ScienceWhopper:Natural History According to Jeffrey Holland

[_DrW]

As the world becomes secular the wars seem to be getting bigger. I wonder if there is any relationship?

Franktalk,

You mentioned earlier that you had not been a member of the LDS Church for very long. From your posts so far, it would appear that your becoming a Mormon was a personal step in the direction of liberalism and enlightenment for you.

Just out of curiosity, how would you described your religious affiliation or worldview before you joined the LDS Church?

[_DrW]

Franktalk and Hoops,

Just to show that arrogant scientistic dogmatists do have a sense of humor (sort of, anyway), here is an image of the shortest (and quite possibly one of the best) abstracts ever seen on a scientific paper:



Thought you would like this. (Yes, it is for real.)

[_Franktalk]

As the world becomes secular the wars seem to be getting bigger. I wonder if there is any relationship?

Of all the things you could have gone for you went with secularism as the cause of wars escalating. Really?

Wars are fought because men wish to have power over other men. The tools they use are many. Religion and nationalism are big ones. My argument is not to say that religion has not been used as an excuse for war, it has. But how does one get from loving your neighbor to killing your neighbor without some man twisting scripture.

The people who died under Stalin, Mao, and Pol pot add up to a big number. And these guys are not religious.

More population means more dead in wars. Better weapons means more dead in wars. It is that simple.

[_Franktalk]

DrW,

I have a great deal of respect for people who are not afraid to step out of line. That does not mean they are right but I do enjoy a character.

You will find way more people of the religious bent stepping out of line. Some do a disservice to people of faith. To be honest I understand the science mindset more that I understand the religious of no spiritual foundation. I just wonder what the heck they are thinking. People can use the religious dialect to obtain fame and have a following. I mean when was the last time a group of scientist all took poison in support of a theory. Faith can be twisted by a crafty talker. But even though these terrible things have happened it does not change my personal experience. I do stand on a solid foundation even though you may not see it.

[_Franktalk]

Franktalk,

You mentioned earlier that you had not been a member of the LDS Church for very long. From your posts so far, it would appear that your becoming a Mormon was a personal step in the direction of liberalism and enlightenment for you.

Just out of curiosity, how would you described your religious affiliation or worldview before you joined the LDS Church?

About six years ago I was not a Christian. I had a small view that there was a God but had no idea what that meant. God was distant and man was pretty much on his own. I had a strong attachment to science and accepted most theories as fact. But some like Arp and others seemed like they were opened minded and ready to offer new ideas. I accepted evolution and long ages because I trusted science not because I had actually checked it out. Then one day when I was studying quantum mechanics I realized that the entire universe is a simulation. I realized that there are forces outside of this one that act on this universe. I had no religious event but a world view changing event none the less. I cast off this world to seek the real nature of reality.

Having my sense of reality change caused me to question my other foundations as well. So decided to study evolution. I picked an article and read every reference and then followed the references back farther and farther and also checked many alternate opinions on the various subjects I came across. I came across one article that was referenced by others that stated what the mutation rate was. When I read the article I was shocked. They stated that the process of actually determining the mutation rate was hard work so they instead assumed evolution to be true and calculated the mutation rate based on that assumption. Obvious circular reasoning. I found this over and over and it started to look like a house of cards built on assumptions. I decided to read Dawkins and Behe's books because they seemed to describe the argument over the mechanism of change. Lost all respect for Dawkins, he is a hack. Behe I liked because he seemed to be tied to the data. I checked out what he said and eventually came up against population genetics. That is when I read Sanford's book and many critics of population genetics from philosophy of science. That is when I gathered the best data on mutations I could find and did my own analysis. After I did this I lost a great deal of respect for my friend science. I could see men driving the views rather than the data.

I took a break and read the Bible for the first time. I studied prophecy a bunch. At some point I did realize that the Bible was a message from God. I had no idea what that meant at the time. I studied YEC and argued for that position until I realized that they left out supernatural events and used the same flawed logic as science. But I did form my own views on biology and geology during this time. I studied Biblical history and ancient history and came to the conclusion most of what is written is trash. One giant opinion piece after another. I thought science was filled with puffed up men but compared to historians science is tame.

I embraced the Bible and studied spiritual warfare. This is something every person of faith should do. I took the Bible quite literal and my personal interpretation of the Bible matched well with LDS doctrine. It took some time, almost two years before I would accept the Book of Mormon even though I saw no conflict with the Bible. In reading the Bible I expected new revelations and still expect more in the future. I became a Mormon in March.

[_SteelHead]

Frank here are some of the problems as I see them.

If you take the old testament literally then:

How did 2 to 7 of any of the animal species produce viable populations of their relative species. Especially in the face of carnivores eating the herbivores. The odds of 2 -7 of any species establishing a viable population in the face of predation is effectively nil. Or are you proposing that carnivores whose digestive tracts won't handle vegetation ate plants? And even then what plants? There would have been no terrestrial plants left after a global flood of the magnitude of what is described in Genesis.

How did the humans establish a viable population from 4 mating pairs? Especially to the point where the estimated human population at the time of Abraham is 25-27 million. From 4 pairs to 25-27 million in that time span (350 years or so) would have required a birth rate of over 100%. A rate not even close to achievable today.

The only answer that works (as science does not support any viable solutions): MAGIC (divine intervention).

[_Franktalk]

Frank here are some of the problems as I see them.

If you take the old testament literally then:

How did 2 to 7 of any of the animal species produce viable populations of their relative species. Especially in the face of carnivores eating the herbivores. The odds of 2 -7 of any species establishing a viable population in the face of predation is effectively nil. Or are you proposing that carnivores whose digestive tracts won't handle vegetation ate plants? And even then what plants? There would have been no terrestrial plants left after a global flood of the magnitude of what is described in Genesis.

How did the humans establish a viable population from 4 mating pairs? Especially to the point where the estimated human population at the time of Abraham is 25-27 million. From 4 pairs to 25-27 million in that time span (350 years or so) would have required a birth rate of over 100%. A rate not even close to achievable today.

The only answer that works (as science does not support any viable solutions): MAGIC (divine intervention).

Why is it that some have no faith? Why are so many men looking for a sign? You require proof that God exist and you seek the proof not in God but in the creation. I will tell you you will not find Him there. The creation will reflect back at you what you seek. If you seek God then you will see the creation as a made thing and you will look past it to the power that made it. But if you see the creation as the end then that is what you get, a dead end.

If you don't believe the prophets then you will not believe, even one coming back from the dead.

The Bible states that Noah was perfect in his generations. Or unblemished may be a better term. It is interesting that scripture makes a point of this. How his genetic code unfolded into today's variety I do not know. I could suggest some ways but none would have the proof you seek. As for the time of the flood I use the Septuagint for a timeline. This places the flood at 3550 BC and Abraham at around 2100 BC. To get the 27 million you seek would require a doubling every 69 years or so. The current doubling is around 50 years so this is not a problem.

We live our lives on this earth where God is a mystery. He has declared this in scripture and it will not end until the Great Tribulation. At that point the mystery of God will end. Until then the power of God prevents a data trail leading to Him. He must be found in a personal way that leaves no trace. Why is that I don't know but I accept it as a matter of faith.

[_Mad Viking]

Why is it that some have no faith? Why are so many men looking for a sign?

Why is it that some will believe the most illogical and ridiculous stories?

[Guest]

As long as I duped, I'll try to make it useful.

Estimates show that it would have taken 20-30K people 20 or so years to build the great pyramid at Giza. The tower of Babel could have been no less of an undertaking, and would have been around 150 or so years after the flood.

How do you go from 8 to 20K in 150 years?

There are also between 1 to 100 million different species of beetle:

Wikipedia

Coleoptera ( /koʊliːˈɒptərə/) is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek κολεός, koleos, "sheath"; and πτερόν, pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms. About 40% of all described insect species are beetles (about 400,000 species), and new species are discovered frequently. Some estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at as high as 100 million, but 1 million is a more accepted figure. The largest taxonomic family, the Curculionidae (the weevils or snout beetles), also belongs to this order.

Taking the current known species of beetles, 400K, how do you fit 400K pairs of beetles into the ark, and their associated food requirements along with the 5000 pairs of the known frog species? Perhaps the better question is how do you round up pairs of the 400k species of beetles to get them onto the ark in the first place?

Was the ark some kind of extradimensional construct with more volume on the inside than on the outside?

[_SteelHead]

Let's try another one.

In order to flood the Earth to a depth of 30K feet or so (depth needed to cover Mt. Everest) you would need 4.5 billion cubic kilometers of water. Total combined volume for the worlds oceans 1.3 billion cubic kilometers.

Where did the extra water come from and where did it go?