Trackback: Friday dinosaur goodies Tracked on: Respectful Insolence (130.219.235.253) at 2005 03 25 07:44:42
Dinosaur angiogenesis, anyone?

Trackback: Vasos sanguineos de T.rex Tracked on: Evolucionarios (66.111.34.80) at 2005 03 25 07:53:35
Visto que PaleoFreak está de vacaciones (yo debería) o no está por la labor de comentar esto, lo haré yo. ¿Adivináis qué es esto? "Fragmentos desmineralizados de tejidos derivados del endostio que rellena la cavidad medular del fémur de Tyran

#21768: — 04/13  at  11:45 AM
Philip, you say the Bible is infallible on the subject of Creation, but then you continue to refer to 'God' when the Bible Creation story says 'elohim,' which means 'gods.'

Please explain.

#21850: — 04/13  at  10:39 PM
Phillip, You are presenting a watered down, very reasonable version of Creationism. You bring to my memory when I was working in Nigeria and a missionary doctor saved my life: had passing episodes of fever and was unaware that I had malaria. How could anybody be against him? Certainly not me. I will not discuss anybody's faith in God. On the other hand, a biology teacher in Kansas was sent to jail for teaching evolution in class. Witches were hunted and burned.

#21880: — 04/14  at  06:43 AM
Harry Eagar wrote:

Philip, you say the Bible is infallible on the subject of Creation, but then you continue to refer to 'God' when the Bible Creation story says 'elohim,' which means 'gods.'

Please explain.

This article explains it better than I could.

jaimito wrote:

Phillip, You are presenting a watered down, very reasonable version of Creationism.

I don't consider that it is watered down at all, but I'll accept it as being reasonable! What I have been presenting is very much in line with mainstream creationism as promoted by groups such as Answers In Genesis.

jaimito wrote

You bring to my memory when I was working in Nigeria and a missionary doctor saved my life: had passing episodes of fever and was unaware that I had malaria. How could anybody be against him? Certainly not me. I will not discuss anybody's faith in God. On the other hand, a biology teacher in Kansas was sent to jail for teaching evolution in class. Witches were hunted and burned.

Who was the teacher sent to jail? I'm not aware of that one.

Like everyone else, Christians are not perfect, and some have done some shameful things. But witch-burning was clearly an exception to the norm. Even in today's more "enlightened" times, with science being more respected and Christianity less respected, there are plenty of bad things happening. Including people being denied jobs, sacked, denied tenure, etc. for believing in creation!

But the point is that those things are not caused by a rejection of science, and even if they were, Christianity (including creationism) does not reject science.

#21917: — 04/14  at  11:44 AM
Thanks, Philip, my laugh for the day. But it doesn't make any sense.

Nor does saying that a practice (burning friendless old women to death because you believe -- whether the old women did or not -- in nonexistent spooks) that was practiced daily for a thousand years was not a 'norm.'

#22015: — 04/14  at  10:25 PM
Creationism strives to maintain the authority of the Bible, but debating carbon dating techniques and so is a wrong, ineffective way to do it. The Catholic Church learned that with Galileo 400 years ago. Since I lack a burning desire to convince you or anybody, and am too settled and comfortable with my own ways, it seems to me unfair to continue using up Pharyngula's space.

#22196: — 04/17  at  09:14 PM
Harry Eagar wrote:

Thanks, Philip, my laugh for the day. But it doesn't make any sense.

And with a derisive and vague comment like that, I probably can't do much to help.

Harry Eagar wrote:

Nor does saying that a practice (burning friendless old women to death because you believe -- whether the old women did or not -- in nonexistent spooks) that was practiced daily for a thousand years was not a 'norm.'

Daily for a thousand years? No. This article's introduction puts it in perspective.


jaimito wrote:

Creationism strives to maintain the authority of the Bible, but debating carbon dating techniques and so is a wrong, ineffective way to do it.

If dating techniques are being used to undermine the Bible's authority, why is it a wrong way? And the experience of groups like Answers In Genesis is that it is a quite effective method.

jaimito wrote:

The Catholic Church learned that with Galileo 400 years ago.

What was at stake there was not the Bible's authority, but the authority of the part of the Catholic church that had adopted the science of Aristotle. Modern-day bibliosceptics present it as an example of science versus religion, whereas it was really an example of the science of a creationist (Galileo) versus the science of a non-Christian (Aristotle) that had been adopted as the Church position.

jaimito wrote:

Since I lack a burning desire to convince you or anybody, and am too settled and comfortable with my own ways, it seems to me unfair to continue using up Pharyngula's space.

If the latter point is the main point, you are welcome to continue this by e-mail.

For your own benefit, I pray that you will pursue this matter further, whether with me or by some other means.

#22380: — 04/19  at  11:39 PM
So the Catholics burned only 50,000 witches. Why am I supposed to consider this as exculpation?

Besides, it's wrong. There were at least several hundred burned in one German diocese in about 10 years.

Furthermore, it didn't start in the 1400s but much earlier, although the structure of the Holy Office didn't come till later.

The key point, even more so than the death toll (anything over zero is a condemnation of Catholicism, by the way), is that during at least four centuries, it was not only a capital offense to be a witch, it was equally a capital offense to question whether there really were witches. (Del Rio, significantly, is not mentioned in your link.)

That's why creationism is such a threat to freedom. Religion and liberty are incompatible. It doesn't matter, from a practical point of view, how long the dinosaurs have been dead. It matters a great deal who gets killed in the future. Until the Christians understand and stop justifying their crimes of the past, we have to expect they will renew them, just as soon as they regain civil power.

#22412: — 04/20  at  08:37 AM
Harry Eagar wrote the bits in boxes:

So the Catholics burned only 50,000 witches. Why am I supposed to consider this as exculpation?

You are not. You are supposed to consider this an aberration from the norm. That's a different thing.

Besides, it's wrong. There were at least several hundred burned in one German diocese in about 10 years.

I'm not an expert, so I can't comment, other than to point out that the linked article claimed that a commonly-held view was wrong, and all you have done in response is to claim some different facts, without any substantiation.

Furthermore, it didn't start in the 1400s but much earlier, although the structure of the Holy Office didn't come till later.

Which might suggest that it wasn't related to Catholicism.

The key point, even more so than the death toll (anything over zero is a condemnation of Catholicism, by the way), is that during at least four centuries, it was not only a capital offense to be a witch, it was equally a capital offense to question whether there really were witches. (Del Rio, significantly, is not mentioned in your link.)

No, the key point is that this was an aberration, whether it went for 40 years or 400 hundred years. It is not an inherent part of Christianity, being limited largely to one part of Christendom and for a limited, even if lengthy, period of time.

But yes, any is too many and Catholicism is rightly criticised for carrying it out. Just like atheism is rightly criticised for the millions of deaths resulting from its ideology being put into practice (Lenin, Mao, etc.)

That's why creationism is such a threat to freedom. Religion and liberty are incompatible.

Nonsense. It is Christianity that has been largely responsible for much of the freedom that exists today. Some religions are anti-liberty, including atheism, and some Christian groups have at times been anti-liberty, but Christianity per se is not.

It doesn't matter, from a practical point of view, how long the dinosaurs have been dead.

It does matter to the extent that it influences out beliefs about theories of origins, and the consequences of that (acceptance or rejection of God).

It matters a great deal who gets killed in the future. Until the Christians understand and stop justifying their crimes of the past, we have to expect they will renew them, just as soon as they regain civil power.

And who is trying to justify past crimes? On the contrary, you are trying to reject historical research simply because it supports a religious belief that you don't want to accept. Does wrong actions in one area (witch-burning) mean that Christianity is wrong about the age of the Earth? No, the truth of the latter is totally independent of the former. You are trying to discredit the latter by raising the issue of the former. How about sticking to the subject?

#22551: — 04/20  at  11:58 PM
Philip, a norm is what people normally do. Anything done 50,000 times is normal behavior.

To borrow a trope from Oscar Wilde, to murder one harmless old lady might be an accident, but to do it over and over begins to look like a concept.

It is not up to me to instruct you in witchcraft, but you could start with H.C. Lea's 'Materials toward a Study of Witchcraft.'
It is practically all documentation (nearly all in Latin, though, so you'll have to learn that), so there's not so much of a problem with interpretation of meaning. You can read what the Christians themselves thought about it.

They certainly did NOT think that skepticism about witches was normal. That was a crime.

Since I have sat through several dozen exorcisms conducted by members of the largest Christian church in my county, you cannot tell me that was then and this is now.

History affords no instances of a time/place when Christianity had the civil power and did not use to to murder heretics.

It might be nice to imagine that 200 years of having to live under secular government would have bred a new kind of non-murderous Christian in America, but since I'd be betting my life on it, I don't care to try to put it to the test.

#22775: — 04/22  at  11:06 PM

History affords no instances of a time/place when Christianity had the civil power and did not use to to murder heretics.

Don't confuse what the Catholic Church did with what Christianity teaches. Jesus specifically prevented someone from being murdered. This is context where the quote "He who is without sin cast the first stone" comes from. Do not judge a religion by those who violate its teachings. Also bear in mind that many victims of the Inquisition were Protestant Christians.

It might be nice to imagine that 200 years of having to live under secular government would have bred a new kind of non-murderous Christian in America, but since I'd be betting my life on it, I don't care to try to put it to the test.

I would certainly say that the United States is the home of quite a few Christians. I don't see any type of murderous uprising. In fact to insinuate that Christians are naturally murderers would be offensive if applied to any other people group.

Back to the topic at hand. The defining event that created all of the fossils in the first place was the global flood. The Bible clearly states that there was a global extinction event in the recent past. Fossils cannot even be created without the presence of flowing water. Scientists seem to ignore the fact that the ground that they find the fossils in is sedimentary rock! (created from sediment settling from water) All you have to do is look at any downcutting on any expressway anywhere in the world and you will find sedimentary rock laid down in long consistent layers; no matter how high you go! Even to the Himalayas. Not laid down in millions of years as is supposed, but during a catastrophic event. The t. rex in question was rapidly buried and concreted in situ. That is the only way you would find tissue. I personally don't care if people believe in creation or not; I find it amazing that scientists ignore clear evidence of a catastrophe within human history.

Scientists will be astounded when they find that they have DNA, because they are already assuming that it would be long since decayed. I just hope that everyone is openminded enough to at least consider the evidence that the has been correct.

#22777: Ken Cope — 04/22  at  11:25 PM
John A. Calhoun! Did you used to be Ted Holden?

#22778: — 04/22  at  11:26 PM
I also will be interested in any carbon dating of the t. rex tissue. Since it was never inundated by water, we should be able to get an unambiguous date. I don't know of any way that tissue could survive in this state for 10s of millions of years. That truly is hard to believe.

Also I mean't to say "I just hope that everyone is openminded enough to at least consider the evidence that the Bible has been correct."

(oops. don't want to leave out the inspiration for my next murderous rampage!)

Phillip you made an excellent point when remarking about atheism. Atheism has clearly been the most murderous ideology know to man. And we aren't talking about ignorant people from hundreds of years ago; we're talking about TENS OF MILLIONS murdered by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the like within our parents' or grandparents' lifetimes. BUT I don't hear anyone decrying the clear dangers of atheism in the way that Christianity has been. This, in my opinion, is clear hypocrisy.

#22779: — 04/22  at  11:30 PM

John A. Calhoun! Did you used to be Ted Holden?

I don't recall ever being someone other than myself. (... but then those mysterious blackouts ... hmmmm ...)

#22800: — 04/23  at  11:22 AM
Outsiders have no reason to care what a religion teaches, only what its cultists do. If they kill outsiders, that's way more important that what they say they think.

I was not, by the way, restricting my comments to the Roman church. Southern Baptists, when they held the civil power, also turned to murder.

#22837: — 04/23  at  10:35 PM
I am amazed how much effort Phillip and Creationists in general are investing in protecting the literality of the Bible. They are ready even to discuss common sense and science! Why? I accept that Galileo vs the Holy Office was an aberration. The greatest successes of Christianity in the last 400 years were achieved when the Bible was joined with scientific books. China and Japan were opened up by Jesuit missionaries who were great scientists themselves. In my times, the best schools and universities used to be run by Christian organizations. The best hospitals. As the new Pope said, it is up to natural sciences to explain the world, the Church operates in the moral sphere, where science has nothing to say. All the new ethical studies chairs in the universities have nothing to say, are totally lost, and they know it. But argueing with professional scientists on things of their trade, like dating fossils, will surely lead you to untenable positions, even ludicrous statements, when all that is totally unnecessary. In my times, many of my friends, including most Jews, used to send their children to schools run by Christian religious organizations instead the State schools (it was in Latin America), because they were the best, but I am sure they could never accept their children being indoctrinated against science. There is a limit, and it is common sense.

#22838: — 04/23  at  10:55 PM
P.S.: I remember some smartass schoolboys who pointed out the internal contradictions and absurdities of the Bible. How could the teacher, a cultured monk, believe in it? His answer: Should the Bible be clear and obvious, believing in it would require no faith. But faith requires to believe in a mistery, in things unexplainable. I never heard anything remotely in conflict with science till this American dinosaur in the ark nonsense.

#23160: — 04/27  at  08:21 AM
Best anti-evolution evidence yet!

Soft tissue inside a T rex's thigh bone, found encased in Montana sandstone in 2003, and secular evolutionists are still closed-mindedly holding to the bone being 70 million years old. Like it wouldn't have completely decayed in 70 million years. This is the best anti-evolutiion evidence yet. Carbon-date the bone, as others have been, and they'll find it in the thousands of years, not millions. A couple of years ago, evidence was discovered that dinosaurs became extinct from flooding. Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations were wiped out about 2300 BC, exactly the time the Bible puts the global Flood. Dinosaurs were wiped out then too. The oldest village settlements in the world are just west of Jerusalem and are about 6000 years old, about the same age as the oldest city in the world, Jericho, just east of Jerusalem. Egyptian and Mesopotamian cities date to 3500 BC. Yes, "God created the heavens and the earth" 13.7 and 4.5 billion years ago, respectively. Then beginning in 3970 BC, over the first four years (the creation "week" was seven years long, as per The Book of Jubilees) He began to move the earth from a more distant orbit into its present orbit, explaining the ice ages and precluding evolution. And if hominids have been around for 50-100,000 years, why were there not wall-to-wall hominids? Oh, right, the ice ages, for which science has no explanation. When are we going to wake up to the truth of the Bible?

#23162: PZ Myers — 04/27  at  09:15 AM
Don't be ridiculous. Of course carbon-dating something will give it a young age, in the tens of thousands of years -- it's only good for dates in that range!

The bone is in rock that has been dated to 70 million years. It is turned to stone itself. There are tiny fragments of stuff imbedded deep within it that have some curious properties...but they are most definitely not intact.

#23163: — 04/27  at  09:27 AM
What I always find perplexing with people who think scientific evidence supports the accuracy of what they think the Bible says is how this coincides with the 'mystery of faith'. If the scientific evidence actually indicated the Earth is only 6000 years old for example, or that every species was created as-is and has not evolved, I would think the need for faith would largely evaporate; the evidence would strongly suggest that there is something supernatural going on and would lend some credence to what they think the Bible says and that God exists, et al. The usual response I've heard from Christians as to why God doesn't make it obvious he exists is that he wants us to have faith. If the evidence showed that all the species on earth were created as-is at one moment in time, it seems like we'd be crossing over from faith to rational deduction.

Getting back to T-rex, why is this one instance of soft tissue being found evidence that it is not millions of years old, but the fact that all other T-rex bones have no soft tissue is not evidence that they ARE millions of years old?

#23169: Alon Levy — 04/27  at  10:46 AM
Clive,

science can explain glacial periods very well. It finds it harder to explain what exactly causes ice ages, because there have only been about four and each has been caused by different circumstances. In the current ice age, however, there are very concrete scientific explanations for the cycle of glacial and interglacial periods. There are several competing theories around, but they all explain the cycles well and have some predictive power.


John,

Mao and Stalin didn't murder people because of atheism. When the crusaders killed people, they killed them because they were not Christian. When the various powers that fought World War One killed one another's people, they did so not because of religion but because of nationality; hence, nobody accuses Christianity of causing WW1. Similarly, Stalin killed people because they opposed his regime or because he suspected them of doing so or because they were Ukrainians, but he didn't kill them because they were religious. Mao killed people who clinged to old traditions, including Chinese religions, but these were a tiny minority of the people he killed, on the order of less than one percent. Pol Pot killed people so indiscriminantly and for so many reasons you can't honestly fault atheism: he killed not only monks but also teachers, intellectuals, professionals, and in general people who were educated beyond elementary school.

Furthermore, all of these examples come from one ideology that most atheists oppose. Communism has killed many people. Liberalism is as anti-communist as it is anti-conservative. Modern Christian fundamentalists have an ideological affinity to the Christian murderers of past times whereas modern atheists have no such affinity to atheist murderers. The adoption of a liberal program bears no risk of decay into communism, whereas the adoption of a Christian fundamentalist program is guaranteed to result in mass murder.

#23208: — 04/27  at  01:49 PM
This dinosaur obsession is becoming too long. Should I and the rest of the village tomorrow morning watch dinosaurs marching down the main street, the spectacle would do nothing to my conviction in evolution. The Coleocanth fish was given up as long extinguished, but some were catched alive, so what? Evolution is a mechanism observed in the living world, and it can and was modelled on computer, and it can be played out once and again with all kind of self-reproducing thingies, not necessarily made of DNA. There are even computer games simulating evolution. It is such a small deal that my daughter Naomi understood the working of evolution at age nine, not that she cares. Evolution is our best explanation of the living world, us included. Did Darwin led to Hitler or Stalin? In my opinion, no. And anyway, evolution was simultaneously discovered by Darwin and Wallace, and if not them, it would have emerged sooner or later, because it is so obvious. Well, I am making it even longer so I will stop here.

#23629: — 05/01  at  09:48 PM
Harry Eagar wrote :

Philip, a norm is what people normally do.

And people don't normally burn witches. So your point is?

Harry Eagar wrote :

Anything done 50,000 times is normal behavior.

Not if it is not done more than that. Even taking the "worst case" figure of 400 years, that still leaves 1600 years of Christianity when they didn't burn witches. Why is 400 out of 2000 "the norm"?

Harry Eagar wrote :

To borrow a trope from Oscar Wilde, to murder one harmless old lady might be an accident, but to do it over and over begins to look like a concept.

Which it was, for a limited period.

Harry Eagar wrote :

Since I have sat through several dozen exorcisms conducted by members of the largest Christian church in my county, you cannot tell me that was then and this is now.

What have exorcisms to do with burning witches? They are two different things.

Harry Eagar wrote :

History affords no instances of a time/place when Christianity had the civil power and did not use to to murder heretics.

What about (for example) countries in recent times that have had Christian leadership? Such as the U.S.A. over the past 200 years? I'm not saying of course that you won't find any single example (there are always exceptions and always individuals that go against the norm), but murdering heretics is not the norm for Christianity. At least not for protestantism, which in the past has itself suffered persecution for its beliefs.

Harry Eagar wrote :

It might be nice to imagine that 200 years of having to live under secular government would have bred a new kind of non-murderous Christian in America, but since I'd be betting my life on it, I don't care to try to put it to the test.

That "secular government" has for the most part been influenced by Christian principles.

John A. Calhoun wrote:

The defining event that created all of the fossils in the first place was the global flood. The Bible clearly states that there was a global extinction event in the recent past. Fossils cannot even be created without the presence of flowing water.

John, it's good to have your input here. But I'll just clarify some things you said there. First, Creationists don't say that the flood created all the fossils. The vast majority, but not all. Second, in talking about the flood, the Bible says that all land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures not on the ark died. But as there were examples of each kind on the ark, it wasn't actually an extinction event. Third, I don't know where you are coming from in saying that fossils cannot be created without flowing water. What I suspect you meant is that fossils cannot be created unless buried quickly, and the geological evidence indicates that this happened on a vast scale, thus it was something catastrophic. And, of course, almost all fossils are in sedimentary rock, as you indicated.

Harry Eagar wrote:

Outsiders have no reason to care what a religion teaches, only what its cultists do.

I thought that we were talking about mainstream religion, not cults. Or was that your underhanded way of ridiculing mainstream religions by using loaded and incorrect terms?

jaimito wrote:

I am amazed how much effort Phillip and Creationists in general are investing in protecting the literality of the Bible.

I'm amazed at how determined evolutionists are to protect their fairy tale. They are determined to censor evidence for creation from science journals and the education system, even protesting if a school board so much as suggests that evolution should be approached with an open mind! And so what if this dinosaur fossil turns out to be young? Other species known from the fossil record only from the alleged time of the dinosaurs have been found still living, yet that didn't destroy evolution (as you yourself subsequently acknowledge). How would it affect evolution if dinosaurs were found to be around recently? The fact is, it wouldn't, but because evidence for recent dinosaurs appears to provide support for the creationary view, evolutionists are quick to rush to the defence of evolution, as can be seen on this page.

jaimito wrote:

They are ready even to discuss common sense and science!

Creationists have always been ready to discuss common sense and science. To suggest otherwise is just one more of the many unwarranted slurs that creationists have to suffer with from the ignorant sceptical community. Most early scientists (and many current scientists are creationists. Modern science developed in a mindset of there being a consistent God with a creation worth studying. In other words, modern science developed because of creationary views!

jaimito wrote:

As the new Pope said, it is up to natural sciences to explain the world, the Church operates in the moral sphere, where science has nothing to say.

If the pope said that with reference to origins, he was wrong. The Bible provides the history of the world, and science does not have the past to observe or test. And belief in evolution (not science, admittedly) does affect people's morals.

jaimito wrote:

But argueing with professional scientists on things of their trade, like dating fossils, will surely lead you to untenable positions, even ludicrous statements, when all that is totally unnecessary.

But what if those "arguing with professional scientists on things of their trade" are other professional scientists in the same field? There are many creationary scientists that do just that.

jaimito wrote:

...I am sure they could never accept their children being indoctrinated against science

Yet it appears to be nothing more than a bigoted assumption on your part that Christian schools would do that, because you wrongly equate creationism with anti-science.

jaimito wrote:

P.S.: I remember some [smart alec] schoolboys who pointed out the internal contradictions and absurdities of the Bible. How could the teacher, a cultured monk, believe in it? His answer: Should the Bible be clear and obvious, believing in it would require no faith. But faith requires to believe in a mistery, in things unexplainable. I never heard anything remotely in conflict with science till this American dinosaur in the ark nonsense.

There are no internal contradictions and absurdities in the Bible, and I'm sorry that the monk was so indoctrinated by humanism or whatever to not be able to point that out. Faith is trust, based on evidence, not a belief in impossible things. And I notice that you ridicule the idea of dinosaurs on the ark without offering any reason whatsoever for it being "nonsense".


Just for the record in case anybody assumes otherwise, I don't agree with a fair bit of what clivedcampbell wrote.

PZ Myers wrote:

Don't be ridiculous. Of course carbon-dating something will give it a young age, in the tens of thousands of years -- it's only good for dates in that range!

Incorrect. (And this is one point that clivedcampbell wrote that I agree with.) Carbon-dating determines how old the item is by how much C14 is left. After about 50 or 60 thousand years, there will be none left (not measurably anyway). Therefore the theoretical upper limit of C14 dating is 50 to 60 thousand years. If it is possible to measure C14 in the sample, it shows that the item is not that old.

Dave wrote:

What I always find perplexing with people who think scientific evidence supports the accuracy of what they think the Bible says is how this coincides with the 'mystery of faith'.

That's because you have a mistaken idea of what faith is. See this article on what faith really is.

Dave wrote:

If the scientific evidence actually indicated the Earth is only 6000 years old for example, or that every species was created as-is and has not evolved, I would think the need for faith would largely evaporate; ...

But you are putting forward an impossible scenario. Science only has the present to observe and study. So, as creationists have been pointing out for years, science is unable to speak with authority on what happened in the past. Therefore you have to have faith (trust) in someone who was there and recorded it for posterity. Which is what the Bible claims to be.

Dave wrote:

...the evidence would strongly suggest that there is something supernatural going on and would lend some credence to what they think the Bible says and that God exists, et al.

And that is exactly what you do find. We observe that life only comes from life, that every effect has a greater cause, that the universe is running down. Evolution and the Big Bang idea propose that these observations did not always apply, whereas the Biblical record is consistent with them. So the evidence does suggest something supernatural going one, and does lend more than some credence to the Biblical record, but many people's religious beliefs (e.g. atheism) prevent them from acknowledging that evidence.

Dave wrote:

The usual response I've heard from Christians as to why God doesn't make it obvious he exists is that he wants us to have faith. If the evidence showed that all the species on earth were created as-is at one moment in time, it seems like we'd be crossing over from faith to rational deduction.

That may be why God doesn't make it so patently obvious that we would have no choice but to accept it, because if we have no choice, then He has taken away our free will. But not giving us no choice is a long way from not supplying ample evidence.

Dave wrote:

Getting back to T-rex, why is this one instance of soft tissue being found evidence that it is not millions of years old, but the fact that all other T-rex bones have no soft tissue is not evidence that they ARE millions of years old?

Because although soft tissue could not survive for millions of years, there is no guarantee that it will survive for even a couple of thousand years. So creationism explains both the soft tissue and the lack of soft tissue, whereas evolutionary ages explains only the latter.

Alon Levy wrote:

Mao and Stalin didn't murder people because of atheism.

I disagree. They murdered people because their Marxist beliefs (Marxism being a form of atheism) taught that the ethics of the Bible (including "you shall not murder") were to be thrown out, and that was was "right" was whatever it took to achieve the Marxist goals, even if people had to die in the process. And of course Christianity was an enemy of Marxism, so plenty of Christians were murdered as a result.

Alon Levy wrote:

When the crusaders killed people, they killed them because they were not Christian.
When the various powers that fought World War One killed one another's people, they did so not because of religion but because of nationality; hence, nobody accuses Christianity of causing WW1.

To start with at least, the crusades were to liberate Palestine from the invading Muslims. That is, it was a territorial dispute.

Alon Levy wrote:

Furthermore, all of these examples come from one ideology that most atheists oppose.
Communism has killed many people.

The ideology is Marxism, which according to one report, is the ideology of 10,000 professors on American campuses.

Alon Levy wrote:

Modern Christian fundamentalists have an ideological affinity to the Christian murderers of past times ...

Except that modern Christian "fundamentalists" are "fundamentally" opposed to murder. Big difference.

Alon Levy wrote:

...whereas modern atheists have no such affinity to atheist murderers.

No?

Alon Levy wrote:

The adoption of a liberal program bears no risk of decay into communism, whereas the adoption of a Christian fundamentalist program is guaranteed to result in mass murder.

Pure, unadulterated, offensive, nonsense.

jaimito wrote:

Evolution is a mechanism observed in the living world, ...

What do you mean by "evolution"? Goo-to-you evolution, one creature turning into a very different creature, new genetic information arising, has not been observed.

jaimito wrote:

There are even computer games simulating evolution.

And there are computer simulations of evolution not occurring. So what? Besides, those computer simulations, take note, were developed by intelligent (human) beings. What does that fit better with? Evolution--that life developed by chance, or creation--that life was designed by an intelligent being?

jaimito wrote:

Evolution is our best explanation of the living world, us included.

Really?

jaimito wrote:

Did Darwin led to Hitler or Stalin? In my opinion, no.

Hitler and Stalin were both keen evolutionists, and incorporated those ideas in their beliefs. If you are saying that it did not inevitable lead to Hitler and Stalin, you may be right, but evolution was clearly integral to their thinking.

#23633: — 05/01  at  11:14 PM
All religions are cults, Philip.

You may imagine that yours -- whichever of the 23,000 brands you buy -- is more respectable than all of the others, but outsiders see the same thing -- ridiculous superstitions based (in the case of Christianity and Judaism) on the vile ravings of a bunch of ignorant goatwallopers.

It is hard for me, a father, to imagine anyone worshipping a god who tells fathers to kill their sons, but there you have it -- millions and millions of people do.

The United States of America has a secular government, though most of its citizens subscribe to one or another of the various cults (and despise the outsiders). See Article VI of the Constitution.