
Why were they so determined that humanity could not have originated with a single pair? Casey Luskin, who has been reviewing In Quest of the Historical Adam by William Lane Craig notes,
In the previous installment of my review of William Lane Craig’s In Quest of the Historical Adam we saw that many evangelical intellectuals had accepted arguments that Adam and Eve could not have existed. These arguments, in particular the claim that human genetic diversity is too great to have been reduced to a single pair, were forcefully promoted by theistic evolutionists aka evolutionary creationists (TE/ECs) affiliated with BioLogos. Prominent among these critics was Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, who compared modern-day belief in Adam and Eve with adhering to the long-refuted geocentric model of the solar system. But the arguments turned out to be wrong, as even BioLogos and Venema now admit.
To his credit, William Lane Craig is among those evangelicals who have been willing to question arguments against a historical Adam and Eve. In his book he cites the work of Ann Gauger, Ola Hössjer, and Joshua Swamidass who performed analyses showing that humanity could have originated from a single pair at least 500,000 years ago. Gauger and Hössjer noted that Adam and Eve could have lived even more recently if additional evolutionary assumptions are questioned.
When I was reading the rhetoric used by evangelical elites who advocated abandoning a historical Adam and Eve, I was struck by how much of it seemed driven by fear — fear of looking foolish before the world because you challenged evolution and were shown to be wrong. As I discussed, the lesson from this story is that it should not be taboo for evangelicals to challenge evolutionary arguments. We need not live in fear that doing so is “anti-science” or will “bring disrepute on the Christian faith” or “shame upon the name of Jesus Christ” — as some evangelical elites have argued.
Casey Luskin, “Lessons Not Learned from the Evangelical Debate over Adam and Eve” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 23, 2021)
As he goes on the show, some in the Christian evangelical elite are just slow learners in these matters. Maybe being right, sticking with their tradition, would have been a bigger problem for them.
You may also wish to read: William Lane Craig on Adam and Eve as less intelligent than us Whatever else Craig’s view is, as Luskin notes, it is a far cry from the Scriptural traditional assumption that the unfallen Adam and Eve were our betters and that we have all deteriorated as a result of sin. Adopting Craig’s view is bound to have worldview consequences.
Casey Luskin: The mytho-history of Adam, Eve, and William Lane Craig. Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend. But the pruning process in which he is engaged can never really stop. The “sensible God” is most likely the one looking back at us from our medicine cabinet mirrors.
and
Why did the evangelical Christian world go nuts for Christian Darwinism a decade ago? Contra Trendy Christians: It makes sense that all humans would descend from a single couple. If you had to account for something like, say, human consciousness, isn’t it easier to address if we all belong to the same family of origin? Would you prefer to explain the development of human consciousness assuming that we come from multiple different ones? Darn good thing if someone can prove its true genetically.
I feel as though this is the darkness before the dawn. Covid and government overreach has affected so many people. Our freedom has been threatened and our peace and comfort to live in our bubble has been popped. But, If we will but hold on, Gandalf and the riders of Rohan will show themselves on the horizon to wipe out the enemies. (and I don’t mean in a violent way in this case). Civil war would be a terrible idea.
Science doesn’t have the greatest track record, particularly regarding darwinistic predictions…. “vestigial” organs? “Junk” DNA?
I think people just get battle fatigued. The facts haven’t changed recently in favor of Darwin…people are just wore down from being bludgeoned with the same thing over and over again. A bunch of theologians are capitulating at just the wrong time. We don’t like being called fools, but that is what we are called to be… fools for Christ. It is folly to others, and the Bible said it would be.
As with most things, it isn’t that people have looked too much into something, it’s that they haven’t taken the time to deeply investigate it. How in the world do random mutations and natural selection “build” anything? How in the world did scales turn into feathers? Which came first… respiratory, nervous, circulatory systems?
Again, I enjoy hearing WLC talk on the resurrection and philosophy, but I’m not a fan of his theology work.
At to “if additional evolutionary assumptions are questioned.”
By all means, let’s question evolutionary assumptions!
Venema, and other Theistic Darwinists, believes, or has believed in the past, that the Darwinian models in the mathematics of population genetics have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Adam and Eve could not possibly have existed as real historical figures.
Yet, in so far as those Darwinian models in the mathematics of population genetics have been able to be compared to the empirical evidence itself, the empirical evidence itself disagrees with those Darwinian models of the mathematics of population genetics.
For instance, the fossil record, when viewed in its entirety, and/or just for humans in particular, is VERY antagonistic to the Darwinian belief that humans gradually morphed into who they are from some chimp-like common ancestor.
The same can be said for the empirical evidence from genetics. i.e. the evidence from genetics, when viewed in its entirety, instead of just piecemeal as Darwinists are prone to do, actually falsifies, instead of supports, the Darwinian claim that humans evolved some chimp-like ancestor.
Likewise, and perhaps the most devastating of all, the empirical evidence from, and for, human exceptionalism is simply completely devastating to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists,
Moreover, and perhaps the most salient feature of all that needs to be explained in any account of human origins, the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution are simply at a complete loss to explain ‘personhood’, i.e. to explain why we should have ‘subjective experience’ of existing as individual human persons.
But as bad as the empirical evidence itself falsifies the Darwinian models in the mathematics of population genetics,
,,, but as bad as the empirical evidence itself falsifies those Darwinian models in the mathematics of population genetics, when scrutinized in detail, the mathematics itself within population genetics falsifies Darwinian evolution.
Dr. John Sanford, whose credentials in genetics are impeccable, has analyzed the mathematics of population genetic inside and out, and, time and time again, Dr. Sanford and company have found that the mathematics of population genetics, (coupled with real time empirical evidence), falsifies Darwin’s theory rather than confirming it.
For instance, natural selection itself, Charles Darwin main claim to scientific fame, has been thrown under the bus by the mathematics of population genetics,
As well, when realistic rates of detrimental to beneficial mutations are taken into consideration, Dr. Sanford and company have now shown that the mathematics of populations genetics falsifies Fisher’s erroneous assumption that fitness must always increase:
Moreover, the mathematics of population genetics also proves that, if Darwinian evolution is assumed to be true, then ALL of our observations of reality would be illusory.
The problem for Darwinian evolution in holding all our perceptions of reality are illusory is that it undermines the scientific method itself. Which is to say, reliable observation is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method.
In short, if Darwinian evolution were actually true, and thank God it isn’t, it would undermine the scientific method itself.
Moreover, empirical science itself could care less that Darwinists are forced to believe, via the mathematics of population genetics, that ALL of our perceptions of reality are illusory.
Specifically, advances in quantum mechanics have now proven that our observations of reality are far more integral to reality, and therefore, far more reliable of reality than Darwinists are forced to believe because of the mathematics of population genetics.
As the following article states, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
And as the following article states, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
Moreover, and perhaps the ‘coup de grace’ against the claim that the mathematics of population genetics proves that humans evolved from chimp-like ancestor, mathematics itself is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence.
,,, And thus, since mathematics itself is profoundly immaterial in its foundational essence, then our (unique) ability to ‘do mathematics’, in and of itself, proves that man cannot possibly be a purely material being, as Darwinists hold, but that humans must possess and immaterial mind and/or soul in order for humans to even be able to ‘do mathematics’ in the first place.
As Dr. Michael Egnor noted, and as far as our ‘immaterial intellect’ is concerned, “We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.”
Thus in conclusion, far from the mathematics of population genetics proving that humans must have evolved from some chimp-like ancestor, the mathematics of population genetics, in rather dramatic fashion, actually falsifies the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution instead of validating them.
Verse:
People cannot wrap their heads around evolution by means of intelligent design. Evolution by means of intelligent design can easily account for the observed genetic diversity amongst humans from a starting couple. It’s the same as Dawkins’ weasel program reaching its target in 43 generations.
Do you honestly think that God gives one whit whether someone believes in a literal versus figurative Adam and Eve? While these “researchers” are at it, maybe they could figure out the angels dancing on a pin problem–I think the jury’s still out on that one too. What a monumental waste of time…
As usual CD adds no value at all to anything. A literal waste of time of a post. As you probably know, A literal Adam And Eve is kind of important if you believe the Bible to be the word of God. And it undermines its credibility if it isn’t.
Using modern mutation rates, mitochondrial eve would be about 6000 years old… just saying. You can look it up. Genesis matters.
ET: People cannot wrap their heads around evolution by means of intelligent design.
Perhaps that’s because there is no clear, generally agreed upon statement about how and when design was implemented.
Sure, a lot of people think design in nature has been discovered but there’s nothing past that point that gives an outsider something to examine and test. A scientific hypothesis should be able to be falsified on its own terms, not showing that some other explanation is better. And that requires there to be some specifics that can be considered.
#6 Zweston
Setting aside all of the other misconceptions about mtMRCA, other than creationist websites, such as the Institute for Creation Research, I have never seen an age for mtMRCA younger that 180,000 years ago, which, not surprisingly, closely coincides with the current estimates of the appearance of Homo sapiens.
I would agree that it is irrelevant to non-believers. But my point is that it should not matter to believers because literal interpretations of Genesis are not universal among Christians, have never been part of the Christian creed, and in fact, did not become a big issue until evolution started to threaten the literal Genesis time-line.
The independent data on mitochondrial eve stands (no matter how much you don’t like the origin of the information, which is ad-hominem really…and irrelevant)… If mutation rates have always been the same, then mitochondrial eve is at around 6k years old. That is a problem for the current narrative, and most know it is a problem. The data doesn’t match the narrative. Assumed Ages are baked into the conclusion using “multiple lines of evidence.” Yes, but this line of evidence standing on its own is a problem. Finding radiocarbon in diamonds is a problem, so is finding soft tissue in dinosaur bones… but again it is hand waved due to “other lines of evidence”…..
It all comes down to worldview and adopted paradigm. Uniformitarianism is useful…until it contradicts the story-telling
Zweston: If mutation rates have always been the same, then mitochondrial eve is at around 6k years old.
That is not consistent with the latest research or data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
CD: “I have never seen an age for mtMRCA younger tha(n) 180,000 years ago,”
Well now you can say you have seen younger estimates,
#9 Zweston
#10 JVL
Zweston–if you claim there is “independent” data on the age of mtMRCA, give us a cite and not a bunch of gobbledygook about “worldviews” and dinosaur fossils…
Bornagain
Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe are not “independent.” Rana is a chemist and Ross is a physicist. RTB is another creationist website, I listen to their podcasts quite frequently. And even their “model” has a 90,000-year range as to mtMRCA which does not overlap with Zweston’s 6000 year-ago claim. Why don’t you go back to the original debate between Huxley and Wilberforce….
“Your sources have bias toward a paradigm that isn’t mine, so you can’t use it”. “They need to be independent”. Independent=predisposed to write off anything that big science/materialism/atheism disagrees with. Why don’t you define independent? Would the critics of all major scientific findings have faced the same things? I’d venture to say so.
CD reads/listens to RTB… interesting! If you do that too long, you won’t be a deist. 🙂
When darwinism is rightly refuted, do I get to call all of your assertions “gobbeldygook”? Maybe it was just a short list of data that runs counter to the common narrative that is written off…
I wonder why science journals wouldn’t publish ideas about mitochondrial eve possibly being 6000 years old… or why they wouldn’t publish things that put holes into their narrative? Maybe funding? Credibility? Or in Fauci’s case…power. All hail man’s ability to gain knowledge based on assumptions! All hail “science!” If what the creationist websites are saying is false, then refute their calculations or data, don’t just label them and dismiss it.
The “mainstream science” credibility bucket has its bottom rusted out, and there isn’t much water left. Black knight of the Holy Grail strikes again.
CD, while you are here… if someone challenged your deism…what would you say to them to affirm your belief?
JVL:
That has absolutely NOTHING to do with what you responded to. You have serious issues.
You clearly don’t understand science. The design is testable. The claims for design are testable. We cannot test the ability of peoples from thousands of years ago. We infer their abilities by what they left behind.
Your ignorance is not an argument. ID makes specific claims. One being that blind and mindless processes are incapable of producing what we say was intelligently designed. And that is how it works in archaeology, forensic science and SETI.
We have provided the specifics. You and yours just provide your usual lies and ignorant nonsense.
Again, Dawkins’ weasel program is an example of evolution by means of intelligent design. It shows how fast such a process can achieve specific feats. That means only willfully ignorant fools would apply blind watchmaker mutation rates to a design scenario.
CD, not only are you wrong about there not being any estimates younger than 180,000 years ago, mitochondrial DNA, in and of itself, and when looking at the ‘big picture’, is simply devastating to your Darwinian presuppositions.
Specifically, comparing the mitochondrial DNA of 100,000 species revealed that “species have very clear genetic boundaries, and there’s nothing much in between.”,,,
“If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies,”,,, “They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space.”
Thus ChuckyD, mitochondrial DNA is not nearly as friendly to your Darwinian presuppositions as you have, apparently, falsely imagined it to be. In fact, the reality of the situation is that mitochondrial DNA is, (to repeat myself), simply devastating to your Darwinian presuppositions.
Of further note. This ‘anti-Darwinian’ finding is not something that just recently came along. But it is something that Darwinists have, basically, completely ignored for at least 35 years now. Specifically, the preceding study, in over the top fashion, confirmed what Michael Denton had found over 35 years ago in his book “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis”. Specifically, Michael Denton found, “However, the most striking feature of the matrix is that every identifiable subclass is isolated and distinct. Every sequence can be unambiguously assigned to a particular subclass. No sequence or group of sequences can be designated as intermediate with respect to other groups. All the sequences of each subclass are equally isolated from the members of another group. Transitional or intermediate classes are completely absent from the matrix. 4”
ET: The design is testable. The claims for design are testable.
But your tests are always in reference to another paradigm. What internal to design hypothesis tests can we apply?
ID makes specific claims. One being that blind and mindless processes are incapable of producing what we say was intelligently designed. And that is how it works in archaeology, forensic science and SETI.
But those are negative claims; i.e. you’re asking your detractors to prove a negative. You’re asking your opponents to show or prove that something else could do it. And when they come up with plausible pathways you just say: but you don’t know that’s what happened.
We have provided the specifics. You and yours just provide your usual lies and ignorant nonsense.
In general ID has provided no specifics. You know this. In fact you’ve complained about being asked for when and where and how specifics.
Face it, ID is not about specifics or particulars or details.
Again, Dawkins’ weasel program is an example of evolution by means of intelligent design. It shows how fast such a process can achieve specific feats. That means only willfully ignorant fools would apply blind watchmaker mutation rates to a design scenario.
Dr Dawkins was very, very clear about what his weasel program was illustrating. It’s easy to see.
What you have consistently failed to show or provide or even guess is: when was design implemented, how was design implemented. ID isn’t really a scientific theory because it does not address the when and how let alone the why.
JVL: “In general ID has provided no specifics.”
Apparently said with no sense of the irony that is literally dripping off every word he wrote.
Bornagain77:
You haven’t provided any specifics for IDs assertions regarding when and where design was implemented.
JVL: “You haven’t provided any specifics for IDs assertions regarding when and where design was implemented.”
Again, “Apparently said with no sense of the irony that is literally dripping off every word he wrote.”
Bornagain77:
You still have not provided any specifics for when and where design was implemented. No matter what you think about other hypotheses ID has not come up with anything specific.
ID is quite falsifiable:
– show a credible pathway by which the flagella could evolve via Darwinian means
– show a credible evolutionary sequence for whales that obeys population genetics
– show any mechanism for how unguided Darwinian means can produce a truly novel protein
– demonstrate a credible natural pathway for the origin of life – anywhere in the Universe
– find a physical law or natural explanation for ALL of the fine tuning in the Universe.
Evolutionists and atheists have been going at those (and others) for a long time, with negligible success so far. Hopeful claims of such falsifications have fallen far short upon close inspection. If even one of those could be truly shown, then ID would suffer a major blow – i.e. be falsified. Meanwhile, Darwinism has been roundly falsified in numerous different ways, but true believers ignore the evidence or cling to thin or negligible possibilities to shore up their beliefs.
JVL, when it comes to being ‘specific’, wants to take the focus off his Darwinian theory. I don’t blame him. When it comes to being ‘specific’, Darwinian evolution, via its primary postulate of randomness, is the very antithesis of being ‘specific’. In fact, as Murray Eden of MIT pointed out decades ago, it is the randomness postulate, in and of itself, that prevents Darwinian evolution from ever being a true scientific theory in the first place.
‘Specifically’, Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.”
And to reiterate Pauli:’s critique of Darwinists “they (Darwinists) use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
Fastedious:
Again you are saying: you can disprove ID by proving unguided evolution. The reason that will not work is because some ID proponents will only say: yeah but you don’t know for sure that’s what happened. As they have done over and over and over again.
So, how can ID be falsified sheerly on its own criteria? Nothing to do with any other hypothesis or theory?
Bornagain77:
Not that I agree with Dr Eden but I do note that a) he is only talking about the part of unguided evolutionary theory that creates the genetic variation that natural selection and other forces act on and b) he is not saying that unguided evolutionary theory is incorrect, just that he thinks it needs clarifying.
Also, his work was published in 1967, do you think the field might have moved on since then?
JVL:
Your ignorance of science is still not an argument. And your blatant lies are also duly noted.
1- that is exactly how it works.
2- No one has ever provided any support for unguided evolution’s ability to produce life, the genetic code, or any biologically relevant, functional multi-protein complex. That is why the evos lied and bluffed their way through the Dover trial. It is all documented.
Again, your ignorance of science is not an argument. We follow Newton’s four rules of scientific investigation. We don’t even reach a design inference if some stochastic process(es) suffices. The explanatory filter mandates that you follow Newton’s four rules.
All you are doing is proving that you are ignorant of science. Yet I am sure that you think you have some sort of “gotcha” moment.
JVL:
The tests are always in reference to our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships in accordance with Newton’s four rules of scientific reasoning.
Wow. Shear stupidity. By asking YOU to demonstrate a POSITIVE- that blind and mindless processes CAN do it- is not asking you to prove a negative. Are you on dope?
And AGAIN, you take liberty with the word “plausible”. If it cannot be demonstrated in a lab you cannot say that it is “plausible”. Just cuz someone can imagine something and declare something, doesn’t mean it’s plausible. Grow up.
Liar. ID has provided plenty of specifics relevant to ID. You are just a willfully ignorant troll who thinks that ID needs to something that is outside of ID.
Those don’t have anything to do with ID. You lose.
Again, you FAILED to respond to what I posted. What is wrong with you?
You, being a scientifically illiterate troll, don’t get to say. Your position is all about the how and yet can’t say any specifics. Nice own goal.
ID is NOT about the how or the when. In fact, we don’t even ask about the how and when until AFTER intelligent design has been detected. So thanks again for proving that you are just a willfully ignorant troll as this has been explained to you over and over again.
Now you should understand why UD bans you.
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
at 25 JVL asks, “Also, his (Murray Eden’s) work was published in 1967, do you think the field might have moved on since then?”
Yes, and the ‘random chance/miracle’ problem, (as Pauli elucidated), has only gotten far worse for Darwinists since Murray Eden first published his work in 1967.
Specifically, we now know, (via ‘the waiting time problem’ in population genetics, and via empirical evidence itself), that Natural Selection is grossly inadequate as the supposed ‘designer substitute’ that Darwinists falsely imagined it to be.
With Natural Selection, (Charles Darwin’s main claim to scientific fame I might add), being cast under the bus, Darwinists did not accept this as an outright falsification of their theory as they should have done, but Darwinists are instead now, via ‘neutral theory’, reduced to arguing that chance alone, all by its lonesome, (with natural selection playing a very negligible role if any role at all), is responsible for the ‘appearance of design’ we see pervasively throughout life.
As Larry Moran quotes in the following article, “Darwinism asserts that natural selection is the driving force of evolutionary change. It is the claim of the neutral theory, on the other hand, that the majority of evolutionary change is due to chance.”
To call such a move on the part of Darwinists ‘scientifically disingenuous’ would be a severe understatement. It is, in fact, to be criminally blind to what the evidence is actually telling you.
Even Richard Dawkins himself finds the claim that chance alone, all by its lonesome, can explain the ‘design’ we overwhelmingly see in biology to be absolutely inconceivable.
Specifically, In the following video Richard Dawkins himself states that it “cannot come about by chance. It’s absolutely inconceivable that you could get anything as complicated or well designed as a modern bird or a human or a hedgehog coming about by chance.’
Yet, with Natural Selection being cast under the bus by the mathematics of population genetics, chance, all by it lonesome, is, for all practical purposes, all that Darwinists have left to appeal to in order to try to explain “anything as complicated or well designed as a modern bird or a human or a hedgehog”.
Yet, as Pauli explained, the way Darwinists use the ‘chance’, (which is “more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle”), the Darwinist’s appeal to chance is, in fact, no better than Darwinists appealing to ‘random miracles’ as an explanatory principle.
As David Berlinski quipped about the falsification of Natural Selection, and with the subsequent Darwinian adoption of ‘neutral theory’ in its place, “By this standard, if the Archangel Gabriel were to accept personal responsibility for the Cambrian explosion, his views would be widely described as neo-Darwinian.”
As should be needless to say, if your scientific theory relies on ‘random miracles’, (Pauli), as the primary explanatory principle in the theory, then you don’t have a scientific theory.
As Stephen Talbott quipped, “at the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?””
Of supplemental note:
#14 Zweston
Deism is not so much a “belief” as it is a logical conclusion–the universe began and evolved (along with life), thus one can conclude the existence of an entity which created it. Deism is minimalist in that the universe, the laws of nature, and all requisite components for life resulted from one, discreet creative act. No additional tinkering needed…
CD, I appreciate you responding to my question! Thank you!!
ChuckDarwin is a theistic evolutionist.
Deistic Evolutionist*
Chuckdarwin claims: “Deism is minimalist in that the universe, the laws of nature, and all requisite components for life resulted from one, discreet creative act. No additional tinkering needed”
Yet, the Deistic belief that the universe was ‘front-loaded’ by God with the information necessary to explain life, and that God then, basically, ‘walked away’ from the universe to let the universe ‘unwind’ to its own accord has now been shown to be a false belief by quantum mechanics.
Specifically, the Kochen-Specker theorem, (as well as the falsification of ‘realism’ by Leggett’s inequality), undermines the determinism of atheistic materialists, (and/or of Deists), in the most fundamental way possible in that “it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe’s past in an ad hoc way”,
In short, advances in quantum mechanics now show us that not only did God originally create the universe, but that God also actively sustains the universe in its continual existence. Which is a far cry from ChuckyD’s Deistic belief that God created the universe and let it unfold to its own accord.
And here are a few more notes that falsify ChuckyD’s Deistic belief in deterministic ‘front loading’
At about the 41:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells, (who specializes in embryology), using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, and as cells ‘transdifferentiate’, information must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method.
And just how much information is coming into a developing embryo ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method”?
Well, the following video states that “There are 10^28 atoms in the human body.,, The amount of data contained in the whole human,, is 3.02 x 10^32 gigabytes of information. Using a high bandwidth transfer, that data would take about 4.5 x 10^18 years to teleport 1 time. That is 350,000 times the age of the universe.”
Verse:
Bornagain
This is the crux of Bornagain’s objection to deism, that it is deterministic. However, in order to do this, Bornaagain must curiously conflate atheism and deism:
Deism does not compel any outcome, unlike Christianity which compels every outcome. Deism simply provides the bats and balls, the ball field and the rules–the outcome of the game is up in the air until the last out.
One final note. Apropos Bornagain’s treatise on quantum mechanics as proof against deism, I am reminded of the great physicist and ever pithy Richard Feynman: “I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ZRLllWgHI
So ChuckyD holds that life was fore-ordained by God at the Big Bang “from one, discreet creative act”, yet ChuckyD, on the other hand, holds that “the outcome of the game (of life?) is up in the air until the last out.”
And welcome to the world of atheistic/deistic apologetics, where rigid logic is more of an inconvenience to be ignored, than a rule that must be followed in order for your arguments to even make sense.
As I clearly pointed out, and as ChuckyD blatantly ignored, the information necessary to explain life cannot be ‘front-loaded’ into the space-time of the universe: (see post 34)
I wonder, besides denying that God had a direct hand in creating life, does ChuckyD also deny the existence of his own immaterial mind? It would seem to follow his reasoning from Deism. If he does deny the reality of his immaterial mind, especially the reality of his free will, then that denial renders ChuckyD’s capacity to reason in a coherent fashion null and void.: