Creation

Sorry it took me so long to get to this. As with Con, I will go more in depth later. Counter points first. DNA It is the fact that life is so complex that leads many to believe there must be a creator- the fact that something such as DNA could occur and work by happenstance would be amazing- however, there are reasons that it would not work well on their own. If there is no creator- and life evolved on its own- there are milestones that evolution would have to overcome to get to the point of today. These include sexual reproduction and multicellular-ism. I will describe later why these things are so unlikely that, when considering anything else, many scientists would consider the odds negligible. I have merely done this. My stance is that the odds of evolution overcoming these milestones on its own are negligible, and therefore the stance is worthy of a level of disregard. As for the coding of the DNA itself, it is certainly something that could be feasible for a being to design, especially if given the time... God is certainly a being above man's level of intelligence, and as I describe later, he certainly had more than ample time to consider the design of such a thing. The Age of the Earth I would like to diffuse the use of the term "hardcore Christians." This suggests that someone who does not believe in the Young Earth model is not pious. The fact is that the people who believe in this are very literal- they take the bible for its exact word by word meaning and do not consider anything outside the bible. There are reasons why this is not the correct way to go about it: A) The Bible uses many metaphors and parables, things that are not meant to be literal. Therefore, considering everything to be literal is an inherent fallacy- the "six days" could refer to six eras. This is supported by the fact that the Bible often says that ages of men are like mere days to God (again, something I will expand on later). B)We do not know how long humans dwelt in the Garden of Eden before being kicked out, therefore we cannot know how long it was before the Bible's human timeline started. Finally in response to this, while I do believe the Earth is quite old, some sources claim that radioactive dating is inaccurate to a point- the Earth is most likely billions of years old, but right now we can't be sure just how old. (Although, this is unimportant, since, again, the Bible does not provide a definite answer as to how old the Earth is). Explain God You'll have to discuss this evidence before I can refute it, however God does not necessarily need a creator. You see, Time exists in our universe. Because of this, most speculate that, as anything else governed by time, it most likely has a beginning. This is why there are conflicting arguments for how the universe started (for example, God, or an independent Big Bang). However, if God truly created the universe, he most likely existed before it. Time is a property of the universe. If something existed before the universe, it isn't necessarily governed by Time. Ergo, it may not have a beginning. Hence, we refer to God as an eternal being. He simply exists. This can be a hard concept to grasp, but it makes sense with due consideration and some abstract thinking. Now, my basic points support the Bible's validity. Again, greater detail to come. Israel Israel is a ridiculously resilient nation. Historically, it has gone through so much- being brought so low- only to rise to become one of the most successful Middle Eastern nations. Prophecies Defying rational thought, these prophecies (something few belief systems dare to write down) have shown shocking accuracy. I have done the math personally, finding out that for only a small portion of the prophecies that have come true, the odds are less than that of flipping "heads up" on a quarter 32 times in a row without a single tails and assuming a perfect 50/50 chance. If you would like, I can link you to a page where I will put this math in-depth. Sources: Holy Bible, King James Version AP Edition Biology, Seventh Edition http://www.therefinersfire.org... (I didn't actually use this one, it just explains something I already knew) http://www.hawking.org.uk... The Daniel Project