"1. Creation - where did we come from? There seem to be three main questions here: (1) Where did matter/energy come from originally? (2) How did life start? (3) Where did the genetic information comprising the diverse myriads of living animal kinds/species come from?"

You then launch into a bunch of detailed criticisms of evolution, the big bang etc - but let me see if I can't simplify the issue. Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that science does not exist. We know absolutely nothing about the origins of matter, the development of the elements in stars, abiogenesis or evolution. How does that ignorance demonstrate that there must be a god? And if not understanding where something came from means it must have a creator, then god must have a creator, which itself must have a creator, and so on into infinity. Also just saying "god (which we don't really know what this being is) made the universe somehow" does nothing to actually explain the origins of anything. It ignores the question of how the universe began and pretends the question is instead "which god made the universe". The answer is how, not who. That there was a who is an assumption. And the god hypothesis is basically "??? exists by a process of ??? and then made the universe by ??? and created life by ???". How is that an answer?

The beginning of the universe is a genuine mystery, even if there is a creator.

"Unfortunately, both of these contenders are difficult to accept. (A) is difficult for many people to accept because it involves a 'miracle', or an unpredictable/unique event which is not currently observed or describable using natural laws, and thus it makes people nervous. Also, if such a God exists and created us, He might very well be in a position of authority over us, which is galling."

That a god might have authority over me has never bothered me. Though the god of the old testament existing would be horrible, but I stopped believing there was a god before I really read the bible, so that didn't enter into my thought process.

"On the other hand, (B) is difficult for many people (including me) to accept because scientific evidence strongly implies that these things (B1, B2, and B3) are impossible or have vanishingly small probability of having occurred. Regarding (B1), we do not see matter/energy spontaneously popping into or out of existence in our daily lives or in laboratory experiments, thus it is problematic to handwave and say it occurred in the beginning."

The big bang theory describes the expansion and cooling of the universe, it does not claim anything about the origin of matter. However scientific tests have actually produced particles and energy spontaneously in a vacuum. It's possible that matter/energy is just space distorted, just as gravity appears to be caused by the distortion of space.

(Some people point to the 'spontaneous appearance' of subatomic particles in particle accelerator 'quantum vacuums', but a high-energy 'quantum vacuum' of particles and anti-particles is quite different than the literally "nothing" that supposedly existed before the Big Bang.) And if we really believed (B1), then Lewontin's fear would be even more applicable - at any instant all physical regularities would be expected to suddenly change; we would live in a completely unpredictable world. We can not live simultaneously in a world of spontaneously-appearing universes and of normal, predictable, everyday life, for if one spontaneous uncaused Big Bang can suddenly occur for no reason, there is no limit."

When we're talking about the environment of a big bang singularity or a pre-big-bang universe the normal properties of physics cease to apply and any speculation is just that - speculation. Scientists, by smashing particles together at near-light speeds produce for fractions of a second the type of carnage that would've existed in the early universe, to gleen insights into what the universe would have been like then.

"Regarding B2, there is still no explanation (much less demonstration!) of how life could arise from nonliving chemicals. "We're working on it," the evolutionary theorists say, "just give us a few more years, and we'll eventually figure out how it could have happened." (See my previous post at http://tim223.xanga.com/743479966/dont-tell-the-creationists/ )"

Here is a video on abiogenesis, we actually know a lot about how life may have arisen. I believe I showed you this video before, in which case you are being dishonest here.

"Another quote from Lewontin -
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Lewontin, Richard, "Billions and Billions of Demons", New York Review, 1/9/1997, p31
Why can't you, Richard? Rather arbitrary and problematic."

And stupid, in my opinion. Science in general is not ideological as this person is (and that would be impossible, since most scientists in the world are theists). A more rational way to put it is that science is a methodology for testing physical claims about the universe and that unless something is physically, experimentally verifiable science must therefore remain silent on the issue as a matter of principle. Since if it cannot test it, it cannot reach a conclusion.

"Regarding B3, the problem is that mutations can readily be shown in the lab to 'break' the genetic code, but not to add more functional information to it. Just as splattering ink onto a newspaper page has a tiny chance of adding readable, coherent, and accurate news information (but a larger chance of making the newsprint unreadable), random mutations have been shown to degrade the working of cells, but not to add genetic code for new functional proteins."

This is not true, and has never been demonstrated by any creationist - they just claim it's true in order to attack science. Here is a very good video on the subject which gives numerous examples of useful genetic mutations in humans.

"Thus the consideration of origins is a strong piece of objective data pointing to the fact that God is very real, and that He created us."

Even if I granted that the universe had to be created it would still be a leap to conclude it is the biblical god. Evidence, even if granted as valid, only supports what it supports. And the universe needing a creator doesn't mean it was yahweh or allah or brahma or any of a thousand creator deities believed in by people. Or any of an almost infinite number of possible creators that doesn't reveal itself to humans. In other words your position isn't supported even if I grant every single thing you've said thusfar as being 100% correct.

"2. Jesus' Resurrection - This is the most powerful piece of real-world, tangible, evidence that the God of the Bible truly exists. If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion as he predicted he would, his teachings about the God of the Bible would be fully confirmed."

It's worth mentioning that his "prediction" that he would rise from the dead was recorded decades after he supposedly died and rose from the dead, and cannot be considered a genuine or impressive prophecy and you should be no more impressed by it than you would be impressed if someone claimed in the year 2070 that I predicted the 9/11 attacks.

"And the accounts of his resurrection are so early and historically corroborated that it becomes difficult to believe any other conclusion, after examining the evidence. Paul considered the Resurrection so crucial to Christianity that he said "if Christ has not been raised from the dead, ... your faith is in vain... [and] we are above all men most to be pitied"!"

No one who claimed it happened ever met jesus, how it is well corroborated? Stories of miracles and prophecies being fulfilled were extremely common at the time, even of secular figures. Alexander the great for instance was believed to have been the son of zeus, immaculately conceived by a bolt of lightning and born of a virgin, and was said to have fulfilled both biblical and extra-biblical prophecies. If a handful of people repeated the stories decades after his death, would you worship zeus?

"For a quick intro to why the New Testament accounts of Jesus are accurate, see http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover2.html . The key is that the accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) about Jesus were written and distributed within the lifetimes of people who knew Jesus, so they would not have been believed if they contained falsehoods or exaggerations."

Really? Why not? People believe all kinds of falsehoods and exaggerations today, why wouldn't they have in the era of greek mythology? And not only were many people at the time not convinced any of it was true (there are jews to this day), but most people in the world are not convinced of it. If people believing something makes it true, then isn't islam true? Lots of people believed the stories about joseph smith in his lifetime, are you going to convert to mormonism?

"Also, the news of Jesus' resurrection was being widely proclaimed in Jerusalem within just a few days and months after the event, which was why the Christian church started in Jerusalem even under heavy persecution. The question is worth considering: "Would someone be willing to die for something they knew to be a lie?"

Because they didn't know it was a lie? You're confusing believing something with knowing it. Lots of people die (and kill) for false beliefs.

"The eleven (and hundreds more) disciples of Jesus were all thrown in jail, beaten, and eventually killed in various locations for their insistence that they had seen Jesus after he had died and then risen from the dead, proving that He was indeed the divine Son of God that He claimed to be. Many people have been willing to die for their faith, but that is not the same as asking whether someone would be willing to die for something they knew to be a lie."

That is evidence that they believed he was the son of god, not that he was the son of god. Even today there are numerous people claiming to be the son of your god who have throngs upon throngs of devoted followers. If someone is willing to die for José Luis de Jesús Miranda (over a million followers) or Sun Myung Moon (about half a million), would that substantiate their claims of godhood?

"Thus the historical evidence that Jesus lived, taught about God, died, and came back from the dead is extremely strong, and shows that God is very real, and has provided tangible, physical, real-world evidence to help those of us who are naturally skeptical to believe in Him."

Nope.

"3. Morality - As developed well by C.S.Lewis in "Mere Christianity" and Tim Keller in "The Reason For God", the fact that we all tend to live as if we believed in a real objective moral standard is evidence that such a standard does exist, and that a divine transcendent Moral Lawgiver (God) indeed exists."

Belief is not proof of a belief. You believe there are moral laws imposed by god as evidence for the existence of god? How is that not circular reasoning?

"For example, if you're in line at the checkout counter and someone suddenly jumps in front of you in line, you naturally feel a twinge of moral outrage. "That's not right!" This outrage is much larger for worse crimes, such as murder, rape, or genocide. We all have moral impulses - we believe instinctively that some things are right and other things are wrong. Furthermore, we do not treat these as mere "preferences", but as objective standards."

This is no more mysterious than feeling pain when you put your hand on a hot stove. Emotions and sensations are psychological and biological incentives - but the important thing to note is that some people don't have them. A sociopath could just as easily kill you as look at you with no regard for your wellbeing at all - if there are moral "laws" written on our hearts, why does god miss so many people? If on the other hand these are neurological and sociological in nature then we would expect there to be inconsistencies.

"The most popular explanation by naturalists is to simply deny that morality objectively exists (cf. Michael Shermer in his debate last year with Greg Koukl, and Michael Ruse and others), and say that they are merely biological/neurological impulses that have evolved evolutionarily to help the human race survive. That is to say, objective morality does not exist; moral statements are simply statements of personal preference, at which individuals have been genetically predisposed to arrive. There is no transcendent "ought", there is only "is", although that "is" might take different forms. It might take the form of "morality means you are programmed to perform acts of altruism to enhance the survival of your genes/species" (Richard Dawkins), or "morality entails the optimal 'flourishing' of mankind and can be 'discovered' by scientific observation" (Sam Harris), or "morality is simply an illusion" (Michael Ruse, Edward Wilson, etc). See this excellent review for details - http://www.equip.org/articles/atheists-and-the-quest-for-objective-morality"

The confusion here is that people are talking about different things when they talk about "morality", there are many different kinds of morality (things which guide or inhibit human behavior), and some of them are subjective (like the twinge you feel at injustice by the way) and some are objective like laws and reciprocity.

"The problem is that all people live as if morality is objective, transcendent, and cross-personal. But in order to coherently justify this belief, a transcendent objective Moral Lawgiver must exist."

Not at all. We behave that way because a) we have sympathetic neurons in our minds which make us feel psychic pain when we perceive someone else's pain, which makes us want to help others and not hurt them. We also intellectually recognize that others feel pain just like we do and can make a conscious decision to not hurt others based on empathy. There are exceptions to this, other impulses like hatred or anger can override those impulses, and some people are born without a sense of sympathy etc. Literally the part of their brain that feels other peoples' pain just doesn't light up at all, ever.

"Not simply because "He will punish you if you do wrong" (though that is true), but in order to have a basis for WHY one OUGHT to do what is right."

So if someone else punishing us for doing a bad thing is a valid objective basis, why isn't prison a valid objective basis? Why isn't the fact that if I am an asshole no one will want to associate with me, help me out, do business with me etc a valid objective basis?

"Some object (cf Plato's "Euthyphro") that in order to say that "God is good", there must either exist some standard of goodness outside of God to measure Him by, or else one must adopt "divine command theory" and claim that "whatever God says/does is right by definition." But there is another view which avoids those two positions - namely that God's character defines what is good. He IS good; His character defines goodness, and He also naturally always acts and speaks in accordance with His good character, so that we can say his actions and words are also good."

Um, that's the first scenario, just re-worded. Plus if god always acts in a good way then drowning your children to death for disappointing you is "good" because god did it, and asking someone to sacrifice their child to show their devotion to you, and demanding the murder of those who do not worship you and countless other things. But you will protest "ah, but those things are only good if god does them or "only god has the right to do x". But that's the second scenario.

"Thus, if you believe that some things are truly objectively "right" and other things are truly objectively "wrong", your belief only makes sense if God exists (and is not simply an "imaginary friend").

Right and wrong are determined by human nature. Please mentally answer the following questions honestly before moving on to the next one.

1) Is it immoral to give a child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch?

Did you answer? Then read on:

2) Is it immoral to give a child who is deathly allergic to peanut butter a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch?

Did your answer change? What changed between the first answer and the second one? God's will, or the nature of the child in question?

The only reason we can reach broad consensus on moral issues and apply them to people in general is that what effects one person one way generally effects everyone else the same way. But there are exceptions. This is why we have trials and juries and sentencing hearings and treat every crime individually, weighing every aspect of it. Because two murders are not identical, and things like intent and premeditation go a long way to determining how dangerous the perpetrator is and what their punishment should be. Imagine a world where every substance effected everyone differently. Marajuana cured cancer for x person and killed Y person and got Z person stoned off their ass. Alcohol was addictive to some and not to others. Cyanide poisoned some and not others. Some people needed water to live, to others it was toxic and deadly. Stabbing one person made them happy and lowered their cholesterol and killed another person. Could we have broad ethical rules in a civilization like that?

It is not wrong to shoot people "period", it is wrong to shoot us because of how bullets effect us. If our nature were different and bullets harmlessly bounced off of us, it would not be wrong to shoot people (or it would just be an annoyance or something). Right and wrong stem from our nature, not some mystical "rules", and this is evident in the way that changing our natures automatically changes the ethical landscape, but god decreeing raping children is good would not make it so.

"Your thoughts are welcome as always..."

Not even sure you'll read this to be honest.

@tim223 - "Hi Mark, Thanks for your long and thoughtful reply. I watched the two video links you sent me. Did you read the linked articles in my original post?"

Yes, though I didn't take the time to reply to them as well.

"Also, the books "Signature in the Cell" by Stephen Meyer and "Genetic Entropy" by John Sanford thoroughly refute the central theses of those two videos (respectively). If you read them, you can send me your opinion."

Your claim was that genetic mutations never produce novel or useful traits - I gave you a video with many examples of mutations in humans which do just that - exactly how does a book written by a creationist trump that? You claim mutations don't work a certain way, I give you examples of them working that way - how is your assertion not wrong? You act open-minded, but seem to be dismissing the video out of hand. And both of those books have been heavily criticized for containing inaccuracies and even outright falsehoods. And the abiogenesis video was a response to your claim that there is no explanation that has ever been proposed for the origins of life. Even if a later criticism of the video demonstrated it was wrong it still would not make your assertion correct.

"You raised many other questions and points in your reply. Would you like me to reply section-by-section to your whole post? If you're interested in my opinions on the points you made, I will take the time to reply, and we can delve into the discussion on all these points."

Sure. And if you're interested in my opinions on the subject, respond. Though the arguments for a creator, intelligent design etc invariably seem to be fallacies, like arguments from ignorance (irreducible complexity, watchmaker-type arguments), appeals to authority (scripture or "look at the scientists we found who agree with us, we must be legit"), or internally inconsistent ("nothing can exist without having a creator, so god must exist... and not have a creator") etc.

"Otherwise if you just consider me stupid since I'm a creationist and a Christian, and you'd rather just blow me off and not take the time to investigate these issues further, that's fine too..."

You just thanked me for giving an intelligent and thoughtful response (in which I wasn't the least bit rude or derogatory), then insinuated that I wasn't intelligent or thoughtful and would only insult you.

"I respect your right to disbelieve in God and consider these three evidences for God as insufficient. They are convincing to me... if they are not convincing to you, then that is your right to reject them."

I don't see how they can be convincing given my response.

"With esteem, Tim"

Likewise, Mark.

@tim223 - Alrighty. Remember to include why my examples of beneficial mutations (and in humans no less) are not valid.

"Hi Mark,
Thanks for your patience and for the thought and time you have put into this discussion. Here's my reply."

This may be the single longest reply I've ever gotten on the internet anywhere, lol. I will try to respond.

"I'm not making an "argument from ignorance". I am making an argument from a logical form called "inference to the best explanation" (IBE), closely related to 'adductive reasoning', in three areas: creation, Jesus' resurrection, and morality. For more info on IBE, see this article, pages 20-27 http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/ReturnofGdHypth.pdf , and this article http://www.macrodevelopment.org/library/meyer.html."

I read up on "abductive reasoning", the reason only ID proponents seem interested in it is that it has the same evidentiary weight as "guessing" and is almost useless. At best it can conclude that something is possible - almost everything is by default "possible". It is possible that I was abducted by aliens last night, and using abductive reasoning aliens probing me could explain me having a headache. So it's "possible" that I was probed by aliens. This does not go on inch toward supporting the hypothesis that I was abdusted by aliens or that aliens exist. Furthermore, abductive reasoning is identical to a logical fallacy "affirming the consequent" and closely resembles the post-hoc fallacy.

"In other words, I am not arguing "since we can't figure out any way that these things could have originated naturalistically, God must have done it".... instead, I am arguing that of the available competing origins models/hypotheses, model (A) fits the available evidence much better than model (B1/B2/B3)."

You are actually. You are attacking evolution, the big bang etc as if disproving one of them supported your belief. Which is why I said lets imagine we knew nothing at all about the origins of life and start from there. It still does not support your views. And while an all-powerful god creating everything is "consistent" with the evidence, it is so only in the same sense and for the same reason that an all-powerful genie creating everything is "consistent" with the evidence. It is consistent with the evidence because it is not specific enough to possibly be inconsistent with anything. A god could create any kind of universe, so any kind of universe is consistent with a god. A genie could create any kind of universe, so any universe is consistent with a genie. If however you begin to add biblical attributes of god, loves us, cares about what happens to us, is infallible etc, then you can readily find things which conflict with those traits in nature. And if you take genesis literally and say it all happened in six days etc, then all of the evidence we have piles up on the other side. Which is why fundamentalists prefer this vague, wishy washy prime mover abductive reasoning kind of stuff to actually talking about the details of their real beliefs. You aren't christian because you read a book about abductive reasoning, and if I debunk the abductive reasoning argument it won't stop you being christian. But you won't tell me your real reasons because then I might be able to shoot them down. And you might not even know what they are.

"Also regarding creation, I am arguing using IBE in two ways: first based on the features of the cells, DNA, RNA, etc, showing that design is a more rational hypothesis in general than abiogenesis&evolution, and second seeing that we currently have an ancient manuscript (Genesis/the Bible) which claims to be a historical document recording the history that the world was created by God, and comparing that historical testimony with the counterclaims of abiogenesis&evolution. (I realize that there are other ancient creation accounts too, e.g. Gilgamesh, Quran, etc, but from what I have seen these other records are not as historically reliable as the Bible.)"

No I would say they're about as historically reliable as the bible. Many stories in the bible have been conclusively proven not to be literal history, including the 6 day creation account, that we descended from just two people, that the entire world flooded a few thousand years ago, the tower of babel story is also mythical etc. And these are just from the book in question, the one with the creation account. Furthermore the genesis account can't be considered history because it wasn't written by adam and eve or anyone who was supposedly there. It was written (supposedly) thousands of years later by non-eye witnesses. How can anyone honestly give that historical weight?

"While I understand what you were saying about the ULTIMATE/ORIGINAL origins of matter/energy, I would suggest that we actually do know from scientific/lab experiments that matter/energy is observed to be conserved, in general... it is never created or destroyed."

And so you deduce that it was created...

"This is the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, as you know. The laws of Thermodynamics are why the vast majority of scientists have given up hope of making a "perpetual motion machine". The particle-accelerator experiments, while they do sometimes show "matter creation", must input a lot of energy to produce the matter, and we know from Einstein/etc that matter/energy are interconvertible, so the particle accelerator experiments are not evidence against the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. Thus I would suggest that a more accurate statement than "we know nothing about the [ultimate] origins of matter" would be "we still have no scientifically-validated theory for how matter/energy/space/time could have spontaneously popped into existence without a supernatural Creator".

Why not replace "supernatural creator" with "magical fairy"? We have no explanation for how the universe could've spontaneously popped into existence without one of those either. You are being disingenous when you claim you're not making an argument from ignorance. Your position is "we can't explain it therefore god must've done it". This abductive reasoning stuff is just a front.

"No... only 'contingent' objects need an explanation of origins... An eternal God who is not limited to physical space/time existence needs no physical space/time explanation of origins."

Arbitrarily defining god in a way that make no sense is not an argument, it's another empty assertion. And it is no less arbitrary than putting the universe in that category as being not "contingent" and thus removing the need for a god. Which I do not do by the way, I think both of them are nonsense. You can defend any hypothesis if you give yourself license to make stuff up. If you claim that a dead person was run over by a car and I claim that they were run over by a bull and every time I find evidence that suggests he was run over by a bull (such as hoof marks) you then just say "no, my car had hoof-shaped spokes around it's tires". Then I find that there's no tread or tire residue and so you say "no, this car obvious had tires made of another type of material" etc, would that be honest? Would making your claim reasonable by re-defining it every 2 seconds using empty, un-proven assertions be legitimate? Either complexity necessitates design or it doesn't. Either existence necessitates creation or it doesn't. Putting god in a special magical box where logic doesn't apply to him is not honest.

"Now you might say to me, "You postulate an eternal Creator, I postulate an eternal universe."

I don't postulate an eternal universe. You are the one who claims to know how the universe began, not me.

"Notice that this is not, in itself, a positive argument that God must exist. Instead, I am merely saying that there is no scientific or logical problem with the idea of an eternal Creator God,"

There is no scientific or logical problem with the idea of magical fairies or elves either, which is why you will never see a chapter in a science book proving they don't exist. Science cannot prove a negative, and fairies, elves and gods are not observable, testable phenomenon. That is not impressive evidence of their existence, it actually points to their non-existence, or the general uselessness of the idea.

"but there IS a scientific problem with the idea of an eternal universe (it does not fit with what we can measure and observe regarding the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics)."

There might be, there might not be. The properties of the universe have undergone an extreme change and will probably do so toward the end of the life of the universe. It's possible that a big bang is somehow cyclical or that the energy for our universe came from another universe or that somehow we're only seeing part of the picture. However even if I granted that this proves there is a god, it would not even suggest that it's therefore the god of the bible. As such it is an irrational argument, even if I grant the premises and the conclusion.

[You wrote:
Also just saying "god (which we don't really know what this being is) made the universe somehow" does nothing to actually explain the origins of anything. It ignores the question of how the universe began and pretends the question is instead "which god made the universe". The answer is how, not who. That there was a who is an assumption. And the god hypothesis is basically "??? exists by a process of ??? and then made the universe by ??? and created life by ???". How is that an answer?]

"I think this is the core of your argument. As I understand it, you are saying, "It makes more sense intuitively that there must be some naturalistic process whereby the universe came to be, rather than there having been a Creator God who simply spoke the universe into existence out of nothing as described in Genesis. Even if we don't yet know what this naturalistic process looks like, it must exist and someday we will figure it out."

That isn't what I said at all, that's what you injected into what I said. I said nothing about naturalistic anything. I would like an answer to what I actually said if you respond to this.

"However, this intuitive blind-faith feeling which you assume is actually quite arbitrary, and by no means convincing to me or many other people. You say that the view that God created the universe "does nothing to actually explain the origins of anything." I completely disagree. It is a perfectly legitimate view of origins. The only reason one might disallow a Creator God as a legitimate view for the origin of the universe is if one was already committed in advance to a naturalistic worldview (and that would be circular reasoning)."

I don't disallow the possibility of a creator god, you are putting words in my mouth. When I first read this I honestly wanted to smack you. You are distorting my words in order to argue against them and in order to ignore what I actually said. It is not either/or, disproving abiogenesis does not prove there is a god any more than proving there isn't a god proves abiogenesis. The same goes with the big bang etc. And as I said very specifically, it doesn't explain the origins of the universe because an explanation would entail HOW the universe began. If it was created, then by what mechanism? If it occurred naturally than by what mechanism? To use an analogy I heard in a debate years ago, saying "yahweh did it" does not explain how the universe arrived at it's present state any more than saying "ford did it" explains how a car is built. It just pretends the question is "who" and ignores the question of "how".

"Again, you state the discussion as: "The answer is how, not who. That there was a who is an assumption." I would reply, "That there CANNOT be a 'Who' is an arbitrary assumption. Why can't there be?"

Again arguing against things I never said - way to be a tool. I didn't say that there cannot be a who, I said that that is an assumption. You're really pissing me off.

"In the question of the origins of the universe, there are really only two starting points: an eternal God (A) or an eternal universe (B1)."

False dilemma/argument from ignorance (ie if we disprove a natural universe we have no explanation so creationism must be correct)/etc.

"I contend that B1 cannot be true because of what we see in the lab regarding the Laws of Thermodynamics."

That matter cannot be created or destroyed supports the idea that it was created? Being a bit biased in your interpretation of the evidence are we not? We don't know where matter and energy came from, that's all.

"Thus A (as described in one of the world's oldest historical records, the Bible) is the only remaining viable option."

There are historical documents more than twice as old as the oldest books of the bible, and it's only loosely historical at best. You are injecting another assertion here (the historicity of the bible) which has no bearing on anything said prior. And again, false dilemma, argument from ignorance etc.

"In order to try to continue to hold on to B1, people must engage in irrational behavior, like saying "the laws of Thermodynamics didn't apply back then, because it was a 'singularity'" or (like Stephen Hawking) "before the Big Bang, time folded back in on itself in imaginary dimensions" or other such irrational and anti-empirical notions."

That the laws of physics would not apply isn't anti-imperical, the normal properties of matter cease to function the way they do inside and around a black hole. However you are using hawking's ideas as a strawman to attack as if I had put them forward and therefore give the appearance of winning the argument.

So far you've literally done nothing but ignore what I've said, put words in my mouth and then argue against those words.

"As an analogy, consider a finding paper note stuck under your door with two words written on it: "Hi Mark". The note could have been produced by an intelligent agent, or it could have been produced by a random windstorm blowing the paper and a pencil together until the letters just happened to be written. It is possible for someone to insist "That note MUST have been produced by unintelligent processes; the answer must be 'how,' not 'who'." Again I would reply to that person, "why is the 'who' option arbitrarily excluded? If unintelligent naturalistic resources are shown to be inadequate to produce the note by themselves, surely it is reasonable to also consider the possibility that the note was directly composed (without any previous precursors) by an intelligent agent."

We would not conclude that the note was a product of intelligence because of it's complexity or any logical inference, we would conclude that it was the product of an intelligence because we know by direct experience (not by logic) that the letters and words and paper and ink are all man-made. We do not know by experience that universes are made in a similar way and thus it is like comparing apples and oranges. I did a blog about this argument awhile ago which I won't link you to simply because this response will already be insanely long - but basically that argument is the watchmaker analogy which was debunked and used as an example of a poor argument years before it was ever popularized. And while I've never heard a creationist or theist or deist respond adequately to the refutation, they tend to just camouflage the argument by using other examples of manmade things and hoping nobody will realize they're using a debunked argument. Instead of using a watch they use a soda can or a painting or a building or mount rushmore (all common examples in creationist materials) or a note with words on it.

"My analogy is not perfect because it speaks only of the origin of complex specified information/patterns rather than the origin of matter/energy/space/time itself,"

You're mixing your ID arguments with your prime mover type arguments.

"but the point carries over that it is arbitrary, unnecessary, and even irrational to exclude the possibility of a personal intelligent source if physical unintelligent processes are observed to be inadequate to explain the phenomena."

I don't exclude it - nor do nearly any atheists. Denying that something has been proven and denying that it is possible are two different things. There could be a god just like life could've been designed by aliens. But I would not expect you to believe life was designed by aliens without more than "well where did it come from then?"

"I agree that no one has yet come up with a testable naturalistic hypothesis for the origin of matter and energy."

No one has come up with any sort of testable or verifiable hypothesis, natural or supernatural.

"There are plenty of speculations (alternate universes, quantum fluctuations, distortions of the fabric of space-time, etc etc) but no demonstrated scientific experiments contradicting the First Law of Thermodynamics (matter/energy is never created or destroyed). Thus, B1 is still unanswered by secularists. And without B1, the validity of B2 and B3 is automatically moot. If B1 cannot be demonstrated, it is more rational to believe in a supernatural Creator who made matter/energy and subsequently the various living 'kinds' of Life."

Look at your last sentence - you claim you are not making an argument from ignorance but you are. You just don't want to admit it because then you would have to discard it as a fallacy.

And supernatural is a meaningless term as it has no real definition. You cannot assert that something is above or outside of nature unless you describe where nature ends and the "supernatural" begins. I can for instance say something is extraterrestrial because the earth has a definite boundary to space, and because it is a simple geometric description. But I can't even begin to think what a "supernatural" thing would be and so to me it is a meaningless concept.

"It seems to me that there are two ways in which abiogenesis-believers have tried to answer the question. One is to say that "the origin of life was a VERY lucky accident", the other is to say "the origin of life was very easy and straightforward and bound to happen sooner or later"."

Since there is no absolute definition of life the probability of it's chances of arising are impossible to estimate either way. Though creationists love to throw meaningless numbers at people.

"The video you shared falls into that second category. As I understand the video, it claims that DNA molecules and semiporous lipid membranes naturally tend to form in certain solutions (somewhat true; short DNA molecules can form in some solutions, but they also quickly degrade... same with the semiporous lipid membranes), and DNA catalyzes the formation of longer and longer versions of itself (misleading... because of the limited catalytic effects seen in the lab), and a pre-biotic "evolution" and "natural selection" began to happen spontaneously as the chemical reaction continued and as longer and longer ("more efficient") RNA molecules began to proliferate, and transcription of DNA molecules into RNA and proteins gradually began to occur, until gradually, over time, the first primitive cell began to function. And from there, the cell reproduced itself, and full-fledged neodarwinian (mutation + natural selection) evolution began to occur, leading to all the current cellular machinery and subsequently the various species."

The video talks about what pre-DNA and pre-RNA life may have been like based on what we observe in chemistry.

"The problem is that if these reactions occurred so easily as the video implies they do, it should be easy to demonstrate it happening in the lab."

Much of what it describes does happen in the lab, and maybe all of it. I don't have the chemestry chops to know, I mainly gave you the video because a) it was interesting and b) you asserted that we know nothing about how life may have arisen, which is not true. The video was meant to contradict that assertion, which it has - and now you're arguing against the contents of a video as if I had asserted them to be correct when in reality I started from the position of "lets assume we know nothing about abiogenesis", not "abiogenesis is proven therefore there isn't a god".

"But abiogenesis-believers have never been able to do so. They have been able to generate some amino acids (Miller-Urey) (though not ALL of the amino acids), and they have shown some simple DNA or RNA or or polypeptide spontaneous formation (up to 3 or 4 bases or proteins), and they have shown that short (e.g. 32-base) RNAs can catalyze the dimerization of previously existing partial copies of itself (15bp/17bp pure homochiral pieces... cf. http://creation.com/self-replicating-enzymes ) but they have not shown (to my knowledge) the lengthy chains of either RNA or polypeptides forming by themselves, as the video pictures try to illustrate in schematic form."

It's generally accepted that if life arose via abiogenesis then it would not have much resembled the complex chemistry of modern cells any more than the first computer would operate the way modern computers do. What you're saying is like saying my computer must have been designed by god and not been based on simpler models because the first computer wouldn't have been able to run this version of windows.

"Here are some more critiques of the video:
At time 2:36, the video claimed: "the early earth had orders of magnitude more Time, Space, Complex Chemistry, and Environmental Conditions".

This was a comment, not a central point of the video. While it's legitimate to criticize the logic of the statement you could remove that line from the video and the premise would be unchanged.

"Unfortunately, this seems to be a "Chance of the Gaps" hypothesis. In other words, they are claiming that "no matter how improbable" was the formation of the first self-reproducing living cell, it was "bound to happen sooner or later"

Now you're just strawmanning the video. Nowhere does it say that, it just describes the difficulty in simulating every possible interaction of every possible element or chemical in every possible combination in every possible range of pressure in every possible range of temperature, before after and during being exposed to every possible mechanical force etc, etc. The video implies that the fact that we have not reproduced the conditions life arose in does not prove it did not arise by abiogenesis, it does not suggest that it proves it did - thus it is not a true "chance of the gaps" argument. It's stunning to me though that your central argument is god of the gaps, but you howl at the idea of the same reasoning being applied to anything else (even when it isn't!).

"because the probabilistic resources ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xViPjMdULng ) were SO large... but they never bothered to look at the numbers involved, as Dembski and others have done ( http://iscid.org/papers/Dembski_ChanceGaps_012002.pdf )"

The concept of specified complexity is a sort of circular reasoning, it assumes that god was "aiming" for life in it's present form (thus the complexity is specified beforehand) and thus it is unlikely and must be the product of an intelligence. In other words it rejects the idea that the universe is un-planned by assuming it is planned which changes the math he uses to conclude that it is planned. The information in DNA is specified if there is a god and not specified if there is not a god. He is essentially saying there is a god because there is a god which proves there is a god. Just in a way so convoluted and subtle it sounds like a real argument. This ignores the real likelihood that the universe was no more aiming for your exact genetic sequence than it was aiming at the exact genetic sequence of a giraffe or an amoeba or the herpes virus. In fact the exact sequence is in perpetual flux in trillions of variants and is changing all the time. By natural processes btw.

"with their "universal probability bound". I.e., it is important to understand how one might ever successfully rule out chance as an explanation for some event. It turns out that the probability of getting one (out of the hundreds... http://creation.com/how-simple-can-life-be ) typical-length protein (of say 150 amino acids) to form by chance is far lower than might ever be expected to happen even given the billions of years of time believed by secularists to have occurred since the Big Bang. Thus it is more rational to infer Design rather than Chance."

It is well established in biology that proteins do not occur on their own and are exclusively manufactured by cells and that if life did arise by abiogenesis those early organisms would not be protein-based life. As such this argument is either extremely ignorant or extremely dishonest. It's like arguing that the first computer couldn't have had a hard drive and so my computer was designed by god in it's present state - ignoring the possibility that computers originally didn't have hard drives and read information off of disks. This is the same argument from ignorance over and over again.

I went through and deleted all the parts where you made arguments about DNA and RNA and proteins because the video has nothing to do with any of them, and I got sick of pointing that out.

"In other words, it is not enough to say "the early earth had orders of magnitude more ..."

I agree. You know the video had more to it, right? And it wasn't talking about just more "chances", but a vastly more complex array of different environmental conditions than what could practically be reproduced in any lab. And that line did not purport to prove a particular conclusion and was therefore not a fallacy.

"There needs to be some understanding of approximately HOW MUCH MORE were the probabilistic resources, in order to accept or rule out chance as the originating factor. Once one crunches the numbers, as Dembski has done, chance is seen to be inadequate."

Dembski's argument was debunked a long time ago.

"At time 4:18 the video talks about self-formed semiporous vesicles "incorporating" free fatty acids. But on the previous slides (3:32 and 4:09) the video emphasized that these proposed vesicles were porous! meaning that free fatty acids would move both IN and OUT. Why then, at 4:18, would the video imply that such free fatty acids would ACCUMULATE inside the vesicles?"

Why don't you go back and actually watch the video. It says that the fatty acids would accumulate in the skin of the proto-cell which would be permeable to nucleotide monomers but not to polymers (ie fatty acids). Your objection is based on just not reading the text properly.

"The principles of osmosis would surely require that any buildup of fatty acids in a POROUS vesicle would quickly dissipate back out of the vesicle... yes? The reason modern cells are able to hold their proteins in close enough proximity to interact and reproduce is precisely because of their high quality impervious bilipid membrane. Without that, there would be no such "eating and growth" (4:17 on the video)."

This is just gibberish. The acids do not build up in the vesicle, they are incorporated into it's skin. And you're back on proteins... Do you have any objections that have to do with what's actually in the video?

"At 4:30, 4:32, 4:40 regarding the concept of "branching vesicles" which spontaneously pinch off and "are divided by mechanical forces" (supposedly while immediately reclosing and without spilling their contents out), has this been demonstrated by any scientific experiments? Or is this just speculation?"

Yes, because that would be abductive reasoning, and I know how much you hate that.

You are asking if a vescicle made of fatty acids, once split apart by mechanical forces will re-seal itself instantly. Want to see it happen? Ironically you already have.

"If it's just speculation, I find it quite unconvincing."

You LOVE speculation. You embrace it and fight for it and argue in favor of it.

"Any "mechanical forces" strong enough to break / divide these "branched semi-porous vesicles" would certainly be strong enough to spill out the contents into the surrounding medium. I'm not sure how familiar you are with biological lab principles, but mechanical forces are commonly used to lyse modern cells (e.g. via centrifugation at high speeds), and in these cases the cell membranes do not evenly pinch off and subdivide, but rather break open and spill the cell's protein contents into the surrounding media."

The whole point of the video was how un-like modern cells early cells would have been.

"At 6:36, the video summarizes... "the cycle repeats". I.e., put the basic building blocks of nucleotides and semi-porous lipid-vesicle-forming molecules into a heat/cool convection apparatus, and presto! you'll have little vesicles spontaneously forming long DNA polymers inside themselves. However, has this been demonstrated anywhere?? Or is this just speculation? (with nice colorful pictures as their only 'evidence')"

It isn't talking about DNA, I don't know to what extent this has been proven and I only gave the link to refute your claim that scientists have nothing to go on as far as the origins of life goes. You seem to want to make it all about the video.

"At 6:50-55, the video talks about this vesicle "stretching", stealing lipids from neighboring vesicles, etc. But surely a weak semi-porous lipid membrane (we're not talking here about a strong modern bilipid membrane) would not have the mechanical strength to "stretch" without breaking! And what are the "simple thermodynamics" mentioned in 6:55?? Is it talking about osmotic pressure? Or some kind of "merging"-"unmerging" cycle of the semi-porous lipid membrane? This slide doesn't make any sense to me at all. If there are any scientific experiments which report this happening in the lab, please let me know... I'm willing to be shown how this is plausible. Otherwise, it seems extremely implausible based on what we know about lipid membranes."

As I said before a great deal of it is above my head, I do not endorse the video I just thought it was interesting and contradicted your claim that scientists have no proposed explanations for the origin of life. And you seem to be acting like an expert in chemistry which seems like a facade to me.

"At 7:12, the video says: "a vesicle that contains a polymer that can replicate faster will grow and divide faster, eventually dominating the population." This is a terribly vague set of generalizations, interchanging the language used for living cells to try to describe pre-biotic vesicles.... and moreover it doesn't make sense. "a vesicle that contains a polymer that can replicate faster" will surely break its weak, porous, single-lipid membrane sooner, spilling its contents into the surrounding media! It will "grow" until it pops its membrane. As for "dividing", let's remember that we are not yet able to talk about true cell division, because that involves many proteins, and the video has not yet described the origin of proteins (only nucleotide polymers). Instead, by "division", it's referring to "mechanical forces" splitting and breaking up the vesicle. I see no reason why a vesicle with faster-polymerizing DNA strands would fare better in "division" by random "mechanical forces" than a vesicle with slower-polymerizing DNA strands. In fact, I would think that a vesicle with less pressure on the membrane (due to slower-polymerizing DNA strands) would be MORE likely to survive the said mechanical force divisions without lysing."

You are saying that an early cell dividing isn't "true" cell division because it doesn't work the way modern cells work, basically saying that you reject anything that isn't like a modern cell and thus reject the very concept of abiogenesis out of hand before even hearing the facts.

"Now, let's talk more about genetic "information", a key concept here. At point 7:52, the video says "early genomes were completely random and therefore contained NO information." What type of information is he talking about here? Not Shannon (channel-capacity) or Kolmogorov (minimum-description-length) information, because these DNA polymers (he calls them "genomes"!) certainly do have Shannon and Kolmogorov info. Instead, I think he's talking about specified functional protein-coding information... i.e. a specific sequence of nucleotides that would produce functional proteins. So far, so good... That is an acceptable use of the term "information". (For more info, pages 90-106 of Meyer's "Signature in the Cell") (By the way, Meyer's book discusses all the major abiogenesis theories... RNA-first, DNA-first, protein-first, hypercycles, metabolism-first, self-organizing complexity (Kauffman), etc... and shows why they all don't work. I'd recommend reading his book some time.)"

That would, I imagine, be just as much above my head as this video. I think abiogenesis is an interesting idea and is a better explanation for the origins of complexity than invoking an intelligent designer who is mysteriously complex for no apparent reason. But I do not claim to know life arose by abiogenesis, it just seems more likely. Remember I started my response by saying assume we know nothing about abiogenesis, then explaining how the idea of a creator in and of itself does not make sense, even with no competing hypothesis. You ignored my points and attacked strawmen.

Imagine for a moment what would happen if you took the skepticism you apply to the notion that a soap bubble at the bottom of the ocean could split apart and pass on chemical polymers and applied one one hundredth that skepticism to the idea that a universe-creating, infinitely intelligent and wise being that knows everything that will ever happen and can make no mistakes and (if that weren't enough) loves you like crazy just happens to exist for no apparent reason.

You reject the mundane as impossible and accept the fantastical and extraordinary as fact with no evidence.

"But when the video gets to 8:12, it says "Mutation + Natural Selection = Increased Information". Now what type of information is he talking about? It can't be "functional protein-coding information", the type he referenced before, because where did he ever show "Mutation + Natural Selection = Increased Information" in THIS sense?? No one has ever shown that. (If I'm wrong, and mutations have ever been shown to create new functional proteins or new body parts, let me know). He's probably talking about Shannon information or Kolmogorov information. Thus this is a classic equivocation of terms. He switches the meaning of the term "information"... proving it for one meaning, then switching to another, completely different, unproven, meaning."

I think he just meant functional, nonrandom chemical patterns being stored and passed on generationally. No need to throw big words and concepts around.

"Similarly, he makes several claims (and colorful pictures) in 9:01-9:25 about these amazing "early polymer enzymes". Does he have any evidence for these claims, or is it just speculation and nice artwork?"

Why don't you ask him?

"At the end, at 9:33-37, he again claims that this is a "simple, 2-component system that spontaneously forms in the pre-biotic environment and that can eat, grow, contain information, replicate, and evolve". Fine. If it's so "simple", why has it never been demonstrated in the laboratory? He makes it sound in his video as if the whole process is easy and simple... just start with some nucleotides and lipids, add a little heat, and presto, you have self-replicating vesicles with self-polymerizing "evolving" DNA inside, performing self-enzymatic operations on itself, etc. Where's the experimental proof of this??"

According to the video it is supported by experimental evidence, though to what extent I do not know. However even if it were disproven it would not prove there is a god. Wouldn't even suggest that there was one. Not logically.

"Do you see why I find this video unconvincing? It's a cute "just-so" story with pretty pictures and music, while actual lab results contradict rather than support the story. I have not yet seen any convincing B2 abiogenesis explanation anywhere. Nor, apparently, have many evolutionists... http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=pssst-dont-tell-the-creationists-bu-2011-02-28"

This is to be expected. Even if we mixed the right chemicals together under the right conditions and made some kind of proto-life, that would not prove that that is how life arose on earth. Because what really happened is lost to history. Trying to re-trace an event for which there is literally no contemporary evidence still in existence is like trying to figure out what the first word ever spoken was, based on the current state of modern language. It is a dauntingly difficult task, most likely impossible. But scientists study it because even if we figure out how life may have arisen, it's still worth knowing. In fact you could use your "abductive" reasoning there too - zero surviving evidence of abiogenesis is consistent with abiogenesis therefore we ought to accept that it did. But logical fallacies only support a proposition if it's on your side, right?

"This is a key misunderstanding. You (and the video, which I watched) are misrepresenting my/the-creationists' argument (presumably accidentally rather than deliberately). I did NOT claim that "genetic mutations never produce novel or useful [or 'beneficial'] traits".

The video wasn't "misrepresenting" the common creationist argument that way, it actually started out with a clip from a creationist video.

"Instead, I claimed that genetic mutations never add more new functional information to the genome."

And they do. By any definition of "functional information". Which is why creationists tend to not want to define the term so they can keep moving the goalpost and refusing to accept examples as legitimate.

Mutations can certainly be "beneficial" in certain environments... for example - mutant beetles that lost wing functionality survive better on windy islands ( http://creation.com/article/599 ), or sickle cell mutation that reduces blood cell oxygen-carrying capacity but confers a slight survival advantage in areas with lots of malaria ( http://creation.com/article/901/ ), or mutant cattle with extra muscle which farmers like ( http://creation.com/mutations-selection-and-the-quest-for-meatier-livestock) but which reduces fertility, or mutant blind cave fish which have a slight survival/selection advantage over sighted fish when living in caves (but not elsewhere). Quoting from http://creation.com/response-to-pbs-nova-evolution-series-episode-4-the-evolutionary-arms-race , "There are other related examples, e.g. one way for Staphylococcus to become resistant to penicillin is via a mutation that disables a control gene for production of penicillinase, an enzyme that destroys penicillin. Then the bacterium over-produces this enzyme, which means it is resistant to huge amounts of penicillin. But in the wild, this mutant bacterium would be less fit, because it would squander resources by producing unnecessary penicillinase."

Every mutation has a cost and a benefit. If a mutation makes a predator run faster, it is a better hunter, but it also burns more calories and has more wear and tear, higher risk of injury etc. As evidenced by the fact that even something so amazingly beneficial as an eye reduces the odds of survival, because building and maintaining it takes calories which contributes to starvation, a primary cause of death in nature. So if we take that standard as valid, that nothing adds new "information" that has a biological or evolutionary cost, then an eye evolving from scratch through mutation and natural selection adds no new information. That is a tad bit unreasonable, wouldn't you say?

"Quoting from http://creation.com/ccr5delta32-a-very-beneficial-mutation , "CCR5-delta32 can be considered a prime example of a beneficial mutation - a mutation that decreases the information content of the genome and degrades the functionality of the organism, yet provides a tangible benefit. To date over 10,000 specific disease-causing mutations of the human genome have been identified. In contrast, only a handful of beneficial mutations have been discovered, none of which involve an increase in genetic information as required by evolution."

There are many beneficial mutations which occur through gene duplication (and a great deal of evidence that existing genes occurred through gene duplication mutations) and here are some of them.

"For an excellent article about this and discussing the e. coli mutation experiments by Barry Hall and their implications, see http://www.detectingdesign.com/steppingstones.html . For more info on homeobox switches, polyploidy, gene duplication, etc and why they do not show mutations producing new functional information, see http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-2-chapter-5-argument-some-mutations-are-beneficial."

What sleazy assholes. They're claiming that critics of creationism are lying when they argue against the idea that mutations only remove information or cause birth defects, when creationists have insisted this for decades. You even claimed that the video I gave you was misrepresenting the creationist position when it was responding to a video saying that very thing. Creationists change their position every 20 years or so and pretend they have been saying the same thing. Just like they say "of course natural selection happens, nobody doubts that" after years of claiming it was impossible.

"In fact, even "beneficial" mutations have been shown in the lab to work against each other, causing reduced fitness after multiple "beneficial" mutations. http://creation.com/antagonistic-epistasis The basic problem is that these "beneficial" mutations are actually degrading the genome in general, although they convey slight selective advantage in certain narrow contrived environments. These mutations are not adding new functional information."

Everything conveys an advantage and disadvantage, which is why species adapt to an environment many ways. Being small means an animal can't fight off predators, but it means it can go by in tall grass unnoticed, etc. Demanding a trait which is 100% useful and has no downside whatsoever is demanding the impossible. That's not the way the world works.

"(In case you're wondering, and since the video you linked accused creationists of being too vague about what type of information we're referring to, I'm referring NOT to Shannon or Kolmolgorov information, but specified functional information (also known as specified complexity, or enzymatic functional specificity... it can be quantified in various ways... e.g. Dembski's approach, or Spetner's approach http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner1.asp ).
Hence my ink-on-newspaper analogy... ink splattered on a newspaper could certainly add Shannon or Kolmolgorov information, but it is extremely unlikely to add functional information (information that conforms to an external pattern of readability or usability... English syntaxially-correct news information in the newspaper analogy, coding for new functional proteins or body parts in the biological case).

A bad analogy, a genetic mutation does not fuck up the entire genome like splashing ink on a newspaper does the newspaper, nor is english text where every letter is "functional" (ie means something) comparable to DNA which contains huge chunks of non-coding DNA which can usually be modified with no ill effect.

"All of these examples show that mutations usually BREAK or DISABLE some functionality, which happens to confer a slight survival advantage in some environments. But none of these are examples of mutations adding novel functional information to the genome.... coding for new functional proteins, new body parts, etc. But that is precisely what would be needed and expected to see in the lab IF evolution (B3) were true. Since we see the opposite (mutation DEGRADES the genome and NEVER adds new functional information), B3 is obviously false."

Yes, to even suggest that creationists claim "mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features." is a dishonest strawman and creationists never claim this.

Do you even listen to yourself?

"Let me comment briefly here on the video link from the Muslim creationist which you sent me. The video attacks lots of creationist straw-man arguments,"

It responds to a creationist making those arguments. How the hell is that a strawman?

"as you can hopefully understand from the distinction I have drawn above between "beneficial" mutations (which do happen in certain environments under high selective pressure) versus "increases in functional genetic information due to random mutations" (which have never been observed to happen, anywhere; correct me if I'm wrong)."

I gave examples. And selective pressures do not produce beneficial mutations, they select for them. They occur regardless of the environment and are beneficial or harmful depending on the environment.

"At 0:41, the video claims that creationists teach that "Mutations are rare and harmful decreases in genetic information". This is obviously a straw man argument. While some creationists (even perhaps the one featured in this video) may teach these things, I certainly do not (nor, as you can see from the many http://www.creation.com links I've sent, do mainstream Biblical creationists)."

You claim this, your website claims this and the creationist in the video claimed this.

"I would say, instead, that mutations are fairly common (approximately 50 to 100 new mutations passed on from each person's somatic cell line per generation ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110613012758.htm ), and millions more mutations which are not passed on to offspring but often cause cancer). Mutations are indeed usually neutral, but often harmful, though very rarely they are "beneficial" (conveying survival advantage) under certain environments. And yes, while mutations COULD THEORETICALLY cause quantum functional increases in genetic information by coding for brand new functional genes or body parts, the probability of this occurring is extremely low (on the order of 10^-150 as above, depending on the length of the protein) and it has never been observed to occur in the laboratory."

More statistical arguments... Complex things evolve by gradual modification of precursors, not all at once. Many such evolutionary pathways have been discovered, such as the gradual steps of the evolution of the eye, all of which exist in nature in different environments.

"At 5:00, the video claims that the evolution of new genetic information is analogous to the evolution of language, in that existing letters can be reshuffled to create new words. Since thousands of new words have been invented by humans, the video tries to claim that the same principle works in the addition of new proteins through genetic mutations. Unfortunately, the example proves just the opposite: that intelligent design (e.g. human beings inventing new words) is always involved in the generation of new functional information (what Dembski calls 'complex specified information')!"

It's saying that they are analogous not synonymous you tool. Seriously? You can't even entertain an idea for two minutes without pretending it says what you want it to say? It's an analogy meant to illustrate a concept. You know, concepts, those things you only like if they support your preconceptions.

"At 6:00, the video tries to claim that just as Latin 'diverged' to form Spanish, Italian, French, etc, the earlier animal species 'diverged' via neodarwinian evolution to form other species. Actually, creationists such as myself fully agree that "speciation" can occur due to genetic variation, mutations, etc."

Almost all creationists deny that speciation is possible despite the fact that it's well-observed.

"The created 'kinds' were designed to produce lots of variation within each kind.... and as mutations have piled up since the Fall, some animals within the same 'kind' have lost the ability to interbreed with other animals from the same kind, thus producing new species BY DEFINITION each time this happens. For more info on this, please see http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-2-chapter-4-argument-natural-selection-leads-to-speciation"

Yes, they teach "super-evolution" to justify the noah's ark story, claiming that evolutionary changes that occur over millions of years occurred over a few thousand, demonstrating that they believe whatever they want to believe.

"and http://creation.com/ligers-and-wholphins-what-next and other articles such as these ( http://creation.com/speciation-questions-and-answers ). In summary, yes animals from the original set of created "kinds" have diverged into different "sub-species" in the past few thousand years, but it was not because of any new functional genetic information provided by mutations, but because of genetic variation, mutation-induced information loss, and other factors."

This isn't supported by actual evidence, it's speculation asserted as fact. In reality it's not just horses and zebras and dolphins and whales and lions and tigers that fit into similar "kinds" (ie taxonomical divisions), it's also ALL of them that are the same "kind", mammals. And all mammals, reptiles, dinosaurs, amphibians etc are the same "kind" since they are all quadrupeds (among other things) and all of them are also the same "kind" as fish since they are all craniates and vertibrates and many other things, and all animals and all plants are the same "kind" because they are all eukaryotic on the cellular level.

The family tree apparently goes a lot further back than you'd like to think.

"At 6:25, the video says "So yes, genetic material can be added or taken away. But as to whether information has been added as opposed to lost, we can't really tell, because creationists won't tell us what they think information is, or how to measure it." That's another straw man, as you can see from the links I've provided above about information. It's also a cop-out, because the author of the video doesn't give us his own version of information either, or how to measure it."

Actually it's not a strawman, creationists have just written a new batch of articles for their websites. And now that they're finally being specific, their claim can be tested - and rejected as falsified.

"Regarding "junk DNA", a standard evolutionary term coming from the assumption that most of our DNA is leftover from millions of years of random mutation, the girl Crystal cites a study that shows that mice without certain "junk DNA" appeared to be phenotypically normal, but she doesn't cite the other side, the studies that are coming out every year with new revelations about how "junk DNA" is likely not "junk" at all."

If you can remove huge chunks of DNA to no effect it is by definition non-functional. And about 7-8% of our DNA is de-activated ERVs, I assume broken virus fragments counts as "junk" to you?

"At 8:51, the video shows a screenshot of a old 2001 article and states that "the neutral [mutations], having neither cost nor ill-effect may freely accumulate as 'junk'." Basically, this is outdated science. Top biologists today are moving away from these old notions of "junk DNA".
If you're interested, here are some more recent links from a creationist news site linking to scientific discoveries revising drastically upward the estimate of the complexity of the genetic code, and decreasing the probability that so-called "junk" DNA is truly "junk".
- 3D DNA information storage (http://crev.info/content/go_to_the_cell_thou_sluggard),
- Alu-repeat elements' functionality (previously thought junk) (http://crev.info/content/go_to_the_cell_thou_sluggard),
- how most of the human genome (98%) actually doesn't contain protein-coding genes (hence previously considered junk) but is now understood to be primarily regulatory code, in various layers (http://crev.info/content/human_genome_project_supports_adam_not_darwin , and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100716125835.htm)
- lincRNA's with histone modification ability, and chromatin remodeling (http://crev.info/content/specialized_molecules_make_cells_work)
- epigenetics, e.g. DNA methylation coding, cytoskeletal mechanical hysteresis, etc (http://crev.info/content/building_a_cell_staggering_complexity)
- alternative splicing of DNA exon sub-units to create many times more proteins than there are genes to code for them individually (http://crev.info/content/building_a_cell_staggering_complexity)"

There is a huge difference between thinking something was junk DNA and being wrong and concluding there is no junk DNA. If there were no junk DNA then virtually all mutations would be harmful, which you already agreed is not the case. You are arguing just to argue.

"The other key book (besides Meyer's) that you really should read if you want to understand the creationist argument (not merely internet parodies of it, like the videos you sent me) is John Sanford's "Genetic Entropy" (http://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-Mystery-Genome-Sanford/dp/1599190028 ). As one of the commentators wrote, "NDET posits that most mutations are neutral. However, Sanford argues that there is no such thing as a truly "neutral" mutation. Rather, most mutations are "near-neutral" (whether increasing fitness or decreasing fitness). Even a single point-nucleotide mutation in a minor area of the genome disrupts the genetic code to some degree (no matter how small)."
Sanford shows that these "near-neutral" mutations (many "slightly detrimental", a few "slightly beneficial") build up in the genome over time, and natural selection is not powerful enough to eliminate them. (Much less, to CREATE the genetic information for the original smoothly-functioning protein/DNA/etc system in the first place)."

And yet life still keeps evolving, strange isn't it?

"At the end of the video, the author tries to make a claim that since certain species have more similar DNA (or mtDNA) than other species, that proves that they shared a common ancestor. However, the same pattern would also be expected on the creationist model (http://creation.com/mitochondrial-eve-and-biblical-eve-are-looking-good-criticism-of-young-age-is-premature)... namely, animals which were created with more similar bodies would naturally be expected to share more similar genomes (because the genes help produce the bodies). So this final argument is completely silly and vacuous."

I'm sorry but no, there is no logic to that. A common designer in no way implies that the designs will be similar, unless you are saying the designer has limited imagination. And common ancestry isn't speculation, it is based on evolutionary predictions of countless things in the genome and fossil record which not only support the theory, but actually must be true or it is false. There is nothing that must be true in order for an all-powerful something to have made everything by mysterious means. It is too vague to be tested, and it is kind of dishonest to take an idea so vague and all-inclusive that it cannot be tested and pretend that that is a strength. I could by the same logic say that every file on your computer is consistent with the hypothesis that an all-powerful genie made your computer in it's present form. Because if one did, it could make it however it wanted, so nothing can possibly contradict that assertion. Does that make it probable that it is true?

"In summary, the real-world scientific/biological evidence is strongly against the B1/B2/B3 abiogenesis&evolution hypothesis, and is strongly consistent with the creationist position, that God created life with perfect genomes a few thousand years ago, and then since the Fall our genomes have been gradually deteriorating and accumulating mutations."

No, it isn't. You can't attack evolution and then act like that proves creationism. And of biologists, how many support creationism? If you just ask the christian ones it's less than 1% that believe in a literal as-is creation. Lying about how well-supported an idea is is not a strength.

"It is true that the gospels were written down within a few decades of Jesus' death."

Which invalidates the prophecy of his death as evidence, yes?

"But there is no doubt historically that "something" happened within a couple DAYS after Jesus' death that radically changed Jesus' disciples and started the Christian church."

As if the death of an influential figure isn't enough to generate a larger following. If the logic is that people only follow a martyr if they're the son of god or that people believed he was the son of god so it must be true, I am not impressed. People believe stupid and false things all the time. In fact most people in the world aren't christian and most of them believe in some totally full of shit, made up religion.

People being convinced of something en-masse is not impressive to me.

"There were thousands of newly converted followers of the risen Jesus Christ in Jerusalem very shortly after Jesus' death. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, some other explanation has to be provided for why these Jews would all suddenly change their religious beliefs and believe that Jesus was their Messiah."

People believe things for many reasons, not the least of which is fear, hope, how the belief makes them feel pressure of their peers etc. Joseph Smith, the supposed prophet of mormonism died a few centuries ago, now there are 17 million followers of his religion. Does all of those people converting prove the religion is true?

"A common alternative explanation is that the disciples banded together to steal the body, to deceive people."

This is a strawman, I don't think I've ever heard a skeptic actually argue this. A simpler explanation is that his story is just exaggerated. As if someone could prove a body was his body any time but immediately after his death - and even then wasn't his body tortured to the point of being unrecognizable according to scripture? Muslim scripture says another much more mundane explanation, that he was not crucified, but that someone who looked like him was. I think people being gullible in the age of zeus and thor is the most likely explanation. After all, he's not the first person claimed to be alive after his death. Look at elvis.

"But it is difficult to understand why they would do this and keep trying to perpetuate the teachings of their recently-killed rabbi, knowing that the Pharisees would come after them next. It is even more difficult to understand why anyone would be willing to be tortured and die for something they knew was a lie (all eleven of them (10 were martyred, one was exiled), with no defectors, unlike Joseph Smith's 'witnesses', etc)."

That proves that they believed, not that their belief was justified. People believe all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. There are millions of people who believe a handful of different people are jesus on earth right now.

"More on this below. Did you read the article by Bill Craig?"

Probably, I don't remember.

"There is evidence indicating that the authors of Matthew and John were Jesus' disciples of those names, so they knew Jesus very well and would have memorized his teachings extensively over the three years they traveled together. Mark learned and took notes from both Peter (who knew Jesus well and was one of His disciples) and Paul (who saw Jesus in visions a couple times). Luke claims to have interviewed eyewitnesses (such as Mary Jesus' mother) and was a companion of Paul, and his historical details are extremely well corroborated. (Did you read the paragraph about Colin Hemer in Bill Craig's article?)"

That any of the gospels are copies of copies of copies of texts written by any of the original apostles (rather than the names being tacked on later as is definitely the case for at least three of them since they appear to be modified copies) is not exactly something universally held to be true - bear in mind that the first three books of the bible were once believed to be written by moses, which has long since been abandoned. And I don't remember (to the last question)

"Also, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and other secular historians confirm the general info about Jesus' life and death in the gospels, although they did not believe he rose from the dead (if they did, they would no longer be in the category of 'secular historians'). Josephus' two mentions of Jesus (he called Jesus "the so-called Christ") are discussed here http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/josephus.html and http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus , and I can get you articles on Tacitus / etc if you're interested."

Not contemporaries of jesus.

"Meanwhile, the segment of 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 considered by most scholars to be a quote from an early Christian creed is dated to within about 5 years after Jesus' death, and the text clearly states the resurrection, showing that it was widely believed and taught within a short time after Jesus, not only after many decades later. For more info on this, http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb2.html , http://carm.org/apologetics/evidence-and-answers/analysis-pre-pauline-creed-1-corinthians-151-11 , and http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8477 ."

So saying something happened shortly after you claim it happened makes it true?

"In view of these facts, your hypothetical story about someone claiming in the year 2070 that you predicted the 9/11 attacks fails to cast doubt on the gospels' testimony that Jesus rose from the dead for several reasons:"

Actually I was explicitly referring to the prediction that he would rise from the dead.

"- in your story, you would not have actually done anything 'miraculous' - you could have simply had inside information (e.g. been an acquaintance of one of the terrorists)... unlike Jesus who not only predicted his resurrection, but then actually ROSE from the dead..."

I don't think you get the point.

"- in your story, there was no information recorded (either in written form, or discussed/memorized in oral form, or anything) about your supposed prediction for 69 years, until suddenly you made your claim... whereas the news of Jesus resurrection was reported and widely discussed in Jerusalem immediately (oral form) after the event, and we have written documentation of it going back to within 5 years of the event (there were no daily newspapers back then...)"

The point is that the prediction would have to be documented... before the thing happened to be impressive. Not to mention the thing itself would have to be reliably documented otherwise it could just be a story made to fit the prediction.

"- 69 years is such a long time after an event that even if there were other eyewitnesses who could have corroborated your story ("Yeah, I remember when Mark made that prediction, and then a couple days later he turned out to be right"), they would be dead or in poor health, at roughly 80-90 years old. By contrast, the gospels were written at a time when there were many eyewitnesses still available to talk with. This is why Paul could say in 1 Corinthians 15:6, "Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep."

You're using a claim made 70 years later about something happening 70 years prior as evidence that it happened while rejecting even a hypothetical version from being credible.

"However, it is primarily Jesus' resurrection itself that is very convincing to me about the truth of His teachings.... not merely His prediction about His resurrection. The prediction was merely the background for the actual miracle.

[Stories of miracles and prophecies being fulfilled were extremely common at the time, even of secular figures. Alexander the great for instance was believed to have been the son of zeus, immaculately conceived by a bolt of lightning and born of a virgin, and was said to have fulfilled both biblical and extra-biblical prophecies. If a handful of people repeated the stories decades after his death, would you worship zeus?]

"Actually, if you look at the details of such stories about other ancient near-eastern deities, they fall into two categories. The ones which were directly similar to the story of Jesus' death and resurrection were all written many decades AFTER Jesus. The ones which were written BEFORE Jesus were only vague stories about gods which "died and rose again" or "went to sleep and returned to wakefulness" symbolically every year with the change in seasons. They were not historical accounts located in real times/places with historical accounts (as, for example, Luke/Acts is). So basically, yes, some of the other religions started borrowing Christian narrative and making up similar stories about their own gods... but only many years after Jesus' death and resurrection. For example, on Alexander the Great, to my knowledge, the main reliable early historians were Arrian and Plutarch, who wrote 400 years after his death (in the 4th century AD)! The legends about his miracles and divine origin only came AFTER Arrian and Plutarch..."

I was referring to prophecy, virgin birth, immaculate conception and being the son of a god - not resurrection. Your response is a non-sequiter.

"Don't just take my word for it... investigate each of these claims about these other 'gods' and heros for yourself. Can you find even one that was an actual historically-situated account of a divine hero who literally died and was literally/physically raised back to life, with documented historical written texts teaching this, before AD 33? Here are some links that have some good summarized info:
http://christianthinktank.com/copycat.html
http://christianthinktank.com/copycatwho1.html"

Good logic. If a story is original it must be true. I think you just proved we're all in the matrix.

[Really? Why not? People believe all kinds of falsehoods and exaggerations today, why wouldn't they have in the era of greek mythology? And not only were many people at the time not convinced any of it was true (there are jews to this day), but most people in the world are not convinced of it. If people believing something makes it true, then isn't islam true? Lots of people believed the stories about joseph smith in his lifetime, are you going to convert to mormonism?]

"It's true that many people at that time did not believe in Jesus and in his resurrection (while on the other hand many did believe). But it is interesting to see what the unbelievers' reaction was... i.e. WHY / what was their stated reason for disbelieving in Jesus? The Jews who did not believe in Jesus and wrote anything about it typically wrote that Jesus was one 'who has practised sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray' (b. Sanh. 43a, b. Sanh. 107b), which is also how the gospels portray the unbelieving Jews' response to Jesus' previous miracles (Mark 3:22, John 8:48, 10:20, etc). In other words, they did not deny the miracles that Jesus did... they simply believed that the miracles were done using the devil's power..."

Another non-sequiter. Thanks. I asked questions of you too, and you blew me off.

"How so? What alternative scenario are you proposing? That the disciples went to the wrong tomb? That they all had the same hallucination, many times, over the course of a month and a half? That they were all brainwashed?"

Folie à deux or "a delusion shared by two" is not uncommon and can apply to whole groups of people. Also religious figures generating cults of devoted followers around themselves is also not uncommon, even with benign figures like eastern gurus who aren't trying to create some kind of manson family. But there are many possibilities, Folie à deux is one. That someone else was captured, believed to be him and executed and jesus was seen later and thought to be alive is another, hell even a twin brother scenario is simpler than that he created the universe. Bear in mind they could've all dreamed about him and seen this as proof of his return, there are a million possibilities. But more likely the story was simply exaggerated over time. I mean look how exaggerated and distorted 9/11 got in just a few years, in like 2002 you had george bush conspiracy theories that were convincing millions upon millions of people. People don't just believe things because of evidence, they believe things out of fear, they believe what they want to be true, or what they think will get them into heaven or make the crops grow or what they think will get them through their day. And in the age of zeus and thor people were more than a little gullible and superstitious, no?

"You seem to be missing my point. Notice again this sentence that I wrote above:
Many people have been willing to die for their faith [e.g. Miranda, Moon, etc], but that is not the same as asking whether someone would be willing to die for something they knew to be a lie."

I don't think I misunderstood anything.

"Either way, I don't think you have answered my question. Again: if you think the disciples did NOT know that it was a lie (i.e. they were all deluded somehow), exactly how do you propose that happened?"

Well, I think you don't know it is a lie, so why don't you tell me?

Either way I can't exactly evaluate the thought processes and experiences of 2,000 year old dead people I've never met, can I?

"If you think the disciples DID know that it was a lie, how is it reasonable to believe that all 11 (plus dozens or hundreds more) were martyred, thrown in prison, driven out of town, etc for their eyewitness testimony (NOT for their 'faith', like the Miranda/Moon/Smith/etc followers, but their eyewitness testimony) while knowing that if they simply admitted that they were lying, they would be spared?"

I just said that proves they believed it, not that it was true. You're attacking a strawman... again.

"I will await your clarification."

And then pretend I said they knew it was a lie.

"Your views seem to confirm my last sentence above (holding to subjective/relative/sociological/neurological rather than objective/absolute/theological morality), as you wrote:
"...if there are moral "laws" written on our hearts, why does god miss so many people? If on the other hand these are neurological and sociological in nature then we would expect there to be inconsistencies."

I was referring there to moral impulses, emotions etc, not all forms of morality. Some forms of morality (things which guide or inhibit human behavior) are objective, such as laws, reciprocity etc. Hell even gravity.

"But the "objective kind of morality" of which you speak, laws and reciprocity, are merely an ethical system... they are not an objective OUGHT (an objective, binding, cross-cultural, cross-personal, DUTY to OBEY the ethical system). For example, let's say a law says "you shall not murder". Fine. That's an 'objective' law, written in 'objective' books with 'objective' paper and ink in 'objective' library buildings. But why OUGHT someone follow that law? Upon the atheistic worldview, it is ultimately subjective... a person follows whatever system of ethics they want to follow. (To be more precise, a person follows whatever system of ethics which provides their uniquely-evolved brains with happy feelings and dopamine-surges when they follow it.) Atheists might very well have reasons for following the law (e.g. "So other people will think I'm a good citizen, so they will treat me better", or "because it gives me happy emotional feelings when I do good to other people"), but they are ultimately subjective, person-dependent reasons. Atheism provides no way to ground a transcendent moral 'ought' or 'duty' which impinges on all people/cultures/eras. This is technically called the 'is'-'ought' problem - how to go from what 'is' to what 'ought to be'? In a naturalistic worldview, it is a major problem... but the Biblical worldview grounds the distinction easily."

As I said, laws are objective and tell you what you "ought" to do. They are by definition a form of objective morality. You are literally just denying that anything could be a form of morality other than orders from god, as if atheists have no morals. Do you honestly think that? Seriously?

Then why do sweden and norway have such vastly lower homicide rates than the US? Almost no one in either country believes in a god that makes moral demands, so apparently there's more than just that at play.

"Yes, atheists can make a decision not to hurt others based on empathy, but it is based on subjective personal preference, like choosing a favorite flavor of ice cream."

And how someone interprets scripture is not subjective? Or have you stoned many people to death this week? And sympathy is automatic, it is not arbitrary like eating ice cream as you say above. I don't decide how I want to feel if I see someone suffering.

"On the atheistic view, many people just happen to have evolved to "like" helping others (i.e. they have strong empathetic neurological activity, as you said), while a few people have evolved with weak empathy nuclei (like a psychopathic murderers you mentioned). While atheists/evolutionists (like Dawkins) say that the 'reason' humans evolved to be empathetic to each other is for the survival of the species (whether or not they are correct (I think not)), this 'reason' is very different from a moral 'ought', or 'duty', impinging upon all people and 'obliging' them in a moral sense to show love/empathy to others. On the atheistic worldview, if one was being philosophically consistent with the implications of the naturalistic worldview, one would have to look at a psychopath, shrug one's shoulders, and say "Well, that's just the way that person evolved to be. Their actions are not 'wrong' nor 'right'. They just 'are.' I personally wouldn't feel comfortable doing the actions that the psychopath is doing, but he has his evolved preferences and I have my evolved preferences, and our neurons are each just firing the way they've evolved to fire, and that's all there is to it."

Are you suggesting that atheists feel no sense of moral obligation? Because that is bullshit. Or are you saying that it's not "real" unless it's identical to your views? In which case that is also bullshit. And the idea that evolution is all atheists think about and is the only basis for any thought that could pop into our heads is both patronizing and idiotic. Evolution is not a moral philosophy, you are putting forward yet another strawman and being a tool. Say what you will about me, but I don't pretend that you have no concern for your fellow being just because you disagree with me. If that's the kind of crap you want to throw at me then go insult someone else.

"By contrast, most people have an intution that morality is NOT subjective like that..."

I don't think you get what the terms subjective and objective mean. Intuition is subjective.

"most people think that some things are absolutely morally wrong, in all situations and for all people (say for example, torturing babies for fun)."

Subjectively a psychopath would find no problem with that. But that is not an atheist vs theist thing. I would stop someone from doing that out of concern for the child, not because some mystical being told me to.

"The existence of an absolute moral 'ought' which most people intuitively recognize is evidence that God exists."

The "ought" does not exist dependent of "is", and changing "is" changes "ought", which I have demonstrated.

"On the Christian worldview, God created us all with a moral sense (some people have seared their consciences through sin (Romans 1) and have then become what we would label 'psychopaths', whereas other people's brains have been genetically damaged through somatic mutations before they were born (thousands of years now removed from Adam/Eve's perfect genome), reducing their natural ability to empathize)... a moral faculty, by which we can apprehend moral truths just like our eyes can apprehend visual input."

So then god doesn't give us all a moral sense. And if sympathy and empathy are a valid basis for a moral compass, why isn't it a valid basis if god did not create us? For you morality is a matter of authority, for me it is a matter of utility. But they work much the same way. The only difference is a secular philosophical morality is more adaptable to new situations since it is less dogmatic and rigid.

"As you wrote in the November 2nd post comments,
"You: So morality is just atoms and chemicals then huh!"
"Me: Well, everything including us is made of atoms and chemicals so yeah, on some ridiculously basic level it's got to do with atoms and chemicals."

I think you mixed the you and me up.

"That is a correct synopsis of the atheistic view - that ultimately morality reduces down to chemical reactions, since the physical world is all there is. By contrast, on the Christian worldview, the physical world is NOT all there is, and morality is transcendent, objective, binding upon all, and established by God."

Yeah so go kill some witches and gay men if morality is so binding and transcendent and objective.

"Those are useful SUBJECTIVE bases. Ultimately, you as the subject making the moral decision are weighing the consequences of your action. You might weigh the benefit from some action versus the societal consequences, as you say. But ultimately there is no OBJECTIVE 'higher standard' of what you and all people 'ought' to do, upon the atheistic worldview... there is only each person's own personal preference / decision about where on the benefit/consequence/risk scale he/she wishes to be."

So you're saying that any concept is subjective because you're weighing it with your mind, then god and heaven and the bible are subjective because you have to weight them with your mind too.

By that (BS) definition of subjective, nothing is objective.

This is how far you have to lower the bar to get these ideas to make sense.

"We have discussed this before (http://tim223.xanga.com/734908789/item/)... I posted then:
"...when I asked about "the existence of absolute right and wrong that is cross-cultural, cross-generational, and absolutely binding upon everyone", you understood me to be asking about whether morality has situational nuances - e.g. in most cases it might be "right" to tell the truth, but in some other cases when the principle of truth-telling conflicts with the principle of justice/saving innocent lives, can it ever be "right" to lie.
I agree with you about the situational applicability of morality, but that was not what I was asking about. Instead, when variations between people arise within the same situation, is there a moral standard which is "above us all"?"

I'm not sure what you are asking.

"This earlier response also applies to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich situation you currently raise - it is always right (because of God's character which defines what is good) to demonstrate care and agape-love toward other people, but the exact ways in which this love is demonstrated depends on the situation."

What a vague, useless cop-out. And thanks for not answering the actual questions.

I pointed out that you did nothing but strawman what I said for a good deal of your response and specifically asked for a response to what I originally said and you just blew it off.

Honestly why should I reply to you if you won't even acknowledge what I say?