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Originally written by Thuryl:

[QUOTE]To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, to me, the statement "The planet Earth existed 1 billion years ago" is true now, but the statement "The planet Earth exists now" was NOT true 1 billion years ago.

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Originally written by *i:

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Originally written by The Creator:

You demand a standard of proof far beyond what you would demand to prove that, say, the Earth is round or that man landed on the moon.

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To the contrary, proving the Earth is round or man walked on the moon is relatively easy. I can propose experiments for both.

Earth is round: Let us launch an unarmed ICBM in one direction into orbit. If we see it come back from the other side we have substantiated the Earth is round. Sure, we could postulate magic faeries moved it to make it appear as such, but Occam's Razor comes to the rescue.

Man walked on the moon: This one is a little more difficult, but it is the in the realm of possibility. However, we have these pesky little moon rocks. An isotopic analysis of their compositon and features of micrometeroite formation processes shows that they could not have formed on Earth. How did they get here, well we could postuate they rained down on Earth from meteorite impacts and this is quite likely, so we need a little bit more. We could send a space probe to the sites where the landings occurred and look for evidence.

Neither one of these experiments PROVES that the Earth is round or we went to the moon, but gives good evidence for it. The standard of proof is that we can devise experiments to validate hypotheses.

Let us take the God hypothesis. What experiment can we run to find evidence to support it? Make sure you define the exact nature of God in your proposal.

That is the kind of proof that is sought.

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Originally written by *i:

...I ask you, where may I find this in a mainstream scientific journal?

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That being asked, I'm not sure how this proves anything in any way. We have made gemstones such as rubies and emeralds in a laboratory setting before in a fraction of the time it would occur naturally. I don't have the references in front of me, but I do remember hearing about it. I do not doubt with human intervention and an understanding of chemical processes, we can manufacture opals as well.

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Also, the article you site does not

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However, all respect to Dr. Cram, but he is just one scientist and a very minor one at that. You can find a handful of scientists with personal religious convictions in any scientific field. I can name many more like him if you want me to, but it will serve little use.

I was hoping for someone a little more prominent in a broad area of scientific inquiry. Nobel prize caliber is preferrable.

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Originally written by SkeleTony:

Dispute away! Give us a single example of an event that is best explained by God.

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Originally written by Bad-Ass Mother Custer:

Fantastic proof, please? If that's so, the bottom should have fallen out of the opal market entirely.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

I fall into the weak atheist camp because I'm a fairly extreme sceptic about everything; after all, I can't even prove I'm not a brain in a jar (or a meta-brain in a meta-jar, if you insist on bringing up Hilary Putnam's argument against the BIAJ concept). Nor can logic itself prove itself consistent (or at least I hope it can't; Gödel's theorem shows that any formal system of sufficient power can only prove its consistency if it's inconsistent).

I think the choice between theism and atheism comes down to whether you want a belief system that explains as many things as possible or whether you only want to believe things for which there's compelling evidence. This is basically a philosophical choice (perhaps even an aesthetic choice). Strictly speaking, is there anything wrong with choosing to believe an unlikely hypothesis that answers a question when the only alternative would be to leave the question unanswered?

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Originally written by Bad-Ass Mother Custer:
You dodged the question. You're saying you don't believe it's necessary to give everyone the same shot at a good life, and that it is in fact desirable to have social status distinguished immediately at birth?

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Quick and important question, C: do you consider the idea of equality of opportunity an essentially desirable one?

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You are allowed to do what you want with your property within reason. For example, 'owning' a farm doesn't make it legal to detonate a nuclear device on it; you'd be harming your neighbors. The same can be said of 'owning' money, or really anything; there's a limited supply of all goods, money being a special case of this, and hoarding actually hurts people who would otherwise receive parts of it (circular economy & all that).

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What's so wrong with making people give as much to the children of others as to their own? If they succeed, they're still doing well for their children.

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Again, the question is not one of rights but of merit. Yes, it's possible to lose your money and yes, it's possible for the rich not to give, but the fact remains that, as it stands, no matter how badly the children of the rich screw up, they will almost certainly die richer than the children of the poor. They are given more opportunity than the children of the poor, they are given more money than the children of the poor, and they just have more advantages than the children of the poor. They don't have to work as hard, they have more time to invest in planning for the future, and they usually get all they could ask for by way of family connections. Why do they deserve any of these things, personally? Why are they allowed to make more of themselves than anyone else just because of their last name?

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I'm entirely curious as to what would motivate a devout Christian to believe the right of a corpse to manage its finances ranks above the right of a child not to subside on baked beans and love. I do happen to recall there being a generalized belief about sins of the fathers and the Son in particular having words about rich men and needles...

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