I guess I can make the case even fairly well and nobody will take it seriously.

Dawkins makes much of his believing in something only because it is true and not for any other reason that others sometimes claim for their beliefs, such as that it's comforting and that sort of thing.  Well, I believed in Christianity because I believe it is true, that's how I came to it, So I can say I share tht with him.  I don't think I gave much if any thought to the promise of eternal life ujtiol I was well into my belief and had to deal with the question of salvation which had also escaped me ot that point.  I was enamored of the reality of God, smitten you could say with Goedd, in love with God whom I had come to know is real, really real.  I couldn't love a hypothesis or a myth, I had to know He is real and then I was reduced to a kind of swooning if you will at the very thought of this omnipresent omnipotent omniscient Being.  Who said what I thought were , are, very lovable things in the Old Testament.  Yes tht book that Dawkins hates so much.

So I'm sure Dawkins genuinely believes that evolution is true and has been proved by evidence just as he is convinced that the God of the Bible, or anyh god at all for that matter, is not true, not real but a figent of human imagination.  I'm sure he believes it all.

But I can't find this evidence he thinks exists for evolution.  I really can't.  It seems to me to be nothing but a plausible hypothesis, an idea, a way of imagining how it could work if it were true, but that it has absolutely no real evidence for it.  None.  He claims it over and over but hasn't succeeded in showing it to me.

Seems to me all the variation in living things is attribuable to what is sometimes called microevolution, the built in variability of each genome.  The human geneome contains potential variations in skin colr, hair type and color, eye color, size, height, type of musculature and things like tht so that we all differ from each other and whole populations differnt enormously from other populations.  But that is microevolution, variabiles built into the genome.  The Theory of Evolution would have human beings change into something that is not human over bazillions of yers and there is abolutly no evidence for that, not even little hints of the possibility in present time.  Microevolution can make races and breeds but it hhas an end point beyond which no further change is possible when all the variables in tht given line of "evlution" are played out and the final population is characterized by a great number of fixed or homozygous genes.  If it can't change further then that is the end point of evolution, period.  There are plenty of other lines of evolutiont ht could still be pursued in any given large poulation, but each of those will eventually meet the same end point.  if it's "evolving" then it will reach that point eventually.  Of course much of a population may not be changing much t all.  The vast herd of wildebeests can probably stay genetically the same for thousands of years.  It has to do with the great numbers and the constant intermixing among them.  Once yhou have a small group isolated from the main herd it will begin got develop new characteristics over somje number of bgenerations and will eventually produce its own very different look to set it apart from the original population.  And a very small number, which is where we see the biggest amonunt of phenotypic change, would rapidly reach the point beyond which no further change is possible.  Which is the point that has been reached by the cheetah and the elephant seal and no doubt other endangered species.   Selection does not fuel evolution in the Darwininan sense.  it fuels, or some kind of sleection which is rally tjust the isolation of a portion of a larger population, fuels microevolution and the devleopment of new populationj characteristics, but microevolution reaches the end point beyond which no further change is possible, at least the treand is always in that direction even if that actual pointis not reached.

The evidence is against Dawkins.  What evidence is anuway.

And then there is the fossil record.  Al the fossil record is is an imagined sequence, period.  Imagined.  You can't prove that one fossil is the descendant of a previousait is merely assumed, imagined.  but they call it a fact anyway.  It seems reasonable to them, plausible, and that's all it tkae sto make it a fact.

So once again I simply poinmt out tht those strata they are found in are flat slabs of sedimentary rock that culdn't possibly ever have been the surface of the earth in some time period.  The Jurassic or Devonian or whatnot could not have been characterized by thousands of square miles of sedimentary rock.  

Oh well.

The God Delusion on the argument from scripture

 I don't think I got it quite said what I wanted to say about the evolution examples in the previous post, but I'm going to leave it for now anyway and say a few words about Dawkins' God Delusion, specifically where he addresses the Argument from Scripture.

He proceeds to rip scripture apart based on some modern critics he apparently chooses to believe over the traditional histories of the Bible.  gfosh I wonder why h woudl do that.  So he has the gospels written long after Jesus' death and even after Paul's epistles, just because those crticis got themselves convinced of that.  And that's the only reason even if Dawkins himself doesn't say wso.  Two thousand years of scholarship isn't enough any more, we have to shred it with a few decades' worth of modern criticism.  

of course he claims that Jesus didn't claim to be God, a least not in any convincing way.  I have no idea what would convince himb tu I suspect there may not be anything tht would.  I know some have been able to identify hundreds of places where He puts HImself in the position of God but I'm not good at that, I can only mention a few that come to mind.  When He claims to forgive hins, just as Pharisees' said, He is claiming to be God.  Where He says "Before Abraham was, I AM" He is claiming to be God not onlyu by saying He pre-existed Abaham, but by using the nName for God, I AM.  Then in John Seventeen in what is known as His priestly prayer, He asks God to "Glorify Me with the glory I had with You before the beginning of the world"  I'm not sure about the last few words but that I believe is the gist of it.  To be glorified that way is definitely to claim to be God.  And there is also external testimony to His identity as God, as when Thomas, famously known as "doubting" Thomas, calls Him "My Lord and My God."    And of course there is the virgin birth, which means His actual Father is God the Father while He is human through Mary His mother.

But of course he takes on that favorite of the debunkers the way the word "Almah" is translated in the Old Testmeament.  They, and therefore he, claims it doesn't mean "virgin" although that is of course how the New testament writers understood it.  No, it just means "young woman."    Yeah a young woman who has a child, apparently without benefit of a husband but oh well.  Anyway, the answer to this one is that when the Jews a coupole hundred years before Christ translated their Hebrew scriptures into Greek, the word they chose to translate "almah" into Greek was the Greek word for "virgin."  

Then there is the claim that the text was corrupted by having been copied so many times by scribes, corrupted to the degree that it isn't really trustworthy at all to hear them go on about it.  But this is sheer ignorance of the science invovled in studying old manuscriptures which is assiduously applied to the Bible to some five thousand fragments of the Bible in all languages that go back to the tenth century.  TGhey are bable to identify and correct errors in the copying and trance them through lines of manuscriptures copied from one sourcew and the number for such errors is really quite minimal and for the most part trivial and does not affect the meaning, but in any case because they are on top of these errors they are in a position to recognxtrct the manuscirpture quite well so that the text we possess now is thoroughly reliable.

Oh he hates the God of the Old Testament.  So what else is new.  People who react that way have no idea what theyu are talking about.  They don't bother to ask why God did what He did and how millions of us regard His acts as justice and not benocide or whatever horror they want to imjpose on them.  They haven't read closely enough to understand why a particular drastic execution of a tribe was the only just thing to do.  And it's there to warn us that God's justice is severe.  But the debunkers aren't going to olearn anything.

There is that one about how drastically the ma n who picked up tickes on the Sabbath was punished since they can't think of picking up ticks as anuything but trivial, having no interest in asking why on earth God thought it was and the Israelites accepted it as a just punishement.  Well, the peopl ehad been taught quite carefully about the meaning of the Sabbath and how no work was to be done on that day.  it was a soluemn charge to them to be rigorouslyh enforced, and it has not only meaning for the present but a prophetic significance looking ahead to the coming of the Messiah.  It is a profundly important observance they are to obey absolutely strictly.  Picking up sticks is what they would do when they arewere about to start a fire to cook food, that is the issinificance of picking up sticks.  It is work in itself but it is a preliminary to a kind of work they were forbidden to do on the Sabbath, cooking.  Did the man no t know?  How dould he not have sknown?  But then what possessed hims to defy God?  I'm not sure that question is answered, but his act was certainly deserving of death for treating so casually such a high priority command, whichn would have had the effect of undermining God's authoirty and the importance of the observnace throughout the whole populationm if it had not been pusnished by death.\\

And the crazy idea that the gospels in the canon were "arbitrarily" chosen from a whole collection of gospsls.  No they wrern't.  The many writings about Jesus were circulated among all the churches that were growing up all over the Roman world during the warly centuries, copied and passed around, iand it ws those that the churches thesmeves, the people, the bishops but also just the people who were born again and had th Holy Spirit for guidance, recognized to be inspired, tosing out those that were clearly fraudulent such as the "Gnostic" gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene and the rest of them.  The four chosen were deemed by the true Church to be inspired, rightly so.  Take it or leave it Dawkins.  You don't have the HOly Spirit and you have no kidea. You can only act from your fallen huma n nature in judging these things, as can those whose authirity you preer over the ones Christians know to be the true ones.  

That's how the whole canon was finally determined.  There were dsome disputes but in the end the majority opinion of the churches as a whole body was determinate.

actually thinks the gospels are fictin.  What a dullwitted man he must be to come to such a conclusion.  Matthew and Luke have different stories about Jesus' birth he says.  No they do't.  Oh how dtiresom.  \\\And then the claim that the stories wer eborrowed from toerh religions.  Only if you turn yourself into a pretzel to make it so.  The gosplesz are built ioon the Old Testament.  if outher religions copied some of it that's because Satan was busily in the world doing his best to create just this wsort of confusion in themind so fthose inclined to prefer such debunkery over the trutyh.  There is no real virgin birth anywhere else for instance.  go read the original accounts.  

So I just went back and heard him mocking the translation of Almah int o the Greek Parthenos.  Oh dear.  I take that as proof that the word really is properly translated as virgin but oh no, apparently you can make it mean something else completely.  Oh just a mistake, a mistranslation.  Hardly.  The Greek translation was done by Jewish scholars in their own scriptures, not mean who would make a silly mistake.  they would know the Greek word for virgin and they would know the Hebrew word for virgin ande they obviously got it right.  And there's nothing ridiculous about it.  jeswus identiy as God is defined by the virtin birth and the whole story revolves around this fact.  Of course Dawkins is free to believe the lie if he wants to but unfortunately he's influencing others and that makes him culpable of some pretty horrific crimes against humanity in my opinion.  

There is nothing arbitary or whimsical about the virgin birth, it isn't just a piece fo lore emeant to dazzle and add a glitter to the stgory.

I keep forgetting to emphasize that "almah" means "young unmarried woman"   UNMARRIED woman, and the context of that certainly implies a virgin or as amother she'd be guilty of adultery and not have found a place in the cscripture at all.And remember that the Jews who reject Jesus as messiah have reason to defame Mary, as hey did in her time too, as an adulteress, so they are going to try to convince you that "almah" means young woman and doesn't mean virgin.

Later:  More stuff.  dawkins has the effeontery to correct C S Lweis' famous statement that anyone who said the outlandish things about Himsrlf that Jesus said could only be a liar, a lunatic or Lord.  Dawkins thinks he should have known better, that of course He could have been mrerely mistaken.  Groan.  But that was Lewis' whole point, Professor Dawkins, his WHOLE POINT, Mr. Dawkins, tht He could NOT have been merely mistaken about callibng Himself God, Dr. Dakins, that was his WHOLE point, Mr. Dawkins, that He could NOIT be mistaken, He HAD tro be at least a lunatic, Mr. Dawkins.  Yikes.