The God of the gaps argument for God fails when a plausible scientific account for a gap in current knowledge can be given. I do not dispute that the exact nature of the origin of the universe remains a gap in scientific knowledge. But I deny that we are bereft of any conceivable way to account for that origin scientifically.
VICTOR J. STENGER
When you talk to atheists and debate with them, they will throw out the “God of the gaps” tripe. They assert that God is nothing more than the putty believers use to fill in the gaps of our scientific knowledge about the universe. This is how Zeus gave way to positive and negative electrical charges in explaining lightning. The assumption is that myths fall as science increases. But is this really the case?
I think we can shed more light on the issue by actually making a…
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All Along the Watchtower 
Is there any scientific discovery that has been supplanted by scripture or religious belief? God has certainly gotten smaller and smaller in my lifetime, so the explanations more grand. There is only one nut left to crack. What then, apply more faith?
You know it was only a few hundred years ago that men dared explore the mountains, for that is where the gods, devils, and monsters lived. Now it is a field of study. Really, it’s solid evidence your religion is formed out of superstition.
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well good brother jim, bible does back up science. ill give you one example. god says he stretched out the heavens. at least 15 time its mentioned as being stretched. recently cosmologists have discovered that space is being stretched.Galaxies are all moving away from each other, but it seems that space is being stretched and is not static. it involves calculation with the cosmological constant , which we call A dot, which i wont bother you with, for obvious reasons. How does it feel being dead wrong. The saying goes…..load your brain befor firing your mouth. Have a nice sunday.
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So he also laid the foundation of the earth? Is that literal or metaphorical? And with your line of reasoning, the Quran has more truth on creation than the Bible.
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I gave you a biblical scientific fact and all you can do is try and wiggle away out of it. You just dont want it to be true. Prejudices like that keep small minds from learning…learning anything. Say, tell me…whats it like to have a small closed mind?
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It’s an ambiguity that happens to support a scientific theory. That is actually your bias, not mine, seeking correlations with hope. He also says he made the stars. Hell, anyone can say that without showing how this was done. Your proof is an extraordinary claim with no evidence how.
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And most commonly the term is expanding universe . Not stretched.
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Well good brother jim, i see you dont spend much time in cosmology. thats not a crime. Let me assure you, the term stretch is used many times by many cosmologists.
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So it’s not unique to the Bible. Very well. If your reasoning is sound than the Quran contains more truth on creation than the Bible.
In the Greek it means (select a word) stretch, sprawl, tense, distend, crane, strain, tighten. A tall tale without evidence. Grasping at straws is the way of religious reason.
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Stop evoking the quran, all i know about that idiot book is that its false.
You still cant admit defeat. OK, how about in the book of Job, god talks about the springs in the sea. We didnt know about them til 1950 when we could dive down there.Job was written around 3000BC.
Ok, time to start squirming.
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It’s almost the same as your idiot book except that instead of thumbscrews and bonfires the Qu’ran comes with burkas and suicide-bombers.
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My idiot book has predictions that came true and are coming true. The quoran doesnt have one.
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Came true? Really? Oh, pray tell, Senor Clown.
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im not going to waste my time telling you which ones. jesus ordered me not to toss my pearls befor swine.
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So, yet another piece of hand waving nonsense.
And, for the record, pigs have a lot going for them. As intelligent as dogs and have more character than the average christian in blogland.
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”Those are the gaps. Science has not filled those gaps.”
Not yet …
And you are correct when you write ….
”When the missing link is found, you will definitely know about it because it will be frontpage news and literally shake civilization to its foundations.”
And where will your god belief be then?
Very likely in tatters around your feet.
Remember, as a believer all you can do is turn to faith or accept reality and deconvert.
The non-believer has no issues in this regard because history has proven that nothing in your lexicon of Goddidit claims has ever been shown to hold water.
As the Stones once sang … ”Time …is on my side, yes it is.”
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I dont turn to faith when i debunk evo. I turn to IUPAC.
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Except that you haven’t debunked ”evo”
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I havent done it in here because the subject never comes up. This is a site for hollow meaningless religious rituals.
Defending evo entails the use of science, pseudo science, and a knowledge of the meanings of the terms. Even then the defense of evo uses magic and a reversal of the laws of physics and chemistry and beliefs. Yes, evo is a belief system, replete with beads rattles and voodoo dances. Any good sister ark, no need to bother your pretty little head with that subject, simply for the a fore mentioned reasons. Some modicum of science is required.
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You haven’t debunked evolution anywhere .
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go back to sleep
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Scoop, are you censoring comments?
I hope not.
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Did you include links, Mister Z
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No, just answers to the questions. Charlie (the author of the original post) has already censored my comment, and it looks like Scoop is, too.
Seems both Charlie and Scoop aren’t too confident in their position here, so censorship is the response.
Makes you wonder: why pen a post if you know it’s deceptive nonsense, lies?
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S’okay – on Robertson’s Third Space site , they have labelled me a Spambot and my comments are now banned.
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Fact-free zones, it appears.
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Indeed.
A discussion about Exodus,,,, and you KNOW how that went!
He cited Hoffmeier.
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Hoffmeir is 68, Kitchen is 87. What are they going to do when these two die?
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Your guess is as good as mine.
You should ”educate” the bloke who seems to think there is plenty of evidence for the bible tale …
wanna link?
🙂
Has to be more fun than Scoop!
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I’m banned, remember.
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Where, on Third Space?
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As well.
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How the hell are you banned? No one is banned there yet except me, because they say my ”Browser is a spambot. ”
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Blanket ban by Robertson after proving him wrong about Australia. Facts, apparently, annoy him.
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Banned over at Third Space? Serious?
Try to leave a comment on the link I sent you.
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Same seems to be the case with Scoop here. No sign of my comment…
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I too, am blocked. Not sure if I go spambot blocked, but my comments don’t see the light of day.
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I spoke to Stephen Macalpine and he assured me they don’t ban or moderate.
His words ….
”And I guess on another point, Douglas, the Christian faith has nothing to fear from push back and inquiry. If your first thought is that we’re deleting your comments because we’re afraid of something, well that either means we think too little of the Bible message, or too much of your opinion.”
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Well, right after he said you’re done, my comments no longer appear. Seems as though lying for Jesus even works at an admin level.
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At Third Space or Weeflea?
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Not sure. Wherever we’ve been engaging Robertson. I have to click a site to get to comments. Here on wp his comments are disabled in my viewer. I’ll take a look see again
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Ah, theweeflee.com. My apologies.
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I dont believe good brother scoop is censoring you. there are some trigger words that stop your comment. i dont know what they are, but they are the obvious ones im sure. good brother scoop is not scared of your comments.
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Then good brother Scoop can free the comment…
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For the record, I do not edit or censor comments here. I also do not have those privileges here. I leave combox management to others as I don’t have the time or the inclination to be bothered with such things.
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I leave combox management to others
Is that scoop’s excuse for the censorship? And who are these “others”?
I don’t have the time or the inclination to be bothered with such things.
And yet you have the time and the inclination to pen a post full of lies and easily debunkable, ignorant babble…
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I suspect the censorship was triggered by the inability of atheists to make arguments without resorting to profanity and ad hominem attacks, viz. PZ Myers.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/how-did-new-atheism-become-the-godlessness-that-failed/
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Actually, I have no clue. I haven’t heard from the owner of the site in a long time and have no idea what triggers a comment to go into spam on his site. I really don’t care because I get tired of their strained logic anyway and have no interest in arguing with them.
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Of course you don’t care. You’re not interested in actually learning anything, are you?
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Good brother john, you arent exactly a fountain of reliable information.
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There was no profanity, just answers.
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I think you wasted your time composing a long winded answer and then hit the wrong button. Then, you lashed out incapable of admitting your error. But take consolation in this. Your answer wasn’t any good. God in His providence probably spared you a great deal of embarrassment.
Try again and attempt to be as brilliant with your mouse as you think you are with your keyboard.
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How did this truly vast universe spring from nothing?
There was never nothing. The universe is aseitic.
How did non-life spontaneously turn itself into life?
Can you show me anything in a so-called “living cell” that’s actually “alive”? (serious question)
Despite all that you read and hear, no conclusive evolutionary link has been established between humans and non-humans.
If we had never found a single fossil, we would still know evolution was true thanks to the genetic evidence, that’s how strong it is.
1. Ubiquitous genes: Not only do all organisms on Earth use the exact same DNA codes, but also, in many cases, the same genes. You can replace the cytochrome C gene in yeast with the cytochrome C gene from humans, insects or birds and the yeast cells don’t know the difference.
2. General patterns: Humans are more genetically similar to chimps than to dogs, more similar to dogs than to fish, more similar to fish than to lobsters, etc. If each species were created independently, we would not see this pattern. On the other hand, the pattern is perfectly explained by common descent.
3. Specific changes:
a. We see the same exact mutations in the same exact places in the same genes of both humans and chimps. In many cases, the mutations destroy the functioning of that gene. There would be no reason to purposefully mutate the genes in this manner, and the odds of having the same exact nucleotide altered in the same way in two species would be astronomical. The best explanation for this observation is that the mutation occurred only once in the common ancestor of chimps and humans. All of that ancestor’s descendants carry the mutation.
b. Sometimes viruses get permanently fused into an animal’s genome. The descendants of this animal will all have the exact same viral sequence in the exact same place in their genomes. The same viral sequences in the same places can be found in both chimps and humans despite the fact that these viral insertion events are completely random.
When the missing link is found, you will definitely know about it because it will be frontpage news and literally shake civilization to its foundations.
Has it occurred to you that every organism, at every time, including you, is a transitional form?
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Still doesn’t work on your site, but you can play here as it appears to be accepted as a Reply, not a stand alone comment.
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Can you show me anything in a so-called “living cell” that’s actually “alive”? (serious question)
I can show you what is alive, but first, you have to assure me you will understand the language of chemistry, organic and bio. No phD , but some small grasp, maybe a stint in jr hi school or something. Then id be glad to show you.
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I can show you what is alive
No, you can’t.
Nothing in a cell is alive. Not a single thing.
It is a protein based robot hosting millions of chemical reactions every second, yet it is nothing but dead matter simply being moved chemically or mechanically by the business-like laws of interaction. At each individual function it is no more “alive” than a mechanical hole puncher performing the same task every second is alive. However, put all those parts and systems together (one working off another, affecting another still) and we get the appearance of a living thing. Indeed, we call it a “living cell.” And yet, nowhere in this contraption is anything that is actually “alive.” Not a single thing.
As you can see, the question Charlie asked is absurd.
Matter organises itself. It cannot help but organise itself. Take a bottle of water, oil, and sand. Shake it up, and then watch. Organisation. And when something becomes sufficiently organised (sufficiently complex) it takes on the appearance of what we call a living thing. All that is, though, is just a dance of things like lipid metabolism, nucleotide and protein metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, citric acid cycle, fatty acid synthesis and elongation, and Beta oxidisation all mindlessly working off each other.
There is no ‘divine spark.’ 438,000 watt-hours of free energy per square foot fall on the earth every year, and this energy drives cellular mechanisms. All life on earth is powered by chemiosmosis, where the rechargeable chemical battery for life, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), is first broken down and then re-formed during respiration to release energy used to drive every ‘living’ reaction.
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Jeeze good brother john, you are all over the place.You know what you remind me of….a monkey with a machine gun.
I see you invoke the voodoo of evo. Matter organizes itself. Of course, the evo story included nucleotides forming by themselfs by the billions and are of the 5 types needed for dna and rna, gosh, thats making me sweat just thinking of that impossibility, then they came together in the area of the size of the tip of a needle, then joined in the proper 3 to 5 configuration, by the millions. No need to mention that solutes spread out in a solvent…they dont gravitate into a small space. forget that.
You want to be serious? Its beyond idiotic to think atoms randomly form such things as long chain lipids, all by themselves and identical and in the millions, all identical and all in the area of the tip of a very sharp needle. Organize themselves. The faith of the evo believer is breathtaking. Dwarfs my belief in Christ by orders of magnitude.
This cellular factory called the cell and its machinery working to break down substrate and create new substrate…lets look at that.
Our example is the Fork auto plant. Its self sufficient.Raw material comes in the front door and the plant does its thing and makes glass, metal, paint, wires and what have you. Then out the back door rolls a finished car. The coordination of all the individual activities is controlled by a mind. It was created by a mind and it operates under a mind. Its alive. Cellular activity such as translation and transcription are controlled by a mind. These arent plain chemical activity. Its a coordinated system. Chemicals dont coordinate anything. Much as the evo ppl want to think. Authors of biochem books admit these systems are fantastically complex and we struggle to understand them.
Ill get more detailed,if you can understand what im saying. So far you only demonstrate you can parrot some terms. This is different from any kind of systematic understanding of chemistry. But thank you for your comment. It shows you try hard. thats whats important.
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357 words, and you didn’t name a single thing in a so-called “living cell” that’s actually “alive.”
Care to try again?
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The cell needs all the parts.The sum total is alive, not one single part. You can have both legs removed and both arms removed and still be alive. They are appendages. You are alive because of the sum total of your vital organs. According to you, you arent alive. Is your leg alive? What part of it is alive? You are a colection of these dead lifeless cells. Life can be explained, but when you get philosophical then it becomes impossible. Your question demonstrate your lack of a disciplined knowledge of the subject. Its not a crime not to have a expensive college degree in science. Its not for everyone and everyone cant afford the money or the time. But its honorable to attempt to look into it and think about it. Its a beginning.
Anyway, life presuppose a spirit, something you dont believe in. You are asking me to show you a spirit.
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The sum total is alive
The sum total gives the *appearance* of what we call a ‘living cell,’ but none of its parts are alive.
So, despite your claim, you CANNOT name a single thing in a so-called “living cell” that’s actually alive.
Now, you want to appeal to some magic mind/spirit. Fair enough. Explain then why catabolic processes, or anabolic reactions, for example, wouldn’t occur if there wasn’t this ‘mind’?
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OK, good question. There is a force that we cant put in a bottle. When this force is gone, the body stops breathing air…the lungs stop pumping. Then the obvious ensues….no more oxygentransport. Im sure you know oxygen is reqired as an electron sink during catobolic and anabolic reactions. No electron sink, the reactions stop.im not going to go into more detail.
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There is a force
Oh, a “force.”
im not going to go into more detail.
I would suspect not, no.
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Im not in the mood for biochem lessons. Im doing other things around here. What i will do is ask you a question. Seeing as how amino acids and other bio molecules formed in the primordial soup, …Are any of the atoms needed for these molecules, C, P ,S,O, N ,H exist as single atoms and are they soluble in water.?
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I’m not in the mood for biochem lessons.
No, I would imagine you’re not.
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These godless porn addicted atheists are right. I saw a junk car in the field the other day. Give it another million years, and it will spontaneously rebuild its missing engine like it did the first time. That second law of thermodynamics is a creationist myth!
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Why porn? Why not sport, or coffee, or tea, of chocolate, or fast cars, or running, or movies, or x-box or gardening, or caring for the planet?
In my albeit limited experience, porn addiction (along with drugs and booze) is listed as one of the more regular predilections of the born-again Christian and there are a number of blogs that testify to this.
And we don’t need to get into the whole Catholic Priest pedophilia thing, do we?
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Actually, that pedophile priest thing is your best argument. They are disgusting sodomites, and I would love to get some atheist condemnation of this buggery.
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Again why porn addiction? Was this your problem before you found Jesus?
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I was an atheist before I converted. My problem was anger with God over the problem of evil. Why does God allow the innocent to suffer and the wicked to prosper? Being an atheist allowed me to stop thinking about it. You can’t maintain anger towards imaginary beings.
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Let me see if I get this …
You had a porn addiction, but was never really a true atheist and for some reason (emotional trauma perhaps?) returned to Jesus and was saved?
Is this about right?
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What is a true atheist? What would be a false atheist?
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Much in the same vein that you Christians label deconverts as not ”True Christians.”
So, it was a porn addiction and some other emotional issue.What was it?
This way we can get a baseline for your conversion and your anger at Yahweh.
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That true and false Christian stuff is some Calvinist Protestant claptrap. You must be one of those Calvinist atheists.
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Actually I was never more than a cultural christian to begin with and have always been atheist more or less.
It became ”official” once I realised Moses was nothing but a mythological character and that’s when I read the entire bible and began to study it a bit.
As to your porn addiction, what was the other emotional issues that drove you to seek Jesus?
Surely you aren’t ashamed to discuss it here?
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Yes, this is a hurdle the evo pleople have trouble with. You should see some of the excuses they come up with.Our very own good brother john here says, the bio molecules self assemble. Well, that settles the issue. Your car will be as good as new in a million yrs.
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