God creates the disfunctional prone to catastrophic error DNA as the mechanism to create new life because he can't think of a better way to do it 1 * 10^99999999999999991
God chooses the biggest deluded morons on Earth to preach to the educated about himself 1*10^999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 9999999999999999999999 to 1
No, it is you who does not understand. There is no "impossibility threshold" and any "scientist" worthy of the term does not consider things with a probability below 1 * 10^60 (or in fact any number greater than 0) to be impossible. I gave what I thought was a rather intuitive counter-example for this (randomly picking 25 balls out of 1000 individually numbered balls) but it would seem that it went right over your head.
Stuff with vanishingly small probability happens all the time. Imagine a snapshot of the universe 10 seconds ago. Imagine all of the elementary particles that are subject to the laws of quantum dynamics. What was the probability back then of all of those particles being in the state that they are in now? Let me tell you, it is many many many orders of magnitude below your so-called "impossibility threshold" and yet, it has happened.
Anyway, I'm not really sure why you are so keen to try and disprove that life could just spontaneously happen. You shouldn't need to do that. You should have faith in God and not require to prove to yourself that He is the only way things could have happened.
And you haven't answered the question of where you think God came from? If he has "always been" why cannot the universe simply have "always been", providing enough time for the highly improbable to happen. If you find it so difficult to believe that life could "just happen", why do you find it so easy to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent, all-powerful intelligence that can conjure infinite amounts of energy out of nothing (something which I hope you agree is far more complicated than a simple little bit of protein) "just exists"?
Impossibility threshold or not, my point is to provide a realistic view of the theory of evolution. Most people believe it without understanding how ridiculous it is. We can't even understand how big those numbers are. 1 with 100 billion zeroes after it. 1 in that many times for a bacterium to form, and yet we talk about evolution as if it is a simple fact of every day life. My point is that we aren't just here by chance. We refuse to believe that things just happened by chance. We refuse to even entertain the idea of something supernatural. Instead we rest on these ridiculous probabilities and ignore the fact that the chances are way beyond anything we can imagine.
"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."
These days we refuse to let a divine foot in the door. That is the point I'm making.
The point you made about the probability of the particles of the universe being in the state they are in now, maybe I'm reading it wrong but is that agreeing with my point? Those particles are not in an organized state such that they form together and life begins. They are there, subject to the laws of quantum dynamics, but in no such order as we see in life. It is, however, quite amazing to see. It's amazing to see how big the universe is and the order that is there. It's even more amazing to see the immense detail in life on earth.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that things go from order to disorder, which we can clearly see on earth today. I think we would all agree that the earth is in a state of decay. We somehow agree that millions of years before today, that rule was reversed and disorder turned into order. It's also accepted that life does not come from non-life. We tend to accept that one pretty easily as well when talking about evolution and the origins of life despite it being common sense. Since the theory of evolution does not hold water, this leaves one alternative: a divine being that already existed who can create life (because that being does in fact have life) and has enough power and intelligence to put things in such an order.
I do have faith in such a God, but contrary to popular belief, such faith is not 'blind faith'. No one will ever prove evolution or prove that there is a God. In my experience, there is certainly more evidence for a divine creator than there is for evolution. If the universe simply has always been, then that provides no answers. Doesn't anyone find it weird that among the millions of fossils we have, we have no fossils from any "transitional stage" in evolution? Some fossils are claimed to be in the transitional stage, many are found to be fake or we later find them not to be in a transitional state at all. Even if you do think they are in a transitional state, I would think we would have far more than we do. Darwin said himself that they are necessary for his theory to be true. (that was a little off topic, sorry) If the universe has "always been" then I understand that that would leave infinite time for anything to happen, but that to me is still way harder to believe than a divine creator. Believing in a divine creator provides many more answers to life and why things happen. like I said before, to me, I see much more reason to believe in a divine creator than things "just happening". With a divine creator, the world makes sense and there is a reason behind things. If things "just happened", then nothing makes sense. It doesn't make sense for such things to occur. That is all dependent on what each individual believes though, and that, I cannot control.
Why do we have such a strong commitment to materialism and why do we refuse to let a divine foot in the door?
Now, debate the blatant change of nature of God between the old and the new testament, and changes of rules of what you can't eat and drink. So, are not God really omniscent?
@ Homestar06: What do chance have to do with it? If anyone tells me to guess a number between 1 and 100, and with each wrong attempt I get told if the guess was too high or too low, I could pinpoint the answer with eight guesses, contrary to needing 100 guesses to get a perfect track record. Think about evolution that way instead.
The point you made about the probability of the particles of the universe being in the state they are in now, maybe I'm reading it wrong but is that agreeing with my point?
Yes, you are wrong. You missed my point completely. Perhaps you should go back and re-read it. I am making the point that things with fantastically small probabilities are happening all around you all the time.
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Originally Posted by Homestar06
In my experience, there is certainly more evidence for a divine creator than there is for evolution.
Evolution is happening right now. We can observe all of its processes, right down to the fundamental chemistry. To deny evolution outright is absurd. But, just because it's happening now doesn't provide an explanation as to how it started. Knowing what we know now puts some limitations on what God (if he exists) must have done. He could have created life and set it to work billions of years ago. He could have been meaner and created Earth in the manner that the bible recounts in Genesis, and then left evidence that evolution has been happening for billions of years just to trick some of us into not believing in Him.
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Originally Posted by Homestar06
If the universe simply has always been, then that provides no answers.
I am not saying that I believe the Universe has always been. I'm trying to ask if you believe that God has always been. If God has always been, how does that provide more answers than the Universe always being? If God has not always been, where did He come from? What created Him?
Yes, you are wrong. You missed my point completely. Perhaps you should go back and re-read it. I am making the point that things with fantastically small probabilities are happening all around you all the time.
Evolution is happening right now. We can observe all of its processes, right down to the fundamental chemistry. To deny evolution outright is absurd. But, just because it's happening now doesn't provide an explanation as to how it started. Knowing what we know now puts some limitations on what God (if he exists) must have done. He could have created life and set it to work billions of years ago. He could have been meaner and created Earth in the manner that the bible recounts in Genesis, and then left evidence that evolution has been happening for billions of years just to trick some of us into not believing in Him.
I am not saying that I believe the Universe has always been. I'm trying to ask if you believe that God has always been. If God has always been, how does that provide more answers than the Universe always being? If God has not always been, where did He come from? What created Him?
Things with crazy possibilities aren't happening all the time. Chaos isn't turning into order. Life isn't coming from non-life. A big pool of material isn't forming into something organized and living. If you think things with ridiculous probabilities are happening all the time, then we should rethink our idea of probability, or that suggests something else is there. It doesn't make sense for someone to win the lottery 16 times consecutively, and if someone did, you would think twice about how that happened. If things with crazy probabilities are happening, then shouldn't we think twice about how that is happening?
Micro-evolution is happening right now. Changes within species are happening all the time. Macro-evolution is not happening right now. We have never seen it happen. We have never seen DNA change and a different species result. We have seen differernt genes be activated, but we have never seen DNA change and we have never seen a completely new species as a result. Despite ever seeing it happen, many continue to believe it anyways. A similar argument can be used against God. We can't see God, yet we choose to believe in Him. That isn't exactly true though. Not many people doubt the actual existence of Jesus, though people doubt His deity. God has been witnessed through prophesy and miracles all throughout time.
I understand your God always being thing. I cannot explain that. No one can explain it. The reason God provides more answers is because a divine creator makes much more sense, based on my life experience and what I've seen happen. I think you have to decide whether there is a divine creator first or if things just happened, then you can fight to answer those questions.
for Zandros:
You're saying that evolution is smart and can understand that if it picks one way and it doesn't work, it can change its mind and go another way. No one is telling evolution "higher or lower". If you're refering to natural selection, then that is true, we see that all the time. Evolution, however, doesn't really leave room for second guesses. If one characteristic of a species evolves, and then doesn't work, the species dies. For evolution to come to where life is now, it has to guess right on every time.
Things with crazy possibilities aren't happening all the time. Chaos isn't turning into order. Life isn't coming from non-life. A big pool of material isn't forming into something organized and living.
Those aren't the only things that have stupendously low probability. It is clear that you do not understand probability. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to explain it to you; perhaps someone else does.
My universe snapshot example can be countered in two ways: either God is constantly making stupendously unlikely things happen all the time, or "destiny" or whatever you wish to call it, exists. But since you've already said that you believe Humans have free will (they are free to choose to have faith in God or not), you do not believe in destiny.
Now, debate the blatant change of nature of God between the old and the new testament, and changes of rules of what you can't eat and drink. So, are not God really omniscent?
The Nature of God does not change between the Old and New Testaments. He operates according to different rules, which is the reasoning behind there being Old and New Testaments in the first place.
When human beings confront an issue which is difficult to understand they split into two camps.
The first camp looks long in the face, ponders the complexity of the universe and looks for clues. Scratching their beards they slowly attempt to unlock each mystery, one at a time, often making mistakes, often chasing blind leads, but ever so slowly moving from darkness into the light.
The second camp looks at the problem, and smiles, "Hey you guys, there's no big mystery here, there's a big invisible dude in the sky making all this cool stuff happen!". "I'm surprised you smart guys didn't figure it out. This explains EVERYTHING!!!".
So when the crops fail due to lack of rain, the Goddists had an instant explanaiton, "God is angry with us, we should sacrifice some stuff to cheer him up!"
When the ground shook, "God's pissed again". There was more sacrificin' on the way.
When we pondered how the vastness of the universe must have come to be.. the Goddists quipped, "This little thing? Our main invisible man knocked it up over a weekend. Whole of the cosmos came in a flat pack."
You have to admire the brilliance of the argument. It's so all-encompassing!
When we survey the vast complexity of life itself, its myriad variations, its breathtaking beauty, we try to get our heads around the uncountable processes, the interplay of molecules and energy. But they Goddists have beaten us to an answer. "Hello? Our invisible dude slapped it all together. Cool huh? He even chucked a bunch of fossils in the ground while he was at it."
After two thousand years of pondering, the beards desperately try to win back lost ground.
Their leader speaks: "We have finally come to understand the nature of earthquakes, it's not an angry deity at all, its Plate Tectonics!"
The Goddists are quick with their reply "Really? There are big plates sliding on Magma? Cool! But Who put them there? Eh?"
The Goddists universal explanation can account for anything. Any compexity can be magically dismissed by the Invisible Dude argument. Any enlightenment quashed. Because their belief system is not an argument at all. It's not a point of view that can be argued. It is nothing more than a symptom of not-having an imagination. Combine this with a desire to control the population and we have an Invisible-Dude-who-wants-us-to-behave-in-a-particular-way.
It's not worth having this discussion. Its like arguing politics with a pre-schooler. Their invisble dude card trumps all hands. Evidence and logic are no match for faith and fanaticism. Knowlege will never enlighten close minds.
Two football teams meet on the field. Pre-game required rituals include prayers by both sides that they will win. Team A wins and thanks god for being with them. Team B loses and ...
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, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. 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.
It's because of this, the commitment to materialism, it is pointless for me to debate any more. I've given you plenty to think about, you've given me plenty to think about. Neither has changed his/her opinion and my guess is that neither will. That materialism is absolute and you will not allow a divine foot in the door. As long as you won't allow a divine foot in the door, it is useless for me to continue debating. Clearly this is never going to accomplish anything. Thank you for your many thoughts and opinions. I'm impressed that (most of you, most of the time) didn't resort to sarcastic remarks as many usual do in debates such as this. I hope you didn't see any of my remarks as sarcastic and I hope you understood that I'm giving you the information I know and believe to be true. We are all searching for truth. Examine the evidence and conclude for yourself. I have done what I can to bring my point, the rest is up to you. Thanks again.
How did this old PolicitalOutsider favorite topic get started here in GD? And damn, while I'm an atheist, I must say that the starting post in favor of a godless universe was an incredibly lame argument for the idea.
And now when I notice the thread and want to join the fun, it looks like the chief proponent of a very lame pro-theist view is ready to take his God ball and go home.
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Originally Posted by Homestar06
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.
Who's the "we" that "our willingness" applies to? Most of the population of the planet is scientifically illiterate and superstitious.
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We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs...
Ah, "we" again. And which scientific constructs strike you as "patently absurd" anyway?
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...in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life...
Who exactly has made these "extravagant promises"? What part of the scientific method is it where failure of the whole scientific enterprise must be concluded because not everyone is abundantly healthy and extremely long-lived?
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...in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories...
Ah, yes, every scientific explanation which doesn't answer every single possible question, ridiculous or not, where any speculation whatsoever is left over even after an incredibly good theory which matches available data very well has been constructed, is a "just so" story. Might as well simply substitute a favorite just-so story of your own then... let's see... I know! "God did it!"
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...because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
Methinks "we" don't know what "we" are talking about.
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It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world...
The material world is closest thing we have to a nearly-undisputed common ground between all people, regardless of individual, personal beliefs. Even those who would like to play Philosophy 101 games, wondering "if it's all an illusion", a dream, an hallucination, a solipsistic and personally contrived fantasy, still generally behave and interact with the material world as if it were real. I think it can be argued that when two people bother to conduct a conversation with each other, with any hope of actual communication happening, that an assumed grounding in a common physical world can be found within the belief that communication is possible.
That's the biggest reason science starts with materialism -- not because scientists are big bad meanies who don't like God. God is not ruled out in any specific way. But unless you have a clearly definable God, with directly or even indirectly detectable effects in the common ground of the material world, there's nothing there for ruling God in either.
Now, if you think there are big TRVTHS which are accessible only via Personal Revelation and Grace? go knock yourself out. Science doesn't rule that out, it just has to choose to ignore such realms of "truth". If to you that means science has a blind spot, fine. Try to take away that so-called "blind spot", however, and insert "then God caused a miracle" into the realm of scientific explanation, and you'll damage science's ability to do well the many things it does well.
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As long as you won't allow a divine foot in the door?
What exactly is allowing "a divine foot in the door" in the door supposed to mean, really? You want me to admit it's possible God exists? Sure, ok. It's possible God exists. Now, you show me where allowing for that possibility gains me one iota of true explanatory power, where "God" isn't just a fancy way of saying "I don't have a clue how this works", where adding God doesn't simply, in the language of Occam's Razor, "multiply entities needlessly".
Anti-evolutionists (I haven't read this whole thread, but I'm guessing from the tired rhetoric you're using, which I've heard many times before, that you are one) constantly harp on the great complexity of life, how it's so impossible to believe that life just happened by chance, or could have simply always been there, without an "Intelligent Designer" to create it. But that's such a transparent shell game that only the strong emotional appeal of the idea of God can explain why so many don't even see the obvious -- that proposing the eternal existence of a Being which would have to be even more complex and unlikely than the things you seek to explain by it gets you absolutely nowhere, and has no explanatory power whatsoever.
that was a repeat of something I quoted earlier. The entire first paragraph of my post is a quote from Harvard geneticist and evolutionist Richard Lewontin. He's on your side, not mine.
...What exactly is allowing "a divine foot in the door" in the door supposed to mean, really?...
Tad bit agressive, but excellent rebuttal overall. I would add one thing to the rebuttal, specifically in regards to "the foot in the door.":
Religionist, are you fucking insane?
If you have lived longer than about 18 years, it is likely that you have personally experienced how easy it is to argue, and then to accept, the existance of a false thing or condition if you first presume it's existance.
We have no credible public information or evidence to support a claim of the existance of extraterrestrial beings. If, however, we first assume that they DO exist, then we see the 'obvious' signs everywhere! You will almost always find what you seek.
The key reason why scientists generally do not "allow a divine foot in the door" is that it makes us prone to make faulty assumptions, and to ignore evidence which contradicts our presumption, all of which lead to innacurate results. If something exists, then it does not need "a divine foot in the door," because it will eventually be revealed through normal, legitimate, SELF CRITICAL research. It is normal for a scientist to attempt to prove his hypothysis wrong in as thorough a fashion as possible. I have yet to see ANY religionist who attempts to test and cut away the supports of his faith. I've frequently seen it to be a delicate emotional matter with them.
If you wish to LEGITIMATELY and CREDIBLY prove the existance of God, then do it without first assuming it.
The more radical the claim, the more radical the proof required for it.
I love how in my logic class, the first argument we go over is God Vs. No God--they're both dogmatic and therefore not logical. Therefore, arguing is pointless. Either you believe in one, the other, or neither. There is no reason to argue about it!
that was a repeat of something I quoted earlier. The entire first paragraph of my post is a quote from Harvard geneticist and evolutionist Richard Lewontin. He's on your side, not mine.
I care not if you consider him on "my side" or not, I was arguing against the words, not the person. My objections to the words stand, whoever first said them. And since you quoted those words, and seem to be presenting them as if they have some value, you should be prepared to defend those words, at least to the extent that you seem to think they conveyed some sort of valuable point.
I love how in my logic class, the first argument we go over is God Vs. No God--they're both dogmatic and therefore not logical. Therefore, arguing is pointless. Either you believe in one, the other, or neither. There is no reason to argue about it!
Remarkably, people still attempt to anyway.
PS: Atheism is a religion too.
You must have missed the day in class when they covered the not-so-subtle distinction between not believing in something, and categorically and absolutely denying the existence of that thing.
You must also have missed that stuff about the "null hypothesis".
I don't believe there's a xylophone buried underneath a large boulder on Mars. Should my lack of belief in that xylophone be taken as a "dogmatic" position? Does the fact that I consider the existence of that xylophone laughably unlikely mean that my disbelief is tantamount to religious faith?
shet... it is better put like so: the very question does one believe in god presumes the existence or non-existence of such an entity. It is an irrelevant question, period.
I don't believe there's a xylophone buried underneath a large boulder on Mars. Should my lack of belief in that xylophone be taken as a "dogmatic" position? Does the fact that I consider the existence of that xylophone laughably unlikely mean that my disbelief is tantamount to religious faith?
Yes, according to some. However, the odds of a xylophone being on Mars are probably more quantifiable by a human being than the odds of a God existing. So if you were to argue over whether or not there's a xylophone on Mars, at least you're not wasting your time.
I should point out that there's no point in arguing with someone who believes there's a xylophone on Mars, as they obviously have a wire crossed.
Also, you could, theoretically, go to Mars, check under all the boulders, and prove it one way or the other. How are you going to do that with theism?
EDIT: There's nothing wrong with dogmatic beliefs, either. We make a thousand assumptions a day which have no logical backing. It's impossible to know everything.
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No, it is you who does not understand. There is no "impossibility threshold" and any "scientist" worthy of the term does not consider things with a probability below 1 * 10^60 (or in fact any number greater than 0) to be impossible. I gave what I thought was a rather intuitive counter-example for this (randomly picking 25 balls out of 1000 individually numbered balls) but it would seem that it went right over your head.
Stuff with vanishingly small probability happens all the time. Imagine a snapshot of the universe 10 seconds ago. Imagine all of the elementary particles that are subject to the laws of quantum dynamics. What was the probability back then of all of those particles being in the state that they are in now? Let me tell you, it is many many many orders of magnitude below your so-called "impossibility threshold" and yet, it has happened.
Anyway, I'm not really sure why you are so keen to try and disprove that life could just spontaneously happen. You shouldn't need to do that. You should have faith in God and not require to prove to yourself that He is the only way things could have happened.
And you haven't answered the question of where you think God came from? If he has "always been" why cannot the universe simply have "always been", providing enough time for the highly improbable to happen. If you find it so difficult to believe that life could "just happen", why do you find it so easy to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent, all-powerful intelligence that can conjure infinite amounts of energy out of nothing (something which I hope you agree is far more complicated than a simple little bit of protein) "just exists"?
Impossibility threshold or not, my point is to provide a realistic view of the theory of evolution. Most people believe it without understanding how ridiculous it is. We can't even understand how big those numbers are. 1 with 100 billion zeroes after it. 1 in that many times for a bacterium to form, and yet we talk about evolution as if it is a simple fact of every day life. My point is that we aren't just here by chance. We refuse to believe that things just happened by chance. We refuse to even entertain the idea of something supernatural. Instead we rest on these ridiculous probabilities and ignore the fact that the chances are way beyond anything we can imagine.
"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."
These days we refuse to let a divine foot in the door. That is the point I'm making.
The point you made about the probability of the particles of the universe being in the state they are in now, maybe I'm reading it wrong but is that agreeing with my point? Those particles are not in an organized state such that they form together and life begins. They are there, subject to the laws of quantum dynamics, but in no such order as we see in life. It is, however, quite amazing to see. It's amazing to see how big the universe is and the order that is there. It's even more amazing to see the immense detail in life on earth.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that things go from order to disorder, which we can clearly see on earth today. I think we would all agree that the earth is in a state of decay. We somehow agree that millions of years before today, that rule was reversed and disorder turned into order. It's also accepted that life does not come from non-life. We tend to accept that one pretty easily as well when talking about evolution and the origins of life despite it being common sense. Since the theory of evolution does not hold water, this leaves one alternative: a divine being that already existed who can create life (because that being does in fact have life) and has enough power and intelligence to put things in such an order.
I do have faith in such a God, but contrary to popular belief, such faith is not 'blind faith'. No one will ever prove evolution or prove that there is a God. In my experience, there is certainly more evidence for a divine creator than there is for evolution. If the universe simply has always been, then that provides no answers. Doesn't anyone find it weird that among the millions of fossils we have, we have no fossils from any "transitional stage" in evolution? Some fossils are claimed to be in the transitional stage, many are found to be fake or we later find them not to be in a transitional state at all. Even if you do think they are in a transitional state, I would think we would have far more than we do. Darwin said himself that they are necessary for his theory to be true. (that was a little off topic, sorry) If the universe has "always been" then I understand that that would leave infinite time for anything to happen, but that to me is still way harder to believe than a divine creator. Believing in a divine creator provides many more answers to life and why things happen. like I said before, to me, I see much more reason to believe in a divine creator than things "just happening". With a divine creator, the world makes sense and there is a reason behind things. If things "just happened", then nothing makes sense. It doesn't make sense for such things to occur. That is all dependent on what each individual believes though, and that, I cannot control.
Why do we have such a strong commitment to materialism and why do we refuse to let a divine foot in the door?
Now, debate the blatant change of nature of God between the old and the new testament, and changes of rules of what you can't eat and drink. So, are not God really omniscent?
@ Homestar06: What do chance have to do with it? If anyone tells me to guess a number between 1 and 100, and with each wrong attempt I get told if the guess was too high or too low, I could pinpoint the answer with eight guesses, contrary to needing 100 guesses to get a perfect track record. Think about evolution that way instead.
The point you made about the probability of the particles of the universe being in the state they are in now, maybe I'm reading it wrong but is that agreeing with my point?
Yes, you are wrong. You missed my point completely. Perhaps you should go back and re-read it. I am making the point that things with fantastically small probabilities are happening all around you all the time.
In my experience, there is certainly more evidence for a divine creator than there is for evolution.
If the universe simply has always been, then that provides no answers.
I am not saying that I believe the Universe has always been. I'm trying to ask if you believe that God has always been. If God has always been, how does that provide more answers than the Universe always being? If God has not always been, where did He come from? What created Him?
Yes, you are wrong. You missed my point completely. Perhaps you should go back and re-read it. I am making the point that things with fantastically small probabilities are happening all around you all the time.
I am not saying that I believe the Universe has always been. I'm trying to ask if you believe that God has always been. If God has always been, how does that provide more answers than the Universe always being? If God has not always been, where did He come from? What created Him?
Things with crazy possibilities aren't happening all the time. Chaos isn't turning into order. Life isn't coming from non-life. A big pool of material isn't forming into something organized and living. If you think things with ridiculous probabilities are happening all the time, then we should rethink our idea of probability, or that suggests something else is there. It doesn't make sense for someone to win the lottery 16 times consecutively, and if someone did, you would think twice about how that happened. If things with crazy probabilities are happening, then shouldn't we think twice about how that is happening?
Micro-evolution is happening right now. Changes within species are happening all the time. Macro-evolution is not happening right now. We have never seen it happen. We have never seen DNA change and a different species result. We have seen differernt genes be activated, but we have never seen DNA change and we have never seen a completely new species as a result. Despite ever seeing it happen, many continue to believe it anyways. A similar argument can be used against God. We can't see God, yet we choose to believe in Him. That isn't exactly true though. Not many people doubt the actual existence of Jesus, though people doubt His deity. God has been witnessed through prophesy and miracles all throughout time.
I understand your God always being thing. I cannot explain that. No one can explain it. The reason God provides more answers is because a divine creator makes much more sense, based on my life experience and what I've seen happen. I think you have to decide whether there is a divine creator first or if things just happened, then you can fight to answer those questions.
for Zandros:
You're saying that evolution is smart and can understand that if it picks one way and it doesn't work, it can change its mind and go another way. No one is telling evolution "higher or lower". If you're refering to natural selection, then that is true, we see that all the time. Evolution, however, doesn't really leave room for second guesses. If one characteristic of a species evolves, and then doesn't work, the species dies. For evolution to come to where life is now, it has to guess right on every time.
Things with crazy possibilities aren't happening all the time. Chaos isn't turning into order. Life isn't coming from non-life. A big pool of material isn't forming into something organized and living.
Those aren't the only things that have stupendously low probability. It is clear that you do not understand probability. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to explain it to you; perhaps someone else does.
My universe snapshot example can be countered in two ways: either God is constantly making stupendously unlikely things happen all the time, or "destiny" or whatever you wish to call it, exists. But since you've already said that you believe Humans have free will (they are free to choose to have faith in God or not), you do not believe in destiny.
Now, debate the blatant change of nature of God between the old and the new testament, and changes of rules of what you can't eat and drink. So, are not God really omniscent?
The Nature of God does not change between the Old and New Testaments. He operates according to different rules, which is the reasoning behind there being Old and New Testaments in the first place.
The first camp looks long in the face, ponders the complexity of the universe and looks for clues. Scratching their beards they slowly attempt to unlock each mystery, one at a time, often making mistakes, often chasing blind leads, but ever so slowly moving from darkness into the light.
The second camp looks at the problem, and smiles, "Hey you guys, there's no big mystery here, there's a big invisible dude in the sky making all this cool stuff happen!". "I'm surprised you smart guys didn't figure it out. This explains EVERYTHING!!!".
So when the crops fail due to lack of rain, the Goddists had an instant explanaiton, "God is angry with us, we should sacrifice some stuff to cheer him up!"
When the ground shook, "God's pissed again". There was more sacrificin' on the way.
When we pondered how the vastness of the universe must have come to be.. the Goddists quipped, "This little thing? Our main invisible man knocked it up over a weekend. Whole of the cosmos came in a flat pack."
You have to admire the brilliance of the argument. It's so all-encompassing!
When we survey the vast complexity of life itself, its myriad variations, its breathtaking beauty, we try to get our heads around the uncountable processes, the interplay of molecules and energy. But they Goddists have beaten us to an answer. "Hello? Our invisible dude slapped it all together. Cool huh? He even chucked a bunch of fossils in the ground while he was at it."
After two thousand years of pondering, the beards desperately try to win back lost ground.
Their leader speaks: "We have finally come to understand the nature of earthquakes, it's not an angry deity at all, its Plate Tectonics!"
The Goddists are quick with their reply "Really? There are big plates sliding on Magma? Cool! But Who put them there? Eh?"
The Goddists universal explanation can account for anything. Any compexity can be magically dismissed by the Invisible Dude argument. Any enlightenment quashed. Because their belief system is not an argument at all. It's not a point of view that can be argued. It is nothing more than a symptom of not-having an imagination. Combine this with a desire to control the population and we have an Invisible-Dude-who-wants-us-to-behave-in-a-particular-way.
It's not worth having this discussion. Its like arguing politics with a pre-schooler. Their invisble dude card trumps all hands. Evidence and logic are no match for faith and fanaticism. Knowlege will never enlighten close minds.
Oh and the mods should move this somewhere else.
C.
Two football teams meet on the field. Pre-game required rituals include prayers by both sides that they will win. Team A wins and thanks god for being with them. Team B loses and ...
Guess God prefered the A-Team.
It's because of this, the commitment to materialism, it is pointless for me to debate any more. I've given you plenty to think about, you've given me plenty to think about. Neither has changed his/her opinion and my guess is that neither will. That materialism is absolute and you will not allow a divine foot in the door. As long as you won't allow a divine foot in the door, it is useless for me to continue debating. Clearly this is never going to accomplish anything. Thank you for your many thoughts and opinions. I'm impressed that (most of you, most of the time) didn't resort to sarcastic remarks as many usual do in debates such as this. I hope you didn't see any of my remarks as sarcastic and I hope you understood that I'm giving you the information I know and believe to be true. We are all searching for truth. Examine the evidence and conclude for yourself. I have done what I can to bring my point, the rest is up to you. Thanks again.
it is pointless for me to debate any more.
Praise Allah for small mercies
And now when I notice the thread and want to join the fun, it looks like the chief proponent of a very lame pro-theist view is ready to take his God ball and go home.
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.
Who's the "we" that "our willingness" applies to? Most of the population of the planet is scientifically illiterate and superstitious.
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs...
Ah, "we" again. And which scientific constructs strike you as "patently absurd" anyway?
...in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life...
Who exactly has made these "extravagant promises"? What part of the scientific method is it where failure of the whole scientific enterprise must be concluded because not everyone is abundantly healthy and extremely long-lived?
...in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories...
Ah, yes, every scientific explanation which doesn't answer every single possible question, ridiculous or not, where any speculation whatsoever is left over even after an incredibly good theory which matches available data very well has been constructed, is a "just so" story. Might as well simply substitute a favorite just-so story of your own then... let's see... I know! "God did it!"
...because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
Methinks "we" don't know what "we" are talking about.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world...
The material world is closest thing we have to a nearly-undisputed common ground between all people, regardless of individual, personal beliefs. Even those who would like to play Philosophy 101 games, wondering "if it's all an illusion", a dream, an hallucination, a solipsistic and personally contrived fantasy, still generally behave and interact with the material world as if it were real. I think it can be argued that when two people bother to conduct a conversation with each other, with any hope of actual communication happening, that an assumed grounding in a common physical world can be found within the belief that communication is possible.
That's the biggest reason science starts with materialism -- not because scientists are big bad meanies who don't like God. God is not ruled out in any specific way. But unless you have a clearly definable God, with directly or even indirectly detectable effects in the common ground of the material world, there's nothing there for ruling God in either.
Now, if you think there are big TRVTHS which are accessible only via Personal Revelation and Grace? go knock yourself out. Science doesn't rule that out, it just has to choose to ignore such realms of "truth". If to you that means science has a blind spot, fine. Try to take away that so-called "blind spot", however, and insert "then God caused a miracle" into the realm of scientific explanation, and you'll damage science's ability to do well the many things it does well.
As long as you won't allow a divine foot in the door?
What exactly is allowing "a divine foot in the door" in the door supposed to mean, really? You want me to admit it's possible God exists? Sure, ok. It's possible God exists. Now, you show me where allowing for that possibility gains me one iota of true explanatory power, where "God" isn't just a fancy way of saying "I don't have a clue how this works", where adding God doesn't simply, in the language of Occam's Razor, "multiply entities needlessly".
Anti-evolutionists (I haven't read this whole thread, but I'm guessing from the tired rhetoric you're using, which I've heard many times before, that you are one) constantly harp on the great complexity of life, how it's so impossible to believe that life just happened by chance, or could have simply always been there, without an "Intelligent Designer" to create it. But that's such a transparent shell game that only the strong emotional appeal of the idea of God can explain why so many don't even see the obvious -- that proposing the eternal existence of a Being which would have to be even more complex and unlikely than the things you seek to explain by it gets you absolutely nowhere, and has no explanatory power whatsoever.
...What exactly is allowing "a divine foot in the door" in the door supposed to mean, really?...
Tad bit agressive, but excellent rebuttal overall. I would add one thing to the rebuttal, specifically in regards to "the foot in the door.":
Religionist, are you fucking insane?
If you have lived longer than about 18 years, it is likely that you have personally experienced how easy it is to argue, and then to accept, the existance of a false thing or condition if you first presume it's existance.
We have no credible public information or evidence to support a claim of the existance of extraterrestrial beings. If, however, we first assume that they DO exist, then we see the 'obvious' signs everywhere! You will almost always find what you seek.
The key reason why scientists generally do not "allow a divine foot in the door" is that it makes us prone to make faulty assumptions, and to ignore evidence which contradicts our presumption, all of which lead to innacurate results. If something exists, then it does not need "a divine foot in the door," because it will eventually be revealed through normal, legitimate, SELF CRITICAL research. It is normal for a scientist to attempt to prove his hypothysis wrong in as thorough a fashion as possible. I have yet to see ANY religionist who attempts to test and cut away the supports of his faith. I've frequently seen it to be a delicate emotional matter with them.
If you wish to LEGITIMATELY and CREDIBLY prove the existance of God, then do it without first assuming it.
The more radical the claim, the more radical the proof required for it.
I love how in my logic class, the first argument we go over is God Vs. No God--they're both dogmatic and therefore not logical. Therefore, arguing is pointless. Either you believe in one, the other, or neither. There is no reason to argue about it!
Remarkably, people still attempt to anyway.
PS: Atheism is a religion too.
that was a repeat of something I quoted earlier. The entire first paragraph of my post is a quote from Harvard geneticist and evolutionist Richard Lewontin. He's on your side, not mine.
I care not if you consider him on "my side" or not, I was arguing against the words, not the person. My objections to the words stand, whoever first said them. And since you quoted those words, and seem to be presenting them as if they have some value, you should be prepared to defend those words, at least to the extent that you seem to think they conveyed some sort of valuable point.
Debate over. Everyone loses.
I love how in my logic class, the first argument we go over is God Vs. No God--they're both dogmatic and therefore not logical. Therefore, arguing is pointless. Either you believe in one, the other, or neither. There is no reason to argue about it!
Remarkably, people still attempt to anyway.
PS: Atheism is a religion too.
You must have missed the day in class when they covered the not-so-subtle distinction between not believing in something, and categorically and absolutely denying the existence of that thing.
You must also have missed that stuff about the "null hypothesis".
I don't believe there's a xylophone buried underneath a large boulder on Mars. Should my lack of belief in that xylophone be taken as a "dogmatic" position? Does the fact that I consider the existence of that xylophone laughably unlikely mean that my disbelief is tantamount to religious faith?
I don't believe there's a xylophone buried underneath a large boulder on Mars. Should my lack of belief in that xylophone be taken as a "dogmatic" position? Does the fact that I consider the existence of that xylophone laughably unlikely mean that my disbelief is tantamount to religious faith?
Yes, according to some. However, the odds of a xylophone being on Mars are probably more quantifiable by a human being than the odds of a God existing. So if you were to argue over whether or not there's a xylophone on Mars, at least you're not wasting your time.
I should point out that there's no point in arguing with someone who believes there's a xylophone on Mars, as they obviously have a wire crossed.
Also, you could, theoretically, go to Mars, check under all the boulders, and prove it one way or the other. How are you going to do that with theism?
EDIT: There's nothing wrong with dogmatic beliefs, either. We make a thousand assumptions a day which have no logical backing. It's impossible to know everything.