re: Tim Tebow is such a good person

And I will add this. As a scientist and a christian, I have a strong belief that God reveals scientific discoveries as human kind is ready for them. Primitive cultures did not have the basic scientific understanding to comprehend DNA or astrophysics. These things were not revealed to us until we were ready.

Many, many moons ago, when I was in grad school the evolution class, as part of their curriculum, was required to stage a series of debates on the great topics of evolution. One of these, predictably, was creationism vs evolution. The debates where held weekly in-front of the entire biology department and all in attendance got to vote on the "winners" at the end of the debate. Now given the venue and audience you might be surprised when I tell you that creationism won every one of these debates while I was there.

Now I tell that story because one of the best arguments to bridge the gap between religion and science I've ever heard was made during one of those debates. Lets, for a moment, get away from the literal translation in Genesis and assume that the story of the universe and human evolution is not that in the Bible but the one that science has presented. Does that make it any less miraculous? No it doesn't.

It is a well documented scientific fact that we cannot see beyond a certain time in the universes creation and we do not know what existed before the creation of the universe. We also do not know the mechanism for creation of life itself. It is an interesting coincidence that all of these can be read in congruence with a universe created by god as described in Genesis. Maybe not a verbatim translation of the JK version, but hey, the whole text has been translated numerous times from various languages so we're splitting hairs there anyway.

And furthermore, for all sciences bluster, it sill cannot prove that god DOESN'T exist. They can prove what they can see and observe in the universe and world, but none of it DISPROVES the existence of God. People can choose to believe or not. God is ok with this. It's why he gave us free will. He loves all of us, and wants the best for us, but he wants us to come to him on our own.

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how do you account for the emotion of "love" going beyond rational and even into behavior that compromises an individuals fitness, in the terms of what Mr. Darwin taught us? I'm talking things like homosexual love or people risking their life to save a pet because they "love" it. If love is simply biochemical, shouldn't natural selection eliminate these types of behaviors from the population?

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I explain that by saying that we didn't evolve as individuals. We evolved in social groups.

So, an individual risking his life to save other members is good for the whole group. Even if that person dies, he's helping to save others in the group. Since these groups were small, family groups, they shared much of the same DNA. So, most likely, the individuals that are saved also carry the same traits that make them prone to this savior behavior. Therefore, as Mr. Darwin taught us, the traits that were most advantageous to survival (for the group, not the necessarily the individual) carried on.

All that said, there are many traits that are not necessarily always best. They may be best in some cases, but fail in others. For example, having the instinct to protect offspring from a jackal is almost certainly driven by the same trait/dna as having the desire to protect offspring from a pride of lions. So, while it may be terribly disadvantageous in some cases, if that individual comes across more hungry jackals than lions, overall, it's still a trait that benefits survival of the species.

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I explain that by saying that we didn't evolve as individuals. We evolved in social groups.

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Right, but natural selection works on individuals, not social groups.

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This is true. But that doesn't mean all Christians do this.

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Okay.

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I don't claim that science can disprove god. It also can't disprove invisible unicorns that pull every motor vehicle. But, if I make that unicorn claim, I'm going to have to come up with some tangible evidence.

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And I would repeat a previous post of mine. At one time people could not prove there were germs or atoms. That did not mean they did not exist. Somebody made a claim of atoms and germs, but had no tangible way of proving it, too. And, again, that did not mean they did not exist.

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Our best isn't good enough, from a Chrisitian perspective. And you can only be one "of his kids" if you accept his Son as your Lord and Savior.

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I'll informed and absolutist statements like this are why you can always count on a good many folks having issues with your "mythology".

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The very definition of being saved is accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. If you believe otherwise, then you identify as something other than Christian.

If you look up almost any definition from a dictionary it says that a Christian is one who adheres to the teachings of Jesus Christ. He spells out plainly what it takes to be a Christian in His teachings. This is not debatable. This is separate and apart from what a particular Denomination teaches.

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Let me list the things I hate about Tim Tebow:

1. He played for Florida
2. ????

That's pretty much it.

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And this is more about what this thread is about....not a debate on what is or is not Christianity.
For anybody to debate whether or not Tim Tebow is sincere is ridiculous. His actions speak for his character.

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And I would repeat a previous post of mine. At one time people could not prove there were germs or atoms. That did not mean they did not exist. Somebody made a claim of atoms and germs, but had no tangible way of proving it, too. And, again, that did not mean they did not exist.

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Sure, but if your only evidence is that we can't prove it DOESN'T exist, then there's not much criteria for truth is there? At that point we have to say well, you can't DISPROVE unicorns, bigfoot, ghosts, a teapot orbiting Saturn, gnomes, smurfs, the flying spaghetti monster, Zues, or a giant that lives on a beanstalk in the clouds.

The only difference in your evidence for "god" and the evidence for those things is that we've been conditioned to believe in god, and it's accepted by our society. The difference in atoms is that they fall in line with everything else we know about the universe. They make sense.

All of this said....we probably should get back to the point of this thread. It is not to debate religious ideas or beliefs, but simply discuss Tim Tebow and the things he does.

I didn't come here to preach, and I am sure you did not come here to be preached to. If you want, I can keep discussing how a person can become a Christian, but to debate whether or not God is real, or myth simply isn't interesting to me. He is, in my opinion very real, and there is nothing I will be able to say that will change your mind.....so what is the point?

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A true science believer would never discount the possibility that God exists until he had absolute proof that God does not exist. I am always amazed at the number of scientifically based people that throw scientific methods out to suit their own belief system.

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Let's just focus on this, since it seems to be the crux of your argument.

It is not true that every idea in the world has to be treated as possibly true, just because there's some 0.0000000001% chance that it could be, and we can't "prove" otherwise. That's a ridiculous belief.

I can say with enough certainty that Zeus doesn't exist to state it as fact. Otherwise, facts don't exist. I can do the same thing with any other god.