On Creationism

This is an attempt by one creationist to rationalise the nested hierarchy. I found Ewert's paper here: https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2018.3/BIO-C.2018.3 A Nested Hierarchy Let us start with evolution... Evolution predicts a nested hierarchy. If a species, A, evolves into two new species, B and C, and then B evolves into B1 and B2, while C evolves into C1 and C2, there is a nested hierarchy. All the species descended from C form a group, which is quite distinct from those descended from B, but both nest within the group descended from A. That is a simple example, but the pattern holds true in even complex structures where every child species has just one parent species. If you are familiar with HTML or XML, the same pattern is seen; every element nests inside the ones higher up the hierarchy. Or look at the file structure on your computer. Every sub-folder is nested inside a hierarchy of folders. Linnaeus observed that same pattern in biology, even...

I am not a theist, so none of these make a lot of sense to me, but I wanted to go through them so I have some familiarity. As far as I am concerned, Jesus was crucified because he was hailed as the king of the Jews, and as such was a threat to Roman law. Penal Substitution I guess this is easiest to understand. You are a horrible sinner who deserves to suffer in hell for eternity, but Jesus takes you punishment on your behalf. Apparently Jesus on the cross for a few hours is the equivalent of billions of people suffering for eternity. And it is okay to punish one person for what another person did. In fairness, even some Christians have realised this makes no sense, and hence the other theories. The idea is that God is perfectly just, and he cannot simply forgive your sins without justice being satisfied. Jesus' death gives God a loophole to show mercy... as long as you love and worship him of course. Exodus 32 has the Israelites build a golden calf, making God angry, and Moses off...

Galilee vs Jerusalem There is a tension in the gospels which seems to be between the disciples who went back to Galilee after Jesus died and those who stayed in Jerusalem - or by their respective followers. To understand this, you first have to accept that the empty tomb was made up later. What actually happened is the disciples fled Jerusalem when Jesus was arrested, and at some point weeks later Peter saw what he understood to be the risen Jesus in Galilee. I have other posts arguing for that, so I will take it as given here. What this means is that the Jerusalem sighting were all made up later. Why? Part of that may have been internal politics. This is evidenced in Luke, who dedicates 23 verses to the sighting of Jesus to two unnamed disciples near Jerusalem, on the Road to Emmaus. It is clear Luke does not think this was the first sighting; he acknowledges a previous sighting by Peter: Luke 24:33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those w...

Sy Garte is a scientist, but more importantly in this post is that he was an atheist who became a Christian. What motivated him to do that? What evidence did he find so convincing? He discusses in an interview that can be found here: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/the-side-b-stories-sy-garte/ Well, yeah. I mean it started with quantum physics, which I had to learn as a chemistry major. I started as a chemistry major in college. And we learned all these things, but we learned them as, “This is how things work. This is what it is. There’s something called the Uncertainty Principle, which means you can never know the position and the momentum of an electron at the same time.” And I remember thinking, “You can never know? How is that possible?” But I put it out of my mind. I also did chemistry at university, and therefore also had to learn about quantum mechanics (QM). Garte asks " How is that possible? " It is possible because that is the nature of the universe. It i...

Günter Bechly is a creationist, but he is unusual in having some real science credentials. It could be argued that that means he knows what realise science is and should know better, but religion somehow blinds people to the faults in their own arguments. Like all creationists he prefers to use podcasts and videos to promote his nonsense, but here is one paper that got offered to my by a guy on a forum as though it makes a good argument. New Fossil Human Species Thwarts Core Darwinian Predictions Science is Tentative​ The first paragraph is about how human evolutionary history is being re-written as new evidence comes to light. Bechly seems to think this somehow invalidates evolution. It does not. This is how science is done. Right from the start he shows us he prefers the certainty of never-changing dogma to the tentative and changeable world of science. "I can hardly resist the temptation to say “I told you so,” or to jokingly remark, “Oops, they did it again.” "​ I can pre...

This is an argument presented by JP Moreland here (he credits Alexander Pruss): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371750736_The_Modal_Argument_and_a_Rejoinder_to_Contingent_Physicalism From the paper, the argument is: (1) The Indiscernibility of Identicals & (x=y)→•(x=y). (2) POs are essentially, wholly, and intrinsically physical and SSs are essentially, wholly, and intrinsically immaterial.  (3) Possibly, I exist, and no POs exist.  (4) My physical body is a PO. (5) Therefore, possibly, I exist without my physical body existing. (6) Therefore, it is not the case that I am essentially, wholly, and intrinsically my body or any PO. (7) I am essentially, wholly, and intrinsically either a PO or SS. (8) Therefore, I am essentially, wholly, and intrinsically a SS. PO stands for "physical object" while "SS stands for spiritual substance". Elsewhere he gives a more simplistic summary: I am possibly disembodied (I could survive without my brain or body).​ My bra...

An important step in the Argument from Morality is that objective morality necessarily implies God. That is to say, it assumes that if there is an objective morality, then there must be a god. Is that a reasonable assumption? This is related to a couple of other post: Mere Christianity The Argument From Morality What is objective morality?​ The first problem is deciding exactly what objective morality is. Here is one definition that I think works well. Objective morality is the idea that right and wrong exist factually, without any importance of opinion. It's the concept that some actions and beliefs are imperatively good or inherently bad, and that the goodness or badness of those things holds true no matter who you are or what else you believe in.​ Is this what Lewis, for example, was thinking about in Mere Christianity? I am note sure, but I think this is a good starting point. Using this definition, we can say that murder is wrong not because our culture insists it is, but wro...