Mohler takes on 'theistic evolution'

Christian belief is centered around the immortality of the soul.

Christianity is centered around the conditional attainment of immortality. To wit:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

See also Annihilationism.

All of this religious banter is far off track, of course, and is only being discussed because the pillar of Darwinism supports the crossbeam of atheism in the rickety structure known as Secular Humanism.

And it's interesting you bash someone's faith in an unproven cosmological origin hypothesis with your faith in another unproven cosmological hypothesis.

There's actually more evidence for the former than the latter.

When you copypasted the “Heisenberg’s microscope” section of the Wikipedia page in response to my telling you that Heisenberg proved you wrong, did you happen to notice the “microscope” was a theoretical one?

It’s not our equipment that’s the problem in simultaneously measuring the position and momentum of a particle. It’s that matter isn’t made of neat little particles, but messy waveforms that only collapse into particles when we observe them (given the Copenhagen interpretaion, of course).

On your first issue concerning what constitutes "fact" I once again offer my testimony:

God is not a hypothesis. He lives. His Name is I AM. I've known Him for a half century and counting.

On your second issue concerning the beginning of space/time and multi-verse theory, I once again offer these insights:

Physical causation requires both space and time and there was a beginning of real space and real time. From the 1960s forward, measurements consistently agree that the universe is expanding, that there was a beginning of real space and real time. Indeed, that was the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science. (Jastrow) “In the beginning, God …”

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Truly, all physical cosmologies rely on physical causation – space and time – whether inflationary, multi-verse, multi-world, ekpyrotic, cyclic, imaginary time, etc. All of the prior universe models superimpose this universe’s physical causation, space/time and indeed, physical laws onto prior universes all the while admitting that there is no such requirement that a prior universe would be like this one.

The big bang is the most widely accepted point of agreement among them, but a singularity is not nothing – the big bang also requires space and time:

Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space. A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc. That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.

It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.

In ex nihilo Creation (beginning of space/time) - the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.

There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.

In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.

Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.

Wave propagation (e.g. big bang, inflation) cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.

Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.

For instance “0” at point n^t causes “1” at point n+1^t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1^t+2 etc..

Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality. Again,

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Both space and time are required for physical causation.

The wise man asks: Why this instead of nothing at all?

And he realizes that only God, beyond space/time and physical causation, can be the uncaused cause of causation, the first cause, The Creator of the beginning.

Space, time and physical causation are not properties of God the Creator. They are properties of the Creation. Only God is uncaused.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20

The origin of space, time and physical causation – although striking - are not the only open questions that vex physical cosmologists. There is also no explanation for the origin of information (Shannon, successful communication,) inertia, semiosis, autonomy and so on. And yet the universe is logical – if it were not, we could not understand it at all.

Order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system whether one is using chaos theory, self-organizing complexity, cellular automata or whatever to analyze complexification, entropy and order.

Indeed, to me, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) is God’s copyright notice on the cosmos.

Logos is the Greek word which is translated “Word” in the following passage. It is also the root for the word “Logic:”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

And finally, concerning your sidebar with xzins, I say here as I have said on many threads before that Paradise/Eden and Adamic man, like the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple and the Holy Mountain, are not strictly physical.

The insight of some Jewish mystics may be helpful on this point. They perceive the firmament is not a geometric separation between "here" and "there" but rather the boundary between the physical and the spiritual. Some have further conjectured that the separation may be the speed of light, the speed limit of the universe, or pressure waves.

That said, in higher dimensional dynamics (e.g. P.S. Wesson's 5D/2T) the separation can indeed be geometric and yet overlapping at some or all points (think a tesseract four space versus a cube, a three space.)

Likewise, some Jewish mystics offer an insight that might be helpful in comprehending that God is the Creator of "all that there is" including space, time and causation. More specifically, they use the term Ayn Sof to refer to Him as the Creator. The term literally means "no thing" and conveys the point that any word we mere mortals would use to describe Him (e.g. time, space, causation) limits our ability to know Who He IS to the term that we used.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. - Revelation 1:8

Man is not the measure of God.

Well and truly stated. Kudos, Sister in Christ!

God Created all that there is and was nothing made that was made except that God Created ... God creates by His Word, by information. Things--like light--are not what God made the universe with/from, His Word--Information--is what God Creates with. He builds with things and things must have time and space in which to be (the first command, 'Light be'), thus prior to the time and space and energy packets there IS His Word, His Information ... God created/creates/will create with Information, His Word. Even the realm of spirits will be found to have spatio-temporal limits set by His Word.

Indeed.

Praise God!!!

And thank you so much for your testimony, dear brother in Christ, and for your encouragements!

Can you please declare me the winner? In re: Subject K.

I created a test to gauge minimal capacity to understand wisdom and, at this time, Subject K has not met the requirements for entry into the halls of the enlightened.

In any case for me to proceed to the next level I need a declaration of absolute eternal Winnerhooddom. Thanks!

If it could be printed on purple-shaded sheepskin so much the better to indicate super-wisdom, eh? Thanks again!

I may be able to dig up a peel and stick gold star for you. Would that help?

Consider the example of picking up a rock from Earth, taking it in a spacecraft to a planet much more massive than Earth, outside the Solar System, and then dropping it near where this particular planet can begin to attract this rock towards itself.

I think I'm going to show my ignorance here. Does this mean potential energy is completely quantified by gravitation and mass?

What if you transport a massive rock to a weightless environment? Have you decreased its potential energy? Wouldn't this violate conservation of energy?

I think you are getting into the classic First Cause argument - which hasn’t been definitively decided/proved/disproved one way or the other.

Pink was the best I could do. Will that work?

Your certificate of winnerhood will be mailed out to you shortly.

*snicker*

"Lower entropy, higher energy."

Got a reference for that claim?

Through experience we have found that these threads usually leads to endless exchanges that have no impact upon each other’s beliefs.

I think your probably right.

But though there is as little likelihood of impacting each other's beliefs as radiation being in suspended animation at the beginning of the universe, the truth of what Wills and Mohler are saying:

"Liberalism in America began with the rejection of the Bible's creation account," Wills wrote. "It culminated with a broad rejection of the beliefs of historic Christianity. Yet many Christians today wish to repeat the experiment. We should not expect different results."

is something we may be able to agree on.

Humanism (calling itself science) and Christianity are on the same sort of galactic collision course as they say Andromeda and the Milky Way are. Speaking for myself, I don't know when the collision will be at it's greatest intensity but I believe the results will be astronomically catastrophic and decisively destructive of a worldview.

Thanks. Pink is very calming.

HOORAY! I’ve evolved!

I’m one of the Winnerhood!

What, no stickers for my stickerbook? How can I measure academic progress in the New American Classroom?

Waveform location cannot be determined precisely, and particles comprise of waves, bringing forth the uncertainty as you mentioned.

However, this doesn't take away from the point of the discussion that introducing mysticism into areas of scence that are yet to be fully explained as a stop-gap "solution" is not an acceptable mode of scientific progress. The common trick that's played by these proponents of the 'theology of the fringes', involving vagueness of terminology and inappropriate usage of concepts, is as follows:

1. First, they make the presumption or the implication that science knows or can explain everything.

2. Next, they pick and choose those areas that are still insufficiently explored, and demand an explanation for them. This was what was being done when the earlier poster attempted to bring in not just a deity, but a deity of his / her choice, to pose as if that deity is the solution to the incomplete understanding of the position-momentum uncertainty - a classic case of introducing a god-of-the-gaps.

To such proponents, the tactic to be employed to counter their "reasoning" is simple. Make them climb down from the vanguards of scientific knowledge, and instead force them to go into the doctrinal and scriptural basics of their faith, straight to the definitional roots of their deity(s). To these proponents, I ask that they answer questions such as these:

Firstly, if their adopted deity(s) is (are) beyond the realms of time and space, then it implies that time has no influence over it (them) - in essence, it is (they are) timeless and has / have existed forever. Since the beginning of anything requires a transformational change from the moment of non-existence to the moment of existence, so too must the beginning of even the process that leads to creation, undergo a period of change. The present Universe (and they assume is the only universe) had a finite 'beginning', they believe. This implies that this Universe also was once under the realm of non-existence. Now for the deity to have begun the process of creation, it must have undergone a transformation, or change, from within the realms of its timeless existence, to the period of change that occurred when it decided to create. Since change implies time, how then is this deity existing in a timeless realm?

Secondly, and this is more specific to the religions under consideration, if you believe in the deity of the Old Testament, and also believe the deity to be the source of all morality, then what happened during the moment when this deity ordered for the son of David to suffer a week-long illness and then perish, for no fault of its? Additionally, how was it moral for the same deity to order for the slaughter of the Amalekite children and infants as detailed in 1 Samuel 15:3?

These are merely examples of forcing such introducers of the gods-of-the-gaps to reconcile the contradictions of their own adopted religions. To them, the choices available are as follows:

1. Reconcile with the contradictions by means of logical arguments.

2. Adopt the an agnostic, or at best, a deistic concept for the god they introduced to fill in the apparent gap.

I used that example of taking a rock from one planet to another to show that the contained potential energy cannot be determined.

To which post were you replying to, in #369?

“The just will rule over the insolent.”

-not sure who said this.

In reply to #334:

how did the changeless entity change, without itself being under the realm of time?