The unrefuted argument for creationism

[Loudmouth]

I don't doubt that secularists are desperately clutching at straws in order to prop up their failed hypotheses. That's pretty much their modus operandi.

What straws are we clutching at?

 

[Chris B]

Science is still in the evidence-gathering stage. We have already reached our conclusion.

That is perfection. An immaculate Poe.
I have not the slightest way of knowing whether that is to be read straight or as satirical parody.

 

[Chris B]

I don't doubt that secularists are desperately clutching at straws

Oh, I think that should be doubted.
With kudos available in the system for busting other people's hypotheses, scientists, secular or otherwise, do tend to keep an eye on anything in their field that shows flaws that can be demonstrated.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

That is perfection. An immaculate Poe.
I have not the slightest way of knowing whether that is to be read straight or as satirical parody.

You're actually making my point.

 

[SkyWriting]

You might try looking in some other places. or reading around and then thinking for yourself.
Perhaps Claude Levi Strauss on the concept of "necessary myth".

For this exercise, I'm sticking to peer reviewed publications.

 

[Chris B]

For this exercise, I'm sticking to peer reviewed publications.

In which case try varying keywords: technical papers often use more specialised language and the "obvious" words may not feature.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I have a DVD as well that says that unless you are a Christian, you cannot know anything for sure. So... there!

Aaah... a Sye Ten sponsor.

I still have a headache from all the facepalms when I first saw him do his routine. Which was quite a while ago.

At that point, I nominated it as the dumbest argument ever.

 

[The Cadet]

Aaah... a Sye Ten sponsor.

I still have a headache from all the facepalms when I first saw him do his routine. Which was quite a while ago.

At that point, I nominated it as the dumbest argument ever.

To be fair, Sye gets halfway there - he does, in fact, show that absolute certainty is impossible without Christianity. What he fails to do, however, is show how Christianity actually helps allow for certainty at all.

 

[Tinker Grey]

To be fair, Sye gets halfway there - he does, in fact, show that absolute certainty is impossible without Christianity. What he fails to do, however, is show how Christianity actually helps allow for certainty at all.

Add to this the question as to why we should share the presuppositionalist obsession with certainty.

 

[Heissonear]

<Staff edit>

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." John 3:3,6

You say "only in your heart" as in product "of flesh", like mind, imagination, etc.

Could it be you have no clue of "what is spirit", since you have never met the Holy Spirit, as in being born again experience many profess?

Yes, you haven't a clue, only flesh understanding of something you know nothing about through being born again.

I use to be a person raised understanding how natural processes explain all that goes on around us, and life evolved on Earth, and recieve a higher degree in geology. I use to think the Bible presented myths, and only really ignorant people fell prey to such still within our times.

 

[Chris B]

... as in being born again experience many profess?...

But then, how can you be certain, and I mean certain, that the experience was what you have understood it to be?
It is not easy, I know, when one has had a profound experience or {ineffable *something*]to remember that one can be experientially convinced beyond doubt, beyond even the possibility of considering doubt, and still be in error.
Most commonly in error by interpretation or assigned significance of {what has been experienced} but also in total error of events or encounters even having happened or not happened.

I've been there in my own experiences, which was painful, and tracked the concept intellectually.
I'm left with no good way to be absolutely sure.

Your experience may be totally valid and signify what you take it to. That's quite possible.
But that doesn't, even if it can hardly avoid feeling like it, amount to sure and certain knowledge.

Would you be dismissive if a Muslim Sufi or a Hindu mystic spoke of certain knowledge, settled insight, coming from their {moment of otherness} met in meditation?
If so why, in terms that they would not equally be able to use of your experiences?

I'm not claiming the right to declare any right or wrong.
I'm pretty sure I can declare that they can't all be right in the interpretation they affirm
I'm pretty sure they haven't the grounds for being certain of what they think they now know or have "without doubt" encountered.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Oh, I think that should be doubted.
With kudos available in the system for busting other people's hypotheses, scientists, secular or otherwise, do tend to keep an eye on anything in their field that shows flaws that can be demonstrated.

Hmm, you might change your mind if you listened to some of the fairy tales coming out from Cosmology. The so-called Big Bang is apparently in such trouble that it has to have many fudge factors applied to even keep the idea afloat (Inflation/Inflatons, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Multiverses [apparently an infinite number of those], etc). Why, there is apparently even a crazy idea about the universe just being a computer game being played by aliens and that even those aliens might be just part of a game on another alien's computer, which might itself be on another alien's computer...It begs the question, would it not be more reasonable to just accept that we haven't a clue how the universe got started or is maintained and then give glory to the Creator of it all (God) for His ways are higher than our ways?

 

[lasthero]

Why, there is apparently even a crazy idea about the universe just being a computer game being played by aliens and that even those aliens might be just part of a game on another alien's computer, which might itself be on another alien's computer...

Pleause show where any scientist has done any research concerning any of that.

It begs the question, would it not be more reasonable to just accept that we haven't a clue how the universe got started or is maintained and then give glory to the Creator of it all (God) for His ways are higher than our ways?

Why would admitting that we don't know how the universe started immediately lead to assuming it was created by a god? And your god, in particular?

 

[Loudmouth]

Hmm, you might change your mind if you listened to some of the fairy tales coming out from Cosmology. The so-called Big Bang is apparently in such trouble that it has to have many fudge factors applied to even keep the idea afloat (Inflation/Inflatons, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Multiverses [apparently an infinite number of those], etc).

Apparently, you don't know what the Big Bang is or you wouldn't be making such a tired and false argument. I challenge you to show us how any of those things are "fudge factors" for the Big Bang.

It begs the question, would it not be more reasonable to just accept that we haven't a clue how the universe got started or is maintained and then give glory to the Creator of it all (God) for His ways are higher than our ways?

And yet another argument from ignorance.

 

[Chris B]

Hmm, you might change your mind if you listened to some of the fairy tales coming out from Cosmology. The so-called Big Bang is apparently in such trouble that it has to have many fudge factors applied to even keep the idea afloat (Inflation/Inflatons, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Multiverses [apparently an infinite number of those], etc).

Why are those crazy? Unlikely and not the wished-for simple answers, certainly, but that rules out nothing.
All those ideas have proven necessary as candidates to account for the details of the universe that we can see or measure.

The entire quantum universe started to appear because a mathematical model (if it had been a proper fit it would have been a formula and a law) for the emission of light went badly wrong in the ultraviolet. The "fudge factor" that worked was found before the reason for the fudge factor being necessary was anything like properly understood.
(and quite a few scientists at the time didn't like that it worked, and tried to get rid of this new factor, this extra level.. and failed. Rather they discovered how fundamental and pervasive it was.)

Seeing where "the sums don't add up" is a major part of progress to a deeper understanding of the nature of nature.
Our models of nature are now good enough to reliably build lasers, proton beams and computers. That's not shabby, and is evidence that scientific thinking is going pretty much along the right lines. We know in lots of ways where and how to push nature to get a predictable result.

"Big Bang"? Yes, "so called" because it was coined by an opponent of the concept. The name stuck.
Dark matter, dark energy? Rather like finding evidence of an unknown and unseen planet really: there are visible effects as yet without a visible reason for them... call it it X , call it Dark... something's there to investigate, and it needs some sort of name.

Multiverses is interesting... they are there in one set of understandings of the nature modelling mathematics which also works to produce real workable practical effects.
Utterly non-instinctive, but human instinct is ill-prepared by day-to-day experience for events at quantum (and sometimes cosmic) scales.

I suspect the answer will not be multiverses, in the long run, but I don't know any paper that has as yet definitively shut down that option (there might be I'm about 15 years behind the cutting edge in my reading)

there is apparently even a crazy idea about the universe just being a computer game being played by aliens and that even those aliens might be just part of a game on another alien's computer, which might itself be on another alien's computer..

Have you read Professor Nick Bostrom's papers and articles on "Are you living in a computer simulation" and the discussion that followed?
http://www.simulation-argument.com/

would it not be more reasonable to just accept that we haven't a clue how the universe got started

That's a bit defeatist: let's see what we can find out, and then see if that gives us a platform from which to go a bit further. "Yes, we don't know, but we're working on it".

...and then give glory to the Creator of it all (God) for His ways are higher than our ways?

Now where did that come from? If we don't know we don't know.
(We've got some very interesting partial and approximate answers though.)
Do we know that God, if existing, wants worship and glorification?
That is asserted in certain texts, and also the "higher ways" meme (also found in Islamic and Hindu texts.)
I find the "don't question" variations very dubious memes, though clearly of use to those who might have to deal with any such.
Religions and company bosses would say that, wouldn't they?

If "we don't know" is the real answer, why bring up God at all?

 

[SkyWriting]

In which case try varying keywords: technical papers often use more specialised language and the "obvious" words may not feature.

That is true. Give it a try.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

 

[SkyWriting]

I use to be a person raised understanding how natural processes explain all that goes on around us, and life evolved on Earth, and recieve a higher degree in geology. I use to think the Bible presented myths, and only really ignorant people fell prey to such still within our times.

You were correct and scripture illustrates that.

13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them.14 But Jesus said, "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

 

[SkyWriting]

I suspect the answer will not be multiverses, in the long run, but I don't know any paper that has as yet definitively shut down that option

Interesting that you would allow one paper to rule your reality.
Isn't that odd for an open-minded individual?

 

[SkyWriting]

Would you be dismissive if a Muslim Sufi or a Hindu mystic spoke of certain knowledge, settled insight, coming from their {moment of otherness} met in meditation?
If so why, in terms that they would not equally be able to use of your experiences?
I'm not claiming the right to declare any right or wrong.
I'm pretty sure I can declare that they can't all be right in the interpretation they affirm
I'm pretty sure they haven't the grounds for being certain of what they think they now know or have "without doubt" encountered.

Not being sure of yourself, but being pretty sure about the experiences of others,
how would you characterize such a person if they said that?

 

[Chris B]

Interesting that you would allow one paper to rule your reality.
Isn't that odd for an open-minded individual?

No. Not at all. Is not the essence:
“Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.” Thomas Henry Huxley
Keep ideas open where possible, and in general try to avoid being so closed as to rule out an idea before examining whether or not there is anything to confirm or refute it.
(Does that apply to yet another claim for a perpetual motion machine, or have they been refuted *as a class*?)

But just one decent piece of data can close down a hypothesis which does not allow for any exceptions.
Against an "all" or "always" a single counter-example, checked and established, is fatal.

Steven J Gould has a case of a single left-handed periwinkle shell wrecking the beautiful assured knowledge that this species' shells uniformly curl right-handedly.

In contrast, a positive confirmation can (in general) only add support to an idea, demonstrating that it *can* occur.

What weight, relatively, should be given to something that "can't be ruled out", that's a different problem.
That I "can't rule out the possibility of alien invasion" does not mean I should drive my car with my eyes fixed to the sky.



(By the way I have added your site suggestion to my reference bookmarks: thank you)