The Science that led me away from Atheism.

[Bugeyedcreepy]

You have to know everything about everything to have absolute certainty of laws of logic like the law of non-contradiction? No, I know better than that, and anyone that claims "fact" also depends on certainty.



In one breath you deny absolute certainty, and in the next you depend on it to make a claim such as "logically impossible". So which is it? Please make up your mind.



Back to uncertainty, "absolute" uncertainty, but are you absolutely uncertain about that?




Are the laws of logic which Science depends on real?



So how do you account for and justify those certainties?

...Is that you, Sye Ted Bruggencate??

It is more reasonable to think the natural universe came into existence by an eternal uncaused Causer than to think the chains of cause for the universe regress infinitely, or to imply "spontaneous generation" of anything without a cause. It is more reasonable to think of a First Causer from which secondary causes created in a way to have the capability to continue the chain of cause and effect.

so where did your 'uncaused Causer' come from, and why not just cut that unnecessary extra step away and just say the natural universe is eternal and uncaused until this alleged 'uncaused Causer' turns up & claims responsibility? or even better still, let's put that into the 'I Don't Know' box for safekeeping until we do have evidence?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

...Is that you, Sye Ted Bruggencate??

Nope, sorry.

so where did your 'uncaused Causer' come from, and why not just cut that unnecessary extra step away and just say the natural universe is eternal and uncaused until this alleged 'uncaused Causer' turns up & claims responsibility? or even better still, let's put that into the 'I Don't Know' box for safekeeping until we do have evidence?

That there is universe and that there is a natural order (which implies certain things) should be more than sufficient evidence. By definition, "uncased" means just that, and it comes down to accepting the existence of a Supreme being a Creator, or the absurdities noted in the previous post. Or do you know of Science to back up anything that exists without a cause, anything that poofs into existence out of well...nothing? I don't believe in magic, for every magic trick there is veiled slight of hand, props and such to disguise the masquerade. The slight of hand here is that we can reason meaningfully about this without first presupposing external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction. That our reasoning does not depend on an absolutely rational mind outside of our own existence. So "my" Uncaused Causer is the justification and how I account for external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic. This is infinitely more reasonable than infinite regress of causation or unguided meaningless purposeless chaotic "spontaneous generation" out of nothing.

 

[redleghunter]

and why not just cut that unnecessary extra step away and just say the natural universe is eternal and uncaused until this alleged 'uncaused Causer' turns up & claims responsibility?

1. Still does not address cause.

2. What premise would you base this on?

or even better still, let's put that into the 'I Don't Know' box for safekeeping until we do have evidence?

Kicking the can down the road seems to be the current defense of some skeptics.

Yet even the prevalent view still is the universe had a beginning.

 

[Speedwell]

The slight of hand here is that we can reason meaningfully about this without first presupposing external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction.

The "law" of non-contradiction is not really a law, it's an axiom of a particular axiomatic formal system and is not found in all such systems.

So "my" Uncaused Causer is the justification and how I account for external eternal immaterial absolute laws of logic.

Would you not first have to demonstrate that the "immaterial and absolute laws of logic" are in fact immaterial and absolute?

 

[FormerAtheist]

I was specifically speaking of the stuff you wrote re: biology in the OP. And what you wrote largely appears to be combination of the usual misapplied probability calcs, personal incredulity and personal awe.

None of those things are a compelling argument with respect to atheism and certainly not in the context of biology.

So you have a way of fighting back on the math?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

The "law" of non-contradiction is not really a law, it's an axiom of a particular axiomatic formal system and is not found in all such systems.Would you not first have to demonstrate that the "immaterial and absolute laws of logic" are in fact immaterial and absolute?

Am I to glean from your comment that you deny the law of non-contraction applies to reality? Although you could give examples of the law of non-contradiction as it applies to reality that in itself in no way accounts for the law itself, any more than the number one can be accounted for in a tangible way. Do the laws of logic not apply where there are no humans known to exist, other planets? Of course they are immaterial, and it applies to all conceptual reality, but it would appear you might deny conceptual realities because they are immaterial, how unfortunate. It is like breathing while denying the environment and conditions that make it possible to breath.

 

[FormerAtheist]

You realise that all atheism needs to entail is non acceptance of theistic claims, don't you? There's no justification necessary, just a stance of non-belief of the other person's position.



What is growing every day? What is explosive? What is the disconnect?



What is taught as fact?

I think you're missing some nouns here and there.

And yet we are seeing an explosion in your face take it or take it attitude by the new atheists.

Some of us are aware. Sadly many are not.

 

[FormerAtheist]

(If I understand what your saying) Because theists insist on attempting to deny reality and teach things that are not only unsupported, but actively contradicted by the evidence on hand. Like Creationism. Or ID.



I'm, not sure any doctor is "forced" to accept evolution as the best explanation for the diversity of life on the planet. However, understanding the development of human body parts, including their evolutionary history, leads to better medicine.



There's no need - apart from the bit about wilful reality denial. Oh, and the separation of Church and State.



Is it any more obscene than to any other theist cultural grouping?



The scawy atheist boogie man is coming. Qwick hwide!

Why Do Some Doctors Reject Evolution?

And so it starts

 

[mark kennedy]

So you have a way of fighting back on the math?

From experience I can tell you they have no response for that kind of probability argument. A 10^40 probability is about as close to impossible as you can get. You can consider that one irrefutable. They seldom have a counter argument and like the 2 Law of Thermodynamics argument that is a lot like it they usually let it drift into the stacks.

Just curious really, do you consider the God of the Bible to be the Creator?

 

[FormerAtheist]

I took a random year, 1965, half a century away to see how often "accident" was used in technical papers and books. I used google scholar as my source. About 7,830 instances of "accident" were reported for that year.

I then looked at the first one hundred instances to see in what context the word was used. In all but two of those cases it referred to the conventional usage of accident. i.e. things like car accidents. Indeed the majority of the usages referred to car accidents, although other industrial accidents were mentioned, especially those relating to nuclear accidents.

The first exception was a paper discussing Aristotle's Categories. The paper is behind a paywall, but it does appear to be using "accident" in the sense you assert was common in the past.

The second exception relates to "accident of birth", which as a colloquial expression does not appear to meet your criteria.

So, there we have it, in a sampling of the approximately 8,000 occurences of "accident" in scientific papers in 1965, only 1% use the term in what you view as a prejudicial manner. I'm not sure how you expect this insignificant percentage to be reduced as a consequence of panic (?) at the words of proponents of ID. But, I'm game - let's take a look fifty years on.

No surprise here: more than ten times reported instances as in 1965. About 85,700, according to Google Scholar. Now, if science viewed the term "accident" in any context as idiotic, would it have increased the usage tenfold in half a century? I suggest not.

What about the usage? This article talks of a "pileup accident" related to the solar wind. This article discusses the possibility of conspiracy theories arising from a "nothing happens by accident heuristic". All the other examples from the one hundred instances I sampled were dealing with the conventional use of "accident", a great many of them dealing with Fukishima.

In short, this simple analysis completely contradicts your claim that

• In the past scientists often used the term accident (implicitly as a alternative to random or chance).
• They stopped using this term as a consequence of the writings of ID proponents.

If you wish to challenge this claim you will need to produce more detailed figures than mine. Good luck with that.

Are you serious?

Even when I was an atheist I would not have taken you very serious. So you can find a way to make a search perimeter that you think will validate your ideas hahaha. Serioulsy?

And?

I would bet that anyone with just a bit more time then you have could do better. That's it?

Holy camel wow you should do better because I can garruntee anyone can beat that if they want to. But lets be real. Who wants to??????

We have better things to do with our lives.

You have nothing.

And you know it.





If I have to I can refute you in 15 minutes but I would rather someone else to do it for me.

 

[Project Panda]

God has revealed Himself to us through Special and General Revelation, figure that out.



Rationalism without a God? How do you justify and account for transcendental immaterial reality? Sure we use logic, there is no way around it to have meaningful conversation, language presupposes classical logic, Science depends on it, but that is avoiding the issue of whether a worldview can justify and account for it. Just telling someone to be rational, assumes you are using reason, now account for the laws of logic without God, without the mind of God in whom logic is eternal and exhaustive and perfect.



We can understand so far as what He has revealed, to that extent, but we do not understand exhaustively, to do so would mean we are omniscient, it would also mean we are glorified, which we clearly are neither.



And what line of reasoning led to that conclusion? Of course you're entitled to an opinion, but is it rational? Without assuming the existence of God first, what is reason? Human convention? And what if my reasoning say's your reasoning is fallacious? Are we stuck in a stalemate without truth? Is it all relative to the person? If reason is relative then we are stuck with the internalism of solapcism, which cannot account for an external eternal immaterial absolute law of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction.

I don't assume there's no creator or architect to our known universe, just that there's no logical reason to think Jesus is the architect himself. You'd think that if God (AKA Jesus) was walking among us and was known, he'd have intimate knowledge of his own universe to pass on. But he couldn't even tell us the basics (Like the earth was round) or (Germ theory) I know why people believe, I was once a believer. I understand the desperate need humans have for meaning & how death is almost impossible to accept without something to ease the fear.

Belief won't get you there, on the other side.

 

[pitabread]

So you have a way of fighting back on the math?

The math itself is irrelevant. It's whether or not the probability calculation itself is meaningful. And generally when it comes to probability calcs relating to either evolution or the origin of life itself, they tend not to be meaningful given the underlying assumptions built into them.

 

[FormerAtheist]

The math itself is irrelevant. It's whether or not the probability calculation itself is meaningful. And generally when it comes to probability calcs relating to either evolution or the origin of life itself, they tend not to be meaningful given the underlying assumptions built into them.

Sounds convenient.

So Math is irrelevant because it does not line up with your belief?

 

[pitabread]

Sounds convenient.

So Math is irrelevant because it does not line up with your belief?

*sigh* That's not even remotely close to what I was saying.

Do you understand that any probability calculation is going to have certain premises or assumptions on which the probability calculation is based?

 

[FormerAtheist]

*sigh* That's not even remotely close to what I was saying.

Do you understand that any probability calculation is going to have certain premises or assumptions on which the probability calculation is based?

Ummm no lol

Its just going to be something pretty simple like this if we have a protein then we would have to go with the combinatory space that it would have to solve so it would look like 1 in 10^77.

So can you explain why this is not true?

Just do it man.

Just do it.

Show me the math. I want to see it.

 

[Speedwell]

Ummm no lol

Its just going to be something pretty simple like this if we have a protein then we would have to go with the combinatory space that it would have to solve so it would look like 1 in 10^77.

So can you explain why this is not true?

Your calculation assumes
1. That the molecule was formed de novo from it's individual constituent atoms, and
2. All possible combinations of those atoms are equally likely to form.

 

[FormerAtheist]

Your calculation assumes
1. That the molecule was formed de novo from it's individual constituent atoms, and
2. All possible combinations of those atoms are equally likely to form.

You have a different theory?

 

[Speedwell]

You have a different theory?

Yeah, it's called biochemistry.

 

[FormerAtheist]

Yeah, it's called biochemistry.

Awesome ... so you have a way around 1 in 10^100,000 ?

That would be nice because as a former atheist I was seeking this very thing. Can you show me this. Maybe if you show me I can go back to my atheism.

Show me.

 

[FormerAtheist]

Yeah, it's called biochemistry.

In the last 30 years a number of prominent scientists have attempted to calculate the odds that a free-living, single-celled organism, such as a bacterium, might result by the chance combining of pre-existent building blocks. Harold Morowitz calculated the odds as one chance in 10^100,000,000,000. Sir Fred Hoyle calculated the odds of only the proteins of an amoebae arising by chance as one chance in 10^40,000.

[Mark Eastman, MD, Creation by Design, T.W.F.T. Publishers, 1996]

Actually my math is less then that but still problematic lol. When we look at what Morowitz was looking at it is very problematic but is it really that bad? We don't know. We do know this it is very bad hahaha. Its bad enough that many of us are looking at the math and we can say no its not possible. For example I can tell you its beyond 10^100,000 and I know this with confidence because I and everyone can do the math on this we know this. That is an impossible number and yet we all know it is beyond that. Is what Morowitz says true? I don't know its such an incredible number and I don't know how he got that number but I have no reason to doubt him.

Does anyone?

Can anyone?

No

No one can doubt him because we have no idea how complicated this problem is except to say that it is beyond just something "blind without intelligence".

Good luck.