You assert "KJV was written with the the intent to be poetic". Have you ever read the translator's notes to the KJV? Poetic is about the last thing they intended. The RSV is very nice and poetic, the Psalms are beautiful in the RSV. But _accurate_ is what the KJV was aiming at, and accurate it is.
In itself it is of course _not_ inspired; that's the whacky Ruckmanite concept that I warned about in the first post. The original texts were inspired, the KJV is just a faithful translation of them. The Ruckman position, that the KJV itself is inspired, is just plain loony. The tenses of Greek verbs convey meanings that we can't express in English verbs (like a tense that means starting now and going forever).
And yes, there are more words in English now, but a lot of those have nothing to do with anything in Biblical times. Care to cite an example of a word that was coined after 1611 that would be a better translation of a Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic word?
As you say, "Hebrew scribal tradition was brilliant and included a number of error checking and correction methodologies". The majority of the early Church was Jewish, so the initial copying was done with at least as much care as had led to the earlier fidelity in copying.
Note that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts have large numbers of substantive differences between them, which academics insist require great scholarship to derive a text from (the Critical Text viewpoint). Whereas God puts the cookies where everyman can get them; the TR or Majority Text has only trivial differences (place names, spelling of people's names, that sort of thing) between thousands of sources. There is better general agreement among the thousands of TR and MT sources than the two principal sources of the critical text, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
After all, Sinaiticus was found in a bin about to be burned when Tischendorff found it in the 1800s. Even the monks knew it was trash. To base a Bible on something that they full well knew to be garbage and were about to burn is, well, draw your own conclusions.
Not posting the answer in greek, since that would be more than a bit obscure. The Catholic manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, eliminate things like twelve verses of Mark and Acts 8:37 for example. A number of other changes are in there. If you want a comprehensive list of version differences, see "New Age Bible Versions" by Gail Riplinger.
Erasmus was fully aware of the Alexandrian manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), but he could easily tell they were corrupt, which is why he did not use them. He travelled extensively and saw far more than the "handful" of manuscripts you claim. Indeed today the manuscript evidence for the TR is up to something over 5000 (including papyrus fragments and bits here and there).
Erasmus had at least ten manuscripts for his first edition (1516), four in England, five in Basle, and one lent to him. His friend in Rome, Bombasius, checked on some passages in the Vaticanus for Erasmus and let him know what was in it. So Erasmus was fully aware of Vaticanus (or Aleph as it's known today), and he rejected it as not a valid manuscript. It was likely produced in a vast hurry when Constantine ordered 50 copies made quickly.
The question is what is the oldest manuscript. For the Greek (NT) portion, the Roman Catholic Church has two rather badly corrupted manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) which were basically unused for 1500 years or so. Unused because they were so corrupt. An unused manuscript gets to be an old manuscript; valid ones get used and copied, so the request for the oldest is actually a bit off the mark.
It is widely known that the best Greek text is the "Textus Receptus"; the altered text or "Westcott and Hort" or "Nestle-Aland" text is the one based on the corrupted manuscripts.
Unfortunately, in the 20th and 21st centuries the only new translations that have been done were based on the Westcott and Hort manuscripts. The last translation done from a good manuscript is the KJV.
The Hebrew text that's been proven totally accurate, by comparison with the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the Masoretic text. And guess what, that's in the KJV. I don't think any modern translations have used that, but I'm not certain on that point.
Note the reason for this: you can't copyright something unless it's sufficiently DIFFERENT from something that's in the public domain. The KJV was never copyrighted; all the new translations are done for-profit and are copyrighted (with one exception, the World English Bible). So of course the new translations are different, they wouldn't be worth anything (profit-wise) if they weren't. But there's no indication the KJV is wrong.
In point of fact, the KJV was translated when the English language was at its zenith (it was contemporary with Shakespeare).
Oh really, inventing the rules by which God had to create the universe is more than a bit presumptuous. Sure a theory has to have its predictions borne out, but you're working on the prequel, not the sequel, to use vernacular. Predictions are worthwhile criteria when they are used to predict subsequent events. Einstein's special theory of relativity was tested by his prediction that light would have its path altered by a strong gravitational field. And in the next eclipse that provided an opportunity to see if his prediction was correct, his theory was confirmed. Predictions like "there will be salt water found under the crystalline rock at the base of the Bosporus and Dardanelles" provide real tests since the facts are not known in advance. This prediction, made in 1995, was confirmed in 1998. That or Einstein's are the kind of prediction which have merit, as no one believed either happened and the theories made predictions which were counter to common beliefs.
Your preconditions that science utterly excludes supernatural causes is a refreshing admission, thank you for categorically stating that. Since by science's rules something cannot come from nothing (that would be beyond the rules), and since something is here, clearly science is incapable of explaining everything.
Your casting aspersions on the reviewers of Gentry's work is clearly unfair; unless you have full information on them, your attacks are unfounded and ad hominem. Try a factual argument instead of attacking people.
Once you invoke the supernatural as an explanation, you are of course abandoning any semblance of being scientific. You can assert anything supernatural you like, but it's not a valid answer
Yet that means you are unwilling to accept anything but natural causes. That bias indicates you have a mind closed in some areas, which is unfortunate. A true scientist should go wherever the evidence and facts lead, without predetermining which answers will be acceptable. It is unfortunately true that most "scientists" today share your philosophy and approach, and arbitrarily set limits on what they will accept.
Your claim that the halos of Rn222 and Po210 are indistinguishable due to equipment limitations is obviated by the lack of response to the original papers. Were you correct, the peer review process would certainly have stopped the publication of the papers, since that was a central point in them. Instead, as I mentioned above, it is likely a limitation in the resolution during the transfer to electronic media. I have seen the halos in color plates and the distinction between the annuli is quite clear. Yes they're close, but they do not blur together in one massive ring. Try to either get hold of Gentry's book, which has color pictures of the halos used in the papers, or get an original publication. Unfortunately many have been microfilmed, and that will impose a resolution limit which could make it more difficult, I have not looked at microfilmed versions and can't tell you if they're obscuring or not.
Note also that Henderson's original work in the 1930's showed the same effect, and he was puzzled by it. In fact it was Henderson's original work which Gentry built on (originally using some of his samples in fact). Henderson was certainly not a creationist, yet he found the same anomalies. And again his work passed peer review. I have not found any of his papers in a journal that retains the resolution, so I can't personally judge the quality of the photographs, but I think we have to agree that his peers reviewing the work would certainly have examined the photographs before recommending publication.
God loves you, fluffy666, no matter what you've done. Just as he loves me, no matter what I've done. And I'm far, far, far from "good". He "is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." [2 Peter 3:9]
IF fiat creation was the answer, we would expect to see Po-209 haloes
Is in error. See, God made us in His image; when you start to dictate how He should have made the world, that's you making Him in an image you constructed. Nevertheless, He is ready and anxious to forgive all your sins and receive you unto Himself. He has used terrible sinners in the past, once they admit their sins to Him. Look at Moses (a murderer) and David (adulterer, murderer); they both authored significant amounts of scripture yet they had, uh, shady backgrounds.
You claim the Rn222 halos would not be visible is obviated by the papers. Perhaps the online representations are flawed; in the actual papers which are reprinted in Gentry's book the pictures are far more clear. In the article from Annual Review of Nuclear Science:
Figure 1t shows a 218Po halo in fluorite. Here an important observation can be made. Note that the annulus between the 210Po and 218Po rings in Figure 1t (cf Figure 1n) is distinctly wider than the same annulus in the 238U halo in 1f. This is clear evidence that the 222Rn ring in Figure 1f is missing from the halo in it. In other words, the halo in Figure 1t indeed originated with 218Po rather than 222Rn a-decay
That's a peer reviewed publication. No counter papers were submitted. While you may disagree personally and certainly are free to do so, no peer reviewed paper disputed those findings. By the standards of scientific papers, that means it is "officially" undisputed. If you have counter evidence, again, I invite you to submit it; truth is what matters here, and if you're correct, please do make sure the real facts are published. As I stated earlier, given the heavy anti-creationist bias in the scientific press, a paper disproving Gentry would sail through the review process if it had any merit.
You claim that Po-209 being the most stable Po isotope is a show stopper; yet from the reference you provided a couple of posts ago Po-209 is NOT on the decay chain of U->Pb. So why are you making Po-209 the "showstopper" when your own background data shows it's not relevant?
Also Po halos are not smeared as they would be by Rn migration along fault and crack lines; instead the published (in peer-reviewed journals) pictures clearly show point sources. If you have contradictory evidence, you should definitely publish; Science and Nature would surely welcome anything to refute Gentry that would pass peer review. And since the peers are clearly slanted against Gentry, your getting published should be quite simple.
And since the Rn222 halo would be roughly 2 microns wider than the Po210 halo, it would be quite clear if Rn222 had been the parent of the Po218. But many halos have been published which have the Po and not the Rn halos.
Additionally, before you go attack Gentry as many anti-creationists have tried to do, based on his experimental technique, you should know that while at ORNL he headed a team of seven scientists. One of them, an atheist, was asked about Gentry's technique: "Impeccable -- one of the most careful researchers with whom I have ever worked". When asked for an alternative explanation to fiat creation, the same person said "Well, I don't have a better explanation, but I hope that at some future time there will emerge a more acceptable explanation of the data."
Zircons in granites contain high concentrations of Uranium; polonium is part of the decay chain of uranium. You will notice that it is directly below Radon; Radon, being a gas, will diffuse through the rock and hence when it decays to Polonium, it will appear that the polonium has just appeared. Problem solved
Obviously you have never read the original papers; this is most often a claim that evolutionists level against creationists. The shoe is now on the other foot.
Had Radon diffused through the minerals, it would have left a trail of halos, a cylindrical tube as it diffused (varying with diffusion rates in its intensity). This has _never_ been observed. Also, Gentry did specific experiments, which you would be aware of had you read the original papers, designed to find any traces of Radon seepage. There was no evidence at all. Also the chain through Po takes three steps; many of the halos had only two of those steps. No way that would happen in your scenario. But again, if you'd read the papers, you'd know that.
You also asked me to speculate on why you assume age for some formations. Sorry, you'll have to ask someone else that question.
If you would like to read the original papers, here is a list of them:
Gentry, R.V. 1968. "Fossil Alpha-Recoil Analysis of Certain Variant Radioactive Halos." Science 160, 1228.
Gentry, R.V. 1974. "Radiohalos in Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Science 184, 62.
Gentry, R.V. 1975. Response to J.H. Fremlin's Comments on "Spectacle Halos." Nature 258, 269.
Gentry, R.V. 1977. "Mystery of the Radiohalos" Research Communications NETWORK, Breakthrough Report, February 10, 1977
Gentry, R.V. 1978a. "Are Any Unusual Radiohalos Evidence for SHE?" International Symposium on Superheavy Elements, Lubbock, Texas. New York: Pergamon Press.
Gentry, R.V. 1978b. "Implications on Unknown Radioactivity of Giant and Dwarf Haloes in Scandinavian Rocks." Nature 274, 457.
Gentry, R.V. 1978. "Reinvestigation of the ? Activity of Conway Granite." Nature Vol. 273, p 217-219 May 18, 1978.
Gentry, R.V. 1979. "Time: Measured Responses." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 60, 474.
Gentry, R.V. 1980. "Polonium Halos." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 61, 514.
Gentry, R.V. 1984a. "Radioactive Halos in a Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division. American Association for the Advancement of Science 1, 38.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1973. "Ion Microprobe Confirmation of Pb Isotope Ratios and Search for Isomer Precursors in Polonium Radiohalos." Nature 244, 282.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1974. "'Spectacle' Array of Po-210 Halo Radiocentres in Biotite: A Nuclear Geophysical Enigma." Nature 252, 564.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1976a. "Radiohalos and Coalified Wood: New Evidence Relating to the Time of Uranium Introduction and Coalification." Science 194, 315.
One of the key points that the theory of evolution requires is vast ages of time. No one thought those were necessary until they wanted to disprove the Bible. But since evolution hinges on long ages, a key place to check to see if it could be true is in the area of timing it took to form parts of the earth.
A key part of this is how long did it take for the continent base rocks, the granites, to form? Evolution requires something like the planetary accretion disk approach in order to get the time spans needed. By this idea, the granites formed over vast stretches of time from a molten mass, then hardened gradually.
However there is hard evidence, published in secular highly respected journals, which indicates that is not possible. The pleochroic halos that Gentry found in granites show clearly and distinctly that the granites were formed in a matter of seconds or minutes. Any longer than a few minutes in a molten state and the Polonium halos would not have formed. Either that or, radioactive decay rates have been immensely discontinuous in the past - which would throw out all radiometric dating methods. Either way, long ages are disproven.
And don't bother with Brawley's incredibly weak talkorigins post about Gentry, if you even begin to understand the issue you can see the flaws in his arguments.
And without vast stretches of time, no evolution had time to happen.
Your random RNA scenario is not going to accomplish anything. Again, without chirality, you don't have RNA. And how did the RNA polymerize? The equilibrium constants will be so vastly against it. And any RNA hanging around, once it gets past 15 pairs, spontaneously folds into a useless hunk.
Note that cytosine, one of the pieces of RNA, is not found in spark discharge experiments which you were citing. See Shapiro's work: Shapiro, R., Prebiotic cytosine synthesis: A critical analysis and implications for the origin of life, Proceedings National Academy of Science 96(8):4396-4401, 1999. Shapiro also found that the precursors to cytosine (cyanoacetylene and cyanoacetaldehyde) react strongly with amino acids, ending the synthesis path. And presence of H20 causes hydrolyzation of cyanoacetylene to the aldehyde, which is again quickly hydrolyzed further.
Also cytosine in a warm environment has a very short half-life; only 19 days in the hot-vent theory of origins. Not enough time for any appreciable concentration to accumulate. And racemization also occurs rapidly, so even if there were a naturalistic source of homochiral bases, they would racemize quickly in a non-living environment.
And if you have both sugars (such as ribose) and amino acids or other -NH2 compounds in the same "soup", you'll get gunk out. Well, imines actually, but as far as prebiotic components, imines are a dead end. You can see imine formation any time you see food browning. Watch it next time you don't finish an apple, there are sugars and amino acids there, and the imines form. (Imines are -C=N compounds.)
Stanley Miller (familiar name, eh?) points out that the half-life of ribose is only 44 years at the freezing point of water in pH 7 (see Larralde, R., Robertson, M.P. and Miller, S.L., Rates of decomposition of ribose and other sugars: Implications for chemical evolution, Proceedings National Academy of Science 92:7933-7938, 1995). At boiling (which many hot-vent theories assume) the half-life is down to 73 minutes. Neither short half-life does not allow for any significant long-term accumulation, which would be required to form the building blocks for your scenario to be remotely possible.
Ah, now it's clear. You're objecting to my seeming to pick one specific protein out that is what is in a current day cell. Actually that's not what I was doing; the process was using a theoretical calculation of how many proteins would be needed in a cell to minimally survive, based on current knowledge. No life form is known (past nor present) which is as simple as this hypothetical minimal form. Your point about a single protein is a good one, but to accomplish the functions required to, for example, catabolize ATP or to replicate DNA the proteins required are very specific, which is why picking one is fairly accurate. And in doing the probability calculation, I ignored things like the equilibrium gradient, other reagents, temperature and pH problems, steric hindrance, etc. Since any of those objections is sufficient prevent polymer chain growth alone, picking one specific protein instead is a pro-abiogenesis stance.
As for the references on Gentry, unfortunately I lent my copy of his book out, and don't have it here to dig out the specifics. If you're actually interested in the case, email me your email and I'll get it to you when I get the book. It had to do with failing to allow him to respond to Odom and Rink's article, which was a huge breach of courtesy and practice. That's an immense oversimplification though, so don't criticize based on just that info.
I too have issues with Hovind, but the part about publishing is another story. Take a look at the history of science; investigate how de Broglie was about to be denied his PhD until his advisors ridiculed his ideas to Einstein at a lunch one day, and Einstein, instead of laughing back, commented on how insightful the idea was. Concepts that go against the grain have always been tough to get into publication, ideas that are in sync with the masses slide right on in. An unfortunate part of human nature. Not restricted to pure science, it happens all the time in medicine as well. I worked in the medical field at one time, in a treatment facility that had immense capabilities. However it was not pushed by a major drug company, not written up in JAMA, and of 600+ doctors on staff only about 3 used it. People were dying and they were not treated in a facility that would have high odds of helping them. Tragic, yet very real.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. The components of RNA did not show up in Miller's experiment; they were racemic. The components of RNA are chiral. To say nothing of the utter impossibility of the conditions Miller used (even he won't defend that experiment any more). The carboxylic acids would dissociate any growing polymer, and there were more of them than of amino acids and purines.
The idea of spontaneous polymerization happening defies logic. The free energy change in two amino acids joining to form a dipeptide and water is between 20 and 33 kilojoules/mole, dependent on the selection of amino acids involved. The equilibrium constant is easily calculated for such a reaction; at 298K the value for that reaction is 0.007, which is not good news for abiogenesis.
A tripeptide is in even worse shape; the equilibrium concentration for a 100 peptide bond chain in an aqueous solution would be 3.2x10^-216 M. Since a mole is roughly 6x10^23, that means you'd need 10^(216-23) or 10^193 Moles to get one 100-peptide bond protein in equilibrium. However since the universe has only about 5x10^78 atoms in it, that is just NOT going to happen.
A typical response to this is to say "we'll just heat it to get rid of the water". Fine, that would alter the concentrations. It would also racemize the amino acids, for those few that don't break down at that heat/pressure.
Thermodynamics makes abiogenesis just plain impossible.
If you're a probstat guru, then surely you understand the absurdity of saying "see, this happened, so it wasn't unlikely at all". Please. The issue is that exactly one precise protein is required, with its chirality exactly right. Flip your coin 368 times and see how often you get only heads. That's just to get the chirality correct, not counting the sequence as well.
As for the idea of having a complaint about evolution published, go research the sad story of Scientific American and Forrest Mims. No way is any mainline journal going to publish an anti-evolution paper if they know about it.
If you want to see the last case I'm aware of where such publishing did happen, check out Science and Nature for the 60's and 70's where they published Gentry's work. It was totally peer reviewed, but once it became known that he was a creationist, his ability to get published was terminated. You're basically asking for Bill Gates to publish RMS's credos in defense of the GPL.
And that talkorigins article is exactly the one I meant; again consider that natural selection cannot occur until reproduction is so accurate that traits are faithfully passed down. Globules don't have that ability, which is one reason why there is no prebiotic goo around now. That article is fast and loose with the facts, for example it uses 20 as the possible number of amino acids; actually it's 39 when you consider chirality. Then just to be accurate, consider that polymerization is always entropically disfavored, while depolymerization is always entropically favorable. So chains will tend to come apart if there is no energy around which is channeled into putting them together. And consider that growing polypeptides outside a living organism will preferentially join with many other reactants over another amino acid. Restricting the calculation to just known required amino acids is in itself a chemical absurdity. I just used that example to illustrate that even in those conditions it is impossible.
Please feel free to show us your calculations regarding abiogenesis
My pleasure. I will assume here that the readers have a basic knowledge of organic chemistry.
Since 19 of the 20 amino acids used in proteins are chiral, any abiogenesis must take this into account. The reason for the chirality is quite obvious to anyone who has investigated physical biochemistry at all; enzymes are only active when their 3d shapes are exactly as required. Those shapes are utterly dependent on the chirality of the component amino acids (and other things like temperature, pH, salinity, etc.). The minimum protein complement of a cell that could accurately self-replicate has been estimated at between 280 and 400 proteins. For the sake of discussion, let's use 280. The average complement of amino acids per protein in that hypothetical minimal self-replicant is about 400. Of those 400, use the observed ratio of up to 8% being glycine, which is not chiral. So there are 2^368 possible chirality combinations per individual protein required for this cell. That is 10^110. Since 10^50 is the accepted standard for impossible, clearly getting even the chirality correct in just one protein is far beyond impossible. If you then want to get into specifying the order of the amino acids, which is amazingly more complex, then the odds climb into the stratosphere. Sir Fred Hoyle (who coined the phrase "big bang", and was certainly NOT a creationist) calculated the probability of one cell arising by stochastic means as 10^40,000. He may have been a bit optimistic, but his number will do. When you consider our measurements of the universe show it to be 10^28 inches across, you get a feeling for the scale of these numbers.
I can go on from here, but I rather suspect that at this point you'll trot out something like the talkorigins site counter-claim about lipid globules and claim that randomness is irrelevant. Unfortunately for you and their claim, those globules cannot accurately reproduce. And since they cannot, they are not subject to natural selection. Instead, the second law will be operative and they will simply degrade over time. To get past increasing entropy, there must be a directed process. This requires natural selection, which absolutely requires nearly-perfect (but not totally perfect) reproduction. Otherwise gains made in the mutation set of a parent are more likely to be lost than passed on, and without that, there is no natural selection, no neo-darwinian evolution.
And to mirror your statement, your belief in evolution is certainly yours to hold. It's a faith as mine is a faith.
Oh and if you have mountains of evidence for macro-evolution (disproved things like Miller-Urey? Or Haeckel's embryos? Or peppered moths? Or vesitigial organs?) I suggest you go make yourself a quick $250K.
It is however mathematically impossible for a being to exist, has existed *forever*, and can do whatever he wants.
Which shows a naturalistic assumption basis. However your concept of God is way too limited. God exists outside our time-space dimensionality; He is infinite, we and our universe are finite. To talk about Him being bounded in some way by time is a null-set discussion.
I used to be an evolutionist, and can spout and cite the exact same drek as evolutionists are known to do. I have a full education and background in the cosmic, biochemical, and biological "evolution" story line. And I know it's more of a fairy tale than the email hoax about Gates giving his money away if you forward some email chain letter.
However it comes down to a key point - it is mathematically impossible for life to arise spontaneously by stochastic processes. The Bible has it right from the first verse ("n the beginning God created the heaven and the earth") to the last (" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen"). If you choose to believe in evolution, that's fine, just be honest enough to admit that it is more of a leap of faith than believing in 6 day creation.
Hitler had extensive connections with the Catholic Church, which played both sides of the fence. They sheltered just enough Jews in the Vatican in case Hitler lost, and had a legate assigned to Hitler who later became Pope in case Hitler won. But notice they never spoke out against the Holocaust even though they knew it was happening at the time. Unfortunately the same is true of many back then as well.
The Bible does actually have a lot of points that are provable. There are extrabiblical recordings of the darkness when Jesus was being killed, for example. And there are huge amounts of scientific evidence for a young earth, and for the flood in the time of Noah. Yes many things have to be faith based, but the Lord did say "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18). Ours is not a faith of blind faith, but a reason-based faith.
The word Christian was not coined (Acts 11:26) until after our Lord had departed (Pentecost), so of course He was not known by that.
And yes the Catholics held back scientific development, they were so busy killing the Bible-reading and believing folks (and some heretics) in things like the Inquisition, the Albigensian crusade and at Beziers.
The difference is that when Science learns that it's wrong, it admits it and moves on to try to learn more about the universe.
Which is why it took over fifty years to recognize Piltdown was a fraud? Or why an extinct pig's tooth was ballooned into an entire human population before exposed as wrong? Or why DuBois hid the skulls that exposed his "Java man" to be bogus for decades beneath the floorboards in his house? Science is no more honorable than the individuals in it, and there are shysters and hucksters in all branches of humanity. Sadly, that means there are frauds in science, and will be for as long as there are people in the field.
When the Bible is shown to be wrong, people hold to it doggedly, making excuse after excuse until they're left in exile on the lunatic fringe defending the utterly laughable (Fundamentalists), or they must dilute the "facts" in the Bible so much that what they're left with is practically useless as a religious text describing an almighty Creator(Catholics).
I thank you for making a distinction between Christians and Roman Catholics, that discernment is rare. However you are incorrect that fundamentalists are on the lunatic fringe. There are many respected scientists in the mainstream who are fundamentalists. Many have to hide that however due to persecution and other attitudes of closed-minded individuals.
The rest of your claims are just plain wrong:
No, a rabbit does not chew its cud.
Rabbits do chew their cud, in that they eat again what has passed through their system, by practicing refection. They do eat their food again. Note the claim was not that they have multichambered stomachs, merely that they eat again what they have already eaten. I don't know about you, but a caprophagic animal is a pretty good definition of an unclean animal that I would certainly not find appealing to consume.
Jesus lies quite egregiously to try to save his own skin in the Bible when questioned by the Pharisies.
Accusations such as this without detail are not worth answering. Provide detail and you will be answered.
The Earth is not flat with four corners.
Who said it was flat with four corners? That's your misinterpretation, ignoring literary constructions. The phrase "to the corners of the earth" is still in use today as an expression.
No evidence exists for a worldwide flood between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago, and even less evidence exists that we and all land/air animals came from creatures that rode an ark during that time
Mitochondrial Eve has been shown in secular literature (ever heard of the magazine "Science") to have lived ~6000 years ago. Evidence of thefloodhere.
The Egyptians, who were meticulous record keepers, made no mention of massive Jewish slave use that was ripped away from them by the coming of Moses. Further, if the Nile had been turned to blood, it would have caused untold destruction upon the entire region that depended upon it for their very survival. We would have learned about it by now, most likely.
Of course the Egyptians removed records of the slave Hebrew population, they are well documented revisionists. Note they don't mention losing battles either; no wonder they wiped out references to the crushing defeat they were handed. Same with the Nile, that large a defeat they would wipe out. And it was not blood for ages as you seem to imply.
Jesus describes his "kingdom" in some detail then goes on to say how not even all of his Apostles would be dead by the time he returned to his glory for all to see... I think it's safe to say that prophecy was full of crap.
Oh, there you go again. How many times must you be told that the Roman Catholic Church does NOT follow the bible, that Catholicism is not the same thing as biblical Christianity. The RCC is much closer to the Babylonian mysticism (and therefore to Hinduism) than it is to Christianity. Charlemagne was following directions of the Pope to commit his atrocities; there is zero biblical justification for his actions.
You state
I believe in Christ, I was educated in a Christian School and attended Mass. So I am a christian too. But I am a Hindu too. No one has excommunicated me from my religion. Dr Frawley is another example.
Yet again you make the error of equating the RCC with Christianity. Question for you: what will it take for you to realize that is an error? Then you say
Don't go by atlan.org. It is badly written. Better use your brain
You are the one who suggested atlan.org as a source, it's a bit late to disclaim it. Next you say
Where is Christ Now? Do you know? I would love to meet Him!
Here is an example of the deficiency in biblical education for one who is a Catholic. It quite clearly states many times in the NT that the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father now. The next event on His calendar, from our perspective, is His coming in the clouds to gather the born-again believers, dead and alive (1 Thessalonians 4:15-4:17), in the Harpazo (known in the popular press as the rapture). After that will be (with zero to some time of delay) a seven year period of judgment known as the Tribulation. The only way to avoid that is to confess that He is Lord, accept His gift of salvation by repenting of your sins to Him, and make Him the Lord of your life. Then you will meet Him in love, either at your death or at the Harpazo.
However if you reject Him as your writing indicates you are doing (by not admitting that He is Lord), you will meet him at the great White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:10-20:15). Without your name in the Book of Life, you will meet Him as your Judge, not as your Saviour. That is a terrible fate, and I pray you will realize your need for His salvation.
You make a number of sweeping generalizations, mostly accusing Christianity for what you take as Christians to task for. Many of the atrocities you cite were performed by Catholics, not by Christians. I have carefully, in the above posts, pointed out that there is a major distinction there. To review, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) at its founding under Constantine as the first pope took Babylonian mysticism, ritual, and heresies and put some words from the bible on the rituals etc. and proclaimed it the "one true church". Actually very little of RCC has to do with Christianity: they worship Mary, calling her the "Queen of Heaven"; they have idols; they still have in their laws a statement of anathema against anyone but priests reading the bible; they teach purgatory, an entirely extra-biblical concept; they force priests to be celibate; they believe in absolution of sin by men; they believe in baptismal regeneration; they don't believe in eternal security; etc. etc. And since all humans sin, of course there will be errors by Christians; as a bumper sticker I personally don't care for states it "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven".
You claim that western religions were spread by force. That is certainly true of Islam, and to a small extent it's true of RCC and the LDS groups. However, as documented above, they are most definitely not Christian. I'd be fascinated to see you defend your assertion that genuine, bible-based Christianity ever spread by force. If it was done, it was not following the bible in doing so, and therefore most likely was some apostate derivation.
Your statements about Hinduism show quite well what the problem with it is: the need for man to explain it to you
Read up a book on Vedanta, and I will bet you anything you won't understand a word. You need to have that mind-set and a guru to explain.
Christianity does not involve mountains of literature in order to get the key point; the bible has the simple, understandable, meant for everyone message available throughout. It does not require, as you state some Hindu books do, an intermediary to interpret and explain it to you. If you wish to start to plumb its depths, there are shelves of commentaries to assist in that, but you can do it alone and get what is key in very short order.
From what you have said, Hinduism requires that one be accepted as an acolyte by a guru in order to be able to understand Hinduism.
I find it quite interesting that you're seriously accepting the Atlantis myth. That's self-refuting, no help needed from me on that one. Then you suggest investigating David Frawley, who you claim went from Christianity to Hindu. If you read anything about him, you would realize he left the RCC to become a Hindu, he did not leave Christianity. Again, see documentation above or I can provide you with vast amounts more about why the Roman Catholic Church is anything but Christian. Short form: it does not come close to following the bible.
Did you ever realize that with a notable exception, world religions are based on the individuals who spent a significant amount of time attempting to understand the world/gods/truth/death/life etc. The exception of course is our Lord Jesus Christ, who at the age of twelve was not seeking, but instead already providing answers. Yes, He is different. Only the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead; Siddhartha and Mohammed and others are still rotting in their graves.
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You assert "KJV was written with the the intent to be poetic". Have you ever read the translator's notes to the KJV? Poetic is about the last thing they intended. The RSV is very nice and poetic, the Psalms are beautiful in the RSV. But _accurate_ is what the KJV was aiming at, and accurate it is.
In itself it is of course _not_ inspired; that's the whacky Ruckmanite concept that I warned about in the first post. The original texts were inspired, the KJV is just a faithful translation of them. The Ruckman position, that the KJV itself is inspired, is just plain loony. The tenses of Greek verbs convey meanings that we can't express in English verbs (like a tense that means starting now and going forever).
And yes, there are more words in English now, but a lot of those have nothing to do with anything in Biblical times. Care to cite an example of a word that was coined after 1611 that would be a better translation of a Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic word?
As you say, "Hebrew scribal tradition was brilliant and included a number of error checking and correction methodologies". The majority of the early Church was Jewish, so the initial copying was done with at least as much care as had led to the earlier fidelity in copying.
Note that the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts have large numbers of substantive differences between them, which academics insist require great scholarship to derive a text from (the Critical Text viewpoint). Whereas God puts the cookies where everyman can get them; the TR or Majority Text has only trivial differences (place names, spelling of people's names, that sort of thing) between thousands of sources. There is better general agreement among the thousands of TR and MT sources than the two principal sources of the critical text, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
After all, Sinaiticus was found in a bin about to be burned when Tischendorff found it in the 1800s. Even the monks knew it was trash. To base a Bible on something that they full well knew to be garbage and were about to burn is, well, draw your own conclusions.
Not posting the answer in greek, since that would be more than a bit obscure. The Catholic manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, eliminate things like twelve verses of Mark and Acts 8:37 for example. A number of other changes are in there. If you want a comprehensive list of version differences, see "New Age Bible Versions" by Gail Riplinger.
Erasmus was fully aware of the Alexandrian manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), but he could easily tell they were corrupt, which is why he did not use them. He travelled extensively and saw far more than the "handful" of manuscripts you claim. Indeed today the manuscript evidence for the TR is up to something over 5000 (including papyrus fragments and bits here and there).
Erasmus had at least ten manuscripts for his first edition (1516), four in England, five in Basle, and one lent to him. His friend in Rome, Bombasius, checked on some passages in the Vaticanus for Erasmus and let him know what was in it. So Erasmus was fully aware of Vaticanus (or Aleph as it's known today), and he rejected it as not a valid manuscript. It was likely produced in a vast hurry when Constantine ordered 50 copies made quickly.
So no, your assertions are incorrect.
Instead of spouting accusations, I suggest you research things a bit more. You can start here as an example.
The question is what is the oldest manuscript. For the Greek (NT) portion, the Roman Catholic Church has two rather badly corrupted manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) which were basically unused for 1500 years or so. Unused because they were so corrupt. An unused manuscript gets to be an old manuscript; valid ones get used and copied, so the request for the oldest is actually a bit off the mark.
It is widely known that the best Greek text is the "Textus Receptus"; the altered text or "Westcott and Hort" or "Nestle-Aland" text is the one based on the corrupted manuscripts.
Unfortunately, in the 20th and 21st centuries the only new translations that have been done were based on the Westcott and Hort manuscripts. The last translation done from a good manuscript is the KJV.
The Hebrew text that's been proven totally accurate, by comparison with the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the Masoretic text. And guess what, that's in the KJV. I don't think any modern translations have used that, but I'm not certain on that point.
Note the reason for this: you can't copyright something unless it's sufficiently DIFFERENT from something that's in the public domain. The KJV was never copyrighted; all the new translations are done for-profit and are copyrighted (with one exception, the World English Bible). So of course the new translations are different, they wouldn't be worth anything (profit-wise) if they weren't. But there's no indication the KJV is wrong.
In point of fact, the KJV was translated when the English language was at its zenith (it was contemporary with Shakespeare).
Oh really, inventing the rules by which God had to create the universe is more than a bit presumptuous. Sure a theory has to have its predictions borne out, but you're working on the prequel, not the sequel, to use vernacular. Predictions are worthwhile criteria when they are used to predict subsequent events. Einstein's special theory of relativity was tested by his prediction that light would have its path altered by a strong gravitational field. And in the next eclipse that provided an opportunity to see if his prediction was correct, his theory was confirmed. Predictions like "there will be salt water found under the crystalline rock at the base of the Bosporus and Dardanelles" provide real tests since the facts are not known in advance. This prediction, made in 1995, was confirmed in 1998. That or Einstein's are the kind of prediction which have merit, as no one believed either happened and the theories made predictions which were counter to common beliefs.
Your preconditions that science utterly excludes supernatural causes is a refreshing admission, thank you for categorically stating that. Since by science's rules something cannot come from nothing (that would be beyond the rules), and since something is here, clearly science is incapable of explaining everything.
Your casting aspersions on the reviewers of Gentry's work is clearly unfair; unless you have full information on them, your attacks are unfounded and ad hominem. Try a factual argument instead of attacking people.
Your claim that the halos of Rn222 and Po210 are indistinguishable due to equipment limitations is obviated by the lack of response to the original papers. Were you correct, the peer review process would certainly have stopped the publication of the papers, since that was a central point in them. Instead, as I mentioned above, it is likely a limitation in the resolution during the transfer to electronic media. I have seen the halos in color plates and the distinction between the annuli is quite clear. Yes they're close, but they do not blur together in one massive ring. Try to either get hold of Gentry's book, which has color pictures of the halos used in the papers, or get an original publication. Unfortunately many have been microfilmed, and that will impose a resolution limit which could make it more difficult, I have not looked at microfilmed versions and can't tell you if they're obscuring or not.
Note also that Henderson's original work in the 1930's showed the same effect, and he was puzzled by it. In fact it was Henderson's original work which Gentry built on (originally using some of his samples in fact). Henderson was certainly not a creationist, yet he found the same anomalies. And again his work passed peer review. I have not found any of his papers in a journal that retains the resolution, so I can't personally judge the quality of the photographs, but I think we have to agree that his peers reviewing the work would certainly have examined the photographs before recommending publication.
God loves you, fluffy666, no matter what you've done. Just as he loves me, no matter what I've done. And I'm far, far, far from "good". He "is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." [2 Peter 3:9]
You claim the Rn222 halos would not be visible is obviated by the papers. Perhaps the online representations are flawed; in the actual papers which are reprinted in Gentry's book the pictures are far more clear. In the article from Annual Review of Nuclear Science:
That's a peer reviewed publication. No counter papers were submitted. While you may disagree personally and certainly are free to do so, no peer reviewed paper disputed those findings. By the standards of scientific papers, that means it is "officially" undisputed. If you have counter evidence, again, I invite you to submit it; truth is what matters here, and if you're correct, please do make sure the real facts are published. As I stated earlier, given the heavy anti-creationist bias in the scientific press, a paper disproving Gentry would sail through the review process if it had any merit.
You claim that Po-209 being the most stable Po isotope is a show stopper; yet from the reference you provided a couple of posts ago Po-209 is NOT on the decay chain of U->Pb. So why are you making Po-209 the "showstopper" when your own background data shows it's not relevant?
Also Po halos are not smeared as they would be by Rn migration along fault and crack lines; instead the published (in peer-reviewed journals) pictures clearly show point sources. If you have contradictory evidence, you should definitely publish; Science and Nature would surely welcome anything to refute Gentry that would pass peer review. And since the peers are clearly slanted against Gentry, your getting published should be quite simple.
And since the Rn222 halo would be roughly 2 microns wider than the Po210 halo, it would be quite clear if Rn222 had been the parent of the Po218. But many halos have been published which have the Po and not the Rn halos.
Additionally, before you go attack Gentry as many anti-creationists have tried to do, based on his experimental technique, you should know that while at ORNL he headed a team of seven scientists. One of them, an atheist, was asked about Gentry's technique: "Impeccable -- one of the most careful researchers with whom I have ever worked". When asked for an alternative explanation to fiat creation, the same person said "Well, I don't have a better explanation, but I hope that at some future time there will emerge a more acceptable explanation of the data."
Bottom line: read the original papers. Why are you unwilling to do so?
Had Radon diffused through the minerals, it would have left a trail of halos, a cylindrical tube as it diffused (varying with diffusion rates in its intensity). This has _never_ been observed. Also, Gentry did specific experiments, which you would be aware of had you read the original papers, designed to find any traces of Radon seepage. There was no evidence at all. Also the chain through Po takes three steps; many of the halos had only two of those steps. No way that would happen in your scenario. But again, if you'd read the papers, you'd know that.
You also asked me to speculate on why you assume age for some formations. Sorry, you'll have to ask someone else that question.
If you would like to read the original papers, here is a list of them:
Gentry, R.V. 1968. "Fossil Alpha-Recoil Analysis of Certain Variant Radioactive Halos." Science 160, 1228.
Gentry, R.V. 1970. "Giant Radioactive Halos: Indicators of Unknown Alpha-Radioactivity?" Science 169, 670.
Gentry, R.V. 1971. "Radiohalos: Some Unique Pb Isotope Ratios and Unknown Alpha Radioactivity." Science 173, 727.
Gentry, R.V. 1973. "Radioactive Halos." Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23, 347.
Gentry, R.V. 1974. "Radiohalos in Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Science 184, 62.
Gentry, R.V. 1975. Response to J.H. Fremlin's Comments on "Spectacle Halos." Nature 258, 269.
Gentry, R.V. 1977. "Mystery of the Radiohalos" Research Communications NETWORK, Breakthrough Report, February 10, 1977
Gentry, R.V. 1978a. "Are Any Unusual Radiohalos Evidence for SHE?" International Symposium on Superheavy Elements, Lubbock, Texas. New York: Pergamon Press.
Gentry, R.V. 1978b. "Implications on Unknown Radioactivity of Giant and Dwarf Haloes in Scandinavian Rocks." Nature 274, 457.
Gentry, R.V. 1978. "Reinvestigation of the ? Activity of Conway Granite." Nature Vol. 273, p 217-219 May 18, 1978.
Gentry, R.V. 1979. "Time: Measured Responses." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 60, 474.
Gentry, R.V. 1980. "Polonium Halos." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 61, 514.
Gentry, R.V. 1982. Letters. Physics Today 35, No. 10, 13.
Gentry, R.V. 1983a. Letters. Physics Today 36, No. 4, 3.
Gentry, R.V. 1983b. Letters. Physics Today 36, No. 11, 124.
Gentry, R.V. 1984a. "Radioactive Halos in a Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division. American Association for the Advancement of Science 1, 38.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1973. "Ion Microprobe Confirmation of Pb Isotope Ratios and Search for Isomer Precursors in Polonium Radiohalos." Nature 244, 282.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1974. "'Spectacle' Array of Po-210 Halo Radiocentres in Biotite: A Nuclear Geophysical Enigma." Nature 252, 564.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1976a. "Radiohalos and Coalified Wood: New Evidence Relating to the Time of Uranium Introduction and Coalification." Science 194, 315.
One of the key points that the theory of evolution requires is vast ages of time. No one thought those were necessary until they wanted to disprove the Bible. But since evolution hinges on long ages, a key place to check to see if it could be true is in the area of timing it took to form parts of the earth.
A key part of this is how long did it take for the continent base rocks, the granites, to form? Evolution requires something like the planetary accretion disk approach in order to get the time spans needed. By this idea, the granites formed over vast stretches of time from a molten mass, then hardened gradually.
However there is hard evidence, published in secular highly respected journals, which indicates that is not possible. The pleochroic halos that Gentry found in granites show clearly and distinctly that the granites were formed in a matter of seconds or minutes. Any longer than a few minutes in a molten state and the Polonium halos would not have formed. Either that or, radioactive decay rates have been immensely discontinuous in the past - which would throw out all radiometric dating methods. Either way, long ages are disproven.
And don't bother with Brawley's incredibly weak talkorigins post about Gentry, if you even begin to understand the issue you can see the flaws in his arguments.
And without vast stretches of time, no evolution had time to happen.
Quod Erat Demonstratum.
Your random RNA scenario is not going to accomplish anything. Again, without chirality, you don't have RNA. And how did the RNA polymerize? The equilibrium constants will be so vastly against it. And any RNA hanging around, once it gets past 15 pairs, spontaneously folds into a useless hunk.
Note that cytosine, one of the pieces of RNA, is not found in spark discharge experiments which you were citing. See Shapiro's work: Shapiro, R., Prebiotic cytosine synthesis: A critical analysis and implications for the origin of life, Proceedings National Academy of Science 96(8):4396-4401, 1999. Shapiro also found that the precursors to cytosine (cyanoacetylene and cyanoacetaldehyde) react strongly with amino acids, ending the synthesis path. And presence of H20 causes hydrolyzation of cyanoacetylene to the aldehyde, which is again quickly hydrolyzed further.
Also cytosine in a warm environment has a very short half-life; only 19 days in the hot-vent theory of origins. Not enough time for any appreciable concentration to accumulate. And racemization also occurs rapidly, so even if there were a naturalistic source of homochiral bases, they would racemize quickly in a non-living environment.
And if you have both sugars (such as ribose) and amino acids or other -NH2 compounds in the same "soup", you'll get gunk out. Well, imines actually, but as far as prebiotic components, imines are a dead end. You can see imine formation any time you see food browning. Watch it next time you don't finish an apple, there are sugars and amino acids there, and the imines form. (Imines are -C=N compounds.)
Stanley Miller (familiar name, eh?) points out that the half-life of ribose is only 44 years at the freezing point of water in pH 7 (see Larralde, R., Robertson, M.P. and Miller, S.L., Rates of decomposition of ribose and other sugars: Implications for chemical evolution, Proceedings National Academy of Science 92:7933-7938, 1995). At boiling (which many hot-vent theories assume) the half-life is down to 73 minutes. Neither short half-life does not allow for any significant long-term accumulation, which would be required to form the building blocks for your scenario to be remotely possible.
Ah, now it's clear. You're objecting to my seeming to pick one specific protein out that is what is in a current day cell. Actually that's not what I was doing; the process was using a theoretical calculation of how many proteins would be needed in a cell to minimally survive, based on current knowledge. No life form is known (past nor present) which is as simple as this hypothetical minimal form. Your point about a single protein is a good one, but to accomplish the functions required to, for example, catabolize ATP or to replicate DNA the proteins required are very specific, which is why picking one is fairly accurate. And in doing the probability calculation, I ignored things like the equilibrium gradient, other reagents, temperature and pH problems, steric hindrance, etc. Since any of those objections is sufficient prevent polymer chain growth alone, picking one specific protein instead is a pro-abiogenesis stance.
As for the references on Gentry, unfortunately I lent my copy of his book out, and don't have it here to dig out the specifics. If you're actually interested in the case, email me your email and I'll get it to you when I get the book. It had to do with failing to allow him to respond to Odom and Rink's article, which was a huge breach of courtesy and practice. That's an immense oversimplification though, so don't criticize based on just that info.
I too have issues with Hovind, but the part about publishing is another story. Take a look at the history of science; investigate how de Broglie was about to be denied his PhD until his advisors ridiculed his ideas to Einstein at a lunch one day, and Einstein, instead of laughing back, commented on how insightful the idea was. Concepts that go against the grain have always been tough to get into publication, ideas that are in sync with the masses slide right on in. An unfortunate part of human nature. Not restricted to pure science, it happens all the time in medicine as well. I worked in the medical field at one time, in a treatment facility that had immense capabilities. However it was not pushed by a major drug company, not written up in JAMA, and of 600+ doctors on staff only about 3 used it. People were dying and they were not treated in a facility that would have high odds of helping them. Tragic, yet very real.
Bzzzzt. Wrong. The components of RNA did not show up in Miller's experiment; they were racemic. The components of RNA are chiral. To say nothing of the utter impossibility of the conditions Miller used (even he won't defend that experiment any more). The carboxylic acids would dissociate any growing polymer, and there were more of them than of amino acids and purines.
The idea of spontaneous polymerization happening defies logic. The free energy change in two amino acids joining to form a dipeptide and water is between 20 and 33 kilojoules/mole, dependent on the selection of amino acids involved. The equilibrium constant is easily calculated for such a reaction; at 298K the value for that reaction is 0.007, which is not good news for abiogenesis.
A tripeptide is in even worse shape; the equilibrium concentration for a 100 peptide bond chain in an aqueous solution would be 3.2x10^-216 M. Since a mole is roughly 6x10^23, that means you'd need 10^(216-23) or 10^193 Moles to get one 100-peptide bond protein in equilibrium. However since the universe has only about 5x10^78 atoms in it, that is just NOT going to happen.
A typical response to this is to say "we'll just heat it to get rid of the water". Fine, that would alter the concentrations. It would also racemize the amino acids, for those few that don't break down at that heat/pressure.
Thermodynamics makes abiogenesis just plain impossible.
If you're a probstat guru, then surely you understand the absurdity of saying "see, this happened, so it wasn't unlikely at all". Please. The issue is that exactly one precise protein is required, with its chirality exactly right. Flip your coin 368 times and see how often you get only heads. That's just to get the chirality correct, not counting the sequence as well.
As for the idea of having a complaint about evolution published, go research the sad story of Scientific American and Forrest Mims. No way is any mainline journal going to publish an anti-evolution paper if they know about it.
If you want to see the last case I'm aware of where such publishing did happen, check out Science and Nature for the 60's and 70's where they published Gentry's work. It was totally peer reviewed, but once it became known that he was a creationist, his ability to get published was terminated. You're basically asking for Bill Gates to publish RMS's credos in defense of the GPL.
And that talkorigins article is exactly the one I meant; again consider that natural selection cannot occur until reproduction is so accurate that traits are faithfully passed down. Globules don't have that ability, which is one reason why there is no prebiotic goo around now. That article is fast and loose with the facts, for example it uses 20 as the possible number of amino acids; actually it's 39 when you consider chirality. Then just to be accurate, consider that polymerization is always entropically disfavored, while depolymerization is always entropically favorable. So chains will tend to come apart if there is no energy around which is channeled into putting them together. And consider that growing polypeptides outside a living organism will preferentially join with many other reactants over another amino acid. Restricting the calculation to just known required amino acids is in itself a chemical absurdity. I just used that example to illustrate that even in those conditions it is impossible.
Since 19 of the 20 amino acids used in proteins are chiral, any abiogenesis must take this into account. The reason for the chirality is quite obvious to anyone who has investigated physical biochemistry at all; enzymes are only active when their 3d shapes are exactly as required. Those shapes are utterly dependent on the chirality of the component amino acids (and other things like temperature, pH, salinity, etc.). The minimum protein complement of a cell that could accurately self-replicate has been estimated at between 280 and 400 proteins. For the sake of discussion, let's use 280. The average complement of amino acids per protein in that hypothetical minimal self-replicant is about 400. Of those 400, use the observed ratio of up to 8% being glycine, which is not chiral. So there are 2^368 possible chirality combinations per individual protein required for this cell. That is 10^110. Since 10^50 is the accepted standard for impossible, clearly getting even the chirality correct in just one protein is far beyond impossible. If you then want to get into specifying the order of the amino acids, which is amazingly more complex, then the odds climb into the stratosphere. Sir Fred Hoyle (who coined the phrase "big bang", and was certainly NOT a creationist) calculated the probability of one cell arising by stochastic means as 10^40,000. He may have been a bit optimistic, but his number will do. When you consider our measurements of the universe show it to be 10^28 inches across, you get a feeling for the scale of these numbers.
I can go on from here, but I rather suspect that at this point you'll trot out something like the talkorigins site counter-claim about lipid globules and claim that randomness is irrelevant. Unfortunately for you and their claim, those globules cannot accurately reproduce. And since they cannot, they are not subject to natural selection. Instead, the second law will be operative and they will simply degrade over time. To get past increasing entropy, there must be a directed process. This requires natural selection, which absolutely requires nearly-perfect (but not totally perfect) reproduction. Otherwise gains made in the mutation set of a parent are more likely to be lost than passed on, and without that, there is no natural selection, no neo-darwinian evolution.
And to mirror your statement, your belief in evolution is certainly yours to hold. It's a faith as mine is a faith.
Oh and if you have mountains of evidence for macro-evolution (disproved things like Miller-Urey? Or Haeckel's embryos? Or peppered moths? Or vesitigial organs?) I suggest you go make yourself a quick $250K.
I used to be an evolutionist, and can spout and cite the exact same drek as evolutionists are known to do. I have a full education and background in the cosmic, biochemical, and biological "evolution" story line. And I know it's more of a fairy tale than the email hoax about Gates giving his money away if you forward some email chain letter.
However it comes down to a key point - it is mathematically impossible for life to arise spontaneously by stochastic processes. The Bible has it right from the first verse ("n the beginning God created the heaven and the earth") to the last (" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen"). If you choose to believe in evolution, that's fine, just be honest enough to admit that it is more of a leap of faith than believing in 6 day creation.
Hitler had extensive connections with the Catholic Church, which played both sides of the fence. They sheltered just enough Jews in the Vatican in case Hitler lost, and had a legate assigned to Hitler who later became Pope in case Hitler won. But notice they never spoke out against the Holocaust even though they knew it was happening at the time. Unfortunately the same is true of many back then as well.
The Bible does actually have a lot of points that are provable. There are extrabiblical recordings of the darkness when Jesus was being killed, for example. And there are huge amounts of scientific evidence for a young earth, and for the flood in the time of Noah. Yes many things have to be faith based, but the Lord did say "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18). Ours is not a faith of blind faith, but a reason-based faith.
The word Christian was not coined (Acts 11:26) until after our Lord had departed (Pentecost), so of course He was not known by that.
And yes the Catholics held back scientific development, they were so busy killing the Bible-reading and believing folks (and some heretics) in things like the Inquisition, the Albigensian crusade and at Beziers.
Which is why it took over fifty years to recognize Piltdown was a fraud? Or why an extinct pig's tooth was ballooned into an entire human population before exposed as wrong? Or why DuBois hid the skulls that exposed his "Java man" to be bogus for decades beneath the floorboards in his house? Science is no more honorable than the individuals in it, and there are shysters and hucksters in all branches of humanity. Sadly, that means there are frauds in science, and will be for as long as there are people in the field.
I thank you for making a distinction between Christians and Roman Catholics, that discernment is rare. However you are incorrect that fundamentalists are on the lunatic fringe. There are many respected scientists in the mainstream who are fundamentalists. Many have to hide that however due to persecution and other attitudes of closed-minded individuals.
The rest of your claims are just plain wrong:
Rabbits do chew their cud, in that they eat again what has passed through their system, by practicing refection. They do eat their food again. Note the claim was not that they have multichambered stomachs, merely that they eat again what they have already eaten. I don't know about you, but a caprophagic animal is a pretty good definition of an unclean animal that I would certainly not find appealing to consume.
Accusations such as this without detail are not worth answering. Provide detail and you will be answered.
Who said it was flat with four corners? That's your misinterpretation, ignoring literary constructions. The phrase "to the corners of the earth" is still in use today as an expression.
Mitochondrial Eve has been shown in secular literature (ever heard of the magazine "Science") to have lived ~6000 years ago. Evidence of the flood here.
Of course the Egyptians removed records of the slave Hebrew population, they are well documented revisionists. Note they don't mention losing battles either; no wonder they wiped out references to the crushing defeat they were handed. Same with the Nile, that large a defeat they would wipe out. And it was not blood for ages as you seem to imply.
You stateYet again you make the error of equating the RCC with Christianity. Question for you: what will it take for you to realize that is an error? Then you sayYou are the one who suggested atlan.org as a source, it's a bit late to disclaim it. Next you sayHere is an example of the deficiency in biblical education for one who is a Catholic. It quite clearly states many times in the NT that the Lord Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father now. The next event on His calendar, from our perspective, is His coming in the clouds to gather the born-again believers, dead and alive (1 Thessalonians 4:15-4:17), in the Harpazo (known in the popular press as the rapture). After that will be (with zero to some time of delay) a seven year period of judgment known as the Tribulation. The only way to avoid that is to confess that He is Lord, accept His gift of salvation by repenting of your sins to Him, and make Him the Lord of your life. Then you will meet Him in love, either at your death or at the Harpazo.
However if you reject Him as your writing indicates you are doing (by not admitting that He is Lord), you will meet him at the great White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:10-20:15). Without your name in the Book of Life, you will meet Him as your Judge, not as your Saviour. That is a terrible fate, and I pray you will realize your need for His salvation.
You claim that western religions were spread by force. That is certainly true of Islam, and to a small extent it's true of RCC and the LDS groups. However, as documented above, they are most definitely not Christian. I'd be fascinated to see you defend your assertion that genuine, bible-based Christianity ever spread by force. If it was done, it was not following the bible in doing so, and therefore most likely was some apostate derivation.
Your statements about Hinduism show quite well what the problem with it is: the need for man to explain it to youChristianity does not involve mountains of literature in order to get the key point; the bible has the simple, understandable, meant for everyone message available throughout. It does not require, as you state some Hindu books do, an intermediary to interpret and explain it to you. If you wish to start to plumb its depths, there are shelves of commentaries to assist in that, but you can do it alone and get what is key in very short order.
From what you have said, Hinduism requires that one be accepted as an acolyte by a guru in order to be able to understand Hinduism.
I find it quite interesting that you're seriously accepting the Atlantis myth. That's self-refuting, no help needed from me on that one. Then you suggest investigating David Frawley, who you claim went from Christianity to Hindu. If you read anything about him, you would realize he left the RCC to become a Hindu, he did not leave Christianity. Again, see documentation above or I can provide you with vast amounts more about why the Roman Catholic Church is anything but Christian. Short form: it does not come close to following the bible.
Did you ever realize that with a notable exception, world religions are based on the individuals who spent a significant amount of time attempting to understand the world/gods/truth/death/life etc. The exception of course is our Lord Jesus Christ, who at the age of twelve was not seeking, but instead already providing answers. Yes, He is different. Only the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead; Siddhartha and Mohammed and others are still rotting in their graves.