On Creationism

Way back in 1996 Behe published a book, Darwin's Black Box , claiming that so-called "Irreducibly Complex" (IC) systems disprove evolution. An IC system can be defined as one in which removing a part stops it working altogether. This supposedly means it cannot have evolved. The argument has been soundly trashed , including in a court of law, but IDists still use it because... well what else do they have? The modern argument involves two different definitions of IC, changing between them as convenient. Definition 1: A system is IC if it fails if a component is removed. Definition 2: A system is IC if there is no evolutionary route, direct or not, to it. We see systems that fail if a component is removed, and they are IC, by definition 1. Then we quietly swap to definition 2. If the system is IC then it cannot have evolved. The Bacterial Flagellum One such system is the bacterial flagellum. This is a tail-like structure in some bacteria that spins to provide forward motion....

This is the name of a paper presented by CS Lewis in 1955, and can be found here: https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/on-obstinacy-and-belief It is a curious paper. What exactly is Lewis trying to argue here? As far as I can tell he is admitting that Christian's believe with a certainty the evidence does not warrant, but that is fine because he, as a Christian, is certain his belief is right. He starts by comparing Christian thinking and scientific thinking, but quickly shifts to a scientist and a Christian. This is important to his argument because then he can point out that some scientists are Christians, so therefore they must be the same. Some scientists have bad judgement outside of science or hold to beliefs with a certainty that is not proportionate to the evidence. To me, the issue is religious thinking against scientific thinking. One man can be both Christian, believing absolutely the resurrection with scant evidence, and at the same time a scientist, thinking string th...

The point of this page is to show how common miraculous births were in the ancient world. Few of these are virgin births in the manner described in Matthew and Luke, but they are all miraculous - they all point to the individual being superhuman. Christianity assuredly did not copy pagan religions, but we can be just as sure that it was influenced by them. Converted from paganism wanted their god to have a miraculous birth too! But that miraculous birth had to be fitted into the extant narrative. Jesus was known to have a mother called Mary and several siblings, including the disciple James. The virgin birth was as miraculous as they could reasonably claim, perhaps inspired by - or at least legitimised by - Isaiah 7.   Attis The daemon Agdistis is linked to both the birth and death of Attis. Agdistis had both female and male reproductive organs. The gods feared this and plotted his death. Tricked into swallowing a sleeping potion, the gods tied his male genitalia to his foot. He ca...

An argument some make about the credibility of the gospels is that the material they contain all comes from oral tradition, and the Jews at the time had a long tradition for accurately keeping a good oral tradition. There are, in my view, a number of issues with this argument. Who was doing it? To say the Jews were good at keeping an oral tradition is a very broad claim. What we know is that collectively they kept their holy texts (i.e., the Old Testament) very accurately, but it is quite a stretch to therefore suppose every Jew of the time was trained in maintaining oral tradition. Their oral tradition was maintained by specific people, all of whom were in the priesthood, and all of whom were trained presumably from an early age. Quite different to Galilean fishermen. But there was an oral tradition! That said, it seems likely Jesus did teach the disciples to memorise some sayings. We do read about him sending the disciples off to preach. Mark 6:6... Then Jesus went around teachin...

 I will let the "Genesis Park" introduce this subject: In 1944, as a ten-year-old boy, Anderson’s task was to keep the coal furnace stoked at his home in Buckhannon, West Virginia (WV). One evening he went into the basement to refuel the furnace and carried a particularly large lump of coal on his shovel. As he carried the loaded shovel, it wobbled and the coal fell onto the floor, breaking the lump in two. A slender metallic object was revealed, protruding from one of the broken halves. Newton set aside the piece with the curious object and placed the remainder into the furnace. Over the next couple of days the boy extracted a small bell from the coal, first by whacking it with a  croquet mallet and then by cleaning it with lye and a scrub brush. Unfortunately he scoured all the coal off the intriguing artifact! But his parents and others witnessed the bell that he brought up from the basement and it became an object of conversation, residing on an old secretary desk shelf. ...

Occasionally creations will accuse evolutions of inventing just-so stories to explain what we see in nature. The reality, of course, is that evolution is real science, and the account for why something is how it is will always: (1) be backed up be real evidence; and (2) noted as speculation. The real irony, however, is the number of just-so stories in the Bible, especially Genesis. Note that none of these are backed up by evidence and all are presented as fact. Daddy, why do we feel shame when we are naked? Because Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Genesis 3:7 Daddy, why do snakes not have legs Because God cursed all snakes when that nasty snake in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve. Genesis 3:14 Daddy, why is there enmity between snakes and mankind? Because God cursed all snakes when that nasty snake in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve. Genesis 3:15 Daddy, why do women suffer in childbirth so much? Because God cursed all women after Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Genesis 3:16 Daddy...

 CS Lewis book, Mere Christianity , can be found here . This is about book 1 of the work, five chapters across about 20 pages. Lewis spends a long time saying there are moral laws that exist as abstract concepts in the same way as mathematics. It is debatable, but I tend to agree, so will not address it further. Then, at the end of page 20, we get: I should expect, for instance, to find that the stone had to obey the law of gravity—that whereas the sender of the letters merely tells me to obey the law of my human nature, He compels the stone to obey the laws of its stony nature. But I should expect to find that there was, so to speak, a sender of letters in both cases, a Power behind the facts, a Director, a Guide. Thus, his argument is that if the is a law of gravity or a moral law, then there must be a law maker. It is an old argument, but that alone does not make it wrong. Maths What he does not say is whether he thinks the laws of mathematics requires a law maker. And significa...