Gods Big Bang

[Michael]

I don't make the assumption that there is a purpose in the first place.

You're making the assumption that they DO NOT have a purpose instead. It's a different bias, that's all.

In my opinion to truly understand evolution is to grasp that beyond continuing the existence of genes in a population from one generation to the next evolution doesn't serve any purpose.

Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole concept of "survival of the fittest"?

Its own continuation is its only purpose, although purpose is the wrong word, function of the process might be a better phrase.

IMO you are sort of dancing around the issue. The only natural examples of such sophisticated circuitry on Earth exists only in living organisms. The living organisms come in a variety of sizes shapes and colors of course, but one thing that they all share in common is "circuitry", even if in some cases it is some relatively 'rudimentary' circuitry. Typically however the circuity becomes "complex" particularly in more "complex" lifeforms.

It is a process that requires no outside intelligent guidance.

You presume/assme that statement to be true. It's a belief system that you hold. Even *IF* I grant you that this statement is true, you cannot show an example of a even one single celled animal forming spontaneously without intelligent guidance, nor can you explain why such single celled organisms go out of their way to eat a balanced diet. Sure, other than that you're belief system is in great shape.

We are one of this processes results, but to ascribe evolution with a bigger purpose is to misunderstand the process in the first place.

Again, that is simply another example of another biased "belief" that you hold. Atheists hold all kinds of beliefs. That's your belief. It's a subjective choice on your part.

Our existence is no more important than that of an amoeba or a dinosaur.

Hey, another 'belief' you hold! And atheists claim they don't have 'beliefs' about God or the existence of God.

Our species will exist for a few hundred thousand years and then will either evolve into something slightly different or go extinct, and the rest of life on earth either will or won't continue without us.

Ahem. I hate to lecture you about evolutionary theory and genetics, but the human race may continue indefinitely for all I know, even if it happens to spawn a few evolutionary branches along the way. Nothing "requires" that ALL human DNA somehow evolve or become extinct. That's another "belief" of yours, (and only yours AFAIK actually).

I hope we continue for as long as possible and evolve into a cleverer more tolerant species, but that is a wish I impose on the future, the process of evolution itself is indifferent to any human wish or assumed purpose. And so too, as far as I can tell, is the universe.

Hmm. The human concept of tolerance isn't "necessarily" favored in evolutionary theory, just "religion".

 

[British Bulldog]

You're making the assumption that they DO NOT have a purpose instead. It's a different bias, that's all.

No, I'm just not imposing a human concept where there is no evidence for one existing.

Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole concept of "survival of the fittest"?

No, what survives survives, but there is no goal except the continuation of the process, and that isn't a goal, it's just the continuation of the process.

IMO you are sort of dancing around the issue. The only natural examples of such sophisticated circuitry on Earth exists only in living organisms. The living organisms come in a variety of sizes shapes and colors of course, but one thing that they all share in common is "circuitry", even if in some cases it is some relatively 'rudimentary' circuitry. Typically however the circuity becomes "complex" particularly in more "complex" lifeforms.

So what?

You presume/assme that statement to be true. It's a belief system that you hold. Even *IF* I grant you that this statement is true, you cannot show an example of a even one single celled animal forming spontaneously without intelligent guidance, nor can you explain why such single celled organisms go out of their way to eat a balanced diet. Sure, other than that you're belief system is in great shape.

Evolution didn't begin with a spontaneous single celled organism assembling itself, but with a self replicating molecule. True, we don't know how the process began but we know that it did begin about 3.5 billion years ago, and there is no evidence to suggest an intelligent intervention started it.

Again, that is simply another example of another biased "belief" that you hold. Atheists hold all kinds of beliefs. That's your belief. It's a subjective choice on your part.

A lack of belief is not a belief. It is an absence of belief. There is no evidence to suggest a purpose, so I don't assume there is a purpose.

Hey, another 'belief' you hold! And atheists claim they don't have 'beliefs' about God or the existence of God.

In terms of the process of evolution, importance of one species over another isn't a relevant concept. Only humans quantify relative importance.

Ahem. I hate to lecture you about evolutionary theory and genetics, but the human race may continue indefinitely for all I know, even if it happens to spawn a few evolutionary branches along the way. Nothing "requires" that ALL human DNA somehow evolve or become extinct. That's another "belief" of yours, (and only yours AFAIK actually).

Yes, you are right, we may continue indefinitely. I was making an assumption based on the history of life on earth, but you are correct, we may exist as we are for an unknown length of time.

Hmm. The human concept of tolerance isn't "necessarily" favored in evolutionary theory, just "religion".

Heh, true, apparently. It is one of the theories of evolutionary psychology that religion is an advantageous meme.

 

[Michael]

No, I'm just not imposing a human concept where there is no evidence for one existing.

But even your subjective "choice" as to whether or not to even consider the "evidence" presented seems pretty suspect, particularly after this comment:

Michael: IMO you are sort of dancing around the issue. The only natural examples of such sophisticated circuitry on Earth exists only in living organisms. The living organisms come in a variety of sizes shapes and colors of course, but one thing that they all share in common is "circuitry", even if in some cases it is some relatively 'rudimentary' circuitry. Typically however the circuity becomes "complex" particularly in more "complex" lifeforms.
​

So what?

So the complexity of the circuity in living things increases as the level of complexity of the species increases and the universe just so happens to be THE SINGLE MOST COMPLEX example of a collection of sophisticated circuitry known to man. Notice how you just sort of blithely ignored what you don't want to subjectively deal with as "evidence"?

No, what survives survives, but there is no goal except the continuation of the process, and that isn't a goal, it's just the continuation of the process.

That's another example of a "belief" you hold by the way. Atheists hold all sorts of biased beliefs. Your entire position is now devoted to IGNORING all the circuitry in space, or just DENYING it has anything to do with a living thing, even though you can't even cite any examples of such things that exist in nature that are NOT alive.

We're back to square one now. Those circuits exist abundantly in living organisms and they exist in spacetime more abundantly than in living things, yet you CLING to the BELIEF that there is no purpose in the universe and life began as an "accident". Gotcha.

 

[British Bulldog]

But even your subjective "choice" as to whether or not to even consider the "evidence" presented seems pretty suspect, particularly after this comment:

So the complexity of the circuity in living things increases as the level of complexity of the species increases and the universe just so happens to be THE SINGLE MOST COMPLEX example of a collection of sophisticated circuitry known to man. Notice how you just sort of blithely ignored what you don't want to subjectively deal with as "evidence"?

That's another example of a "belief" you hold by the way. Atheists hold all sorts of biased beliefs. Your entire position is now devoted to IGNORING all the circuitry in space, or just DENYING it has anything to do with a living thing, even though you can't even cite any examples of such things that exist in nature that are NOT alive.

We're back to square one now. Those circuits exist abundantly in living organisms and they exist in spacetime more abundantly than in living things, yet you CLING to the BELIEF that there is no purpose in the universe and life began as an "accident". Gotcha.

You are again making the assumption that these things imply a purpose. Why?

 

[Michael]

You are again making the assumption that these things imply a purpose. Why?

Hoy. You are again making the assumption that these things do NOT imply a purpose. Why?

 

[British Bulldog]

Hoy. You are again making the assumption that these things do NOT imply a purpose. Why?

Because there is no evidence of a purpose.

 

[Michael]

Because there is no evidence of a purpose.

That is simply your personal and highly subjective opinion, one that seems to be based on ignoring all those circuits in space and the fact that such circuity only occurs naturally in living things on Earth. In short, your entire argument is a personal opinion that subjectively forces you to ignore every single possible alternative to your view of the universe. Specifically you hold the belief that it exists without purpose yet you have provided no evidence to support that "belief". I have provided evidence that the physical universe shows all the physical signs of being "alive" and "aware" and 'living" in terms of is "wiring" and chemistry. Living things do have a purpose, to express 'awareness'. Each circuit in the brain serves a purpose.

Your whole argument seems to boil down to "The universe is without purpose, and I'm intent on denying any and all evidence to the contrary.". Sound about right?

 

[British Bulldog]

That is simply your personal and highly subjective opinion, one that seems to be based on ignoring all those circuits in space and the fact that such circuity only occurs naturally in living things on Earth. In short, your entire argument is a personal opinion that subjectively forces you to ignore every single possible alternative to your view of the universe. Specifically you hold the belief that it exists without purpose yet you have provided no evidence to support that "belief". I have provided evidence that the physical universe shows all the physical signs of being "alive" and "aware" and 'living" in terms of is "wiring" and chemistry. Living things do have a purpose, to express 'awareness'. Each circuit in the brain serves a purpose.

Your whole argument seems to boil down to "The universe is without purpose, and I'm intent on denying any and all evidence to the contrary.". Sound about right?

No, because the burden of proof is on you, not me. I'm not the one making claims.

You have not shown that the outside universe itself is alive, intelligent or aware in any sense of the words.

Your assumption that living things have the purpose of awareness is nothing more than an opinion, and one with no evidence to support it. Complexity in living organisms arises through the natural process of evolution, but evolution is a process independent of any outside intelligent agent/God/interfering mind. The goal of evolution is NOT awareness. Evolution has no purpose in the sense we understand the word, meaning to have an ultimate goal or aim beyond its own continuation. To insert your own aim into the process is wrong and a complete misunderstanding of what evolution is. You might as well say that the goal of evolution is locomotion or sugar synthesis. You'd be equally wrong. A human-centric view of evolution is the fundamental error and misunderstanding at the root of all intelligent design arguments.

So, realising you are on a sticky wicket you try to shift the burden of proof away from yourself. You are pulling the same trick theists do when they ask atheists to prove that God doesn't exist. You are asking me to prove a negative.

I don't have to prove anything, you do, but you can't. No one trying to prove a divine purpose ever has, which is why you are in the same boat as the rest of religious believers: you have to rely on faith alone.

 

[mzungu]

Hoy. You are again making the assumption that these things do NOT imply a purpose. Why?

The onus is on you to provide evidence for your claims! So far you have provided none that can be empirically examined.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Define "untestable" and describe how I can 'test' the idea that dark energy causes things to accelerate. Finding some "God" in pantheism is as simple as picking up some dirt in your backyard, or looking at yourself in the mirror. Can you tell me where I can go to even get my hands on some dark energy to be sure it's not just "made up"?

I am not a physicist so I cannot comment from a position of authority on dark matter. I am not really an authority on the design argument either, but AFAIK inductive strength is meansured by the success rate of the argument. So "the sun will rise tomorrow, like yesterday and the day before" can be a conclusion of an inductive argument, and every time it havs been used in the past it hads been 100% reliable. But the design argument (which is inductive) has not been demonstrated to have any strength at all, because we cannot look at e.g. a flower and actually show it has been designed. So its an inductive but lacks the territory where we can tell if it any good. So for a science forum, such a philsosophical argument is perhaps out of place, because again afaik science revolves around empirical tests.

 

[Michael]

No, because the burden of proof is on you, not me. I'm not the one making claims.

We'll examine that statement a bit later. You've made plenty of your own 'claims'.

You have not shown that the outside universe itself is alive, intelligent or aware in any sense of the words.

I have in fact shown you that it's composed of uncounted trillions of electrical circuits and it certainly has all the earmarks of a living entity in terms of the flow of electrical and chemical energy. Thus far you've pretty much ignored those empirical facts. Why?

Your assumption that living things have the purpose of awareness is nothing more than an opinion,

What function does your eye serve if not 'awareness'? Your ears? What function does any organ of the body server other than to serve your consciousness?

and one with no evidence to support it.

Your claim of "no" evidence is a sham. It's a subjective choice that you are personally making to simply DENY the scientific facts and evidence that you don't wish to deal with.

Complexity in living organisms arises through the natural process of evolution,

We actually agree on that statement.

but evolution is a process independent of any outside intelligent agent/God/interfering mind.

This is your statement of knowledge and you have failed to provide any evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that claim. Where does awareness come from? How does a single celled animal pick and CHOOSE a balanced diet? You're making a LOT of leaps of faith.

The goal of evolution is NOT awareness.

This is again a statement of knowledge on your part, false knowledge in fact, and you've failed to provide any evidence to support that claim.

Evolution has no purpose in the sense we understand the word,

You've made ANOTHER false knowledge claim. Care to provide supporting evidence and how you discovered this?

A human-centric view of evolution is the fundamental error and misunderstanding at the root of all intelligent design arguments.

IMO you're the only one hung up on a "human centric" view of the universe, specifically your own human centric view. You've somehow DECIDED that evolution (and evidently life) serves no purpose, yet DNA has been described as the ultimate example of intelligent 'programming' in a tiny package. You have absolute no evidence to support your position so all you can do is sit there in pure denial of all the evidence that undermines your position, starting with all those circuits in space, NDE's where atheist profess to meet someone they call God, etc. You're in a scenario now where denial becomes the name of the game, much like a YEC denying the evidence that undermines their faith in YEC.

So, realising you are on a sticky wicket you try to shift the burden of proof away from yourself.

No. I rounded you up 30 or so links, not one of which you evidently bothered to read. You're whole gig now is "pure denial" so I'm sure you didn't read any of Alfven's work.

You are pulling the same trick theists do when they ask atheists to prove that God doesn't exist. You are asking me to prove a negative.

No, you're doing the YEC trick, denying the evidence presented.

I don't have to prove anything, you do, but you can't.

FYI, I can't (nobody can) "prove" anything, I can only provide evidence to support my position. I have. You didn't bother to read any of it. I'll be you have no clue at all why Plasma is called plasma, who gave it that name, why they gave it that name, etc.

No one trying to prove a divine purpose ever has, which is why you are in the same boat as the rest of religious believers: you have to rely on faith alone.

No, I don't. I have provided you with an EMPIRICAL theory of God, and it's based on only the known laws of physics as we understand them. There's no magic dark energies. No magical forms of matter that are shy around the lab. No dead deistic inflation genies in the sky. Compared to any other cosmology theory I've ever read, pantheism relies on nothing that cannot be demonstrated in the lab, or have some hope of being demonstrated in the lab at some point in time. That's head and shoulders better than any explanation of this universe that I've heard from your lips.

 

[Michael]

FYI, in my years of debates with atheists, the common denominator with all atheists is that they *ALWAYS* set themselves up as their own 'judge and jury' in terms of what they consider to be "supporting evidence", particularly evidence of "God". When you say "no" evidence, what you mean is NO EVIDENCE YOU HAVE PERSONAL READ OR DEALT WITH. Just out of morbid curiosity, which of those papers an books on that recommended reading list I handed you, have you actually read?

 

[Michael]

The onus is on you to provide evidence for your claims! So far you have provided none that can be empirically examined.

http://www.christianforums.com/t7584137-13/#post58395643

Which of those papers and books did you actually read or are you like the YEC that never reads anything that is suggested to them?

 

[mzungu]

http://www.christianforums.com/t7584137-13/#post58395643

Which of those papers and books did you actually read or are you like the YEC that never reads anything that is suggested to them?

Like I have said before: I am not a member of the tinfoil hat crowd.

Now where's the evidence EH

 

[Michael]

Like I have said before: I am not a member of the tinfoil hat crowd.

Now where's the evidence EH

It's found in those links that you evidently refuse to read. FYI, one of those links that I handed you is to a book called Cosmic Plasma by Hannes Alfven. Alfven won the Nobel Prize for his development of MHD theory, the mathematical PHYSICS behind plasma physics theory. He wrote an entire book devoted to how spacetime plasmas behave, and why they behave that way.

You and I aren't communicating at the level of physics yet, mainly because you haven't read his books like I have, or any of the hundreds of papers he wrote on MHD theory and how it should be applied to space.

 

[Naraoia]

In that case, are you for Jesus Christ coming back for each and every person ever born, and dying on a cross for each individual?

No. I'm all for everyone being judged on their own merits or crimes. I don't expect anyone to die for me, thank you.

If so, would you volunteer to hammer the nails?

Why would I?

Or is it okay to just made one man the federal head of the human race, and have Jesus Christ die on the cross 'once for all'?

In my world, this question just doesn't make sense.

No, not really.

Yes, yes really. But you can dissect your own argument and show me how it's not circular. I already explained why I think it's circular, and you never managed to address that.

As I said, circularity is about argument structure, not content. This is not up for debate, this is the definition of circular reasoning.

Pantheism is simply supported by the fact that universe is quite literally filled with electrical circuits, just like living things on Earth. You can deny that fact all you like, but it's simply an empirical fact.

It's still irrelevant to what I said.

I've listed the appropriate scientific papers in the appropriate thread.

What, where? Was that in the Empirical Theory of God thread? I honestly don't remember any scientific papers, but it was a long time ago.

I just diasagree and I do know what I'm talking about.

Comments like this don't exactly demonstrate that.

 

[Michael]

It's still irrelevant to what I said.

What, where? Was that in the Empirical Theory of God thread? I honestly don't remember any scientific papers, but it was a long time ago.

The conversation has been going on for some time now, but it's an ongoing conversation. Perhaps it would be best if we save the pantheism debate for appropriate thread rather than to hijack this one (BB thread).

Here is a link to the supporting papers and books I posted in the Empirical theory of God thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7584137-13/#post58395643

Perhaps you would be so kind as to address that material in the other thread?

 

[Naraoia]

The conversation has been going on for some time now, but it's an ongoing conversation. Perhaps it would be best if we save the pantheism debate for appropriate thread rather than to hijack this one (BB thread).

I didn't want to have a pantheism debate. Just pointed out a flaw in your logic.

Here is a link to the supporting papers and books I posted in the Empirical theory of God thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7584137-13/#post58395643

Ah, yes, that was long after I left that thread. So my failure to remember them wasn't a memory lapse.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to address that material in the other thread?

I might be kind on occasion, but this is a matter of dedication, and I'm not sure I can muster enough of that to read and address a whole bibliography outside my expertise right now.

 

[Michael]

I didn't want to have a pantheism debate. Just pointed out a flaw in your logic.

What flaw?

 

[Freodin]

The conversation has been going on for some time now, but it's an ongoing conversation. Perhaps it would be best if we save the pantheism debate for appropriate thread rather than to hijack this one (BB thread).

Here is a link to the supporting papers and books I posted in the Empirical theory of God thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7584137-13/#post58395643

Perhaps you would be so kind as to address that material in the other thread?

I quickly checked out some of the links you gave here. While they all seem to deal with electrical currents and circuits in astrophysical settings, none of them give any hint to the existence of consciousness.

So where is the empirical data for your theory?