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FooManChoo
| Favorite team: | Georgia  |
| Location: | |
| Biography: | |
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| Number of Posts: | 46298 |
| Registered on: | 12/1/2012 |
| Online Status: | Not Online |
Recent Posts
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re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 5:05 pm to NC_Tigah
quote:This goes back to my previous point: evolutionists start with the assumption of evolution rather than design, so commonalities like these are explained through evolutionary means. I see commonalities as being part of having a common designer. It's not how apes and humans are alike, but how they are different, that matters.
The rest of our chromosome 2 bears incredible genomic sequence comparison to chimp's chromosome2A.
quote:No we don't. That's an assumption based off on an interpretation of fossil and rock layers that assumes millions of years of evolutionary history.
When the asteroid hit 66 Million yrs ago, it basically killed off all land-based animals except for those that could burrow. Nothing larger than my shih tzu survived. We know that absolutely. From there, millions of species evolved, then became extinct as others took their place.
quote:No "whoops" needed. God created all life for His glory, and He destroyed it for the same purpose.
God saying "poof" there will be saber toothed tigers. God saying "poof" they gone. God saying "poof" there will be mammoths. God saying "poof" there be 20ft sloths. God saying whoops "poof" they gone.
quote:I trust God's revelation more than your belief about theistic evolution (assuming this statement of yours reflects such a belief). You are trying to marry a belief in a creator with evolutionary theory proposed by those who reject the biblical narrative.
I believe God is an organic mathematician. Evolution here was God's goal. Allowing us the gradual precept of analysis was as well.
1
re: Pastor: How queer was Jesus?
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 3:12 pm to AlterEd
quote:He didn't specifically speak to bestiality, either, but He didn't need to because He came to fulfill the law, which included laws against such things.
I made the point the other day that Jesus never spoke out specifically against homosexuality
However, Jesus wasn't entirely silent on the issue of homosexuality. By logical inference, we can tell that Jesus did not approve of homosexual lust or action.
Jesus upheld the teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman (Matt. 19)
Jesus also said that if someone lusts after a woman in his heart, he has committed adultery (Matt. 5)
The argument from logical necessity, therefore, is that if no one should lust after another outside the confines of marriage, and if marriage is only reserved for one man and one woman, then homosexuals would be in sin to engage in homosexual lust and action. This would fall under the broader category of "sexual immorality", which all are called to repent of.
re: USA Today: The USA men's hockey team "utterly failed to meet the cultural moment"
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 3:02 pm to Hback
"Cultural moment" is such an arbitrary statement. Sounds like the author is the one trying to define it, and then saying that the hockey team didn't meet her arbitrary standards.
Who cares?
Who cares?
re: RI middle school had mural of Moloch?
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 3:01 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:It's not. Evidence isn't the problem, but the interpretation of it.
It's better from an evidence perspective, though
quote:No. I'm saying that your interpretation of the evidence has philosophical biases baked in, just like mine does. You aren't neutral.
Are you really trying to frame relying on evidence as a "philosophical bias"?
quote:Yes. Whether you believe it is another story.
Does it?
quote:The Biblical evidence is allegedly eye-witness testimony. Why are you throwing that out as evidence?
You can somewhat say this with the NT and Jesus, because of Roman record-keeping (although it's still a...not strong argument) , but what historical (non-Biblical) evidence are you relying on to say we had eye-witness testimony of this transition period (either for the Jews or Canaanites, it matters not)?
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 2:58 pm to Azkiger
quote:Breathing and eating involve more than just the muscles I was referring to, but in a previous post I said, "the muscles that control swallowing and opening the airway are in close proximity and work together efficiently."
What? Breathing is from the diaphragm. Chewing from the jaw. And even if they were "from the same area", how would that make them more efficient? And efficient at what? Energy conservation?
Please refer to the context of my other posts before assuming something that I'm not saying. :cheers:
quote:You should have been more specific. However, I'm curious where you're getting your numbers from injuries if you believe the lumbar spine, itself, is the top of the list for injuries. What kind of injuries are you referring to, and why are you singling out those injuries as a means of proving that our spines are poorly designed?
Lumbar spine. I'm not talking about knicks and cuts and bruises.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 2:51 pm to northshorebamaman
quote:This is partially true. However, my point is that no one neutral, not even supposed neutral scientists who claim to merely be neutrally interpreting data and evidence. Everyone has an inherent set of presuppositions regarding what they believe about the world that acts like a pair of glasses by which they interpret the evidence they see. Many scientists assume there is no God, or at least there is no God that has worked within history in any non-natural way, and so therefore, all evidence is interpreted through that lens, which then results in many conclusions that would be different given a different set of presuppositions.
Respectfully, a significant portion of your post reads less like a critique of evolutionary biology and more like a reaction to how you think Christians are perceived by “evolutionists.” Assertions that science necessarily rejects God or treats believers as ignorant are cultural claims about attitudes. They aren’t arguments about mutation, selection, or genetic change. I’m only focused on the biology.
quote:Again, because it assumes that there are not supernatural interventions in history by God that would change the results, evolutionary biology as a discipline results in conclusions that impact how people think about ultimate reality. Not only that, the fact that it leads to any conclusions at all means that it's more than just the method. Assumptions really do matter.
I’m not arguing that science disproves God or that materialism is a metaphysical truth. I’m defending this: evolutionary biology explains biological change through observable, testable processes. Its limits are methodological. They describe how the method works, not what ultimate reality must be.
quote:It is and it isn't. Again, assumptions matter, and different assumptions may result in different conclusions, especially when drawing conclusions about claims about non-observed history.
If someone believes revelation overrides scientific conclusions, that’s a theological commitment. It doesn’t demonstrate that mutation rates, population genetics, or phylogenetic patterns are incorrect. It simply places authority elsewhere. That’s a separate discussion.
quote:I didn't say it was because of repeatability alone, however Christians believe that the evidence is not the issue, but the assumptions that feed the conclusions of the evidence. If there were a global flood, there would be evidence. I believe there is a lot of evidence for it, including the fossil record, itself. Again, evidence is not the problem, but the interpretation of it, which has many assumptions behind it.
Science does not reject one-off events because they aren’t repeatable. The Big Bang, the Chicxulub impact, and the formation of the Moon were singular events. They are accepted because they leave measurable, converging lines of evidence. The standard is testability and predictive power, not whether we can rerun history.
quote:It's not just the underlying physical laws are consistent, but the natural processes are, too.
Uniformitarianism doesn’t mean the past was identical to the present. It means the underlying physical laws are consistent. If gravity or radioactive decay behaved arbitrarily in the past, geology, cosmology, and archaeology would all collapse. Evolution relies on the same assumption every historical science does.
Natural laws don't have to behave arbitrarily in the past, but they could have been interfered with at times due to God's decree. That's actually my point: if God can and has interjected Himself into history in a way that impacted natural laws or processes, then modern assumptions that history has always acted a certain way would be false, impacting our conclusions.
quote:I agree. I was mentioning the bigger picture change, not the supposed microchanges and variations within a particular species. I know that a monkey did not give birth to a man in evolutionary biology. I'm talking about the changes from one type of organism to another, like an amphibian and a fish.
And no one expects to observe a fish giving birth to an amphibian.
quote:Yes, and yet all those independent lines utilize the same underlying assumptions. The model can be very strong, and yet still be wrong.
Evolutionary biology, like other historical disciplines, infers past change from present evidence using known mechanisms. Independent lines of evidence, genetics, fossil succession, comparative anatomy, and biogeography converge on the same branching patterns. That convergence is what gives the model its strength.
quote:The problem with scientists and many atheists who trust all to science is that they tend to focus on science alone rather than philosophy, theology, or other non-scientific disciplines that speak to truth claims. Science is very limited, yet is relied upon by many as the answer to all necessary questions in life, including where we came from, using assumptions that could impact behaviors beyond science, itself, such as moral implications of wiping out entire people groups of the "unfit", which are guided by conclusions pertaining to evolutionary biology. It does not good to pretend that science is in a bubble.
None of that settles theological questions. If you’re interested in exploring the metaphysical implications of evolution, that’s perfectly fine. It’s just not within the scope of my argument, nor something I’m trying to prove disprove. I have no animosity toward religious faith, and those broader interpretations don’t affect the scientific soundness of the evolutionary framework itself.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 2:22 pm to Globetrotter747
quote:Science hasn't disproven God or the Bible at all. What you're referring to is scientific consensus, not definitive truth. The consensus is also biased based on the reliance on a naturalistic and mostly-materialistic worldview espoused by those in the scientific community. There is absolutely a bias against the supernatural precisely because science can't engage with it. Instead of recognizing that, the supernatural is simply denied.
1. The history of science has shown that supernatural explanations tend to fall by the wayside during the pursuit of knowledge. We no longer believe that thunder and lightning are caused by angry deities, etc. Most biblical claims - global flood, young earth, etc. - aren’t taken seriously anymore outside of radical religion due to mounting evidence against them in recent centuries.
quote:Yes, anyone can claim whatever they want. It's why Christians examine the claims and see how they comport with the world we live in.
2. The problem with so-called supernatural revelation is that anyone can make a bold claim with miracles to support it. Perhaps someone believes the Mariana Trench was created 1,389,464 years ago when Poseidon carved it out of the Pacific. On what basis would this assertion be rejected if supernatural revelation should be taken seriously?
quote:You see an assumption of major changes over time rather than distinct organisms, in the fossil record.
But we do see changes over time in the fossil record. The oldest fossils are single-celled organisms, and it’s estimated that over 99% of species that have ever existed are extinct.
And yes, a global flood would have wiped out a lot of creatures.
quote:Different rates of reproduction and mutation within species, perhaps. More types and variations of organisms before the flood vs. after, perhaps. No, I don't expect a large herd of animals that no one has seen before roaming the Great Plains.
How do you connect these dots without evolution? How did species and ecosystems change so significantly over time? Has a Creator periodically introduced mature breeding populations of various species? Is it realistic that tomorrow a large herd of animals that no one has seen before might be roaming the Great Plains without any explanation?
I connect the dots through the biblical narrative, attempting to interpret the evidence through that lens, rather than through a naturalistic lens.
quote:The Bible makes specific claims. It doesn't give free reign for Christians to speculate any number of arbitrary miracles to explain what we see today.
But where do we draw the line? That’s the important question. Not every supernatural explanation involves the Christian God, and there are limitless assertions that can be made with miracles at your disposal.
quote:I've got good reasons to believe the Bible is God's revelation and word while rejecting the Poseidon narrative.
From a scientific perspective, what’s the difference between the Christian God creating species and Poseidon creating the Mariana Trench?
From a scientific perspective, there probably isn't much of a difference in terms of the claims, themselves, but each person needs to examine the claims in light of the observable reality we live in, using philosophical and logical examination in addition to empirical data.
quote:Yes. I believe God is trustworthy and His revelation is also trustworthy.
Trustworthy revelational claims?
quote:Agreed. That's why the claims must be examined beyond merely using the scientific data, because science isn't equipped to speak to those truth claims.
Poseidon creating the Mariana Trench could be aligned with the truth too but isn’t scientific either.
quote:We need more Christians in the scientific fields, and Christians need to pray for an "awakening" where the gospel converts many in those fields.
Very true. So how do we get the Christian God and Poseidon and their interventions in nature to a more respected position in the scientific community?
Christian claims aren't going to be respected by those who start with the assumption that they are false.
quote:I believe they have been disproven from a Christian point of view due to the impossibility of the contrary of the Christian claim about the nature of God. The gods of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc. do not have the attributes and claims that comport with the reality that we observe. So yes, like the Apostle Paul said to the Greeks who had a statue to the "unknown god", they worshipped in ignorance. That's why God's revelation in the Bible is so helpful. His natural revelation (the natural world) can certain be misconstrued and perverted so that people worship the creature instead of the creator, but God's word clarifies what reality actually is.
Do you consider the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians who believed in gods of nature that have never been disproven to be ignorant?
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 2:02 pm to NC_Tigah
quote:It really is. We cannot observe the types of informational changes needed to increase in complexity from one organism to another. We observe small changes, and those small changes are assumed to lead to the bigger changes precisely because we don't have the time to observe such changes.
That really is not true.
re: Pastor: How queer was Jesus?
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 1:59 pm to SPEEDY
Blasphemous.
re: Stockton met POTUS and spoke at his event
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/25/26 at 1:32 pm to tween the hedges
That's really cool, and a great honor.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/22/26 at 9:16 am to northshorebamaman
quote:It lends itself to the metaphysical claim if the boundaries are not maintained. Many believe that science is the best possible way to know what has happened in the past, and that has led to the exclusion and rejection of truth claims that either cannot be verified empirically or that appear to be contradicted by scientific conclusions based on necessary assumptions like uniformitarianism.
That’s a fair distinction, and I don’t disagree that if God exists and intervenes, that wouldn’t automatically be something science could detect or fully comprehend. Science operates within the natural world by design. That’s a methodological boundary, not necessarily a metaphysical claim.
quote:The underlying assumptions actually do interact with philosophy and certain epistemological and ontological claims. For instance, if one believes all knowledge that can be ascertained is so by scientific inquiry, then naturalism and empiricism become baked into one’s worldview, knowingly or unknowingly. There becomes a rejection of supernatural revelation, and super naturalism altogether, because such claims do not work with science. Materialism oftentimes closely follows.
Where I’d gently push back is this: evolutionary biology doesn’t require philosophical materialism to function. It simply studies observable mechanisms of biological change. It doesn’t make a claim about whether God exists. It asks how populations change over time given the mechanisms we can measure.
Evolutionary biology from a scientific perspective is not entirely observable and testable and requires an application of what is observable to that which isn’t. In particular, the addition of genetic information to produce what is essentially another category of organism, not merely a very similar species, is not visible to us. We don’t see a fish giving birth to anything like an amphibian or a mammal. We assume that the changes are very gradual and additive over millions of years because we can observe small variations with species today. Assumptions matter, and they lead to different conclusions than what revelation may provide.
quote:Not just ultimate original causation, though, but potentially reasoning for why the evidence appears as it does today.
If someone believes God ultimately grounds or sustains those processes, that’s a theological interpretation layered on top of the biology. It doesn’t negate the genetic evidence, fossil record, or observed mutation rates. It just assigns ultimate causation differently.
Again, science requires a fundamental assumption of uniformity in nature; what happens today is what has always happened. This assumption is critical for repeatability in our present time, but it also necessarily rejects the concept of God’s intervention in this world at a grand scale because such one-off interactions aren’t repeatable and testable, and therefore, aren’t scientific.
quote:If there are some trustworthy revelational claims from God about what happened in the past that contradict the conclusions of scientific inquiry based on naturalistic assumptions, there are good reasons to therefore reject the scientific consensus of evidentiary interpretation.
So my point isn’t to rule out the supernatural. It’s to clarify that evolutionary theory, as a scientific model, explains biological change using testable mechanisms. Questions about divine intervention are philosophical or theological. They’re not refutations of the biological framework itself.
The problem is that such conclusions could possibly be aligned with the actual truth, but are unscientific. And since our modern world equates scientific epistemology as superior to alleged religious or supernatural epistemology, the truth may be rejected because of the nature of its source, as many here do. Not only is it rejected, but it is mocked outright, and those who adhere to it are condemned as stupid or ignorant.
re: RI middle school had mural of Moloch?
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/22/26 at 8:43 am to Mo Jeaux
quote:Both views require interpretation, and I’m fine with admitting that.
Frankly though, your view also depends on interpretation. Then it just comes down to which interpretation is more logical.
What I’m trying to draw attention to is how your view isn’t necessarily better than mine from a truth-claim perspective because both your claim and mine have philosophical biases and assumptions that lead towards the eventual believed conclusions. You are portraying a posture of superiority due to “science” (as of my position is only religious or superstitious, as you might conclude), as if the evidence completely excludes my position. It’s about interpretation.
quote:Not necessarily. As I mentioned, Abraham traveled to Canaan, and his family lived among the Canaanites for about 200 years before moving to Egypt. It’s likely that Abraham already spoke a semitic language that was close to what the Canaanites already spoke, and even Abraham’s great grandson, Judah, married a Canaanite woman and had children with her. They had to communicate somehow.
Yours proposes that a people completely conquered another people as commanded by their God, but then just decided to adopt the conquered peoples’ language, culture, and religious practices.
So there were ties between the Hebrews and Canaanites long before the people left Egypt and conquered the land.
We are also told in the Bible that there was still intermarrying among the Jews and Canaanites, which was not supposed to happen but did anyway. Many were led to idolatry because of it.
quote:Both interpretations may have support, but the biblical account also lends an abundance of eye-witness testimony to the situation, describing in detail the historical memory of the Jews, and the contemporary happenings that align with much of the evidence you cited. However it also directly contradicts your belief that they merely arose from within an existing group, borrowing all of their religious beliefs but tweaking it a little to suit their preferences. The narrative flatly denies that.
My interpretation proposes that one subgroup of a people decided to elevate one god that they all worshipped over the other gods and then centuries later came up with some stories to justify why they were better than the other members of their group because of who they worshipped.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 8:53 pm to Azkiger
quote:Eating and breathing are more efficient for humans due to the muscles used for both being in the same area, like I said.
No, you stated safety measures that help mitigate the structure, not why our current structure is better than the structure I've proposed.
quote:From what I found, hands, wrists, and arms are actually the most common parts injured, followed by legs, feet, and ankles.
And yet the back/spine is, by far, the most common structure to get injured. It's almost as if we evolved from quadruped.
Oh, but I'm sure in the garden of Eden, prior to the fall, our backs were somehow different? This is just Satan's way of corrupting God's creation. I wonder how Adam and Even did look, though? How were their spines designed differently?
Again, just because we can and do get injured doesn’t mean the design is flawed.
re: Colombian illegal immigrant learns fate for strangling NYC landlady over rent dispute
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 4:46 pm to L.A.
That isn’t justice
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 12:06 pm to Azkiger
quote:You speak as if this unguided process has a will and acts with intent. It doesn’t.
Yes evolution has come up with ways to try and cover this flaw
quote:Technically, we do. The trachea and the esophagus are different tubes. One leads to the stomach and one to the lungs.
but none of this would be needed, and it would be impossible to choke on food, if we ate and breathed through different tubes.
I believe you mean, if the two tubes were not in such close proximity to each other. If so, it would add more complexity to the process, as the muscles that control swallowing and opening the airway are in close proximity and work together efficiently.
quote:I just stated why. Also, I’m glad you referred to it as a design. A design implies a personal designer with will.
Why is our current design better?
quote:Yeah, it’s an easy one to show why the current design is efficient. Thanks for that :cheers:
Also, I'm just picking low hanging fruit.
quote:I absolutely disagree. The shape and function of our backs/spines allow us to walk upright with support, flexibility, and mobility on two legs. The disks absorb shock, the spine protects our spinal cord, and the vertebrae are larger where more support is needed.
Our bodies look very much like an animal that evolved to walk upright, not one that was *designed* to walk upright. Our backs/spines are a giant Achilles heel and any engineering student would get an F for the design.
While there are other ways our bodies could have been formed, there is nothing “wrong” with how we were made, and the body’s design appears to show signs of intent and care.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 11:54 am to Indefatigable
quote:I’m glad you affirm the laws of identity and non-contradiction :cheers:
of course not
quote:Not all truth, but all truth necessary for the faith and life of the Church, especially pertaining to salvation. And that is the whole of Scripture, not just Genesis.
especially when all “truth” necessarily flows from a strict literal interpretation of Genesis, self-fulfilled by arbitrary “truths” that are in reality simply your beliefs.
My beliefs are tied to objective realities, not merely wishful thinking. If I didn’t think they were true and real, I wouldn’t believe them.
re: Somali community in MN is now demanding reparations over ICE trauma
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 9:36 am to stout
How do the taxpayers get reimbursed for all the money stolen through fraud?
re: RI middle school had mural of Moloch?
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 9:31 am to Mo Jeaux
quote:If you assume naturalism, you reject any supernaturalist evidence or interpretations, like the Bible’s claims.
Explain what you mean by this?
It comes down to interpretation, then.
You see genealogical similarities and geographical proximity and you assume the Israelites were a subgroup of Canaanites that developed from within Canaan. I see genetically-similar people groups who intermingled and even intermarried, against God’s command. You see similar languages and assume internal development. I see different people groups that could have influenced each other during times of close proximity, such as the decades Abraham and his family spent there before moving to Egypt. I also see archeological confirmation that Israel existed when and where the Bible says it did (such as with the Merneptah Stele).
What conclusions you arrive at often times are based on the assumptions you already make when approaching the evidence.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 9:12 am to Indefatigable
quote:God created it and intervened many times after its creation.
Who created it if God merely intervened?
I didn’t say He merely intervened in the natural world, as if He didn’t also create it. My point was that His intervention in creation is not something that is repeatable, testable, and falsifiable, so it is not “scientific”, and yet would still be true, nonetheless.
quote:I didn’t say that, but I will say that there are competing truth claims, and all claims cannot be true at the same time.
AKA: “My particular self-assured version of Calvinism is the only truth possible and the only view presented”
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 9:04 am to Azkiger
quote:Its quite cool, actually. It is efficient.
And yet we breath and eat through the same tube, allowing thousands of children to choke every year.
Cool design!
The allowance for damage or destruction did not take away the greatness of the design. The epiglottis, for example, is a protective feature that blocks the airway when swallowing, preventing choking naturally, and it works extraordinarily well. We also have a cough reflex and vocal cords that fold when swallowing to help prevent choking.
There are a lot of great designs that have protective features built in that can still lead to destructive results due to outside factors. The lack of indestructibility is not a design flaw.
re: Impressive support for Intelligent Design
Posted by FooManChoo on 2/21/26 at 8:32 am to northshorebamaman
quote:And here is the problem. If God exists (I believe He does) and He has intervened in the natural world (I believe He has), then that is not something we can identify and comprehend scientifically. And yet it would still be true.
The question then becomes: does that claim generate testable predictions that differ from natural mechanisms? If not, it doesn’t function as an alternative explanation because it’s unfalsifiable.
Science is limited to the natural world, which is why those who make science their god typically reject claims of supernaturalism. They also typically only function within the philosophical framework of materialism and the epistemological framework of empiricism.
At the end of the day, they potentially reject the truth (and I believe they actually do) because of the type of evidence they accept in their worldview.
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