No. They didnt know that the earth was a sphere, but God knew. But the references to the "ends of the earth" and the "four corners" still retain their inspired meanings, regardless of the shape of the earth. They simply refer to the four directions.

At least we agree now that it makes sense to assume that the authors of the Bible did not know.

So... the only reason the text makes some sort of sense now, is because we've changed it's original most likely interpretation.

If God meant wind directions, why didn't he said so? Being more specific in this case would clarify a lot. I take it in all his wisdom "God" decided it would be best for the people to stay ignorant a little bit longer or something?

I think it's a classic example of knowledge that got lost and was discovered/reinvented on a later date again. After all, the Sumerians knew a lot about earth, stars and so on, so did the Egyptians. I'm quite sure the shepherds of Israel simply didn't understand when they tried to copy the texts as in the Sumerian myths there's a lot more information about moving stars and the rebirth of the sun and so on,

Cheers

It has been posted a hundrets times now. Fossils is a proof for example. When did they live? The darwin finch is a proof and not a mood. It is fact, it exists. You can observate them. My poodle example is still a proof at least for me.

There is absolutely no proof for the existance of god. No fingerprint, no trousers, nothing. You still have to believe in his existance. Means there is also no proof for the earth is godmade and just a few thousand years old. Not a single one.

Thousands of provable facts exists about Evolution theory. And nobody was yet able to disprove it. Nobody. Saying it is not true is not disproving it.

Let's throw in a few new arguments. How do creationists explain the existance of rudiments? When there is no evolution why does a whale have degenerated feet bones then?

Or how do you explain that sometimes the fly drosophila is born with four wings instead two? Hey, that's mutation

How does the continental drift fit to creationism?

again, i'm not claiming the bible teaches a spherical world. i'm saying that the bible teaches neither, and that it doesn't matter, as opposed to Tiles' argument that Christianity's full of rubbish because to be true Christians we must think the earth is flat.

here's another way to look at "from the four corners of the earth": is it talking about what's specifically at each of those four corners, or what's between them? the purpose of the illustration is what's between the corners, not at them. it's not uncommon for people to describe exploring to "the ends of the earth". does the earth have ends? no.

furthermore, a flat circular earth wouldn't have corners either. you're arguing that the authors of the bible presume to teach the shape of the earth, and i'm saying they don't care what the earth looks like. which do you really think it is given that inconsistency?

and again, that was clearly an illustration. it's simply saying that God spread the heavens over all the earth.

i can't believe people would actually argue that the bible's authors teach that the earth is flat based on illustrations and ridiculously common expressions.

julz

EDIT:
who ever said there's no mutation? no micro-evolution?

and what's wrong with continental drift and creationism?

nothing.

Yes, but the Earth has a reletively circular orbit, not an elliptical one. Due to the extreme distances then (it takes 8 minutes just for the first light of day to reach Earth) there's less than 1% change during the course of the orbit. Even that 1% has major changes however, that's how we get summer/winter. Imagine if the Earth was closer to the sun we would hav everlasting summer of the most extreme desert kind. The sime goes vice verca.



No they did not know. They probably thought the Earth was flat, but here the Bible doesn't teach the Earth is flat. It simply uses a metaphore, the same one a modern author would use in a sentance like "he searched the ends of the Earth for th lost treasure..." It means "the entire Earth."



Take note that they're called Darwin's finches. Not Darwin's finch and some-bird-that-evolved-from-finches. They are all still finches. No macroevolution took place.
As for the poodle example, that goes to show man's stubbornness. I disprove something you say supports evolution, but you still hold on to it as 'proof'. And you call yourselves scientific?



Don't be absurd. Do you really think God would have fingerprints? Trousers? Do you think He's a huamn? Just goes to show how little you understand what you are talking about. But yes, you still have to have faith that He exists. But frankly, you need more faith to believe in the series of coincidences called Evolution.



You quote your teacher "evolution is a proven fact" but do you know for yourself what the proofs are and if they're logical? Or did you just hop on the evolution bandwagon. And yes, people have disproven it before. What do you think I'm doing now? Also don't assume I'm trying to disprove it simply by saying it's not true. I'm giving scientific facts.



I'm not sure what rudiments are. They're unused organs correct?



Whales do not have degenerated foot bones. See quote below.

Quoting the New York Times:


It's not a foot, it's what looks like a hind limb. And if it had anything to do with Evolution whales would either a)lost the limb due to evolving or b) still have the hind limb, but evolve it away later. That is not the case.
I'm constantly repeating myself in saying 'that is not the case'. It never is.



I don't see how it relate to creationism or evolution in any way.


Now that I've answered everything you've thrown at me (I'll talk about rudiments when I learn more about them) why don't you guys start? Before yakking on about Evolution being true exiplain the below form an evolutionary standpoint.

--From my prev. posts--

1. How do you explain the amino acids I talked about?

2. How do you explain the similarities/differences between species' cytochrome C?
Note: cytochrome C is used as an example because it exists in all species.

3. How can you believe the extreme coincidences evolution teaches, even if billions of years were involved? (Even Earth's age is debatable actually)

--New stuff--

4. Watch the video below:


Do you really think the ability to do this kind of thing just happened?

5. Even if the first living organisms came about by chance (I'm not saying they did), say the fish slowly evolves into the frog. For one thing, with what could the frog mate? It couldn't. How then could the frog species continue to reproduce? And while the frog was trying to figure that out the fishes would multiply like crazy, with no natural predators, no fisherman, sharks etc. There would be billions of fish to one frog. That would also be the case if the frog evolved into a reptile. There would be billions of frogs (goodness knows how many fish there would be now) to one reptile. That would go on and on and the Earth would simply not be able to support all those animals.

6. The fundamental parts of an animal's DNA that define it as that animal never change. The physical/mental diversity we see today in humans and certain animals is due to the fact that certain code that determines eyecolor, haircolor, height weight, bone density and so on can be changed during the reproductive process when the chromosomes split with cell division, not mutation. Mutation can change those fundamental parts of the DNA but that code is very intricately set up. ANY kind of change, even if minor, results in a deformed, short-living organism (even then it is still the same animal). I cannot find one single example where mutation has resulted in anything good. How do you evolutionists explain that?

7. If I asked you if something as reletively simple as a 1980 MS-DOS computer could come about by the materials coming together in the right place, you would call me a madman. Even a single-celled bacteria is many times more complex than even a modern computer, and yet you believe it simply happened?

8. Another common feature in nature is symbiosis. a for of symbiosis is mutualism where two or more animals are mutually helpful. One instance of mutualism is between the Oriental Sweetlips and the Blue-Streak Wrasse. The sweetlips is one of the many fish that have teeth. Teeth however need to be cleaned or they will rot. The Blue-Streak Wrasse is a tiny fish that actually swims into the mouth of the sweetlips and starts eating the gunk off its teeth. Without the blue-sreak wrasse the sweetlips would lose its teeth and thus the ability to feed, and so go die out. The blue-streak wrasse is very tiny so it can't find its own food, but relies on the sweetlips. One can not exist without the other but together they can.
How could the oriental sweetlips evolve teeth and the blue-streak wrasse evolve the instinct to swim into a bigger fish's mouth without fear, BOTH at the same time? It's not possible.
That's the kind of supposed 'coincidences' that will be Evolution's downfall. They are not coincidences at all. They are obvious indications of an intelligent being who came up with a well thought-out plan.

@PS3: just thought i'd say before the anti-creationists jump in -- summer and winter have to do with the tilt of the earth, not the earth's slightly elliptical orbit.

julz

*Jump*



LOL. Okay. But i hope you agree at least that the earth is round. Not this sure anymore

You don't have disproven my arguments. You have twisted it and you have ignored the parts that doesn't fit to your point of view.

Continental drift is another proof that the earth is a few billion years old. America fits perfectly to Africa. Shape, stonetype, fossils. They were once one piece. Well. You can measure how fast the continents drifts. And by that you can calculate back to the point when America was unioned with Africa. It may surprise you, but the result is a bit more than a few thousand years. Doesn't really fit to the Genesis



I cannot, you have left vital parts of that theory out. You just show the parts that fits to your point of view. That's why i couldn't answer to this argument, that's why i have left it out. I miss the whole story.

But even when you would be true at that point, it may in the worst case proof parts of the evoltion theory wrong. Which would make it necessary to rewrite it. And it would be fixed then. Scientic theorys are not static like a holy word. They evolute from the good to the better. They got rewritten when parts of it gets proven wrong.



Well, coincindence happens coincindental. What is there to believe? I know it happened. I can see the species around me. Shall we kill all lottery winners now to proof your argument true that there is no coincidence? Shall we kill all mathmagicians? Evil men they are ...



Depends of what you mean with just happened. It evoluted to that point. There was not nothing, then genius. Even this guy needed to learn to play his instrument. And even his instrument evoluted from the first instruments to this fiddle. Even a melody is a process of evolution. Classical music is a enhanced product of earlier medieval music. And earlier medieval music a product of even older and simpler melodys. You can follow how it has become more complex over the ages.

This example here is more a proof for evolution



What are you talking about here? There is not just one species evoluting. And there is not just one age where all happens at once. Well, yeah, you are indeed in trouble to explain it with just a few thousand years of age for the whole world.

You miss a whole chapter of earth changes, comet impacts, that more than once nearly the whole life died. You miss whole fossil series of not longer missing links that shows how a species evoluted. Chapters that are written in stone. Provable. Measurable.

Every aquaristic knows the mudskipper. The missing link between fish and land animal. And everybody that has seen an embryo before already has seen where humans comes from, evolutionwise. At least i wonder why a lung breather needs amniotic fluid.



Again a mixture of facts, half true things and wrong things.

Even the first sentence is wrong. Every bisexual reproduction is change. You mix genes, you don't reproduce them one by one as you would do with a bacteria. Which by the way perfectly fits to the original topic. Bacterias are indeed made that the code gets copied one to one. But now it has changed under the eyes of scientists. Not deformed, fully functional. There is your example

Scientists were possible to turn on a gene to give a worm the ten times higher life span. It's a mutation, it is not deformed, fully functional, and lives longer. There is your next example

I could go on with what i have started. There are thousands of facts waiting. Ignoring the facts or twisting them doesn't make them less valid.

Give me just ONE provable fact that the earth is just a few thousand years old. One's enough. Then i may go on with the discussion. As it is now it simply makes no sense. All that happens here is twisting words and facts so that they finally fits to throw evolution theory to death. Which doesn't automatically make the Genesis true by the way.

Time to quote Galileo Galilei at that place. The earth IS moving.

I am glad you corrected that, anybody can make incorrect statements, none of us are completely correct all the time. But that dosn't nullify the point.
It all boils down to evidence of design. To reject the conclusion that arises from this undeniable design is to reject the very foundation of the conclusions reached in many branches of science.

Here is another difficulty that I have with evolution.
For evolution to be true (I am not saying it is or it isn't. I simply don't believe it)
For evolution to be true, that would mean that in-animate elements/compounds came together somehow to form amino acids. Those amino acids somehow came together to form proteins. Many different varieties of proteins somehow came togeter to form the first living organism. The so called "simple cell". If ever there was a gross understatement its that one. "The simple cell".

Anyway, I digress.
I cannot logically comprehend any other way that varies too much from that sequence of events. Further, that process must have taken some considerable amount of time.
Everything that I know and understand about chemistry (I am not a chemist, but it is an interrest) says that is impossible.

Science has proven that it is possible to randomly produce amino acids, yes.
But those amino acids are quickly broken down again by ultraviolet light.
Evolutionary theorist try to overcome that difficulty by placing the amino acids into water. A "biological soup" as it were.

It is a scientifically observable fact that water is a destroyer of more complex chemicals, let alone amino acids. Amino acids would simply not hold their structure long enough to form proteins and if amino acids wouldn't survive long enough then proteins would have absolutely no chance.

Single celled organisms can and do survive in water, how?
The have a protective membrane to keep the water out.
What is that protective membrane made from?
Proteins! what are proteins made from? Amino acids!

The only way that we know that amino acids can be assembled into proteins is in the cells of living organisms. They are just too complex to come about in any other way.

Now we have a chicken and egg problem.
You need a cell to make proteins
You need proteins to make the protective membrane to surround the cell so it can assemble amino acids to make proteins to make more cells.
So which came first. The cell or the protein.
Can't have been the protein because it can't exist outside of a living cell.
Can't have been the cell because you need proteins to make the cell.

There is only one answer that I can think of. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The answer. Both the proteins and the cell came into existence in the same millisecond.

Sorry guys, I have extreme difficulty in beliving in anything but creation.
I am just an average guy of average intelligence but I have spent 35 years deeply considering this issue (I am 53). I was not always a creationist. In fact I used to be an evolutionist. As I stated earlier, I am forced to conclude, there is a creator. I accept the possibilty that I am wrong. I believe it is simply impossible to absolutely proove creation. But I can tell you that I have seen nothing here to re convert me back to evolution.
A house without solid foundations simply cannot stand.

Creation is proven to me by exclusion
Evolution can't be true so it must be creation

As told, the evolution doesn't happen one by one. Evolution happens at the same time. Think about a bloom where every insect has access to. Now think about variations. That one bloom has a smaller shape so that one insect race has better access than another. Now think that this insect race can do the job of pollination best. Means the blooms with smaller size gets polled most. Doesn't that lead to the whole population of this plant becomes smaller blooms then?

Let's have a look at your sweetlip. Not cultivated teeth not automatically rot. But obviously cultivated teeth lives longer. And so does its holder. Which means a fish with cultivated teeth has an advantage against a fish with not cultivated teeth. I can just imagine how it started that one fish cleans the teeth of another. But it started at one point. Maybe with eating parasites, then specialize to the teeth. And i can see how it works now. Both fishes benefit. Surviving of the fittest at that point. And again i can see evolution, not a god at work. No need for a big brother at no point



Tons of evidences for Evolution theory. NO evidence for creation. Not a single one. Okay, you won

So I take it that you dont see design in living organisms or the way the universe works?
Or that the existence of proteins is impossible outside of the cell?

Those are honest questions, I am not trying to be smart with you.
As I said I used to be an evolutionist so I understand the arguments, I do.
Im no longer convinced by them however. I see it as smoke and mirrors....sorry

I orriginally posted into this thread to make the point that to state that the article is a proof for evolution is to grossly overstate what the evidence shows. Regardless of how much evidence anyone else claims, for or against evolution/creation, that statement, I feel is still true. It prooves adaptation (or micro evolution as another poster called it).....Yes. But it prooves evolution.....No way.
In a court of law it would be called circumstantial evidence and thrown out.
Not that a court of law is always correct, but the point remains, it is not proof.
By the way, good to see you here Tiles, I see you have returned as I have (at least for now, probably forever)