact you appear to disagree a bit, saying that "...many good things that have come out of Protestantism...". It was Protestants who abolished slavery (while acknowledging that popes had previously made moves in that direction). It was Protestants who spread democracy to various places (see the paper The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy by Robert Woodberry). It was Protestants who introduced universal education because they (unlike Catholics) wanted everybody to be able to read the Bible for themselves.
"…the roots of Western Civilization’s current demise are contained wholly within the tenets of Protestantism: essentially that “I” determine my own faith, belief and practice of religion."
I consider that claim to be simplistic, arbitrary, and wrong. It is simplistic in claiming that it's "wholly" because of that, when obviously there were other factors involved, including rebellion against God by atheists. It's arbitrary in selecting the Protestant stress of individual responsibility because one could equally make the case that it's due to the "Catholic" (i.e. pre-Protestant) belief in free will, which is the principle that we all have the capability of choosing things for ourselves. It's wrong in implying that Protestantism is a free-for-all where it's totally up to us, whereas Protestants give priority to what the Bible teaches, not what we want to believe for ourselves. It's also questionable in that a significant factor in Western Civilisation is capitalism, a system that is based on personal freedom to do what we want with our own capital, and yet the early development of capitalism occurred before the Reformation.
"Thus, there are literally thousands of denominations - nearly all of which claim their own authority and adhere to their own tenets."
That is a common anti-Christian or anti-Protestant claim, but is largely baseless. First, the statistic that is often cited is not denominations per se, but organisations. So the Victorian Baptists and New South Wales Baptists are counted as two, because they are different organisations. And by the same token, the Australian Catholic Church and the New Zealand Catholic Church are two different organisations, so are counted as two, not one. Second, it does not follow that they disagree on anything. They are simply different organisations, not necessarily disagreeing. Third, some of the disagreement that does exist is over church government and secondary issues, not over doctrine, especially of primary issues. So the Wesleyans and the Methodists, for example, might have the same doctrines, but the Wesleyans believe in local churches appointing their pastors whereas the Methodist pastors were appointed by the hierarchy. Fourth, many of those organisations were national ones. That is, missionaries from one or more denominational or non-denominational missions might start churches in a particular country, but when the churches in that country are strong enough, they form their own national church organisation(s) rather than be branches of the foreign ones that planted them. Again, not necessarily any doctrinal differences. Fifth, they don't claim their "own" authority, but consider the Bible to be their authority. Sixth, although they might have different (secondary) doctrinal views (e.g. baptism by full immersion or sprinkling), they don't consider adherents of other denominations to not be Christian. They recognise that not all people believe the same thing and accept that there are different views.
In summary, the supposed thousands of denominations, and the implied lack of agreement between them all, is largely misleading nonsense. (None of that is to deny that there are a relatively small number of exclusive groups that are the exceptions to the rule.)
"Martin Luther was a not by any account a holy man concerned with following God’s law."
Contrary to your subsequent claim of that being apparent from the supposed evidence, I would say that that is a baseless claim.
"The Enlightenment contained within it the very seeds of our current demise - this is historical fact and has been stated by our very Founding Fathers."
That may well be so, but the so-called Enlightenment was taken over by atheists, and that is where the blame lies.
"The Catholic Church, beginning with the writing of Saint Augustine and early Monasticism established by Saint Benedict is the very foundation and skeletal-musculature from which our history has enjoyed the greatest fruits."
No, the Bible is. Which was the Catholic church's basis. Agnostic historian Tom Holland attributes it primarily to the writings of Paul (although of course Paul based it on Jesus and the then Scriptures, along with teaching from Peter and the other elders in the church). See the YouTube video "Tom Holland tells NT Wright: Why I changed my mind about Christianity"
"From this we have: [snipped]"
Yes, but all that shows is what I've already acknowledged, that "…the Catholic Church created much of the basis for Western Civilisation…"
"…hospitals,…"
As a Protestant, I would say that (public) hospitals were started by the early church (true), before it could be legitimately called the "Catholic" (capital C) church. Certainly before it could be called the "Roman" Catholic Church, i.e. before the east/west split.
"Just War - not the ridiculous abuses of the M-I complex we know today,..."
I can't think what "M-I" refers to, but one of the lines of argument you're taking is drawing a distinction between Catholicism and post-modernism or post-Christianity, not between Catholicism and Protestantism. On those sorts of issues, Protestants are on the same side as Catholics. This modern stuff is not from Protestantism, but from Marxism, a form of atheism.
"When the “I” is THE authority,…"
Which it's not (in Protestantism).
"…and the “I” determines Scriptural interpretation and thus application,…"
And that's not accurate either. Protestantism rejects the idea that Scripture can only be properly understood by the pope and his priests. One defining distinction is sola scriptura, that the Bible, not the church, is the authority (so not "I" either). The Bible is God's infallible Word; the church is composed of fallible humans. It does not say that interpretation is individual so much as not being the exclusive property of the (one) church. It's more of a checks-and-balances type thing, where if the church states one thing, others are allowed to challenge it. That is, challenge that the church's interpretation is an accurate one. But the same applies to Protestant churches—they can be challenged as well. Of course any such challenge must be based in Scripture, not on one's personal beliefs.
"However, Our Lord has promised that the Church will endure, as it has for over 2000 years since Matthew 16:13-20."
Well true, but we would differ on whether "the Church" is the Catholic Church or the entire body of Christians (again, pointing to a unity, even if that's in a diversity of organisations and of secondary views).
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@joshkay411
"of course a persons health can be negatively effected by non physical things,"
Thanks for implicitly conceding that your argument, which was based on that, fails.
"I would argue that the huge majority of these negative effects are caused by the societal ostracisation of the transgender community, caused by people like yourself, and not caused by the gender affirming surgery itself."
And I would argue differently, that is is caused by people continually telling the transgender community that they are ostracised. The fact that people disagree with transgenderism as being not reality-based (as I do) does not mean that I ostracise the people themselves. That they keep being told that lie is probably a big part of the problem.
"of course there will be individuals who regret their decisions regarding surgery, as there are with every single major surgical procedure one can undertake, "
Generally that's not true with necessary surgery, only optional surgery. Why regret what was necessary?
"but it is a long and complicated process to undergo a lifestyle change like gender affirmation, needing a specialist diagnosis for gender dysphoria,"
I guess that's why you now have doctors and others affirming people's choices the moment that they see them, including having laws against trying to tell them that they don't need to change, as pointed out in the video.
"...so there would be plenty of time for the majority of people that have second thoughts to change their mind."
But why would they change their mind if they are prevented from hearing any view other than that they should go ahead with it?
"it would be because of the existing biases and pressures from the society in which they exist, that cause the transgender community to have such high suicide rates,"
No, it would not be that, by itself at least. The mainstream media, social media, governments, education system, and most politicians all affirm transgender people. The most-discriminated-against religious group in the world is Christianity, but you don't see Christians committing suicide at anything like the rates of people with gender dysphoria. There's obviously another factor in play, which in my opinion is likely to be the cognitive dissonance of believing that they are something that they aren't.
"...with 41% of transgender people experiencing a hate crime in 2018..."
I'll give that figure some credence when I'm convinced that "hate crime" doesn't include people simply disagreeing with them.
"It would be wrong to blame the suicide rate on sexual affirmation surgery."
Given that the high suicide rate is apparent before surgery, I'll agree with you on that point. But then I think his point was that it doesn't go down after surgery.
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