jaybird18c

That’s not what I meant. What I was referring to is the fact that God sees your thought life and not just your actions. When you die, you will be judged according to His standard of righteousness and not societies or the person standing next to you. Religion has nothing to do with being good in the way you’re describing. Religion in and of itself can only lead to a form of self-righteousness which will be useless on the Day of Judgment. The born-again Christian who walks into a bank and decides not to rob it does not refrain primarily because it is against God’s law and he fears punishment (although, that is a very good reason not to). The born-again Christian doesn’t rob the bank because his nature has been changed, his conscience bears witness, and he desires to act more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

Here's the real problem: You don't want to believe. Because, if you did, then you'd be accountable to what it says. You'd be accountable to a God who has laws. You could no longer just do what you want with no consequences or accountability to anyone other than yourself. That goes against our nature (our fallen nature, that is). That's why the Bible says that we actively "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." As it is, you stand guilty before a thrice holy God and there are consequences for your actions either in this life or in eternity when you die. That is an inconvenient truth that someone would rather forget, ignore, or deny rather than face.

No serious examination of an ancient literary work is performed in the careless, non-contextual, broadstroke manner you seem to want to apply to the books of the Bible. The Bible is a collection of books and, taken together, is a progressive revelation of God's plan of salvation for His people throughout history. Context is everything. The laws, for example, do not all apply to us. Would you read a contemporary history of law describing the different laws of the major nations in the world and apply those specific to Russia to us? The Civil laws of the Nation of Israel, for example, only apply to the Nation of Israel. The purpose for the ceremonial type laws were fulfilled in Christ's work on the cross and the moral laws of God, of course, still apply to everyone today (not in the work-righteous sense but in the perfect righteous standard for salvation sense.)

Is There Really Evidence that Man Descended from the Apes? NOT a very good track record.

The Problem with Australopithecus sediba All depends on one's worldview.

I disagree with your premise ("given" inaccuracies, changes, mistranslations, we should distrust). Those might account for less than a percent of the whole, there is no evidence that any of it was done with intent to deceive, and none affects the fundamental doctrines of the faith. Also, the original manuscripts are inerrant, not necessarily everything in the KJV translation (that's not one of the versions, by the way, that I rely on for study). A more scholarly (word for word) translation into English would be the NAS or ESV. Besides, infallibility means that the Bible does not err in any of its affirmations. It does not mean that a KJV translator can’t make an error in usage or omission. But again, there is no evidence of any widespread translational dishonesty and those very few discrepancies account for a miniscule portion of the whole. In this way, the vast number of translations themselves gives much credibility to the accuracy of the Bible. The Bible is the most scrutinized work in history because of what’s at stake. It is trustworthy. I believe it was said that approximately 95% of the New Testament could be reproduced from the Dead Sea Scrolls alone. There is no other ancient work in existence with as much textual and historical evidence as the Bible.

Observational Science vs. Historical Science

So what we have is one group stating that they’re right and have a consensus while discounting the opposition and declaring them not to be qualified because they do not agree. That doesn’t sound very scientific. Those people are as qualified as you to speak on the subject. Their findings are based on presuppositions as are yours. Many of the things discussed are not provable based on experimentation. It is speculative, improvable, and grounded in the overall assumption that God does not exist….yet….presented as foundational truth. Answers Research Journal Of course, those who deny their own presupposition foundation and refuse to examine anything to the contrary will disapprove. The condescending commentary (moonbeams, etc.) is unnecessary and does nothing to disprove their stance. That’s what it really boils down to, doesn’t it? You want to live your life how you want. Once there “is” a God who created you and everything around you, then the realization that you are accountable to Him and subject to His laws comes front and center. It’s easier to rationalize Him out of the picture and come up with another explanation (any explanation but God). What you fail to admit is that your belief in atheistic evolution and naturalism is every bit as dogmatic as the religious person’s stance.

Wow. Have you seen an ultrasound?

Evidence of Horizontal Gene Transfer

Why not cite the scientists from Answers in Genesis? They clearly demonstrate that there is not consensus on the subject. Gene Duplication

Evolution Refuted

I do understand the need to make it all work out, however, with the magical factor of millions of years. Too much is at stake. The entire framework for the prevailing atheistic/naturalistic worldview that has been fostered and "established" as fundamental to the understanding and study of biology must be protected at all costs. It has become the golden calf of the majority of the scientific community (since the "Enlightenment").

You're focusing on me instead of the topic of conversation.

Just to review what was said: Variability and natural selection were described in the statement above. It was then implied that more sophistication could develop over long periods of survivability. There was no mention of mutation. I responded with this: ***Reproduction occurs and genes are passed along to offspring. Some offspring receive traits which give them a survival advantage in a particular environment. Those genes keep getting passed along and the organism becomes more specialized for its environment. The other offspring, without the genetic advantages, tend to die off. The specialization leads to a net loss of genetic information. This is the exact opposite situation needed for an organism to increase in complexity. It is in fact de-evolution in the NDT evolution sense of the term. Variation occurs and gives a survival advantage to some. We can see that. However, that is not the kind of change you’re looking for in order for molecules-to-man “evolution” to take place. I’ll use one quote to describe what you’re trying to do with natural selection. “You can’t lose a little money on every sale and expect to make it up in volume.” Even modern evolutionists (New Darwinian Theory) don’t agree with what you said. They had to add random mutation combined with natural selection and billions of years in order to make it work. Natural selection is not a creative process. It conserves those traits of the “fittest” and discards those of the “weak” (e.g. loss of information). Those original traits cannot be recovered, even in part, unless you were able to cross-breed them back with some that didn’t die off. Even then, you’d still be working with a quantifiable amount of information that you began with. Nothing would exist by which you could build in complexity to “the next level.” Now, the mutation and millions of years is another argument but you’re going to need something else that what you’re describing with natural selection. Most mutations are destructive in nature. Some mutations, however, (e.g. bacterial resistance) may in fact give a survival advantage; however, that is also a net loss of meaningful information. Survivability and specialization does not equate to increase in complexity. Even with the bacterial example, the bacteria has mutated and “lost” the ability to respond to the antibiotic. It may prolong its line but it cannot do anything to make it “change” into something else altogether. Again, you’re back to where we started…simply variation and specialization within a kind. In the end, it’s still just a bacterium.

Reproduction occurs and genes are passed along to offspring. Some offspring receive traits which give them a survival advantage in a particular environment. Those genes keep getting passed along and the organism becomes more specialized for its environment. The other offspring, without the genetic advantages, tend to die off. The specialization leads to a net loss of genetic information. This is the exact opposite situation needed for an organism to increase in complexity. It is in fact de-evolution in the NDT evolution sense of the term. Variation occurs and gives a survival advantage to some. We can see that. However, that is not the kind of change you’re looking for in order for molecules-to-man “evolution” to take place. I’ll use one quote to describe what you’re trying to do with natural selection. “You can’t lose a little money on every sale and expect to make it up in volume.” Even modern evolutionists (New Darwinian Theory) don’t agree with what you said. They had to add random mutation combined with natural selection and billions of years in order to make it work. Natural selection is not a creative process. It conserves those traits of the “fittest” and discards those of the “weak” (e.g. loss of information). Those original traits cannot be recovered, even in part, unless you were able to cross-breed them back with some that didn’t die off. Even then, you’d still be working with a quantifiable amount of information that you began with. Nothing would exist by which you could build in complexity to “the next level.” Now, the mutation and millions of years is another argument but you’re going to need something else that what you’re describing with natural selection.

Wrong. Will post more in a while when I get back.

How often do I cut and paste or link something? I understand... Rationalization is the key.

The Force is weak with you.

You mean like the YouTube video posted by jclalor? What's the difference?

I watched the entire thing and no...NOVA's "unbiased documentary" did not make its case. For reasons mentioned in the above article. Similarity in building materials does not solve the problem. Entertaining drama in the video...but little substance.

And what blows their mind even more is that our God is personal. Every invisible friend is personal. Try again. Do you ever have anything of substance to add to the conversation. I admit, your grammer is superb but it still amounts to a whole lot of nothing. Kind of like having a bucket of sand at the beach. You know... ......so what?

Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution. ‘Irreducible complexity’ is the battle cry of Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University, author of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. As a household example of irreducible complexity, Behe chooses the mousetrap—a machine that could not function if any of its pieces were missing and whose pieces have no value except as parts of the whole. What is true of the mousetrap, he says, is even truer of the bacterial flagellum, a whiplike cellular organelle used for propulsion that operates like an outboard motor. The proteins that make up a flagellum are uncannily arranged into motor components, a universal joint, and other structures like those that a human engineer might specify. The possibility that this intricate array could have arisen through evolutionary modification is virtually nil, Behe argues, and that bespeaks intelligent design. [SA 84] Indeed, it does (see diagram below). Bacterial flagellum with rotary motor, with the following features: Self assembly and repair Water-cooled rotary engine Proton motive force drive system Forward and reverse gears Operating speeds of up to 100,000 rpm Direction reversing capability within 1/4 of a turn Hard-wired signal transduction system with short-term memory [from Bacterial Flagella: Paradigm for Design, video, ] He makes similar points about the blood’s clotting mechanism and other molecular systems. Yet evolutionary biologists have answers to these objections. First, there exist flagellae with forms simpler than the one that Behe cites, so it is not necessary for all those components to be present for a flagellum to work. The sophisticated components of this flagellum all have precedents elsewhere in nature, as described by Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University and others. [SA 84] Miller is hardly the epitome of reliability. Behe has also responded to critics such as Miller.7 In fact, the entire flagellum assembly is extremely similar to an organelle that Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague bacterium, uses to inject toxins into cells. [SA 84] This actually comes from the National Center for Science Education’s misuses of the research of Dr Scott Minnich, a geneticist and associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho. He is a world-class expert on the flagellum who says that belief in design has given him many research insights. His research shows that the flagellum won’t form above 37°C, and instead some secretory organelles form from the same set of genes. But this secretory apparatus, as well as the plague bacterium’s drilling apparatus, are a degeneration from the flagellum, which Minnich says came first although it is more complex.8 The key is that the flagellum’s component structures, which Behe suggests have no value apart from their role in propulsion, can serve multiple functions that would have helped favor their evolution. [SA 84] Actually, what Behe says he means by irreducible complexity is that the flagellum could not work without about 40 protein components all organized in the right way. Scientific American’s argument is like claiming that if the components of an electric motor already exist in an electrical shop, they could assemble by themselves into a working motor. However, the right organization is just as important as the right components. The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. [SA 84] Minnich points out that only about 10 of the 40 components can be explained by co-option, but the other 30 are brand new. Also, the very process of assembly in the right sequence requires other regulatory machines, so is in itself irreducibly complex. Irreducible complexity

And what blows their mind even more is that our God is personal.

Except for the 'irreducible complexity' of that intelligent mind, of course. Yeah, so very reasonable. As opposed to?... At least I have an unmoved mover. You're grasping at straws out of thin air. Reasonable?