....you don't have to be a drug-users or even like drug users to be against drug prohibition....
Why is it that human governments prohibit the use of substances and compounds that God (or nature) saw fit to place upon the earth? Why are human governments making laws against things which God evidently deems to be good? If he really thought that opium was so terrible or alcohol or marijuana, why did he make these and other "drugs" in the first place? Why is there no prohibition of any kind in the 10 basic laws, the Ten Commandments, that God decreed should govern human behavior?
...but I argue that prohibition has made the effects worse...
It is interesting that when God decided to personally give to mankind the 10 basic rules for living, none of them prohibit the possession or use of any material object or substance. If everybody really lived their life in accordance with these 10 Commandments, most of the millions of laws on the books today would be superfluous. The prisons would be empty and criminal courts could be closed as well. Most lawyers would be unemployed also.
....that a central fixture of Christianity was faith, that is belief without evidence....
There is a lot of internal evidence of prophecy in the Bible, but you seem to dismiss it out of hand. The Bible is not a book that was put together in a few months or a few years by a single human being. Its scripts were put down over time span of about 1500 years by at least 40 different writers. Even so, it has a remarkable consistency.
If you are really interested in evidence for the truth of the Christian gospel, you may take the time to read the article and the following link:
The author of this article, was a legal scholar, one of the founders of the Harvard Law school. Before reading the above article, you may want to check out the credentials of this man as given in the link below.
(...Scientific facts that were undiscovered at the time would be pretty good too...)
Most scholars agree that the book of Job is the oldest of the collection of books we now call the Bible. In chapters 38-42 God talks to Job, giving him a science quiz. In the 5000 years or so since job lived, humans have discovered the answers to many of these questions. Even so, there are a number of questions that are still as unanswered today as they were back then. When these questions among many gives a scientific insight into modern astronomical knowledge. In chapter 38:31 God asked Job: "Can you bind the bands of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?" These two constellations happen to be gravitationally linked together, while all others simply appear that way in the sky from the viewpoint of the earth.
Earlier in the book, in chapter 26:7 we read He stretches out the north over the empty place, and He hung the earth on nothing. How did Job know this, contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the wise and educated to this day? If you have not ever read this book, or have not read it recently, you might do so. If you do not have the time or inclination for this, you might review the rather good Wikipedia article here:
...then I'd like you to point out three examples where it predicted a precise historical event....
OK, Here is the first one from the account in the life of Jesus. Centuries before it happened, two very specific, unambiguous statements were written down. One is the exact amount of money involved in the betrayal of Jesus. The other is what could be done with the money.
Prediction: Zec 11:12 And I said to them, If it is good, give My price; and if not, let it go. So they weighed My price thirty pieces of silver. Zec 11:13 And Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the magnificent price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of Jehovah.
Fulfillment: Mat 26:14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests. Mat 26:15 And he said to them, What will you give me, and I will betray Him to you? And they appointed to him thirty pieces of silver. Mat 26:16 And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.
Mat 27:3 Then he who had betrayed Him, seeing that He was condemned, sorrowing, Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver again to the chief priests and elders, Mat 27:4 saying, I have sinned, betraying innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? You see to that. Mat 27:5 And he threw the pieces of silver down in the temple and departed. And he went and hanged himself. Mat 27:6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. Mat 27:7 And they took counsel and bought the potter's field with them, to bury strangers in. Mat 27:8 Therefore that field was called, The Field of Blood, to this day. Mat 27:9 Then that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him who had been priced, whom they of the children of Israel valued, Mat 27:10 and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me."
It is interesting, that Matthew got the prophecy right, but got mixed up about the prophet that wrote it down.
One of the many prophecies concerning Israel has found the beginnings of its fulfillment in our time. The people of Israel were first dragged off to Babylon, that part of the world now call Iraq. After 70 years, some of them were allowed to return to their homeland. They were however no longer a sovereign nation, but we're subjected by various other powers. The last power they were subject to once the Roman Empire which ruled some until 70AD. As Jesus had predicted about 30 years before, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Roman legions and the and habitants of the land were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. The nation of Israel ceased to exist. Yet, as prophesied, they were reborn as a sovereign state in 1948.
Jer 29:14 And I will be found by you, says Jehovah; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Jehovah. And I will bring you again into the place from where I caused you to be exiled.
Consider the city of Jerusalem. It has a population of less than three quarters of a million, has no harbor or other important attributes of the world's great cities. Even so, what other city is there in the world today, where a zoning change, needed to build some apartments, becomes a threat to world peace? Here is what God tells us about this town:
Zec 12:2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the peoples all around, and it shall also be against Judah in the siege against Jerusalem. Zec 12:3 And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. All who lift it shall be slashed, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.
A few miles to the north is valley of Megiddo, where the battle of Armageddon, part of the last war of humanity will be fought. This prophecy is being fulfilled in par
...I don't see why an all-powerful God would do something so bizarre and intricate, though...
According to the Biblical record, God exists outside of our time-space universe. We experience time as a line stretching from past through the present moment into the future. He sees all time, as a whole. If you can imagine watching a parade near a street corner, you will see the participants in the parade come around the corner, pass in front of you and then disappear around another corner further down the parade route. The people in an aircraft will see the entire parade route from before the units join the parade until after they disband at the end.
God alone sees time from an eternal perspective. He tells us in the Bible that He knew each of us before we came to be. Of all measurements scientists have learned to make, time can be measured more accurately and with higher resolution than any other physical quantity. Yet it is truly ironic for us modern humans, scientifically minded as we like to see ourselves, that the exact nature of time is just as much a mystery as it was centuries ago. Despite satellites and super-computers even predicting the weather is hit and miss.
In order to authenticate His message, the Bible, He has given accurate predictions of events long before they happened. Many of these are now history to us, but a large number are yet future to our place in time. The odds of all of the events foretold in the Bible actually happening are FAR more remote than winning the lottery 10 times in a row. Anyone who truly wants to find out if this is true can make a study of these events foretold. Some of these events have happened in the last century and some are happening today. Some are on the horizon.
(...so as to make me believe...)
If your computer suddenly flashed a message on the screen "I love you --__your name__", would you think that your computer truly loves you? Probably not!. You see, if God had programmed that into your brain, it could not be love. He gave you the ability to WANT to love him and some other humans, -- or not. He also gave you the ability to believe -- or not, based on evidence He supplies. In the end, if a person does not WANT to believe, he/she will not. My faith in God is not blind faith, but it is based on sufficient evidence, both Biblical and personal. If you truly WANT to believe, ask God to give evidence personal to you. Tell Him that you have severe doubts He even exists, but are willing to accept personal evidence that He is there and loves you.
..If he tells me that there's an envelope taped to the bottom of my desk with a particular random number in it,..
That random number trick would be good, but not indicate that God was behind it. Like you said, someone could have placed that there without your knowledge.
One day you come home and find a copy of the Bible, that was not there before, in your living room. You also find a slip of paper in front of the Bible telling you that this book is God's message to you. You are instructed to look on the inside back cover. You look there and find 10 rows of two digit numbers in 5 sets each. He included a brief personal message there which tells you that God wants to bless you financially and anyone you choose. To that end He wrote that these numbers represent the next 10 power-ball lottery draws starting with the next scheduled draw.
You are puzzled, but very skeptical, and decide to laugh it off and let the deadline to buy a ticket pass. When the numbers are announced for the first draw, you realize that the first set of numbers matches exactly those drawn. You groan a little or maybe a lot, but immediately trot down and enter the lottery with the second set of numbers. You can hardly wait for the next draw. It finally happens and to your amazement, all numbers match exactly. You win say 24 million. Now you are beginning to wonder, could those other numbers be possibly right also? You enter again and sure enough all the numbers are correct again and you win two lotteries in a row. Surely you think, that is the end of your lucky streak. Still just for fun you buy a ticket and enter the third set of numbers given to you by the writer claiming to be God. The numbers are announced and match again. By now the lottery authorities are very suspicious of you and refuse to pay you again. Still, you don't tell anyone of that message supposedly from God. Instead, you call a trusted friend or relative and tell him/her the next set of numbers. Knowing that you are the only person that has ever won three lotteries in a row, they eagerly enter. Sure enough they win the next lottery draw. You repeat this with others you like and they all win successively on rest of the the numbers you supplied them, as written down in the message in the back of that Bible.
Would you read the rest of the Bible carefully to see what else God has to communicate to you?
...As of right now both cases will simply show a nondescript "enter admin password" prompt, which is insufficient....
It is sufficient if the user doesn't know what that password is. This can easily be done in a business situation where only the boss and/or the IT person has that password. In a family, the head of the household could be that person. That would prevent kids and their friends from installing anything that requires admin.
Except that we read in the Biblical record that Jesus followers did not try to kill nor advocate killing those who opposed them. Jesus doesn't tell His followers to kill themselves, such as happened in the Jonestown and Khoutek Comet incidents. Jesus represents life, not death.
So if you doubt the existence of something, such as electromagnetic radiation or life after death, then these cease to exist or be true? You may BELIEVE they don't exist, but they still could be there.
(...I don't need to come up with it myself!...)
I guess a better way to ask the question would be: If you get a communication from someone, some stranger to you, what evidence will you accept that this message really came from that particular person? How can the content and the source of a communication be authenticated? What if the communication does claim that it is from God, but He didn't leave His phone number or email address? Is there a way that the message itself could convince you that it is truly from God? What could there be in the message content that would convince you "beyond all doubt"?
....the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods....
The big difference is that Jesus was fully human and lived and died as a human. He alone demonstrated His power over death, showing that He was also God. What gives the resurrection account such credibility is that even Jesus' closest followers initially refused to believe the first accounts of those who said they saw the resurrects Jesus. Thomas refused to believe what the others were telling Him until he met the risen Christ a week later.
Before the resurrection Jesus disciples were scared that the same governmental authorities that executed Jesus would come after them. It took quite a bit of effort by Jesus to finally convince a bunch of skeptical disciples that he was really alive. Once convinced of the fact that Jesus was indeed alive, they defied their Jewish Supreme Court as well as the Roman Government when commanded by the authorities to shut up and stop spreading that resurrection story. Can you imagine the courage it would take today, to defy Congress, the President and the Supreme Court, (the entire government of their day) all at once, openly, to their face, for a fable or a lie?
....A lot of people remember what they read about Jesus saying and doing...
There are written records of the history of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Martin Luther, Plato, Socrates, the various Roman Emperors, Jesus Christ and on back into ancient history. Do you also disbelieve all historical records? There are also archeological records and the fossils record of life. ALL of them, without exception cannot be PROVED. No recorded evidence of the past can be proved, only BELIEVED or not. Even in a court of law, nothing of the past crime is ever proved. All that is ever done is to present evidence. The testimony of live witnesses is only one form of evidence. Often, there are also written records involved as well.
The Bible is a written record of actual eye witnesses to the events recorded therein. These written records should be accorded the same treatment as any written record of the past would be. In a court of law, a witness is assumed to be telling the truth, unless it can be established that the witness is lying. In human oral and written testimony, there will ALWAYS be a degree of variability. When several people are true eyewitnesses of an accident, for example, their testimony will vary a little depending from which vantage point they saw the event. One way to tell if there is collusion of witnesses, is if their stories match too closely. There is such a degree of human variability in the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ, that gives these witnesses written testimony a high degree of credibility and truthfulness. There is no reason to doubt the written record of the Bible any more than any and all other records of history. Most of us have never seen a person com back from the dead, but that by itself is no reason to doubt the testimony of the eyewitnesses.
Before mankind invented modern detectors of electromagnetic radiation and subatomic particles, anyone speaking of their existence and reality would have been doubted on the same grounds. Nobody had ever perceived the existence of these very real physical realities, but they have always existed. Why then doubt that life can and does continue after the physical tent, our bodies cease to function?
If God personally showed up in front of you in human form and gave you a letter, how would you have Him authenticate His person and writing? What evidence would convince you of the truth of the letter and its author?
What Jesus said and did is still remembered by millions of Christians almost 2000 years later. Who will remember what you did and said and wrote right here on Slashdot even only 20 years from now? Who will even know that you existed 100 years from now? If they know, would they care? Will they build huge cathedrals and other memorials in your honor?
The biblical record claims that Jesus came back from the dead in a new resurrection life. We read that eyewitnesses saw him and interacted with him. No other religious leader has ever even made the claim of having conquered death.
It boils down to this: either you are correct or Jesus is.
...One is entirely selfless, the other is entirely selfish...
The best definition of love is given by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. It is essentially an expansion of what you have said in a nutshell, love indeed is entirely selfless. It is a conscious decision of the will, not a fleeting changeable emotion.
....Not relevantly more than a non-admin Vista account...
Except there is significantly more software for all flavors of Windows that will not work correctly if the user doesn't have admin rights. Knowledgeable administrators can often work around that, but normal users are stuck. Their choice is to run as admin or throw away their software investment. There is NO OSX software that needs for a user to have admin rights.
(...And one of the first OSX bits of pseudo-malware, called 'opener' revealed that "LittleSnitch" could simply be killed before the app phoned home...)
Except that that an admin password was needed first if the user was not running as an admin. Even the stupidest user is safe against such an attack if he/she doesn't know that password. In businesses the IT person(s) would ensure that only those that REALLY need that information to do their job would have it. In families the head of household could keep that information, thereby not letting the kids or their friends install every program they can find on the Internet.
(...Plus is that REALLY the only place programs get get started up on OSX?...)
Yes it is for any user not running under an admin account. The data is in a text file in/users/username/library/preference/loginwindow.plist
Moving or erasing that file eliminates all non-admin user accessible startup commands. Therefore simply trashing that file as well as the/users/username/library/preference/com.apple.loginitems.plist restores the user account to what it was when first created. Any malware created startup commands will be removed, thus effectively killing it.
In any computer, including OSX, once a program has the proper access, it can do whatever it wished within that constraint. The key is to not let a program have unfettered access in the first place. OSX makes that much easier to do than Windows.
..Any app that asks for and gets your admin password is going to play with your computer...
That is impossible, since our normal users don't know the admin password to their computers. Even in a family, it is easy to have the head of household be the only one who knows the admin password. That will prevent the kids from installing dodgy stuff that would damage the computer. In a work situation, only the IT persons knows the admin password. We reject *any* software that requires admin rights to run.
The fact that OSX does NOT have an arcane, obtuse construct, such as that miserable thing called a registry, goes a long way in protecting OSX. Any program that wants to start automatically upon user login, has to install itself into an easily understood and very visible entry in the login items preferences panel. Any time a user wants one of their legitimate programs to start at login, they have to access that list. They would be easily be able to delete any or all entries. Mac users, in contrast with Windows users, NEVER need to have admin privileges for normal computer operation. A non-admin OSX user account will offer a large measure of protection from malware. A simple, unobtrusive program such as "Little Snitch" will alert a user that some program is wanting to go somewhere new on the Internet and give the user the opportunity to deny this access.
....plenty of writers of nasty things out there that would love to cook up a truly nasty Mac bug....
Do you really think that some of the smartest, meanest, nastiest, glory hungry hackers have NOT tried in all these years to do just that? So far, they have failed miserably. A few isolated trojans preying on stupid users is all even the smartest and best hackers world wide have managed to come up with. When there comes into existence a 10,000 Mac bot-net, spewing forth tera-bytes of spam, there may be cause for the perps of that to crow a bit.
....I don't know why you want to wait, it will happen in time...
Anything can happen, given enough time, according to evolutionists. Before even THINKING about installing performance robbing AV software, I will wait until I learn that at least 1000 OSX Macs have gotten infected by a self-spreading virus or have become part of a large bot-net. I think I will be waiting for a long time, certainly a lot longer than the life of any computer system.
Creating and running under an additional non-admin account should be part of the default Mac installation procedure. In many situations a person such as the father, mother, boss, etc, other than the day to day user of a computer should be the only one that knows the administrative password. That will prevent the kids, secretaries and other normal users from installing damaging crap that messes up the entire computer. A good network firewall and/or a program such as "Little Snitch" will also help protect Macs without sucking up a lot of performance for nothing.
....they make a complete solution, call it Ultimate....
Apple makes a complete solution and calls it OSX (currently Leopard), but they don't strip it down. Everybody gets the ONE ultimate version. There is nothing to upgrade.
....Rejecting speciation on the other hand is simply ignorance...
I can accept that life, once created is adaptable enough to have within in it sufficient information to at least to some extent be able to "evolve", although this process has never been observed to occur today. All we see today is an adaptation that life forms make to environmental changes. It is certainly possible, that when the Creator made life from lifeless elements, that he included sufficient information to make all other life forms, as we see them today. As life-forms get more complex, they manifest an increasing amount of information, which could have been there from day one. There is really no way to tell from our time perspective today.
(....Because we can SEE that it took a very long time....)
I take it that you have invented a time machine and traveled back there in time and actually saw it happen. Every historical record, whether geological or recorded by human beings brings evidence that has to be either believed or not. You have to believe, that George Washington, Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ or any other historical figure ever existed, based on written evidence. This is also true for the evidence recorded in the layers of rocks archaeologists and geologists dig up today. All theories of origins rest upon belief or disbelief of the evidence presented. Evolution is a belief system, like any other belief system, not science.
(...and I'll believe the science...)
I also believe in science, but your definition of science and mine, appear to be radically different. I believe in the kind of science that can be demonstrated today or observed to be happening today. You mention the fossil record for example. Has anyone ever made a fossil? Has anyone ever seen a fossil form today?
(...The formation of complex hydrocarbons from simpler structures that has been seen in the lab...)
Even granted the possible truth of that statement, all that shows is that intelligent scientists under strictly controlled conditions can produce greater chemical complexity from simpler compounds. What has not been demonstrated, is that without the input of intelligence, such as providing the exactly right conditions and ingredients, this does not happen in nature. Lots of time, if anything, is the enemy of complexity. Every observation ever made, today, shows that complex molecules and devices break down into simpler forms with time.
(...I mean, come on, how can a single fertilized cell smaller than you can see, turn into a blue whale?...)
All of the information required to make a blue whale is encoded therein by the programmer of the DNA.
(...How can simple transistors power machines that let us communicate?...)
The transistors and the machines that contain them are conceived in the minds of intelligent human beings and then manufactured by other intelligent human beings. They did not come into existence by some probabilistic process occurring over time. Why is it so inconceivable to you that the far more complex communication devices, your eyes, ears and brain were also conceived and planned in an intelligent mind of some kind?
Now we can argue about the nature of the person that has such a mind and that is the province of religious faith. If a person came to you, saying he was the Creator God, what evidence would convince you of the truth of that?
...What are you going to do in a few years when the artificial life people do get their self-replicating metabolizing systems working.....
I am going to assume that these "artificial life people" are INTELLIGENT beings who applied their INTELLIGENCE to copy what God did originally with His intelligence. It would certainly prove without a doubt that it takes intelligence to even copy what God has done, let alone come up with an original DESIGN.
If you met someone who claimed to be God, what evidence would it take for you, to personally accept that as truth?
...We are talking great amounts of time for this chemistry to take place...
When evolutionists are cornered like a rat, because they know that they have never seen the magic transformation of a simple compound into a protein they resort to the magic of time. They totally ignore that when a more complex molecule is left alone for even a short amount of time it breaks down into a simpler one.
Some fairy tales give the magic formula "frog+kiss=prince". In tall tales with an evolutionary twist (mislabeled science) we are told that "frog+time=prince". The magic of time can eventually even work the "rock+time= prince" formula, according to this tale. Here is what children are forced to read:
Billions of years ago, (not in a galaxy far far away, but right here on earth) torrents of rain washed minerals from the rocky land into the pre-biotic soup (Campbells) of the warm seas where organic molecules called amino acids eventually (eventually is code for a really long time) formed. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of all life, sort of like the bricks of a house.
After much time, (magic) these molecules organized themselves into single celled organisms, such as simple bacteria. Some of them, called algae, in time managed to somehow become able use sunlight to get energy. Some of these became plants. We are told, these algae were the ancestors of roses, sunflowers and 300 foot tall redwood trees.
Eventually (after lots more time) some of these single celled life forms made colonies, some of which specialized and multicellular forms showed up, which after even more time evolved into animals like worms, snails and after more time, (magic) some became fish.
In time, (more magic) some evolved to become reptiles, birds and after MUCH more time magic, mammals such as dogs, cats and even monkeys and apes. Eventually after more still more time, one or more of these apes became human at last. (man was the result of the most powerful magic time ever worked)
Of course it was inevitable that sooner or later (more time) one of these evolved men would become a prince. After all some men do become princes even without getting a kiss from a maiden. Again, it is only a matter of time.
There it is, a nice fairy tale not only for children, of how we all got here, but because it is labeled "science", even many highly educated adults labeled scientists, believe that this actually happened.
Of course, there really IS a Santa Claus who lives at the North Pole. That is more believable than that a rock can SOMEHOW become a prince, given enough TIME.
...Fortunately, nobody believes time plus random chance along did it...
Indeed, even evolutionists don't WANT to believe that. However, they don't have an alternative plausible mechanism, so they have to believe that hogwash. A brand new ferrari "evolved" in or local junk yard last week! I got there too late to pick it up, because it became an airplane later and flew away.
.... such as the first self-replicating amino acids....
Has any scientist EVER made a self-replicating anything just from the elements? Has anyone made a self-replicating material machine -- not some software -- anywhere, anytime? Is there even such a thing as a self-replicating amino acid in existence? If so, is it a contrivance of intelligent scientists in a lab?
If not, then how can something like that happen by any random process? Asserting it took lots of time is a cop out. It must be demonstrated by an experiment to call it science.
If some scientists manage to construct a device that makes copies of itself and these copies in turn make copies of themselves, it would only demonstrate that it takes intelligence to do so. A machine that accomplishes what a single living cell does, must have material, energy and above all INFORMATION to program all its many processes.
Once a cell with information exists, it is barely conceivable that natural selection could play a role in the further development of life forms. The gulf between the dead bare bones elements and a self-replicating machine as complex as a living cell is immense and cannot be bridged by the application of matter, energy and time alone. There needs to be the input of large amounts of information. Darwin's principles work in a limited way with living things, but are insufficient to account for the existence of the first self-replicating building blocks of life.
It takes faith to believe God did it, but it takes even more faith to believe random chance plus time did it.
You are flat out wrong about that. ID is about one thing and one thing ONLY. That is that there is an intelligence behind the origin and operation of the universe. Life science is only a part of that. There are theistic implications in this, just as there are atheistic implications in random evolution over time. ID in and of itself makes no statements concerning what the nature or methodology of this intelligence might be. Creationists have and do use some of the same arguments as those who see intelligence operating behind the universe. Some evolutionists believe in God and others don't, and that is equally true of those who theorize an intelligence rather than time and chance. Putting scientists who interpret the observed data as pointing to intelligence into the same camp as creationists is plain ignorant of what the ID theory really is.
Slashdot Mirror
....you don't have to be a drug-users or even like drug users to be against drug prohibition....
Why is it that human governments prohibit the use of substances and compounds that God (or nature) saw fit to place upon the earth? Why are human governments making laws against things which God evidently deems to be good? If he really thought that opium was so terrible or alcohol or marijuana, why did he make these and other "drugs" in the first place? Why is there no prohibition of any kind in the 10 basic laws, the Ten Commandments, that God decreed should govern human behavior?
...but I argue that prohibition has made the effects worse ...
It is interesting that when God decided to personally give to mankind the 10 basic rules for living, none of them prohibit the possession or use of any material object or substance. If everybody really lived their life in accordance with these 10 Commandments, most of the millions of laws on the books today would be superfluous. The prisons would be empty and criminal courts could be closed as well. Most lawyers would be unemployed also.
....that a central fixture of Christianity was faith, that is belief without evidence....
There is a lot of internal evidence of prophecy in the Bible, but you seem to dismiss it out of hand. The Bible is not a book that was put together in a few months or a few years by a single human being. Its scripts were put down over time span of about 1500 years by at least 40 different writers. Even so, it has a remarkable consistency.
If you are really interested in evidence for the truth of the Christian gospel, you may take the time to read the article and the following link:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html
The author of this article, was a legal scholar, one of the founders of the Harvard Law school. Before reading the above article, you may want to check out the credentials of this man as given in the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Greenleaf
(...Scientific facts that were undiscovered at the time would be pretty good too...)
Most scholars agree that the book of Job is the oldest of the collection of books we now call the Bible. In chapters 38-42 God talks to Job, giving him a science quiz. In the 5000 years or so since job lived, humans have discovered the answers to many of these questions. Even so, there are a number of questions that are still as unanswered today as they were back then. When these questions among many gives a scientific insight into modern astronomical knowledge. In chapter 38:31 God asked Job: "Can you bind the bands of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?" These two constellations happen to be gravitationally linked together, while all others simply appear that way in the sky from the viewpoint of the earth.
Earlier in the book, in chapter 26:7 we read He stretches out the north over the empty place, and He hung the earth on nothing. How did Job know this, contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the wise and educated to this day? If you have not ever read this book, or have not read it recently, you might do so. If you do not have the time or inclination for this, you might review the rather good Wikipedia article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job
...then I'd like you to point out three examples where it predicted a precise historical event....
OK, Here is the first one from the account in the life of Jesus. Centuries before it happened, two very specific, unambiguous statements were written down. One is the exact amount of money involved in the betrayal of Jesus. The other is what could be done with the money.
Prediction:
Zec 11:12 And I said to them, If it is good, give My price; and if not, let it go. So they weighed My price thirty pieces of silver.
Zec 11:13 And Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the magnificent price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of Jehovah.
Fulfillment:
Mat 26:14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests.
Mat 26:15 And he said to them, What will you give me, and I will betray Him to you? And they appointed to him thirty pieces of silver.
Mat 26:16 And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.
Mat 27:3 Then he who had betrayed Him, seeing that He was condemned, sorrowing, Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver again to the chief priests and elders,
Mat 27:4 saying, I have sinned, betraying innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? You see to that.
Mat 27:5 And he threw the pieces of silver down in the temple and departed. And he went and hanged himself.
Mat 27:6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
Mat 27:7 And they took counsel and bought the potter's field with them, to bury strangers in.
Mat 27:8 Therefore that field was called, The Field of Blood, to this day.
Mat 27:9 Then that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him who had been priced, whom they of the children of Israel valued,
Mat 27:10 and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me."
It is interesting, that Matthew got the prophecy right, but got mixed up about the prophet that wrote it down.
One of the many prophecies concerning Israel has found the beginnings of its fulfillment in our time. The people of Israel were first dragged off to Babylon, that part of the world now call Iraq. After 70 years, some of them were allowed to return to their homeland. They were however no longer a sovereign nation, but we're subjected by various other powers. The last power they were subject to once the Roman Empire which ruled some until 70AD. As Jesus had predicted about 30 years before, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Roman legions and the and habitants of the land were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. The nation of Israel ceased to exist. Yet, as prophesied, they were reborn as a sovereign state in 1948.
Jer 29:14 And I will be found by you, says Jehovah; and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Jehovah. And I will bring you again into the place from where I caused you to be exiled.
Consider the city of Jerusalem. It has a population of less than three quarters of a million, has no harbor or other important attributes of the world's great cities. Even so, what other city is there in the world today, where a zoning change, needed to build some apartments, becomes a threat to world peace? Here is what God tells us about this town:
Zec 12:2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the peoples all around, and it shall also be against Judah in the siege against Jerusalem.
Zec 12:3 And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. All who lift it shall be slashed, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.
A few miles to the north is valley of Megiddo, where the battle of Armageddon, part of the last war of humanity will be fought. This prophecy is being fulfilled in par
...I don't see why an all-powerful God would do something so bizarre and intricate, though...
According to the Biblical record, God exists outside of our time-space universe. We experience time as a line stretching from past through the present moment into the future. He sees all time, as a whole. If you can imagine watching a parade near a street corner, you will see the participants in the parade come around the corner, pass in front of you and then disappear around another corner further down the parade route. The people in an aircraft will see the entire parade route from before the units join the parade until after they disband at the end.
God alone sees time from an eternal perspective. He tells us in the Bible that He knew each of us before we came to be. Of all measurements scientists have learned to make, time can be measured more accurately and with higher resolution than any other physical quantity. Yet it is truly ironic for us modern humans, scientifically minded as we like to see ourselves, that the exact nature of time is just as much a mystery as it was centuries ago. Despite satellites and super-computers even predicting the weather is hit and miss.
In order to authenticate His message, the Bible, He has given accurate predictions of events long before they happened. Many of these are now history to us, but a large number are yet future to our place in time. The odds of all of the events foretold in the Bible actually happening are FAR more remote than winning the lottery 10 times in a row. Anyone who truly wants to find out if this is true can make a study of these events foretold. Some of these events have happened in the last century and some are happening today. Some are on the horizon.
(...so as to make me believe...)
If your computer suddenly flashed a message on the screen "I love you --__your name__", would you think that your computer truly loves you? Probably not!. You see, if God had programmed that into your brain, it could not be love. He gave you the ability to WANT to love him and some other humans, -- or not. He also gave you the ability to believe -- or not, based on evidence He supplies. In the end, if a person does not WANT to believe, he/she will not. My faith in God is not blind faith, but it is based on sufficient evidence, both Biblical and personal. If you truly WANT to believe, ask God to give evidence personal to you. Tell Him that you have severe doubts He even exists, but are willing to accept personal evidence that He is there and loves you.
..If he tells me that there's an envelope taped to the bottom of my desk with a particular random number in it,..
That random number trick would be good, but not indicate that God was behind it. Like you said, someone could have placed that there without your knowledge.
One day you come home and find a copy of the Bible, that was not there before, in your living room. You also find a slip of paper in front of the Bible telling you that this book is God's message to you. You are instructed to look on the inside back cover. You look there and find 10 rows of two digit numbers in 5 sets each. He included a brief personal message there which tells you that God wants to bless you financially and anyone you choose. To that end He wrote that these numbers represent the next 10 power-ball lottery draws starting with the next scheduled draw.
You are puzzled, but very skeptical, and decide to laugh it off and let the deadline to buy a ticket pass. When the numbers are announced for the first draw, you realize that the first set of numbers matches exactly those drawn. You groan a little or maybe a lot, but immediately trot down and enter the lottery with the second set of numbers. You can hardly wait for the next draw. It finally happens and to your amazement, all numbers match exactly. You win say 24 million. Now you are beginning to wonder, could those other numbers be possibly right also? You enter again and sure enough all the numbers are correct again and you win two lotteries in a row. Surely you think, that is the end of your lucky streak. Still just for fun you buy a ticket and enter the third set of numbers given to you by the writer claiming to be God. The numbers are announced and match again. By now the lottery authorities are very suspicious of you and refuse to pay you again. Still, you don't tell anyone of that message supposedly from God. Instead, you call a trusted friend or relative and tell him/her the next set of numbers. Knowing that you are the only person that has ever won three lotteries in a row, they eagerly enter. Sure enough they win the next lottery draw. You repeat this with others you like and they all win successively on rest of the the numbers you supplied them, as written down in the message in the back of that Bible.
Would you read the rest of the Bible carefully to see what else God has to communicate to you?
...As of right now both cases will simply show a nondescript "enter admin password" prompt, which is insufficient....
It is sufficient if the user doesn't know what that password is. This can easily be done in a business situation where only the boss and/or the IT person has that password. In a family, the head of the household could be that person. That would prevent kids and their friends from installing anything that requires admin.
...Like David Koresh and his followers did?...
Except that we read in the Biblical record that Jesus followers did not try to kill nor advocate killing those who opposed them. Jesus doesn't tell His followers to kill themselves, such as happened in the Jonestown and Khoutek Comet incidents. Jesus represents life, not death.
...And correctly so...
So if you doubt the existence of something, such as electromagnetic radiation or life after death, then these cease to exist or be true? You may BELIEVE they don't exist, but they still could be there.
(...I don't need to come up with it myself!...)
I guess a better way to ask the question would be: If you get a communication from someone, some stranger to you, what evidence will you accept that this message really came from that particular person? How can the content and the source of a communication be authenticated? What if the communication does claim that it is from God, but He didn't leave His phone number or email address? Is there a way that the message itself could convince you that it is truly from God? What could there be in the message content that would convince you "beyond all doubt"?
....the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods....
The big difference is that Jesus was fully human and lived and died as a human. He alone demonstrated His power over death, showing that He was also God. What gives the resurrection account such credibility is that even Jesus' closest followers initially refused to believe the first accounts of those who said they saw the resurrects Jesus. Thomas refused to believe what the others were telling Him until he met the risen Christ a week later.
Before the resurrection Jesus disciples were scared that the same governmental authorities that executed Jesus would come after them. It took quite a bit of effort by Jesus to finally convince a bunch of skeptical disciples that he was really alive. Once convinced of the fact that Jesus was indeed alive, they defied their Jewish Supreme Court as well as the Roman Government when commanded by the authorities to shut up and stop spreading that resurrection story. Can you imagine the courage it would take today, to defy Congress, the President and the Supreme Court, (the entire government of their day) all at once, openly, to their face, for a fable or a lie?
....A lot of people remember what they read about Jesus saying and doing...
There are written records of the history of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Martin Luther, Plato, Socrates, the various Roman Emperors, Jesus Christ and on back into ancient history. Do you also disbelieve all historical records? There are also archeological records and the fossils record of life. ALL of them, without exception cannot be PROVED. No recorded evidence of the past can be proved, only BELIEVED or not. Even in a court of law, nothing of the past crime is ever proved. All that is ever done is to present evidence. The testimony of live witnesses is only one form of evidence. Often, there are also written records involved as well.
The Bible is a written record of actual eye witnesses to the events recorded therein. These written records should be accorded the same treatment as any written record of the past would be. In a court of law, a witness is assumed to be telling the truth, unless it can be established that the witness is lying. In human oral and written testimony, there will ALWAYS be a degree of variability. When several people are true eyewitnesses of an accident, for example, their testimony will vary a little depending from which vantage point they saw the event. One way to tell if there is collusion of witnesses, is if their stories match too closely. There is such a degree of human variability in the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ, that gives these witnesses written testimony a high degree of credibility and truthfulness. There is no reason to doubt the written record of the Bible any more than any and all other records of history. Most of us have never seen a person com back from the dead, but that by itself is no reason to doubt the testimony of the eyewitnesses.
Before mankind invented modern detectors of electromagnetic radiation and subatomic particles, anyone speaking of their existence and reality would have been doubted on the same grounds. Nobody had ever perceived the existence of these very real physical realities, but they have always existed. Why then doubt that life can and does continue after the physical tent, our bodies cease to function?
If God personally showed up in front of you in human form and gave you a letter, how would you have Him authenticate His person and writing? What evidence would convince you of the truth of the letter and its author?
...You know, like Jesus did....
What Jesus said and did is still remembered by millions of Christians almost 2000 years later. Who will remember what you did and said and wrote right here on Slashdot even only 20 years from now? Who will even know that you existed 100 years from now? If they know, would they care? Will they build huge cathedrals and other memorials in your honor?
The biblical record claims that Jesus came back from the dead in a new resurrection life. We read that eyewitnesses saw him and interacted with him. No other religious leader has ever even made the claim of having conquered death.
It boils down to this: either you are correct or Jesus is.
...One is entirely selfless, the other is entirely selfish...
The best definition of love is given by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. It is essentially an expansion of what you have said in a nutshell, love indeed is entirely selfless. It is a conscious decision of the will, not a fleeting changeable emotion.
....Not relevantly more than a non-admin Vista account...
Except there is significantly more software for all flavors of Windows that will not work correctly if the user doesn't have admin rights. Knowledgeable administrators can often work around that, but normal users are stuck. Their choice is to run as admin or throw away their software investment. There is NO OSX software that needs for a user to have admin rights.
(...And one of the first OSX bits of pseudo-malware, called 'opener' revealed that "LittleSnitch" could simply be killed before the app phoned home...)
Except that that an admin password was needed first if the user was not running as an admin. Even the stupidest user is safe against such an attack if he/she doesn't know that password. In businesses the IT person(s) would ensure that only those that REALLY need that information to do their job would have it. In families the head of household could keep that information, thereby not letting the kids or their friends install every program they can find on the Internet.
(...Plus is that REALLY the only place programs get get started up on OSX?...)
Yes it is for any user not running under an admin account. The data is in a text file in /users/username/library/preference/loginwindow.plist
Moving or erasing that file eliminates all non-admin user accessible startup commands. Therefore simply trashing that file as well as the /users/username/library/preference/com.apple.loginitems.plist restores the user account to what it was when first created. Any malware created startup commands will be removed, thus effectively killing it.
In any computer, including OSX, once a program has the proper access, it can do whatever it wished within that constraint. The key is to not let a program have unfettered access in the first place. OSX makes that much easier to do than Windows.
..Any app that asks for and gets your admin password is going to play with your computer...
That is impossible, since our normal users don't know the admin password to their computers. Even in a family, it is easy to have the head of household be the only one who knows the admin password. That will prevent the kids from installing dodgy stuff that would damage the computer. In a work situation, only the IT persons knows the admin password. We reject *any* software that requires admin rights to run.
...than setup a start up item in the registry....
The fact that OSX does NOT have an arcane, obtuse construct, such as that miserable thing called a registry, goes a long way in protecting OSX. Any program that wants to start automatically upon user login, has to install itself into an easily understood and very visible entry in the login items preferences panel. Any time a user wants one of their legitimate programs to start at login, they have to access that list. They would be easily be able to delete any or all entries. Mac users, in contrast with Windows users, NEVER need to have admin privileges for normal computer operation. A non-admin OSX user account will offer a large measure of protection from malware. A simple, unobtrusive program such as "Little Snitch" will alert a user that some program is wanting to go somewhere new on the Internet and give the user the opportunity to deny this access.
....plenty of writers of nasty things out there that would love to cook up a truly nasty Mac bug....
Do you really think that some of the smartest, meanest, nastiest, glory hungry hackers have NOT tried in all these years to do just that? So far, they have failed miserably. A few isolated trojans preying on stupid users is all even the smartest and best hackers world wide have managed to come up with. When there comes into existence a 10,000 Mac bot-net, spewing forth tera-bytes of spam, there may be cause for the perps of that to crow a bit.
....I don't know why you want to wait, it will happen in time...
Anything can happen, given enough time, according to evolutionists. Before even THINKING about installing performance robbing AV software, I will wait until I learn that at least 1000 OSX Macs have gotten infected by a self-spreading virus or have become part of a large bot-net. I think I will be waiting for a long time, certainly a lot longer than the life of any computer system.
Creating and running under an additional non-admin account should be part of the default Mac installation procedure. In many situations a person such as the father, mother, boss, etc, other than the day to day user of a computer should be the only one that knows the administrative password. That will prevent the kids, secretaries and other normal users from installing damaging crap that messes up the entire computer. A good network firewall and/or a program such as "Little Snitch" will also help protect Macs without sucking up a lot of performance for nothing.
....they make a complete solution, call it Ultimate....
Apple makes a complete solution and calls it OSX (currently Leopard), but they don't strip it down. Everybody gets the ONE ultimate version. There is nothing to upgrade.
....Rejecting speciation on the other hand is simply ignorance...
I can accept that life, once created is adaptable enough to have within in it sufficient information to at least to some extent be able to "evolve", although this process has never been observed to occur today. All we see today is an adaptation that life forms make to environmental changes. It is certainly possible, that when the Creator made life from lifeless elements, that he included sufficient information to make all other life forms, as we see them today. As life-forms get more complex, they manifest an increasing amount of information, which could have been there from day one. There is really no way to tell from our time perspective today.
(....Because we can SEE that it took a very long time....)
I take it that you have invented a time machine and traveled back there in time and actually saw it happen. Every historical record, whether geological or recorded by human beings brings evidence that has to be either believed or not. You have to believe, that George Washington, Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ or any other historical figure ever existed, based on written evidence. This is also true for the evidence recorded in the layers of rocks archaeologists and geologists dig up today. All theories of origins rest upon belief or disbelief of the evidence presented. Evolution is a belief system, like any other belief system, not science.
(...and I'll believe the science...)
I also believe in science, but your definition of science and mine, appear to be radically different. I believe in the kind of science that can be demonstrated today or observed to be happening today. You mention the fossil record for example. Has anyone ever made a fossil? Has anyone ever seen a fossil form today?
(...The formation of complex hydrocarbons from simpler structures that has been seen in the lab...)
Even granted the possible truth of that statement, all that shows is that intelligent scientists under strictly controlled conditions can produce greater chemical complexity from simpler compounds. What has not been demonstrated, is that without the input of intelligence, such as providing the exactly right conditions and ingredients, this does not happen in nature. Lots of time, if anything, is the enemy of complexity. Every observation ever made, today, shows that complex molecules and devices break down into simpler forms with time.
(...I mean, come on, how can a single fertilized cell smaller than you can see, turn into a blue whale?...)
All of the information required to make a blue whale is encoded therein by the programmer of the DNA.
(...How can simple transistors power machines that let us communicate?...)
The transistors and the machines that contain them are conceived in the minds of intelligent human beings and then manufactured by other intelligent human beings. They did not come into existence by some probabilistic process occurring over time. Why is it so inconceivable to you that the far more complex communication devices, your eyes, ears and brain were also conceived and planned in an intelligent mind of some kind?
Now we can argue about the nature of the person that has such a mind and that is the province of religious faith. If a person came to you, saying he was the Creator God, what evidence would convince you of the truth of that?
...What are you going to do in a few years when the artificial life people do get their self-replicating metabolizing systems working. ....
I am going to assume that these "artificial life people" are INTELLIGENT beings who applied their INTELLIGENCE to copy what God did originally with His intelligence. It would certainly prove without a doubt that it takes intelligence to even copy what God has done, let alone come up with an original DESIGN.
If you met someone who claimed to be God, what evidence would it take for you, to personally accept that as truth?
...We are talking great amounts of time for this chemistry to take place...
When evolutionists are cornered like a rat, because they know that they have never seen the magic transformation of a simple compound into a protein they resort to the magic of time. They totally ignore that when a more complex molecule is left alone for even a short amount of time it breaks down into a simpler one.
Some fairy tales give the magic formula "frog+kiss=prince". In tall tales with an evolutionary twist (mislabeled science) we are told that "frog+time=prince". The magic of time can eventually even work the "rock+time= prince" formula, according to this tale. Here is what children are forced to read:
Billions of years ago, (not in a galaxy far far away, but right here on earth) torrents of rain washed minerals from the rocky land into the pre-biotic soup (Campbells) of the warm seas where organic molecules called amino acids eventually (eventually is code for a really long time) formed. Amino acids are the basic building blocks of all life, sort of like the bricks of a house.
After much time, (magic) these molecules organized themselves into single celled organisms, such as simple bacteria. Some of them, called algae, in time managed to somehow become able use sunlight to get energy. Some of these became plants. We are told, these algae were the ancestors of roses, sunflowers and 300 foot tall redwood trees.
Eventually (after lots more time) some of these single celled life forms made colonies, some of which specialized and multicellular forms showed up, which after even more time evolved into animals like worms, snails and after more time, (magic) some became fish.
In time, (more magic) some evolved to become reptiles, birds and after MUCH more time magic, mammals such as dogs, cats and even monkeys and apes. Eventually after more still more time, one or more of these apes became human at last. (man was the result of the most powerful magic time ever worked)
Of course it was inevitable that sooner or later (more time) one of these evolved men would become a prince. After all some men do become princes even without getting a kiss from a maiden. Again, it is only a matter of time.
There it is, a nice fairy tale not only for children, of how we all got here, but because it is labeled "science", even many highly educated adults labeled scientists, believe that this actually happened.
Of course, there really IS a Santa Claus who lives at the North Pole. That is more believable than that a rock can SOMEHOW become a prince, given enough TIME.
...Fortunately, nobody believes time plus random chance along did it...
Indeed, even evolutionists don't WANT to believe that. However, they don't have an alternative plausible mechanism, so they have to believe that hogwash. A brand new ferrari "evolved" in or local junk yard last week! I got there too late to pick it up, because it became an airplane later and flew away.
.... such as the first self-replicating amino acids....
Has any scientist EVER made a self-replicating anything just from the elements? Has anyone made a self-replicating material machine -- not some software -- anywhere, anytime? Is there even such a thing as a self-replicating amino acid in existence? If so, is it a contrivance of intelligent scientists in a lab?
If not, then how can something like that happen by any random process? Asserting it took lots of time is a cop out. It must be demonstrated by an experiment to call it science.
If some scientists manage to construct a device that makes copies of itself and these copies in turn make copies of themselves, it would only demonstrate that it takes intelligence to do so. A machine that accomplishes what a single living cell does, must have material, energy and above all INFORMATION to program all its many processes.
Once a cell with information exists, it is barely conceivable that natural selection could play a role in the further development of life forms. The gulf between the dead bare bones elements and a self-replicating machine as complex as a living cell is immense and cannot be bridged by the application of matter, energy and time alone. There needs to be the input of large amounts of information. Darwin's principles work in a limited way with living things, but are insufficient to account for the existence of the first self-replicating building blocks of life.
It takes faith to believe God did it, but it takes even more faith to believe random chance plus time did it.
...ID is young earth.....
You are flat out wrong about that. ID is about one thing and one thing ONLY. That is that there is an intelligence behind the origin and operation of the universe. Life science is only a part of that. There are theistic implications in this, just as there are atheistic implications in random evolution over time. ID in and of itself makes no statements concerning what the nature or methodology of this intelligence might be. Creationists have and do use some of the same arguments as those who see intelligence operating behind the universe. Some evolutionists believe in God and others don't, and that is equally true of those who theorize an intelligence rather than time and chance. Putting scientists who interpret the observed data as pointing to intelligence into the same camp as creationists is plain ignorant of what the ID theory really is.