AJ
You appear to be a reasoning man, so tell me, we know that if we put all the parts for a Blown Chevy into a box, put the box on a perpetual device and tumble it for a million year that the parts will grind themselves in dust, they will never come out of the box as an engine with a Blower atop it.

And yet you believe life, in every one of it's formes, sea, air and on the ground formed themselves, perfectly formed for their circumstances? And then for every male, a female formed at exactly the same instant in time and the Earth exploded into existence from nothing?

The Creation itself screams for a designer/creator and the evidence surrounds you and you, willfully, refuse to see what is infront f your eyes.

Welcome to the forum, th1b.taylor.

I don’t usually welcome new posters to the forum, because they’re often just sock puppets or re-incarnations of older previous posters. I can tell that this isn’t the case with you, however, because the points you’ve raised are basic ones that I have addressed many times over the years. Why, I just addressed your first point last week:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=19189#341060

You’ll forgive me if I’m brief, though, won’t you? I don’t have much time for creationists anymore. I’ve done the evolution-creation debate to death, and it is exceedingly obvious that creationists have absolutely nothing.

<<… we know that if we put all the parts for a Blown Chevy into a box, put the box on a perpetual device and tumble it for a million year that the parts will grind themselves in dust, they will never come out of the box as an engine with a Blower atop it.>>

Yes, but nature doesn’t do that with chemicals or life. This is in no way analogous to abiogenesis or evolution. All this demonstrates is that you do not understand either field of science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf62sE

<<And yet you believe life, in every one of it's formes, sea, air and on the ground formed themselves, perfectly formed for their circumstances?>>

No, I don’t believe they formed themselves. They evolved over billions of years guided by the process of natural selection. Furthermore, they are far from perfect. Take the many flaws in the human body, for example…

<<And then for every male, a female formed at exactly the same instant in time …>>

Where do evolutionary biologists make such a claim? Clearly you have no idea how evolution works.

<<… and the Earth exploded into existence from nothing?>>

No, it was formed by gravity and collisions involving increasingly large bodies of elements.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/earth_timeline/earth_formed

<<The Creation itself screams for a designer/creator and the evidence surrounds you and you, willfully, refuse to see what is infront f your eyes.>>

This is the Watchmaker fallacy. If everything is designed, then how can you tell what is and what is not designed?

AJ Philips,

You ask: <<Quoting the Bible isn’t very good evidence. How do you know the Bible is right?>>

It's superb evidence because both OT and NT have been demonstrated to be reliable documents by highly qualified researchers.

F F Bruce, "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?" (online)
Craig Blomberg, "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels". There is a helpful article online with this same title by Patrick Zukeran.
Kenneth Kitchen, "On the Reliability of the Old Testament".

An example from F F Bruce demonstrates how archaeology has confirmed the authenticity of the NT:

"Other New Testament incidents have been illuminated by archaeological discoveries in and around Jerusalem. The pool of Bethesda, described in John v. 2, has been located in the northeast quarter of the old city of Jerusalem, the quarter which was called Bezetha, or 'New Town', in the first century AD. In 1888 excavations near St. Anne's Church, in that quarter, revealed the remains of an ancient church building. Beneath this lay a crypt, with its north wall divided into five compartments in imitation of arches; on this wall there could also be distinguished traces of an old fresco representing the angel troubling the water. Clearly those who built this structure believed that it marked the site of the pool of Bethesda. And subsequent excavations below the crypt showed that they were right; a flight of steps was uncovered leading down to a pool with five shallow porticoes on its north side, directly underneath the five imitation arches on the north wall of the crypt. There are few sites in Jerusalem, mentioned in the Gospels, which can be identified so confidently".

Your denigration of the Bible as "good evidence" is based on your anti-Bible presuppositions that do not want to have Christianity affirmed as a an historical religion that is NOT a fairy tale or fiction.

I stated: "Christianity is an historical religion that is supported by many historical facts". Your response was, <<Please, do tell>>

Read the 3 books named above that are loaded with historical facts about Christianity and Judaism in OT & NT.

AJ Philips,

th1b.taylor wrote: "and the Earth exploded into existence from nothing?"

Your response was: <<No, it was formed by gravity and collisions involving increasingly large bodies of elements.>>

So the earth was formed by gravity. Who made the gravity for the earth to be created?

The earth was formed by collisions of large bodies of elements, you say. Where did the 'elements' come from?

Your arguments are futile here as your explanations have holes in them that are so big a planet could be blown through them. It is not sound evidence to say that the earth can be formed from elements that have already been created and you don't identify the creator of gravity and other elements.

You eventually have to go back to someone or something that created the first atom.

On the contrary, OzSpen, the Bible appears to be terribly inaccurate.

<<It's superb evidence because both OT and NT have been demonstrated to be reliable documents ...>>

There is no evidence for the creation story, the flood, the exodus, or damn near any event described in the Bible.

But even if the Bible were historically reliable, one cannot therefore be justified in believing that any of the reported miracles happened, which is what I’m primarily concerned with.

<<An example from F F Bruce demonstrates how archaeology has confirmed the authenticity of the NT: …>>

Yeah, and New York exists too, but that doesn’t mean Spiderman is real.

That the Bible describes some real places and events in history is hardly surprising, and anything that could qualify as a god would understand this. So, what does that say for a god who relies on copies of copies of translations of copies of books written by anonymous authors, with no originals?

It certainly doesn’t sound like a god who has an important message and wants to share it.

<<Your denigration of the Bible … is based on your anti-Bible presuppositions that do not want to have Christianity affirmed as a an historical religion ...>>

That’s rather presumptuous of you. Particularly for someone who hasn’t provided any reliable reason to accept the central claims of the Bible. I have no reason to cling to disbelief. Disbelief cannot be an emotional crutch the way religious belief clearly is to many.

<<Who made the gravity for the earth to be created?>>

Why do you assume it was a ‘who’?

<<Where did the 'elements' come from?>>

I don’t know. They may be eternal. ‘Nothing’ may be impossible. What I do know, however, is that it is irrational to assume that a god must’ve done it.

There is nothing wrong with tentatively saying ‘I don’t know.’ In fact, such a position leaves me open to finding or accepting evidence-based answers instead of closing myself off to real answers by assuming that I already have them all.

You are fallaciously appealing to ignorance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

AJ Philips,

You and I both look at the same facts from the past and the present, but all of those facts are viewed in the present. We come to different conclusions. Why is that? Interpretation of these facts is based on the presuppositions of our worldviews.

My presuppositions are based on "fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom" (Ps 111:10) and "the person without the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. These things are foolish to them. They can’t understand them. In fact, such things can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help" (1 Cor 2:14).

You wrote: <<There is no evidence for the creation story, the flood, the exodus, or damn near any event described in the Bible>>.

That's your assertion. Duane Gish has provided "a Summary of Scientific Evidence for Creation ( Part 1 & II)". There is evidence for creation but you don't want to accept it. It's not because of lack of evidence.

As for Noah's flood, creationist scientists have provided "startling evidence for Noah's flood" (Snelling & Austin).

Archaeologist, William Albright, has refuted your view of no evidence for the Exodus:

"Perfecting modern excavation techniques, [William] Albright and others discovered cities in Judah whose destruction layers seemed to support the biblical accounts of the Babylonian exile. Pottery inscriptions revealed the existence of a Sea People called the Philistines. And thirteenth-century devastation layers at a site believed to be biblical Bethel were interpreted by Albright's student G. Ernest Wright to be the work of Joshua's army.

"Eventually, even many liberal scholars began to accept the general outline of biblical history proposed by the "Albright-Wright synthesis." So influential in the middle years of this [20th] century was their biblical archaeology, as it came to be called, that as recently as 1981 Old Testament scholar John Bright could state, "There can really be little doubt that ancestors of Israel had been slaves in Egypt and had escaped in some marvelous way. Almost no one today would question it." ("Did the Exodus Never Happen?" Kevin Miller)