Martin Hutton wrote:

On 5-Aug-2005, "Jim Spaza" <spaza9@yahoo.com> wrote:

David Jensen wrote:

On 4 Aug 2005 12:37:24 -0700, in talk.origins
"Jim Spaza" <spaza9@yahoo.com> wrote in
<1123184244.600268.194550@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:

David Jensen wrote:

On 1 Aug 2005 10:02:41 -0700, in talk.origins
"Jim Spaza" <spaza9@yahoo.com> wrote in
<1122915761.202711.160480@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:

...

[snip stuff to which I'm not replying]

And there are, in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts, codes in the Old
Testament which show that Jesus is the Messiah. I don't expect you to
believe this in any way without seeing it for yourself. I didn't until
I started studying Hebrew and read the codes for myself.

I sincerely hope you're not talking about Drosnin's "Bible Codes", which
was a popularisation of the results of Witztum's, Rips's, and Rosenberg's
(WRR) paper (available here: http://www.torahcodes.co.il/wrr1/wrr1.htm )
Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis
by Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and Yoav Rosenberg
Statistical Science, Vol. 9 (1994) 429-438.

A complete refutation to this was published in the same journal and can
be seen at http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/StatSci/StatSci.pdf (Adobe
PDF Reader required).
Solving the Bible Code Puzzle
by Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel, and Gil Kalai
Statistical Science, Vol. 14 (1999) 150-173.

No. I don't know anything about that book.

I am reading Yeshua, The Name of Jesus Revealed in Code in the Old
Testament by Yacov Rambsel.

I didn't believe it myself at first. I thought at first that it was
some vast leap into mathematical calisthenics. Then I read it and
compared it to the Hebrew Old Testament that I have been studying. So
far, it has been accurate. I actually did the simple counting myself.
And there are descriptions of the Messiah which correspond to the book
of the Old Testament that the "code" is found in. If I didn't see it
for myself, I wouldn't have believed it.

Bet you didn't know that the same technique can be applied to "Moby *****"
and the prophecies of many deaths and assassinations can be found at:
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/moby.html

That would be very interesting.

You might want to explore the whole site for a pretty thorough and easy
reading bebunking of WRR and Drosnin. The URL is:
http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/Torah.html

[more snipping]

--
Martin Hutton
Don't leave your dad in the rain...Caravan

On 5 Aug 2005 07:18:21 -0700, in talk.origins
"Jim Spaza" <spaza9@yahoo.com> wrote in
<1123251501.045895.23800@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>:

David Jensen wrote:

...

There is no other model available that is consistent with the evidence.
Why reject the only model that is?

I do not agree with those who maintain that the macro-evolutionist
model is, in fact, the only one consistent with the evidence.

It doesn't matter if you agree. What matters is the evidence. You have
to demonstrate that your opinion is consistent with the evidence, since
the evidence that shows that your opinion is wrong won't go away just
because you don't like it.

...

They physical evidence shows that the Genesis accounts must be taken
figuratively, just as the cosmology of the Old Testament and fixed
foundation of the earth have to be taken figuratively.

The Genesis accounts are forthright in how they describe the creation
of life.

Sure, they are good tales. They have nothing to do with the actual
physical way in which the earth came to be or life as we know it came to
be on earth, but there are many useful things we can take away from
these allegories.

That the Old Testament establishes a certain cosmology and
"fixed foundation" of the earth is a belief contrived from a reading of
the Bible. The Old Testament does not anywhere come out and describe
the earth as flat nor gives astronomical descriptions of the sun and
moon. These are beliefs derived from, not quotes taken directly from,
the Bible.

I take it that you want to redefine 'firmament' to make it fit with your
modern understanding of cosmology, rather than admit that there is no
firmament.

...

Many folks who are not active in biology may think that there is a lack
of evidence when they are merely uninformed about the evidence in that
area. Realistically, there were a few questions at the time of Darwin,
but I'm not aware of any active questions today that discourage
scientists from accepting the modern theory of evolution. Do you have
some specific questions?

Yes.

1) Why does there have to be just one common ancestor? I have heard
that "evidence points in that direction", but no one has elaborated.

The mechanism of DNA is common to all life. It works the same
everywhere. There are common proteins that are developed by all life.
Just as important, there is no evidence that there was separate
beginnings of different kinds of life (and scientists try very much not
to add ideas or mechanisms to hypotheses when they aren't needed (this
approach is called parsimony).

2) How does anyone really know that DNA is infinitely evolvable?

"infinitely evolvable" is not meaningful here. Nothing is infinitely
evolvable nor does anyone claim it is. The fact is that all life uses
DNA.

That
is, how do you know that there aren't some chemical restrictions to
bacteria DNA evolving into human DNA?

Given that all life uses DNA, there are no identified or identifiable
problems with DNA as the basis for genes.

3) As an extension of question 2 above, if DNA can evolve in an
inrestricted fashion, given time and environmental conditions, then why
can't it regress back into bacteria DNA?

Natural selection would make it very difficult for a new, unspecialized
bacterium to fit into modern niches. Nothing stops mutations from going
in any direction, but some mutations will cause the organism to die or
be at a disadvantage in their niche.

4) If there are HUGE numbers of possible DNA combinations
(permutations), then why do we see so relatively little life on this
planet?

Millions of species isn't particularly little, but, again, natural
selection culls the number of species from the unnumbered possibilities
to the current number, over the millions of years, all species change,
so there are many more possibilities for nature to evaluate.

...

I can find a significant departure from scripture for every denomination
of any size that I am familiar with. The other problem is that each
denomination insists on interpreting the Bible as they see fit, not as
the other denominations interpret it.

I belong to the Southern Baptist denomination. Please give an example
of a departure from the Bible to which we adhere.

Adult baptism, substitution of grape juice for wine in communion. We can
discuss more if you like.

But, you're more right than wrong. The vast majority of denominations,
across all religions in fact, treat their religion as a salad bar. And
such denominations change their beliefs as time goes along, not because
they realize an error in their belief and seek to change, but for
political, cultural, and personal reasons.

But that's where religion came from, isn't it?

That might be true...if there really isn't a Supreme Being behind at
least one of the religions.

Given the wide variations within all of the religions of the world and
the battles over doctrine, there's no apparent evidence that one of them
is the one that pleases God.

...

Of course many of the stories, the most fundamental ones to Judaism and
Christianity in some cases are allegories. The stories do not square
with reality. That doesn't mean that we cannot learn from the stories of
the Flood, Creation, Jericho, or the Exodus, it just means that we would
be wrong to assert that these were historical events.

I'll kindly disagree with you.

Again, your disagreement doesn't change the facts. Each of my examples
are known, through the evidence, not to have happened as described.

...

But we aren't analyzing our existence. We are analyzing a testable
hypothesis about a book that is said to be holy. The hypothesis fails
when tested properly. That doesn't preclude faith, it merely says that
you must rely on the Bible by faith alone, because nothing else supports
the claims about the Bible and its relationship to history or God.

Well, the Bible never says that people are to believe in it or God on
blind faith alone. It says that nature has shown us that there is a
God. Also, we can test the prophecies in the Bible to see if they came
true. We can test the promises in the Bible for ourselves to see if
they won't come true for us tomorrow. Plus, I believe that the natural
accounts can be verified or, at least, shown not to have evidence
against them.

The prophecies, to the extent that some people believe they came true,
were reinterpreted to fit the evidence. An example: Jesus was never
called Immanuel.

The natural history claims of the Bible are horribly inaccurate. Hardly
any of Genesis withstands physical or historical evidence.

And there are, in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts, codes in the Old
Testament which show that Jesus is the Messiah. I don't expect you to
believe this in any way without seeing it for yourself. I didn't until
I started studying Hebrew and read the codes for myself.

Give me a long enough text and I will discover _any_ code you want me to
in it. I'm sure that I could discover a code that says that George Bush
is the Antichrist or one that says he is the second coming. Both are
utter nonsense, but so are the Bible codes.

In any event, it is my belief that this is exactly the way God wants
it. Each person has to make his/her own decision about the accuracy of
the Bible and whether or not God exists. And if God exists, what that
person's response will be in this life. I am risking what I believe is
my immortal soul on the fact that the Bible is more accurate than not.
Everyone else is doing the same at this very instant, regardless of
their intention to do so. Physical death will be the 100% concrete
evidence as to the accuracy of the Bible. Unfortunately, at that
point, if the Bible is even somewhat accurate, it will be too late to
be made right with God. And everyone not made right with God before
they die is absolutely screwed.

Depends on how you take Jesus's teachings. He seemed to be teaching that
all would be saved unless they reject redemption.

Yes. That is another way of saying that everyone who is conscious of
right and wrong will have a choice to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior
in order to be redeemed and saved. Keep in mind that it takes a
conscious decision. Going to Heaven is not the default path for human
beings.

That is the doctrine of some Christians, but not of all of them.