The Science that led me away from Atheism.

[Tayla]

So how does one investigate the spiritual?

Only one way. The revealed word of God, the Bible.

 

[Tayla]

What is "spiritual"?

That which is not material.

 

[doubtingmerle]

That which is not material.

Is pi material or spiritual?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I'm sure...

I'm sure your point of view is completely objective and totally neutral, and completely and 100% totally intellectually honest, and is always taking in "equal doses" of both sides of all scientific points of view or all voices on all science matters, (or other matters, like the existence of God, for example, as well) and is completely free of any trace of pride... And is not colored or skewed by any personal issues or personal biases at all...

I'm so sure...

God Bless!

Ow, I'm certainly biased.


Biased against propositions that have zero evidential support.
Do you think it is a bad thing, to only accept those things that are supported by evidence?
And to not accept things that are supported by no evidence at all - or worse, contradicted by the evidence?

 

[DogmaHunter]

@DogmaHunter it comes out in your writing that your just "not" (this above) that is that: your just "not" 100% completely totally and truly "objective", or have a truly objective point of view... On or in science, or with scientific matters, or with matters about God or "any matters", for that matter...

And, I'm not surprised, very, very few are, or are truly that brave or bold after all...

I'm not talking about "absolute certainty", but just not even "relative certainty" is even possible in most matters, if your being 100% truly objective (or honest)...

Not sure what you mean by "objective" here.

How about "rational" instead?
Am I always 100% rational? I'm human and not a Vulcan, like mr Spock, so I'ld say that it is unlikely. However, I actively try to be rational all the time. And if I'm being irrational, I want people to point it out.

Because I prefer believing things based on rational reasons.
I like to hold as many rational beliefs as possible and as little irrational beliefs as possible, don't you?

So if you have a claim, for which no rational evidence exists, why would you believe it?

For example: if you were being "that" (above) about or on, or with the matters of God, or God's existence or "whatever", (for example)... You'd almost "have to conclude" that it (the subject of God, or God's existence or whatever) is "possible" at the very least, and perhaps maybe even likely, to very likely... or even more likely, to even very possibly, or very possibly, or even very probably (likely) (true, a God exists, or whatever)... (for example)...

God Bless!

For what reason would I consider god(s) to be likely?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I only used the question of the existence of God as an/one example only... But that what I said about being 100% truly completely objective, intellectually honest and true, (ect), could apply to almost anything, or "any question of any debatable subject matter"...

And that the problem lies in most of us just "not being that way" (about "things")...

And when you truly are, even any "relative certainty" of anything, becomes highly debatable or uncertain...

God Bless!

Intellectual honesty, does not lead to accepting claims that aren't supported by any rational evidence. Like god claims.

 

[DogmaHunter]

If I wasn't a Christian i'd be a deist or something close. There just isn't enough to carry me over the extreme improbability that all existence came about naturally. It's too big of a pill to swallow unless it's medication.

So essentially, you're using a false dichotomy to underline an argument from incredulity...

 

[DogmaHunter]

Huuum!
There can't be a God? Or should I say, a Creator of all that it?
Consider this view point. There are certain trees that only grow in certain areas with certain established conditions for those particular trees! There is only certain groups that grow certain areas that have the proper growing conditions for them! There is certain birds that are for certain parts of the Earth.
Mathematics works the same in all parts of the Earth, why?

Because mathematics is a symbollic language that represents universal logic, while trees and birds have evolved to fit the habitat they find themselves in.

The star constillations tell the entire story of the coming of a spiritual saviour; these are what the wise men in the Bible understood when They said They saw His sign in the stars!
I guess it must all be an accident?

Or human imagination.

ps: the constellations predate biblical scriptures and aren't in fact biblical, or abrahamic, at all.

 

[DogmaHunter]

The scientific method is based on materialism, that all of matter is material, that the universe upon which science investigates is only material, not spiritual.

No. Materialism and methodological naturalism, are not the same thing.

 

[Tayla]

Is pi material or spiritual?

Spiritual. Mathematics is spiritual, not material. Even the philosopher Immanuel Kant says so (he calls it pure reason).

 

[Tayla]

No. Materialism and methodological naturalism, are not the same thing.

Yes, exactly my point.
Methodological naturalism - RationalWiki

 

[HitchSlap]

Only one way. The revealed word of God, the Bible.

Ok.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yes, exactly my point.
Methodological naturalism - RationalWiki

How could that possibly be your point, when your claim was about materialism?

 

[doubtingmerle]

The scientific method is based on materialism, that all of matter is material, that the universe upon which science investigates is only material, not spiritual.

Mathematics is spiritual, not material. Even the philosopher Immanuel Kant says so (he calls it pure reason).

Ah, so you think the scientific method is flawed because it avoids mathematics in its study of the universe.

Are you serious or joking?

 

[Tayla]

Ah, so you think the scientific method is flawed because it avoids mathematics in its study of the universe.

The scientific method works within the proper domain of science, that being the physical universe. Yes, it requires rational creatures (humans) using mathematics; these (reason, mathematics, and consciousness) are not material but, rather, spiritual. The flaw is in claiming that all that exists is material when there are clearly other things non-material that exist, and; these are required to do science.

 

[pitabread]

That which is not material.

Well, that's rather vague...

 

[pitabread]

The flaw is in claiming that all that exists is material when there are clearly other things non-material that exist, and; these are required to do science.

Does anyone claim that mathematics doesn't exist?

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

I wanted to do this for awhile and put the evidence that led me away from Atheism. The scientific evidence. And I felt that this post should stand on its own. To my knowledge I don't know that this is out there in one place and there maybe be some things that are not out there.



So for me it started with Quantum Physics. As I studied QP I began to become uneasy. I was seeing something that didn't match my world view. There was too much interconnectedness and well something bigger afoot. The Dual Slit experiment was the first problem for me as I began to see what looked like intelligent interaction between the matter/energy (depending on your interpretation and what is being tested) and the observer. I began to talk to physicists about this and was shocked at the responses. They didn't like this line of questioning at all. Because they knew it led to an outside intelligence. They assured me that it was all mechanical but that raised even bigger problems. If as most physicists believe and most people that study QP that its all mechanical from Quantum to Macro then we have a direct and necessary link between consciousness and matter. Which presents a huge problem in the creation of the universe. How do you get something form nothing without a conscious agent present? Then there is entangled particles that can transmit information instantly to the other side of the universe with ease. And what does this information do? It can reverse the spin on an electron on a dime. This is an amazing amount of energy from no where that can not be accounted for. And of course then there is the problems of Quantum Tunneling. For an Atheist all these things are problems. This is why many scientists didn't like these ideas when presented with them. Which brings us back to the beginning of the Universe.



We had nothing but a quantum field and the laws of relativity and that was enough to produce massive amounts of energy and mass. And before this energy and mass there is no time. So we have something that can not be tested in a lab that exists outside of time and space that creates everything? Sounds like God to me. At this point if you believe this you yourself are just a hop skip and jump away from a "God" you just call it something different. But you still have the consciousness problem. We know that we have only witnessed consciousness creating consciousness. We have never seen otherwise. We have never seen anything but life give rise to life. And so we are asked to accept on faith that it happened somehow without an outside intelligent agent for the first and only time and then everything else changes forever after that. Once again sounds like "faith" sounds like "God".



But that is not the real problem.



The real problem is in the math.



In order for things to evolve into different life forms you would need new proteins and new protein functions along the way. The best way to explain this would be that a new protein fold is the most basic change we would expect to get a new life form generally. And so work has been done to see what this would take. Without boring you with the details the math works out like this 1 in 10^77 for a new protein fold for an average protein (150 amino acid length) and 1 in 10^90 for a very small brand new protein (90 amino acid chain). To do this once if there was only once chance would be impossible as expressed by math done that calculates that beyond 1 in 10^40 is considered impossible. But there would be trillions of lifeforms that can have a go at it. But how many? Well the math has already been done on that and that works out to 10^40 total lifeforms since the dawn of life on this planet till now. That is everything from your dog and you to some pond scum. So after you work the math it comes to this problem. If everything single life individual life form that has ever existed on this planet had one unique try at solving the combinatorial problem you would still be left with a 1 in 10^37 chance at solving a new protein fold. The combination inflation gets worse though. Remember we are not talking about doing this once. Ohhhh no. We have to do this every time we need a new protein fold. Now you may say wait. Not all different protein functions have different folds. This is true but you still have the problem of brand new proteins and their math problems. We have over 10,000,000 proteins that we have estimated so far. It is also estimated that 10-20% of these are orphans or completely different. So now you are saying that we would have to go through the lottery with a chance of at least 10trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion in 1 chance .... not once but over a million times just for the orphans. The real odds then just for proteins to overcome this would look something like this:



1 in 10^74000000 now this is a very very big number. We have only 10^80 particles in the known universe. We have nothing that we can actually compare to the that protein number because nothing exists that can be counted close to it. Your asking me at this point to accept that you could win the Powerball lottery a trillion times in a row ... take a break on your fat yacht then do it another trillion times and repeat this process millions of times.



I was on board the atheist train until I began to see this problem. If you ask me to accept by faith that we could do 1 in 10trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion feat once. I will accept it. Because my belief was that "God" was too crazy so we are here so some how it happened. And even though its crazy unlikely it happened. It must have happened and did so without a "God". But when you ask me to accept that we have to go through that crazy lottery millions of times then I have to leave the reservation.



I debate atheists all the time not because its a hobby but because I like to test my beliefs. One of the questions is always where is the proof? But then what proof are you looking for? Are you looking for a glowing sphere in some undiscovered desert that will talk to you and grant you 3 wishes? Are you looking for a magic piece of toast? Something you can measure in the lab? If that is what you looking for then don't you think that would make the thing your looking for illegitimate to the task it must've done? How can something so simple that is trapped in our universe and subject to our laws be able to create something as massive as the universe? We are trapped in a box. What is inside this box can not be created by something in the box. In order to get a universe you need something more powerful then it. And yet as atheists we all believe in something similar by different names. We believe something existed outside of time and space and created everything out of nothing. I don't think that you should be able to directly measure "God" that would denigrate the very existence of such a being but I do think you can detect what this entity has done. Its in the math of the universe.



And now on for another problem that began to seriously trouble me. The irreducibly complex argument. We have all heard it before. Of course and most atheists myself will dismiss thinking that it has already been debunked. There have been answers to this argument but I am not sure they would qualify as debunking. We know of the classic examples the flagella motor, the eye, the blood clotting system. By the way the blood clotting system seems out of reach but I do not want to travel down this path. Rather I would suggest that all of life is irreducibly complex. When we get down to the cellular level its all interdependent with multiple chicken and egg problems that defy imagination. When we see functions in nature that operate at near 100% efficiency and do so with such ease that the host organism doesn't even think about these processes. From converting sunlight to chemical energy to converting chemical energy to mechanical energy we see design on steroids. We see a technological sophistication that is beyond our civilization as if put here for our amazement by an advanced alien civilization. I know of no single life form that either A. does not have irreducibly complex systems within itself or B. does not rely upon some other life form that does. I am beginning to suspect that all of life needs all of life and is therefore all interdependent. Such a grand system where you can go from molecular to planet scale and find connectedness and interdependence defies any other explanation then .... GENIUS.

That's a very long and convoluted way of saying you "don't understand it, therefore; God!", an even more complex and less understandable proposition.

I don't suppose you ever stop to ponder why all these scientists of a wide and diverse background of faiths (or more likely, no faith at all), each of whom have studied in their respective fields for years if not decades, don't see the complexity or impossibility of a natural universe and everything in it?

"Irreducible Complexity Business" has not been debunked

Of course it has - it even got its day in court where it was trounced quite profoundly and with vigor, so we certainly do have justification to point out how silly it is, even outside of the Scientific community.

I have been observing the thread on that on this forum by a very intelligent poster here goes by ID.

oh! lol! you mean Mr "Organic Robot Penguin" man??

And there were many intelligent ID style posts there.

No, no there isn't.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

I always use to think that the ToE was so very solid and certain, but now just don't know...?

If you take and equal dose of both sides perspectives or points of view and their evidence, and be completely intellectually honest, with no pride involved, can you really come to any or very many completely solid certain conclusions, for certain...?

...."both sides"? There isn't two sides for the diversity of life on this planet. There is ONLY the Theory of Evolution. That's It!

If you're talking about religion, then religions have thousands upon thousands of unfounded stories on how life came to be what we see today, but that's not science.

I'm sure...

I'm sure your point of view is completely objective and totally neutral, and completely and 100% totally intellectually honest, and is always taking in "equal doses" of both sides of all scientific points of view or all voices on all science matters, (or other matters, like the existence of God, for example, as well) and is completely free of any trace of pride... And is not colored or skewed by any personal issues or personal biases at all...

I'm so sure...

You keep talking about this "both sides" thing, in Science, what is the other side to the Theory of Evolution? Do you have any citations?

@DogmaHunter it comes out in your writing that your just "not" (this above) that is that: your just "not" 100% completely totally and truly "objective", or have a truly objective point of view... On or in science, or with scientific matters, or with matters about God or "any matters", for that matter...

And, I'm not surprised, very, very few are, or are truly that brave or bold after all...

I'm not talking about "absolute certainty", but just not even "relative certainty" is even possible in most matters, if your being 100% truly objective (or honest)...

For example: if you were being "that" (above) about or on, or with the matters of God, or God's existence or "whatever", (for example)... You'd almost "have to conclude" that it (the subject of God, or God's existence or whatever) is "possible" at the very least, and perhaps maybe even likely, to very likely... or even more likely, to even very possibly, or very possibly, or even very probably (likely) (true, a God exists, or whatever)... (for example)...

You'd be hard pressed to find an Atheist who wouldn't acknowledge at least a remote chance a God might exists(these Atheists do exist tho), but you'll find many of us simply expect that there be at least something to base an assessment of such a thing like a God on, and that would usually be something like Evidence. For example, I don't read too much into Zeus, or Odin, Shiva, Universe creating Pixies, the easter bunny, etc. because they lack Evidence. If there's any Evidence, then we can assess it.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

If I wasn't a Christian i'd be a deist or something close. There just isn't enough to carry me over the extreme improbability that all existence came about naturally. It's too big of a pill to swallow unless it's medication.

so you don't understand it either, therefore it can't be true? Please refer to my assessment of @FormerAtheist 's fallacies, in particular, note all the relevant scientists in all the relevant fields of science not having a problem with it despite coming from the widest background of faiths, or lack thereof....