Because Evolution involves things like dinosaurs living millions of years before men, men evolving from apes and the earth being billions of years old. Creationism seeks to "prove" these things wrong with pseudo-science. Creationism ≠ Christianity. Evolution and Christianity can go hand in hand. Evolution and Creationism cannot.
IF God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful,
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
I have alluded to this possibility. Science certainly cannot rule this out.
Creationism harms Science by hijacking the Scientific Method and spreading mis-information, it capitalises on the general population's lack of scientific literacy and threatens to discredit science as a whole.
I'm not sure why some think creationism doesn't like, or seeks to disprove, or goes against science. That doesn't make any sense. God created everything, and science is the study of what He created. There is obviously so much that we don't know, but we don't justify those things with God, at least I don't. That has been done before, obviously. The greek gods served that purpose (at least to my knowledge, I don't know a ton about them though). The God of the Bible, as far as I know, has never been used to justify an occurence that we now know to be explained by science. Even if we can explain something by science, that doesn't mean God doesn't have a hand in it or that God didn't create it. Just because we can explain why a rainbow shows the color spectrum, that doesn't mean God can't be real. Just because we know why the sunrise shows such beautiful colors doesn't mean God can't exist. God created all of it, and we're not using Him to justify things that we can't explain. The place where creationism collides with science is with evolution (restating the obvious).
No one has explained to me why we haven't seen actual macro-evolution that we so strongly believe in and why we don't have the vast number of transitional fossils we should have that Darwin said we needed if macro-evolution is to be true. No one has explained to me how life can come from non-life and how order can come from disorder.
Information always comes from a mind. There is always a mind behind information. Information is portrayed in many ways and translated many ways, but whenever there is information, there has to be a mind behind it. DNA is information, and there has to be a mind behind it. How would it just form from junk into an organized state where it gives information? There must be a mind behind it.
So isn't it odd that we only use God to explain that which we don't yet understand?
How many fossils do we have? over 15 billion years, how many life forms have existed? And you're surprised that in this miniscule proportion of snapshots from history, that we don't have a complete movie?
Order can come from disorder in a locality within a system when the creation of that order lowers the overall order of the system as a whole. And don't try making any entropy related arguments, cause if you don't understand it, then you don't understand it. The fact that you don't understand it doesn't mean that those who do are insane, it means that you have insufficient information.
Information from minds: Assumption, assumption, assumption, assumption, assumption.
DNA is NOT information, it is a really really really long freeking molecule. WE as HUMANS PERCIEVE information in it. There does not have to be a mind behind it.
Your macro-evolution examples aren't that at all. It's a bunch of mixed breeding and natural selection. One type of animal isn't turning into a different type of animal. Genes are swapping, not changing. They're mixing around the gene pool and getting different results. The actual DNA isn't changing.
If A is an ape and J is a human, your argument started with the precept that we have all the links in between except one. We don't have any. All of the "links" we've found are turning out to be either stictly apes or strictly humans. The ape to human evolution isn't the only missing link. There are tons more that are supposed to be there.
You saying "it just happened" kinda goes against Pasteur's law: Life does not come from non-life. You're still going against that. I'm not sure where the evidence for life coming from non-life is.
The chances of both of those numbers coming up are the same, that says nothing. You're forgetting the fact that 1 2 3 4 5 6 actually means something and 3 8 35 17 22 39 does not. If life evolved from disorder to order, it had to go to one sequence. If it had been any other sequence that would have meant nothing.
You say it is non-sense, but don't explain why. Someone else said it is based on an assumption. Of course it is. Every statement has prior assumptions. Prove my assumption wrong. What's important is whether or not those assumptions are true. Give me an instance where information is given and there is no mind behind it. DNA is in fact information, how can you say it isn't? We don't perceive it as information, the cell does. It's offen refered to the instruction manual for all life. Every instruction manual I've read has had information in it.
If something has credibility if it aligns with past, present, and future observations, then doesn't the Bible have such credibility? There are plenty of recordings of a great flood throughout the earth. There are numerous prophecies about a messiah, which Jesus fulfilled. As far as I've heard, no one doubts the existence of Jesus. There is much more evidence that aligns as well. By your logic, the Bible is credible.
I don't remember saying lack of proof consititues proof of lack. My point there was to bring to attention that everyone's view is just as sesceptible to criticizm.
Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929) is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to apply to questions of genetic variation and evolution. In a pair of 1966 papers co-authored with J.L. Hubby in the journal Genetics, Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin wikipedia isn't a perfect source but I think that information is enough.
I apologize for not providing his credibility earlier.
Now that everyone knows that about Lewontin, here's what he said:
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs...It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Since this debate seems to be one against many, I usually respond with one post to the many written towards me. I'm sorry if I wrongly accused you of something you didn't say. They are generalizations and I really can't keep track of who said what.
Your macro-evolution examples aren't that at all. It's a bunch of mixed breeding and natural selection. One type of animal isn't turning into a different type of animal. Genes are swapping, not changing. They're mixing around the gene pool and getting different results. The actual DNA isn't changing.
You obviously missed the bit where I said that macro-evolution is not a process in and of itself. Macro-evolution is speciation, and it has been observed several times. It is "one type of animal" "turning" into a "different type of animal", as the two cannot inter-breed - the organisation of their DNA is different.
How do you quantify the odds of something like that if someone proposes magical or mystical explanations? What if someone insists that this is a matter of faith, and tries to foist the burden of proof on the xylophone disbelievers? Suppose the believers are people who, if you actually went through the trouble to pulverize and sift through the entire mass of the planet Mars, would simply shrug and say you must have somehow missed the xylophone, or accidentally destroyed it, or couldn't see it because it's only visible to those who have faith, or suppose these are people who would simply backpedal and start talking about the metaphorical, spiritual, and, oh yeah, "sorry we didn't mention this before", non-physical nature of the mystic xylophone.
While my xylophone example is contrived, there are real world beliefs just as absurd, held by people who aren't generally considered mentally deficient or insane, people who expect, and often receive, "respect for their beliefs" simply because they describe their absurd notions as being religious or spiritual, which somehow is supposed to be a free pass against skepticism or criticism.
I hate to bring up Descartes again--oh wait, no I don't--but any belief can be true, theoretically. We have to make DOGMATIC assumptions to ignore these people.
Just because a belief is unpopular does not mean it's not true. For instance, I have some "out there" political views that were which were generally accepted 70 years ago (no, they're not sexist or racist). VERY FEW people believe in what I believe, that hardly makes it untrue, even though, like all politcal beliefs, they have a logical backing. However, politics is just an idea, not a bunch of facts, we're talking about absolutism here in reference to God.
With something like the existence of God, believing one exists or not is ALWAYS based on dogma. One reason most Atheists act so pissed off all the time (ex: MarkUK calling Jesus a c*nt) is that there really is no way to prove they're right. One could argue that politically, organized religions are bad and whatnot, but that hardly means God doesn't exist (which is a leap of faith taken by most atheists).
In spite of the fact that most atheists are reactionaries against christianity, that does NOT delegitimize their idea.
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Originally Posted by shetline
The only line such a person may have crossed is that they've chosen to believe in something absurd that doesn't come with a social support structure of others who believe the same thing.
See, this statement here could be used by an atheist OR a theist
I have a lot of atheist friends (in fact, all of my friends). If I believed in God, I'd get picked on all the time, they'd lose respect for me, yadda yadda yadda.. All because I have a dogma that doesn't match up with theirs.
Of course, I'm agnostic so I end up picking on them.
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Originally Posted by shetline
See above... where belief is strong enough, and magical think is accepted, counter-evidence becomes impossible no matter what you say or do.
Is there some sort of counter-evidence to God existing? The only rebuttles I've ever heard from atheists are rebuttles against the BIBLE, not the concept. But, then again, most atheists are really only interested in berating christians.
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Originally Posted by shetline
There's a big, big difference between a practical day-to-day reliance on assumptions, and dogma. I was all set to start explaining that difference, but come on... do I really have to?
I was trying to be nice to all the dogmatists out there, but fine.
There's still nothing wrong with having dogmatic beliefs. It's impossible to know everything, like I said.
One advantage of the human mind is that it can have two or more conflicting beliefs in play at one time. This sounds like a disadvantage, however it allows us to act based on information we're given, and not wait for everything to make sense (which may never happen).
For instance, a christian may be more apt to take chances like ask his boss for a raise or trust others, thinking that their piety will ensure success. However, they wont go skydiving because even though they'd go to heaven if something went wrong, there's still that primal fear of death.
To use a more scientific example: Newtonian Physics + Quantum Mechanics = impossible. Most physicists still think they're both true, and have been searching endlessly for the missing piece that's supposed to tie them together.
Toggling between beliefs is a HUGE advantage when you can't know everything. We'd be pretty lost without it. Believing something in the absense facts has its advantages, sometimes. More often than not, it serves a practical purpose rather than a philosophical one.
No one has explained to me how life can come from non-life and how order can come from disorder.
Have you heard of this thing called the Sun? That big, bright thing up in the sky? That's the answer to your question, or at least a big part of it, if you understood even the most basic basics of thermodynamics.
The typical fundy half-truth rendition of thermodynamics is a foot-stomping certainty that order can't possibly arise from disorder, often delivered with a smug, "Don't these scientists even pay attention to their own so-called laws!? Ha!" attitude.
Two things are wrong with that oversimplified version of thermodynamics:
(1) Thermodynamics is fundamentally a statistical science. What it really says it that it is improbable, not impossible, for a closed system to gain order (or decrease in entropy). Of course, the greater the deviation from the expected increase in entropy, the lower the odds are of such a deviation occuring. In most cases those odds are so low they can be quite safely ignored. In a very small system involving just a few atoms, those odds might not always be so remote.
This is just a minor quibble compared to the next point, however.
2) Notice the phrase "closed system" I just used? Thermodynamics tells us that order always decreases (entropy always increases)... in a closed system. If you leave off "in a closed system", or don't understand what that means, you can't come to any useful conclusions using thermodynamics at all.
The Earth is NOT a closed system. That big, bright thing in the sky is constantly deliverying the Earth a steady stream of energy. That energy (along with other sources of energy, like the heat from the formation of the Earth) can be used, and waste heat eventually radiated back into space.
That's the key to order from disorder. Under such conditions, order from disorder is easy to achieve, and perfectly in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever order is produced this way, it is a local effect achieved at the expense of greater disorder exported elsewhere. A planet bathed in the warmth of a nearby star, surrounded by the cold of space, is a perfect place for an island of locally increasing order to develop.
It's been said that these debates are pointless because nobody ever changes their minds. True enough most of the time. I'm damned curious, however, if I can even acheive the minor accomplishment of getting someone like Homey to at least abandon one of the most blatantly erroneous arguments he uses.
What I expect, however, is that he'll just ignore that this point of his about order from disorder has been totally trashed, and while he may not bring it up here again soon, he'll still keep repeating it elsewhere, spreading the damaged meme no matter what.
I don't believe Descartes took a stand on the issue of Martian xylophones, or on how to categorize belief or disbelief in said mysteriously situated musical instruments.
You're blurring concepts in a long line of references to previous posts, and not accounting for the "" which denotes "I'm being a smartass now".
That said, while Descartes was clearly a brilliant man, not every single one of his ideas was great, and his so-called "proofs" of God are Philosophy 101 fodder for finding the obvious flaws in his arguments.
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Just because a belief is unpopular does not mean it's not true.
That whooshing sound you just heard was the point I'd been trying to make flying right over your head. Please go back and re-read what I wrote until any connection you think I might have been making between popularity and and the likelyhood of something being true is dispelled.
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With something like the existence of God, believing one exists or not is ALWAYS based on dogma. One reason most Atheists act so pissed off all the time (ex: MarkUK calling Jesus a c*nt) is that there really is no way to prove they're right. One could argue that politically, organized religions are bad and whatnot, but that hardly means God doesn't exist (which is a leap of faith taken by most atheists).
I get the impression that no matter what I personally say, you're going to carry on having some other ongoing general argument and not address the specific things I'm saying, instead choosing to blur my words into some general atheist muddle you've constructed as a convenient straw man.
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Is there some sort of counter-evidence to God existing?
Repeat after me: null hypothesis. Null f*cking hypothesis!
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The only rebuttles I've ever heard from atheists are rebuttles against the BIBLE, not the concept. But, then again, most atheists are really only interested in berating christians.
Back to your straw man, and not addressing me.
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I was trying to be nice to all the dogmatists out there, but fine.
There's still nothing wrong with having dogmatic beliefs. It's impossible to know everything, like I said.
Yes, like you said. You've repeated the same incorrect linkage between the dogma and a lack of complete knowledge again. I guess I do have to explain this. <sigh!>
The impossibility of "knowing everything", and acceptance dogma, have NOTHING to do with each other. Dogma is NOT merely a matter of getting by using the best guesswork one can muster.
Dogma is an emphatic assertion of knowledge, quite often in the realm of things we really can't know one way or the other. Dogma typically adds a moral dimension to belief or disbelief in those things which are asserted dogmatically. Dogma typically creates belief constructs which are far, far more elaborate than anything one would need to construct merely to get by in the world using limited knowledge.
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To use a more scientific example: Newtonian Physics + Quantum Mechanics = impossible. Most physicists still think they're both true, and have been searching endlessly for the missing piece that's supposed to tie them together.
That might be a "more scientific example" if it weren't totally wrong.
First of all, although still quite useful for day-to-day uses, Newtonian physics has been displaced by General Relativity as a far more accurate model of the universe. Newtonian physics is just plain wrong where velocities approaching the speed of light are concerned, as well as in situations where strong gravitational fields must be accounted for. (Oddly enough, however, it's easier to deal with QM in Newtonian terms than relativistic terms.)
GR and QM aren't in conflict, as if you get to the end of a series of equations and one theory concludes the other "impossible!" The two theories just don't mesh as well as we'd like, each covers different aspects of physics, and each has to be applied piecemeal to problems which cross both domains. It's messy, it's ugly, and yes, it's a problem physicists would love to solve, but it is NOT an example of anyone accepting two mutually exclusive ideas as true at the same time.
The Earth is NOT a closed system. That big, bright thing in the sky is constantly deliverying the Earth a steady stream of energy. That energy (along with other sources of energy, like the heat from the formation of the Earth) can be used, and waste heat eventually radiated back into space.
That's the key to order from disorder. Under such conditions, order from disorder is easy to achieve, and perfectly in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever order is produced this way, it is a local effect achieved at the expense of greater disorder exported elsewhere. A planet bathed in the warmth of a nearby star, surrounded by the cold of space, is a perfect place for an island of locally increasing order to develop.
Order from disorder is easy to observe in the real world, also. Just go sit on a rock in the middle of a river - the randomly flowing water molecules swirl into ordered patterns based on the environment they encounter - and those patterns eventually change the environment as well (a swirling pattern of water will start to cut into the rock). If a water molecule hits a rock just right, it will randomly branch left or right - but enough go each way that a pattern emerges based on probability.
Also, I think that the heat from the center of the earth is not just left over from the earth's formation, but is also due in part to a fission reaction (because alot of heavy metals like Uranium sank to the center of the earths core).
My question was how does life come from non-life and how does order come magically into order, and even stay there? I wasn't arguing about thermodynamics or closed systems, although that is generally where that argument goes. All religion asside, I just can't believe that life would magically form out of nothing, and random things form into not random things unless there is something making it. You don't dump a bunch of brick and concrete down and a building is formed. Things have to be specifically placed, and designed, so that the building is stands. The only explanation I can think of that would account for order is if there is a mind behind it. We're honestly saying that a bunch of materials were there and they somehow got together over billions of years eventually to the point where they formed something and then something happened and it became life and the evolutionary process began. Why is that not weird to anyone? There is no reason why the random "stuff" would form into not random "stuff". You don't throw random paint together and form Da Vinci's greatest. Even as humans the best things we form are done by great MINDS. We still think there is no mind behind life. Again, regardless of religion, I just can't buy into that. For me, there has to be a mind behind it.
Why is that not weird to anyone? There is no reason why the random "stuff" would form into not random "stuff".
In a world without life, plenty of random substances form. All kinds of various molecules form and are later ripped apart - all you need to do is have one of those random molecules be a self-replicating molecule, and it will take over, eventually changing and becoming more complicated over time.
I don't see why that is weird to you. Weird to me is the thought that a God had a hand in things - do you realize how complicated a God would have to be? Much more complicated that you or I.
Why are you willing to believe that a complex and powerful god sprang out of Chaos to create us (or always existed) and you are not willing to believe in the random formation of a self-replicating molecule? Seems like your sense of scale is WAY off.
My question was how does life come from non-life and how does order come magically into order, and even stay there? I wasn't arguing about thermodynamics or closed systems, although that is generally where that argument goes. All religion asside, I just can't believe that life would magically form out of nothing, and random things form into not random things unless there is something making it. You don't dump a bunch of brick and concrete down and a building is formed. Things have to be specifically placed, and designed, so that the building is stands. The only explanation I can think of that would account for order is if there is a mind behind it. We're honestly saying that a bunch of materials were there and they somehow got together over billions of years eventually to the point where they formed something and then something happened and it became life and the evolutionary process began. Why is that not weird to anyone? There is no reason why the random "stuff" would form into not random "stuff". You don't throw random paint together and form Da Vinci's greatest. Even as humans the best things we form are done by great MINDS. We still think there is no mind behind life. Again, regardless of religion, I just can't buy into that. For me, there has to be a mind behind it.
You're not really asking the question - just playing stupid, but i'll tell you where you need to look anyway.
Read up on Chaos theory. There are plenty of books on amazon, and plenty of articles on the net. Chaos is the fundamental backbone of everything in the universe, and being a new disclipline, science pretty much underestimates its importance - but there are those who fundamentally understand it - and more importantly "what it means".
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
You're not really asking the question - just playing stupid, but i'll tell you where you need to look anyway.
Read up on Chaos theory. There are plenty of books on amazon, and plenty of articles on the net. Chaos is the fundamental backbone of everything in the universe, and being a new disclipline, science pretty much underestimates its importance - but there are those who fundamentally understand it - and more importantly "what it means".
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
I just read the wikipedia article on Chaos theory, and (1) it does not state that quantum fluctuations are non-random, and (2) I don't see what it has to do with the thread subject. Based on this and other posts, you seem to think you know more about Physics than you actually know.
I just read the wikipedia article on Chaos theory, and (1) it does not state that quantum fluctuations are non-random, and (2) I don't see what it has to do with the thread subject. Based on this and other posts, you seem to think you know more about Physics than you actually know.
I didn't say quantum fluctuations aren't non-random - I said Chaos has the potential to show that fluctuations are'nt random.
And its relavent because Chaos already shows that alot of things aren't at all random, when they infact appear to be to a casual observation.
And reading a wiki makes you an expert not. Bear that in mind before you start claiming ignorance on my part.
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
but why would he do this? why would he want/need/desire to be deceptive?
There is absolutely no reason why God would create a universe 3000 years ago and make it appear to be 15 billion years old. Why 15? Why not make it appear infinitely old? Why not create it last week and give us all fake memories of our lives?
If God represents anything but the truth, then God is not God. Creating something with a fake history is not in Gods realm.
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
Chaos theory absolutely does not do that. Chaos theory is about the study of systems that seem to be random, but actually are not. A chaotic system is deterministic (i.e., you can predict exactly what will happen in the future if you know the current state of the system perfectly), but is so sensitive to the initial conditions and/or has so many independent variables, that deterministic analysis is very hard/impossible to achieve, and you have to rely on a statistical analysis instead.
A chaotic system is deterministic (i.e., you can predict exactly what will happen in the future if you know the current state of the system perfectly),
And how would that be possible if quantum fluctuations are entirely random?
Somewhere down the line someone is going to put 2 and 2 together and realise that quantum fluctuations aren't random at all - they only appear to be (as you've rightly said) because we don't have the tech to probe this scale and see the big picture of things.
Chaos has to be fundamentally built in to the quantum world - or else I am going to start believing in God.
And reading a wiki makes you an expert not. Bear that in mind before you start claiming ignorance on my part.
I'm not an expert, but I have spent enough time around real scientists, and also around con artists, to know a babbling pseudo-scientist when I hear one.
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Originally Posted by MarcUK
And how would that be possible if quantum fluctuations are entirely random?
Randomly moving particles behave according to probability curves, and when you get enough of them (like in a hurricane, for example) you know how many particles will move in each direction based on probability (but not the direction of each individual particle).
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Because Evolution involves things like dinosaurs living millions of years before men, men evolving from apes and the earth being billions of years old. Creationism seeks to "prove" these things wrong with pseudo-science. Creationism ≠ Christianity. Evolution and Christianity can go hand in hand. Evolution and Creationism cannot.
IF God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful,
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
IF God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful,
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
I have alluded to this possibility. Science certainly cannot rule this out.
Creationism harms Science by hijacking the Scientific Method and spreading mis-information, it capitalises on the general population's lack of scientific literacy and threatens to discredit science as a whole.
I'm not sure why some think creationism doesn't like, or seeks to disprove, or goes against science. That doesn't make any sense. God created everything, and science is the study of what He created. There is obviously so much that we don't know, but we don't justify those things with God, at least I don't. That has been done before, obviously. The greek gods served that purpose (at least to my knowledge, I don't know a ton about them though). The God of the Bible, as far as I know, has never been used to justify an occurence that we now know to be explained by science. Even if we can explain something by science, that doesn't mean God doesn't have a hand in it or that God didn't create it. Just because we can explain why a rainbow shows the color spectrum, that doesn't mean God can't be real. Just because we know why the sunrise shows such beautiful colors doesn't mean God can't exist. God created all of it, and we're not using Him to justify things that we can't explain. The place where creationism collides with science is with evolution (restating the obvious).
No one has explained to me why we haven't seen actual macro-evolution that we so strongly believe in and why we don't have the vast number of transitional fossils we should have that Darwin said we needed if macro-evolution is to be true. No one has explained to me how life can come from non-life and how order can come from disorder.
Information always comes from a mind. There is always a mind behind information. Information is portrayed in many ways and translated many ways, but whenever there is information, there has to be a mind behind it. DNA is information, and there has to be a mind behind it. How would it just form from junk into an organized state where it gives information? There must be a mind behind it.
BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!BACK PEDAL!!!!
So isn't it odd that we only use God to explain that which we don't yet understand?
How many fossils do we have? over 15 billion years, how many life forms have existed? And you're surprised that in this miniscule proportion of snapshots from history, that we don't have a complete movie?
Order can come from disorder in a locality within a system when the creation of that order lowers the overall order of the system as a whole. And don't try making any entropy related arguments, cause if you don't understand it, then you don't understand it. The fact that you don't understand it doesn't mean that those who do are insane, it means that you have insufficient information.
Information from minds: Assumption, assumption, assumption, assumption, assumption.
DNA is NOT information, it is a really really really long freeking molecule. WE as HUMANS PERCIEVE information in it. There does not have to be a mind behind it.
If A is an ape and J is a human, your argument started with the precept that we have all the links in between except one. We don't have any. All of the "links" we've found are turning out to be either stictly apes or strictly humans. The ape to human evolution isn't the only missing link. There are tons more that are supposed to be there.
You saying "it just happened" kinda goes against Pasteur's law: Life does not come from non-life. You're still going against that. I'm not sure where the evidence for life coming from non-life is.
The chances of both of those numbers coming up are the same, that says nothing. You're forgetting the fact that 1 2 3 4 5 6 actually means something and 3 8 35 17 22 39 does not. If life evolved from disorder to order, it had to go to one sequence. If it had been any other sequence that would have meant nothing.
You say it is non-sense, but don't explain why. Someone else said it is based on an assumption. Of course it is. Every statement has prior assumptions. Prove my assumption wrong. What's important is whether or not those assumptions are true. Give me an instance where information is given and there is no mind behind it. DNA is in fact information, how can you say it isn't? We don't perceive it as information, the cell does. It's offen refered to the instruction manual for all life. Every instruction manual I've read has had information in it.
If something has credibility if it aligns with past, present, and future observations, then doesn't the Bible have such credibility? There are plenty of recordings of a great flood throughout the earth. There are numerous prophecies about a messiah, which Jesus fulfilled. As far as I've heard, no one doubts the existence of Jesus. There is much more evidence that aligns as well. By your logic, the Bible is credible.
I don't remember saying lack of proof consititues proof of lack. My point there was to bring to attention that everyone's view is just as sesceptible to criticizm.
Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929) is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to apply to questions of genetic variation and evolution. In a pair of 1966 papers co-authored with J.L. Hubby in the journal Genetics, Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin wikipedia isn't a perfect source but I think that information is enough.
I apologize for not providing his credibility earlier.
Now that everyone knows that about Lewontin, here's what he said:
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs...It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Since this debate seems to be one against many, I usually respond with one post to the many written towards me. I'm sorry if I wrongly accused you of something you didn't say. They are generalizations and I really can't keep track of who said what.
Your macro-evolution examples aren't that at all. It's a bunch of mixed breeding and natural selection. One type of animal isn't turning into a different type of animal. Genes are swapping, not changing. They're mixing around the gene pool and getting different results. The actual DNA isn't changing.
You obviously missed the bit where I said that macro-evolution is not a process in and of itself. Macro-evolution is speciation, and it has been observed several times. It is "one type of animal" "turning" into a "different type of animal", as the two cannot inter-breed - the organisation of their DNA is different.
I would refer to that "some" as "idiots".
Descartes was not an idiot.
How do you quantify the odds of something like that if someone proposes magical or mystical explanations? What if someone insists that this is a matter of faith, and tries to foist the burden of proof on the xylophone disbelievers? Suppose the believers are people who, if you actually went through the trouble to pulverize and sift through the entire mass of the planet Mars, would simply shrug and say you must have somehow missed the xylophone, or accidentally destroyed it, or couldn't see it because it's only visible to those who have faith, or suppose these are people who would simply backpedal and start talking about the metaphorical, spiritual, and, oh yeah, "sorry we didn't mention this before", non-physical nature of the mystic xylophone.
While my xylophone example is contrived, there are real world beliefs just as absurd, held by people who aren't generally considered mentally deficient or insane, people who expect, and often receive, "respect for their beliefs" simply because they describe their absurd notions as being religious or spiritual, which somehow is supposed to be a free pass against skepticism or criticism.
I hate to bring up Descartes again--oh wait, no I don't--but any belief can be true, theoretically. We have to make DOGMATIC assumptions to ignore these people.
Just because a belief is unpopular does not mean it's not true. For instance, I have some "out there" political views that were which were generally accepted 70 years ago (no, they're not sexist or racist). VERY FEW people believe in what I believe, that hardly makes it untrue, even though, like all politcal beliefs, they have a logical backing. However, politics is just an idea, not a bunch of facts, we're talking about absolutism here in reference to God.
With something like the existence of God, believing one exists or not is ALWAYS based on dogma. One reason most Atheists act so pissed off all the time (ex: MarkUK calling Jesus a c*nt) is that there really is no way to prove they're right. One could argue that politically, organized religions are bad and whatnot, but that hardly means God doesn't exist (which is a leap of faith taken by most atheists).
In spite of the fact that most atheists are reactionaries against christianity, that does NOT delegitimize their idea.
The only line such a person may have crossed is that they've chosen to believe in something absurd that doesn't come with a social support structure of others who believe the same thing.
See, this statement here could be used by an atheist OR a theist
I have a lot of atheist friends (in fact, all of my friends). If I believed in God, I'd get picked on all the time, they'd lose respect for me, yadda yadda yadda.. All because I have a dogma that doesn't match up with theirs.
Of course, I'm agnostic so I end up picking on them.
See above... where belief is strong enough, and magical think is accepted, counter-evidence becomes impossible no matter what you say or do.
Is there some sort of counter-evidence to God existing? The only rebuttles I've ever heard from atheists are rebuttles against the BIBLE, not the concept. But, then again, most atheists are really only interested in berating christians.
There's a big, big difference between a practical day-to-day reliance on assumptions, and dogma. I was all set to start explaining that difference, but come on... do I really have to?
I was trying to be nice to all the dogmatists out there, but fine.
There's still nothing wrong with having dogmatic beliefs. It's impossible to know everything, like I said.
One advantage of the human mind is that it can have two or more conflicting beliefs in play at one time. This sounds like a disadvantage, however it allows us to act based on information we're given, and not wait for everything to make sense (which may never happen).
For instance, a christian may be more apt to take chances like ask his boss for a raise or trust others, thinking that their piety will ensure success. However, they wont go skydiving because even though they'd go to heaven if something went wrong, there's still that primal fear of death.
To use a more scientific example: Newtonian Physics + Quantum Mechanics = impossible. Most physicists still think they're both true, and have been searching endlessly for the missing piece that's supposed to tie them together.
Toggling between beliefs is a HUGE advantage when you can't know everything. We'd be pretty lost without it. Believing something in the absense facts has its advantages, sometimes. More often than not, it serves a practical purpose rather than a philosophical one.
No one has explained to me how life can come from non-life and how order can come from disorder.
Have you heard of this thing called the Sun? That big, bright thing up in the sky? That's the answer to your question, or at least a big part of it, if you understood even the most basic basics of thermodynamics.
The typical fundy half-truth rendition of thermodynamics is a foot-stomping certainty that order can't possibly arise from disorder, often delivered with a smug, "Don't these scientists even pay attention to their own so-called laws!? Ha!" attitude.
Two things are wrong with that oversimplified version of thermodynamics:
(1) Thermodynamics is fundamentally a statistical science. What it really says it that it is improbable, not impossible, for a closed system to gain order (or decrease in entropy). Of course, the greater the deviation from the expected increase in entropy, the lower the odds are of such a deviation occuring. In most cases those odds are so low they can be quite safely ignored. In a very small system involving just a few atoms, those odds might not always be so remote.
This is just a minor quibble compared to the next point, however.
2) Notice the phrase "closed system" I just used? Thermodynamics tells us that order always decreases (entropy always increases)... in a closed system. If you leave off "in a closed system", or don't understand what that means, you can't come to any useful conclusions using thermodynamics at all.
The Earth is NOT a closed system. That big, bright thing in the sky is constantly deliverying the Earth a steady stream of energy. That energy (along with other sources of energy, like the heat from the formation of the Earth) can be used, and waste heat eventually radiated back into space.
That's the key to order from disorder. Under such conditions, order from disorder is easy to achieve, and perfectly in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever order is produced this way, it is a local effect achieved at the expense of greater disorder exported elsewhere. A planet bathed in the warmth of a nearby star, surrounded by the cold of space, is a perfect place for an island of locally increasing order to develop.
It's been said that these debates are pointless because nobody ever changes their minds. True enough most of the time. I'm damned curious, however, if I can even acheive the minor accomplishment of getting someone like Homey to at least abandon one of the most blatantly erroneous arguments he uses.
What I expect, however, is that he'll just ignore that this point of his about order from disorder has been totally trashed, and while he may not bring it up here again soon, he'll still keep repeating it elsewhere, spreading the damaged meme no matter what.
Gotta stick to your talking points!
Descartes was not an idiot.
I don't believe Descartes took a stand on the issue of Martian xylophones, or on how to categorize belief or disbelief in said mysteriously situated musical instruments.
You're blurring concepts in a long line of references to previous posts, and not accounting for the "
That said, while Descartes was clearly a brilliant man, not every single one of his ideas was great, and his so-called "proofs" of God are Philosophy 101 fodder for finding the obvious flaws in his arguments.
Just because a belief is unpopular does not mean it's not true.
That whooshing sound you just heard was the point I'd been trying to make flying right over your head. Please go back and re-read what I wrote until any connection you think I might have been making between popularity and and the likelyhood of something being true is dispelled.
With something like the existence of God, believing one exists or not is ALWAYS based on dogma. One reason most Atheists act so pissed off all the time (ex: MarkUK calling Jesus a c*nt) is that there really is no way to prove they're right. One could argue that politically, organized religions are bad and whatnot, but that hardly means God doesn't exist (which is a leap of faith taken by most atheists).
I get the impression that no matter what I personally say, you're going to carry on having some other ongoing general argument and not address the specific things I'm saying, instead choosing to blur my words into some general atheist muddle you've constructed as a convenient straw man.
Is there some sort of counter-evidence to God existing?
Repeat after me: null hypothesis. Null f*cking hypothesis!
The only rebuttles I've ever heard from atheists are rebuttles against the BIBLE, not the concept. But, then again, most atheists are really only interested in berating christians.
Back to your straw man, and not addressing me.
I was trying to be nice to all the dogmatists out there, but fine.
There's still nothing wrong with having dogmatic beliefs. It's impossible to know everything, like I said.
Yes, like you said. You've repeated the same incorrect linkage between the dogma and a lack of complete knowledge again. I guess I do have to explain this. <sigh!>
The impossibility of "knowing everything", and acceptance dogma, have NOTHING to do with each other. Dogma is NOT merely a matter of getting by using the best guesswork one can muster.
Dogma is an emphatic assertion of knowledge, quite often in the realm of things we really can't know one way or the other. Dogma typically adds a moral dimension to belief or disbelief in those things which are asserted dogmatically. Dogma typically creates belief constructs which are far, far more elaborate than anything one would need to construct merely to get by in the world using limited knowledge.
To use a more scientific example: Newtonian Physics + Quantum Mechanics = impossible. Most physicists still think they're both true, and have been searching endlessly for the missing piece that's supposed to tie them together.
That might be a "more scientific example" if it weren't totally wrong.
First of all, although still quite useful for day-to-day uses, Newtonian physics has been displaced by General Relativity as a far more accurate model of the universe. Newtonian physics is just plain wrong where velocities approaching the speed of light are concerned, as well as in situations where strong gravitational fields must be accounted for. (Oddly enough, however, it's easier to deal with QM in Newtonian terms than relativistic terms.)
GR and QM aren't in conflict, as if you get to the end of a series of equations and one theory concludes the other "impossible!" The two theories just don't mesh as well as we'd like, each covers different aspects of physics, and each has to be applied piecemeal to problems which cross both domains. It's messy, it's ugly, and yes, it's a problem physicists would love to solve, but it is NOT an example of anyone accepting two mutually exclusive ideas as true at the same time.
The Earth is NOT a closed system. That big, bright thing in the sky is constantly deliverying the Earth a steady stream of energy. That energy (along with other sources of energy, like the heat from the formation of the Earth) can be used, and waste heat eventually radiated back into space.
That's the key to order from disorder. Under such conditions, order from disorder is easy to achieve, and perfectly in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics. Whenever order is produced this way, it is a local effect achieved at the expense of greater disorder exported elsewhere. A planet bathed in the warmth of a nearby star, surrounded by the cold of space, is a perfect place for an island of locally increasing order to develop.
Order from disorder is easy to observe in the real world, also. Just go sit on a rock in the middle of a river - the randomly flowing water molecules swirl into ordered patterns based on the environment they encounter - and those patterns eventually change the environment as well (a swirling pattern of water will start to cut into the rock). If a water molecule hits a rock just right, it will randomly branch left or right - but enough go each way that a pattern emerges based on probability.
Also, I think that the heat from the center of the earth is not just left over from the earth's formation, but is also due in part to a fission reaction (because alot of heavy metals like Uranium sank to the center of the earths core).
Why is that not weird to anyone? There is no reason why the random "stuff" would form into not random "stuff".
In a world without life, plenty of random substances form. All kinds of various molecules form and are later ripped apart - all you need to do is have one of those random molecules be a self-replicating molecule, and it will take over, eventually changing and becoming more complicated over time.
I don't see why that is weird to you. Weird to me is the thought that a God had a hand in things - do you realize how complicated a God would have to be? Much more complicated that you or I.
Why are you willing to believe that a complex and powerful god sprang out of Chaos to create us (or always existed) and you are not willing to believe in the random formation of a self-replicating molecule? Seems like your sense of scale is WAY off.
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=782280
My question was how does life come from non-life and how does order come magically into order, and even stay there? I wasn't arguing about thermodynamics or closed systems, although that is generally where that argument goes. All religion asside, I just can't believe that life would magically form out of nothing, and random things form into not random things unless there is something making it. You don't dump a bunch of brick and concrete down and a building is formed. Things have to be specifically placed, and designed, so that the building is stands. The only explanation I can think of that would account for order is if there is a mind behind it. We're honestly saying that a bunch of materials were there and they somehow got together over billions of years eventually to the point where they formed something and then something happened and it became life and the evolutionary process began. Why is that not weird to anyone? There is no reason why the random "stuff" would form into not random "stuff". You don't throw random paint together and form Da Vinci's greatest. Even as humans the best things we form are done by great MINDS. We still think there is no mind behind life. Again, regardless of religion, I just can't buy into that. For me, there has to be a mind behind it.
You're not really asking the question - just playing stupid, but i'll tell you where you need to look anyway.
Read up on Chaos theory. There are plenty of books on amazon, and plenty of articles on the net. Chaos is the fundamental backbone of everything in the universe, and being a new disclipline, science pretty much underestimates its importance - but there are those who fundamentally understand it - and more importantly "what it means".
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
You're not really asking the question - just playing stupid, but i'll tell you where you need to look anyway.
Read up on Chaos theory. There are plenty of books on amazon, and plenty of articles on the net. Chaos is the fundamental backbone of everything in the universe, and being a new disclipline, science pretty much underestimates its importance - but there are those who fundamentally understand it - and more importantly "what it means".
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
I just read the wikipedia article on Chaos theory, and (1) it does not state that quantum fluctuations are non-random, and (2) I don't see what it has to do with the thread subject. Based on this and other posts, you seem to think you know more about Physics than you actually know.
I just read the wikipedia article on Chaos theory, and (1) it does not state that quantum fluctuations are non-random, and (2) I don't see what it has to do with the thread subject. Based on this and other posts, you seem to think you know more about Physics than you actually know.
I didn't say quantum fluctuations aren't non-random - I said Chaos has the potential to show that fluctuations are'nt random.
And its relavent because Chaos already shows that alot of things aren't at all random, when they infact appear to be to a casual observation.
And reading a wiki makes you an expert not. Bear that in mind before you start claiming ignorance on my part.
IF God is omnipotent, meaning all powerful,
THEN why could he not have, 3000 or so years ago, spontaneously created a 15 billion year old universe? Does God not have the ability to manipulate time? Not quite all powerfull, if that's the case, is he?
but why would he do this? why would he want/need/desire to be deceptive?
There is absolutely no reason why God would create a universe 3000 years ago and make it appear to be 15 billion years old. Why 15? Why not make it appear infinitely old? Why not create it last week and give us all fake memories of our lives?
If God represents anything but the truth, then God is not God. Creating something with a fake history is not in Gods realm.
And more importantly - it shows that nothing at all is random - nada - potentially not even a quantum fluctuation.
Chaos theory absolutely does not do that. Chaos theory is about the study of systems that seem to be random, but actually are not. A chaotic system is deterministic (i.e., you can predict exactly what will happen in the future if you know the current state of the system perfectly), but is so sensitive to the initial conditions and/or has so many independent variables, that deterministic analysis is very hard/impossible to achieve, and you have to rely on a statistical analysis instead.
I didn't say quantum fluctuations aren't non-random - I said Chaos has the potential to show that fluctuations are'nt random.
I think you need to go back and re-read your own post. You made a categorical statement that Chaos shows that nothing is random.
A chaotic system is deterministic (i.e., you can predict exactly what will happen in the future if you know the current state of the system perfectly),
And how would that be possible if quantum fluctuations are entirely random?
Somewhere down the line someone is going to put 2 and 2 together and realise that quantum fluctuations aren't random at all - they only appear to be (as you've rightly said) because we don't have the tech to probe this scale and see the big picture of things.
Chaos has to be fundamentally built in to the quantum world - or else I am going to start believing in God.
And reading a wiki makes you an expert not. Bear that in mind before you start claiming ignorance on my part.
I'm not an expert, but I have spent enough time around real scientists, and also around con artists, to know a babbling pseudo-scientist when I hear one.
And how would that be possible if quantum fluctuations are entirely random?
Randomly moving particles behave according to probability curves, and when you get enough of them (like in a hurricane, for example) you know how many particles will move in each direction based on probability (but not the direction of each individual particle).
Randomly moving particles behave according to probability curves,
And what if that probability curve was explicitly defined by Chaos?