Originally posted by finnegan
You are wrong. There are random variables, that is true, depending on how random you want that to be. Some people argue there is no example in nature of anything that is truly random. (Quantum Physics says otherwise of course) Arguably, there is random variation only within a set of real constraints. A set of dice is only random within the constraint of req ...[text shortened]... very living creature on this planet, not least on the prospects for reproduction and survival.

So in labs where work is done you have processes that are controlled, but you
are telling me out in the wild with no restaint on anything for any lenght of
time that is also controlled, seriously?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
So in labs where work is done you have processes that are controlled, but you
are telling me out in the wild with no restaint on anything for any lenght of
time that is also controlled, seriously?
Kelly

I'm not seeing where you get
"out in the wild with no restraint on anything for any length of time"
from but yes of course there is control/constraint in the wild. There is control/constraint everywhere in the universe whether or whether not we impose our own. The controls that you have in labs usually isolate a subset of all the controls you have in the wild anyway (I.e. filtering out the events which are of no interest for a given investigation)

Originally posted by KellyJay
So in labs where work is done you have processes that are controlled, but you
are telling me out in the wild with no restaint on anything for any lenght of
time that is also controlled, seriously?
Kelly

Maybe we are getting into difficulty with the phrase "that is controlled" if this is taken to imply the existence of a controlling agent. A lab is an excellent place for carrying out tests with controlled variables but it is not the only place where science can be done. We cannot put a star into a lab (though maybe before the atom bomb was tested some people feared that we might) but we can study the behaviour of stars all the same.

But nature is not a test or an experiment. It happens in real time in the real world with countless variables. So how can anyone separate out the impact of the relevant variables? Lots of ways is the answer.

For example, one key observation that brought Alfred Russel Wallace to come up with the theory of natural selection quite independently of Darwin and before Darwin published any of his theory, was the way similar ecological niches in the Australian land mass and the adjacent land masses of South East Asia had been occupied by very different species with obviously independent ancestry. He said this was rather out of tune with the creationist theory that God had created each species for its own ecological niche. That does not mean it was proved wrong (God could create a number of creatures for the same type of niche if He was so inclined) but it was not as elegant as it appeared to its followers. He wondered if there was an alternative explanation, and thought he found this in the proposal (before the much more modern discovery of continental drift) that the seas between Asia and Australia had in the past been larger and prevented inter breeding of species, so they evolved separately and independently. Nobody would dispute that both explanations would work but the separate evolution explanation was the one with the most explanatory power. In particular, his suggestion that Australia had been separated from Asia by wider seas in the past was shown to be very well founded, since it was supported by the discovery of continental drift a century later. That is why his was such a good theory. It gave a detailed explanation for what he observed and it also permitted ambitious and (at the time) very speculative predictions which would later be put to the test by advances in a completely different scientific field. The creationist account, by contrast, explains nothing and predicts nothing. Excellent for the purpose of admiring God's work of course but not explaining anything whatever.

Many people, including many practising scientists, are content to continue admiring God's work without foolishly wishing to contradict the findings of science. As Galileo pointed out to the Inquisition a long time ago, it is a foolish approach to religion or even to reading the bible if it gets into direct conflict with the evidence of our eyes.

Originally posted by RJHinds
By an intelligence, of course. You knew the answer to that one, didn't you?

how did that intelligence come into being? was it by another intelligence or randomness?

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
how did that intelligence come into being? was it by another intelligence or randomness?

It did not come into being. God's intelligence has alway existed with Him. Read the Holy Bible sometime. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
It did not come into being. God's intelligence has alway existed with Him. Read the Holy Bible sometime. 😏

Random then

Originally posted by RJHinds
It did not come into being. God's intelligence has alway existed with Him. Read the Holy Bible sometime. 🙄

so, you make a special case of randomness for your god. following this faulty reasoning, we can safely remove the unnecessary god factor and accept a special case of randomness for the natural universe.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
so, you make a special case of randomness for your god. following this faulty reasoning, we can safely remove the unnecessary god factor and accept a special case of randomness for the natural universe.

It seems to me that for theists (in particular the fundies), there are always special cases:
""G"od exists!"
How do you know?

"Everything that came to exist was caused to exist - "H"e that set of all this causation in motion was "G"od"
What about "G"od? What caused "H"im to exist?

"Ah well you see, "G"od has always existed so he didn't come to exist at all"
Well we could say the same thing about the universe

"Ah but the existence of the universe was caused by the big bang!"
Wait...don't you say the universe is only 6000 years old? Why are you invoking the big bang now when 6000 year old universe is completely at odds with the big bang theory anyway!???

"erm...but yeah, like I said...the existence of the universe was caused by the big bang"
But what if our universe is just a small part of some bigger, possibly eternal, multiverse?

"Mere speculation without proof!"
But *you* don't have any proof of your claims either...what makes you and your "G"od so special!???

Not true, I have faith! - and anyway...all the proof you'll ever need is in our holy book - the Bible!
But there are other mutually exclusive holy books that disagree with the Bible - none of which demonstrated to be less credible than the Bible.

"Ah but only *our* Bible is true! - we know this because it is the word of "G"od"
Yeah....right...😕 But anyway, getting back on track, I don't need to *prove* we are part of a multiverse - I need only mention it as a counter to your speculative claim that everything was caused by "G"od

"Only "G"od can exist eternally"
.
.
.
😞

Originally posted by Agerg
It seems to me that for theists (in particular the fundies), there are always special cases:
""G"od exists!"
How do you know?

"Everything that came to exist was caused to exist - "H"e that set of all this causation in motion was "G"od"
What about "G"od? What caused "H"im to exist?

"Ah well you see, "G"od has always existed so he didn' ...[text shortened]...

[i]"Only "G"od can exist eternally"
.
.
.
😞

You evolution idiots are the ones that claim the universe came into existence by a "Big Bang" and call it the Big Bang Theory. We Christians know that God brought the universe into existence in the beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.(Genesis 1:1)

Originally posted by sonhouse
So what happened to the tree, does it exist or not and if so where is it now? Was Eden on Earth in the first place or did they get kicked into another dimension that happened to include Earth?

I read something lately which speculated that the site of the Garden is now offshore in the Indian Ocean.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You evolution idiots are the ones that claim the universe came into existence by a "Big Bang" and call it the Big Bang Theory. We Christians know that God brought the universe into existence in the beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.(Genesis 1:1)

And why couldn't God have used the Big Bang to create the universe?

Why do you have to limit God to waving a wand and "poof" something happens?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
It was on earth, there are geographical features such as rivers named, unless of
course you think the Tigris was in another dimension.

The Tigris is not named in Genesis.


"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold;
And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone.
And the name of the second river [is] Gihon: the same [is] it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
And the name of the third river [is] Hiddekel: that [is] it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates." -- Genesis 2:10-14, KJV

Originally posted by Suzianne
The Tigris is not named in Genesis.


"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
The name of the first [is] Pison: that [is] it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where [there is] gold;
And the gold of that land [is] good: there [is] bdellium and the onyx stone.
And the name o ...[text shortened]... oeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river [is] Euphrates." -- Genesis 2:10-14, KJV

yes though the Euphrates is which is closely linked with the Tigris, what do you know, i am human after all.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
yes though the Euphrates is which is closely linked with the Tigris, what do you know, i am human after all.

The Tigris and the Euphrates are two separate rivers. True they are geographically located next to one another, even sharing drainage area, but the fact remains that the Tigris is not named in Genesis.

Originally posted by Suzianne
The Tigris and the Euphrates are two separate rivers. True they are geographically located next to one another, even sharing drainage area, but the fact remains that the Tigris is not named in Genesis.

they flow into each other at Basra, so its not mentioned, i made a mistake, get over it.