Coccyx - tale of a creationist disinformation post

[AV1611VET]

Do arms have rights?

Before or after they're cut out?

 

[NobleMouse]

No, I was utilizing academic logic, not what people refer to colloquially. I took philosophy as an elective. Regardless, my contention with using logic alone to suggest something exists remains. You'd never suggest that logically anything must absolutely exist; even if one of your proposals (that intelligence only comes from intelligence) was true, that wouldn't mean that the intelligence we came from was that of anything we'd consider to be a deity.

I would suggest faith is most beneficial to believing, but my experience with you and other agnostics/atheists here is that there is a lack of faith that God exists, so I am forced to resort to logic and reason. Is there another medium by which you could come to recognize that the universe didn't put itself together? If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you are really here since any answer anyone could give would be unacceptable in your eyes.

Nah, I was just mentioning that since we honestly have no idea how the universe came to be, from a scientific standpoint, then any hypothetical proposal that isn't demonstrably impossible IS a possible way that the universe could have formed. As a result, it is kinda a waste of time to speculate about it.

Yes, another member mentioned this as well in reference to you so fair enough - it was just an 'out there' hypothetical.

Pfft, and claims have been positively made that Brahma created the universe. Making a claim that the universe formed such and such way in and of itself lends no validity to the claim, no matter how many people come to believe it. Although, I would say that given the number of times I have seen the paradoxical creation of the universe in media, I wouldn't be shocked if at least one person claimed that to be how the universe was made.

This may be helpful... so setting aside all unsubstantiated and unsupportable claims to the contrary, there is a finite set of claims made by God (and a set of other false gods). Are there reasons why you feel an unsubstantiated and unsupported claim is of equal likelihood of being true as compared to, say God of the Christian Bible being the source of the universe?

Evidence you continue to choose not to post, apparently. Stop alluding to it if you won't post it, it's a huge tease to a seeker like me.

One such evidence, is the presence of information in DNA. See post #986 for more of what I wrote there on information theory (this is not my own work, I'm not an information theorist - just what I've added for discussion purposes), but a snippet below:

Information is "an encoded, symbolic message, with a language convention, and which contains an expected action upon the part of the recipient, and an intended purpose."

@Speedwell did ask where this definition is from, citing Claude E. Shannon as the originator of information theory (which is correct). I ultimately got the above from:
https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/apologetics/information-theory-part-2/
However, the author of this article referenced, Dr. Werner Gitt, who is an expert in information theory and would be familiar with Shannon's work. If the above definition can be shown to be incorrect, we can work with a revised definition. Until then, let's use this as our framework. In post #986, I also wrote:

This test can be done on anything, including DNA - there are symbols geneticists use (G, C, A, and T)... and G, C, A, and U if talking about RNA. Geneticists recognize groupings they call codons, which represents an amino acid with the instructions to start or stop the production of a protein (a chain of amino acids)... codons are the language convention. The expected action is that the RNA will take the instructions in the DNA and copy to RNA strands using ribosomes, producing proteins. Lastly, the intended purpose is life. Conclusion: DNA does in fact contain information.

Now, all research to date demonstrates that information always originates from a mind - there are no known natural causes that leads to the existence of meaningful information that satisfies all 4 requirements of the definition of information. If you or any other member can find evidence to the contrary, please provide. We also know meaningful information does not arise by accident - it's not like when I wrote this response I just mashed my hands into a keyboard billions of years ago and it's now just coming through to you having undergone many random mutations... and just happens to be readable, has the expectation of a response, and is purposeful - all by chance.

Now, humans were not making DNA before there were humans, so a logical conclusion is that from the mind of a supreme being came the information for DNA. Now we can try to suppose beings from another dimension or some other unsubstantiated hypothetical is the causality, but that remains wishful thinking. In contrast, there are written accounts of the miracles of God and His stating He made the universe, and eye witness accounts of Jesus and the miracles He performed. Jesus is a real and historical figure and He really did do everything that is written about Him. There is none of that for false gods, it isn't the year "2018" because that is somehow meaningful to buddha or brahma.

You say that, and yet, previously suggested that I KNOW how the universe came to be and present a bible verse. How can you possibly suggest I can know the universe was created, and yet state that there is no evidence for a universe being created?

It seems your 'standard' is for unequivocal evidence - meaning that there is only 1 explanation and all others cannot be true. By that standard, you could never really trust anything then. For example, you could never believe that the continents were once connected... oh sure, they "look" connected to some just like the universe "looks" created to Christians.

Have you ever seen a really old drawing of a whale?

Yeah, I wouldn't trust ancient people to accurately describe much beyond getting close enough that we could probably tell what the bad description was referring to... sometimes. By the way, this drawing is from the 1500s.

Artistic license. Are you really proposing that by 16th century artwork one cannot trust the accounts of the Bible?

-_- the lack of evidence for the deity itself is considered support for the null hypothesis. Evidence to the contrary would almost certainly require an alternative explanation to become well-evidenced, and as I have mentioned before, we have very little to go on, if anything, when it comes to the origin of the universe. I've never stated that it is impossible that a deity created the universe, only that there isn't any evidence for it.

The presence of information nullifies the null hypothesis. Information <> null.

-_- one of those bits of evidence being directly for the creator itself; we know humans make quilts because we observe humans making them. We know moles dig holes because we observe them doing it. But tell me, if I taught a chimpanzee to make quilts just like humans do, would you be able to look at a quilt made by a chimp and say "yup, this one was made by a chimp", even if it was a perfectly passable quilt? Likewise, even if it were demonstrably true that the only way our universe could exist is by the work of a deity, how would you be able to tell the difference between a universe made by YHWH and a universe made by Brahma?

Good, you have demonstrated an example of information originating in the mind of an intelligent being (you), passed to an animal (the chimpanzee), producing a created object (which evidences design). This feels like progress... so, we can no longer assert that things like chance or natural causes (like a rock tumbling down the side of a mountain... or say a lightning strike) made the quilt - that would be nonsensical, agreed? As such, atheism becomes further strained and I continue to question whether you are truly an atheist. We can talk about YHWH, Brahma, and others if you wish... right now I'm just trying to help you see how the universe requires information from an intelligent mind as a baseline.

Not that the universe itself has any qualities that indicate design; it has no obvious purpose (considering how little of it can support life, it would be as well designed for that purpose as a sheet of paper is as a paperweight).

You're being Aristotle's fish again, stop that : )
... and you using a sheet of paper as a paperweight just means you don't understand it's intended purpose, not at all meaning that it doesn't have purpose. Maybe you were just tired and it had been a long day.

Again, you act as if the universe would HAVE to be absolute chaos and inconsistency if it wasn't created, but there is no evidence to support that idea.

Yes there is evidence - don't clean your house or pay your bills or go to work for a year and tell me whether your life is in order or in absolute chaos. You can 'make' order by doing all of these things consistently, but your ability to make order is only because you were given the ability to do so by God who created order to begin with - placing the information into you DNA. How do you think scientists are able to recognize physical laws and create mathematical models to demonstrate?? Because God created order such that there are consistent behaviors that are observable, measurable, and repeatable.

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Your continuing to asking for evidence makes me wonder... if God, as to the extent His nature and character are revealed in the Bible, did in fact create the universe and everything within (as He claims to have), what about our present reality do you feel is in contradiction to this claim and/or His nature and character?

 

[HitchSlap]

Before or after they're cut out?

Before.

 

[HitchSlap]

I would suggest faith is most beneficial to believing,

I would suggest faith is the most dishonest position a person can take. As AronRa has said: Faith is an assertion of absolute conviction that is assumed without reason, and is defended against all reason.

Or as Twain put it: Faith is believing in something you know ain't true.

Challenge: name one position that I couldn't take on faith.

but my experience with you and other agnostics/atheists here is that there is a lack of faith that God exists,

Not a lack of faith, a lack of evidence.

so I am forced to resort to logic and reason.

YES! It's what reasonable people do.

Is there another medium by which you could come to recognize that the universe didn't put itself together?

Sure, but what's the point of making things up? Isn't the goal to believe as many true things as possible, and reject as many false things as possible?

If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you are really here since any answer anyone could give would be unacceptable in your eyes.

The question you should be asking is, what should be considered an acceptable answer. The best answer to any question, is the one that makes the least amount of assumptions.

I mean, not only are unicorns hard to catch, they're even harder to ride.

 

[NobleMouse]

This is a very strange question; are you asking if the number of generations of organisms on this planet has been a finite number? Undoubtedly, though an extremely high number. And intelligence would be inherited as long as that quality proved beneficial for survival and reproduction....

Just showing that information (and ultimately, intelligence) cannot be passed down endlessly from generation to generation as in an infinite loop... there was a finite beginning when there were no generations at all, and a 1st generation was established. Upon reading my prior response, I'll await your response as to sources of information (other than a mind).

No, it has been established that the Big Bang has a finite beginning. We have no idea how long the universe remained as a singularity prior to that point, and since the Big Bang marks the beginning of time itself existing as we understand it, the very statement of "before the Big Bang" may be entirely nonsensical. The Big Bang is not the beginning of the universe, it is the start of the universe taking on qualities familiar to us.

Cosmology is a largely theoretical science (and cosmologists/astrologists will freely admit this) given how very little has actually been explored (and much less than that, actually understood) - so grounding one's belief's to be a proponent for or in opposition of anything on cosmological hypotheses is rash. In fact, it is from the big bang model that it was hypothesized the idea of a multiverse and even within these circles the ideas became so ridiculous and bizarre that most secular scientists have rejected their plausibility. Also, there is no evidence of a mechanism that connects a big bang to the creation of time.

-_- are dolphins intelligent? Are dogs intelligent? Are mice intelligent? If you would say no to all three of those questions, then I would have to conclude that you assume human intelligence is some sort of special quality compared with any other animal, which simply is not the case. Our brains work by the same principles as any other brain. If you would say yes to any of those, but not all of them, at exactly what point do brain processes count as "intelligent"? If you would say yes to all of them, then I have no idea why you are acting as if intelligence is some special quality worthy of bringing up all the time. Regardless, neurons are just another specialized cell type for intercommunication between parts of the body in a multicellular organism. Better, larger neural networks is a trait that can be selected for just like better limbs or better eyes. It never comes from nothing, it comes from mutations on DNA that happen to make such networks better and as a result, improve survival and reproduction chances.

Yes, these all display evidence of degrees of intelligence, because they were all created by an intelligent Creator. You're speaking the words, but you're not seeing the forest through the trees - intelligence in all life must come from one that gives life. Intelligence requires information, information requires a mind, a mind requires a being. The Christian, believes that being... is God. Genetic mutations are shown to result in a loss of function, not a gain or improvement in function.

-_- cells are not more advanced than super computers. They may be more complicated as a consequence of the fact that cells never do anything by the fastest route possible, resulting in many inefficient intermediate steps, some of which damage cells. But they are not more advanced. Created objects considered to be well designed perform their tasks as directly and as efficiently as possible. Natural objects, even ones which seem to perform the same task as ones we have created, are always vastly less efficient and direct and often overly complicated compared to what they do.

What?! Yes they are ma'am, in fact, scientists have never on their own even been able to create a living cell from scratch:
http://www.icr.org/article/have-scientists-created-living-cell/

This argument fails because you assumed the fastest route possible = more advanced and everything a cell does is known to serve a purpose. What this should reveal, but apparently is not 'clicking' with some here, is that even with some of the best and brightest minds at the task, all that could be done was copy the DNA from a germ then paste it back to a germ. How immeasurably much more intelligent must God be to have created all the forms of life there are. Alternatively, there is no mechanism with evidence to support the creation of information, from nothing, or anything other than a mind.

-_- you are human just as much as I am; if being surrounded by created objects didn't prevent YOU from noticing that they were created, why would it prevent anyone else? I just find organisms, etc., to be too chaotic and inefficient to perceive them as having a design.

That some people interpret non-created objects as being created is a well known logical fallacy based on the human tendency to perceive objects as having a purpose, even when they don't.

A lack of understanding of living organisms on your part or mine does not negate their being created and demonstrating design. You contradict yourself in that you can recognize a quilt as created, but then when an even more complex pattern like that of cells are arrayed in a living organism you obtusely state it is chaotic. Same goes for atoms in a rock - if we look at the atoms that form silicon dioxide in granite, there is a pattern and a specific behavior, weight, etc... with every atom.

-_- rivers form as well as dry up regardless as to my existence. Not everything in my life depends on my involvement, or even the involvement of humans in general. Funnily enough, I don't do my own laundry, my fiance does, so even that gets done without my intervention. But you seem to be assuming that the universe MUST have been created, and on that premise, are asserting that it cannot be created without a creator. But alas, you've neglected to actually demonstrate that the universe had to be created by any intelligent being or force. It's similar to your statement of "intelligence only comes from intelligence", but you've never demonstrated that to be a true statement.

That's right, not everything in the universe depends on your and my involvement, and as it states in Colossians 1:17, "And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Also, only intelligent life produces intelligent life after it's own kind (not from a rock or a helium atom or a piece of paper), so there's a demonstration that it is a true statement.

No, I just don't know. I don't reject YHWH anymore than you reject giant purple people eaters or bigfoot. Your entire post seems to behave as if other religions that worship different deities and different creations don't exist.

Well just ask yourself how many times of your 'significant other' responding with "I don't know" to your hints at getting married would it take before you would start to feel like you were being rejected... maybe that context will help you see more clearly.

What a great way to disregard me if I never believe. Just assume I wasn't genuine. Look, you cannot read my mind, thus, you cannot assert any knowledge about my wants and desires. Consider how cruel it would be, to assume that seekers that never end up believing aren't genuine, if you are wrong. I could die tomorrow, and if I did, you'd consider me insincere...

Oh yeah, that's a great thing to say to someone you want to convert. You better have converted to Christianity as an adult, or you'll never understand what it is like to seek belief outside of childhood.

This isn't the first time a person has told me as much, nor do I think it will be the last. But no matter how many times others doubt my sincerity, I know myself....

PsychoSarah I can only comment from what I observe; you are correct in that you know yourself (but I'll add that God knows you better : ). Ask yourself though, if you are truly wanting to believe, why have you only been making arguments for NOT believing this entire time instead of making arguments FOR believing? If that offends, then maybe I've struck on a cord of truth. This is not me saying you're a bad person or a failure, this is me just shooting straight with you. Truth is, we're all bad, we've all failed, we're all sinners - this is just me, as one sinner to another, trying to show you the truth. If you're really interested in believing the truth, why don't you start presenting me with some reasons FOR believing God is true and God does exist?

-_- again, I have stated before that I require evidence to believe that the bible is the word of a deity, on the basis of the fact that there are many other books that claim much the same. There would have to be some defining difference in the bible's actual content to make it stand out compared to the rest, but upon reading it, I didn't find any such thing. If you have, present it.

-_- then how do you sense it? All this tells me is that you have no actual evidence for the deity you believe in, that you have never spoken to it, seen it, etc. When I was 13, I believed in ghosts, on account of evidence as weak as the show Ghosthunters, and yet even that was better evidence than I have ever gotten for the existence of any deity.

What would be evidence to believe that the Bible is the word of God, by your standard? Jesus is the only savior with eye witnesses attesting to Him raising from the dead. Also, I did not say all truths required something beyond our 5 senses, just that our 5 senses do not reveal all truths. A good number of truths within the limits of our senses can be discerned, an even within this limited set there is evidence for God, which I've already presented above and before numerous times now.

Given that you think I'll end up in the lake of fire otherwise, I should think you share that sentiment with every human.

I share my faith when the opportunity presents, but it would seem that I was referenced in a post here in this forum, then responded, then many others started responding to me, and so this is where I am, for now, sharing reasons for believing in God, with you.

Try forcing yourself to believe that the sandwich originated in Canada and see how much free will you have in making yourself believe something, even if you take efforts to prevent yourself from being exposed to contradictory evidence.

Now, try looking up some long held beliefs of yours, minor ones (one of mine for a while was thinking Albert Einstein flunked high school math; it isn't true). Chances are, you'll eventually come across one you thought was true,...

If I could just make myself believe, I would have done it years ago. I would have saved me a lot of emotional pain, fear, and teenage nihilism. It would have reduced death from the end of a person's existence....

post 2 of 2.

I know that life cannot come from non-life, and I know information cannot come from nowhere, and I know that patterns and designs and processes and physical laws, etc... are evidence of purposeful, intentional design. That's just the intellectual side and is not faith... but I know, by faith, that God is real, He is loving, and by His word and His Holy Spirit He is helping me to understand and know this truth. I know that I am sinful by nature and that the only way I can be made right and pure is by the blood of Jesus, God's son, who died for my sins (and your sins too). Jesus is my Lord and my Savior.

Now, from an intellectual perspective, there's enough to show atheism, naturalism, nihilism, humanism, and other "isms" as false, but it will require prayer and faith to believe in God. Belief in God is not an intellectual journey - you walk by faith. You claim to be a seeker, but if you are like one seeking a pirate's buried treasure, then every time some presents you with a map, a compass, a gold doubloon... any nugget of truth you scoff at it and insist there is not a pirate's buried treasure. Again, you continue to present arguments for not believing, but say you want to believe, so start showing me arguments for believing. Start with Jesus. #1: Jesus was a real, historical figure - Bible got that right. Wonder what else it got right?

You will always find interpretations of evidence both for and against something... I could spend all day presenting evidence for God, but as long as you continue to believe either some online source or something some said that it is possible without God, then that only demonstrates a biased pattern of choosing to not believe. That reminds me, God's word says in Deuteronomy 30:19 (ESV), "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,"... so God gave you the ability to choose - hey that's 2 things now true from the Bible. Now keep going, make a list, see how many more truths you can find in there.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I would suggest faith is most beneficial to believing, but my experience with you and other agnostics/atheists here is that there is a lack of faith that God exists, so I am forced to resort to logic and reason.

-_- well no duh atheists lack faith in the existence of deities; that's kinda what the word means. But your attempt to use logic is misplaced. Logic is a philosophical tool, and you can't use it to demonstrate much of anything. That is, you can't demonstrate that any specific item must exist by logic and reason alone; you need actual evidence.

Is there another medium by which you could come to recognize that the universe didn't put itself together? If the answer is no, then ask yourself why you are really here since any answer anyone could give would be unacceptable in your eyes.

Oh, I can come up with plenty of random explanations by which the universe is created, intentionally or otherwise. But I wouldn't believe any of them without evidence. An example of this would be a demonstrable aspect of physics that applies to the universe, yet would have prevented it from forming as it did. Not made it unlikely, mind you, but outright impossible.

Yes, another member mentioned this as well in reference to you so fair enough - it was just an 'out there' hypothetical.

Glad that you understand that.

This may be helpful... so setting aside all unsubstantiated and unsupportable claims to the contrary, there is a finite set of claims made by God (and a set of other false gods).

Lol, you think there is only 1 other religion that has a deviant creation story from yours? The claims may be finite, but with how little information we actually have, the possibilities are practically infinite. The truth may have never even been thought of in human minds before.

Are there reasons why you feel an unsubstantiated and unsupported claim is of equal likelihood of being true as compared to, say God of the Christian Bible being the source of the universe?

-_- because the Christian god being the source of the universe is also an unsubstantiated and unsupported claim. Although, I wouldn't necessarily say that all ideas about how the universe originated are necessarily equally likely. I'd say that all explanations that involve something which demonstrably exists have a slight edge to those that don't. Humans demonstrably exist, so it is more feasible that a human made the universe than, say, a sentient garbage can.

One such evidence, is the presence of information in DNA. See post #986 for more of what I wrote there on information theory (this is not my own work, I'm not an information theorist - just what I've added for discussion purposes), but a snippet below:

Information is "an encoded, symbolic message, with a language convention, and which contains an expected action upon the part of the recipient, and an intended purpose."

As an individual with a relevant degree to biology, I can assure you that DNA does not have any language conventions. All but two codons are redundant and every gene has large portions that, while transcribed into mRNA, are immediately removed from said mRNA entirely. No actual language is like this. Additionally, there is clearly no consciously intended purpose to any gene, because of a specific type of detrimental mutation. Most detrimental mutations are actually recessive, because you'll always have at least 2 copies of any given gene, and a typical copy can make up for the other one being "illegible". But your cells cannot actually choose to transcribe only the typical, useful copy if both are legible. As a result, in some cases, the detrimental mutant allele becomes harmful because it competes for resources with the beneficial one. I would think that if it was an actual language that the transcription complex "reading" it would be able to recognize such detrimental alleles as useless garbage and cease their activity, or just wouldn't be able to read it like you can't grant this a
pronunciation without adding sounds to it: dqjvdg.

@Speedwell did ask where this definition is from, citing Claude E. Shannon as the originator of information theory (which is correct). I ultimately got the above from:
https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/apologetics/information-theory-part-2/
However, the author of this article referenced, Dr. Werner Gitt, who is an expert in information theory and would be familiar with Shannon's work. If the above definition can be shown to be incorrect, we can work with a revised definition. Until then, let's use this as our framework. In post #986, I also wrote:

This test can be done on anything, including DNA - there are symbols geneticists use (G, C, A, and T)... and G, C, A, and U if talking about RNA. Geneticists recognize groupings they call codons, which represents an amino acid with the instructions to start or stop the production of a protein (a chain of amino acids)... codons are the language convention. The expected action is that the RNA will take the instructions in the DNA and copy to RNA strands using ribosomes, producing proteins. Lastly, the intended purpose is life. Conclusion: DNA does in fact contain information.

Again, this conclusion is incorrect, because it is based upon an incorrect understanding of how RNA is produced using DNA as a template, as well as the differences between the two. For one thing, a DNA strand equivalent to an mRNA strand cannot do diddly squat. That is, DNA only exists to be transcribed into RNA. That would be like having a blueprint that is illegible, but the copies of it are legible if they use a different ink color from the original and half of it is cut out. What language works like this? None of them. Also, "copy to RNA strands" part is entirely wrong. That should say that mRNA, after severe edits from proteins within the nucleus, goes on to be used as a template to produce proteins by subunits of rRNA (ribosomes are made of RNA)... about 80% of the time because the transcription and "editing" process is extremely error prone. Not that the rest of it isn't.

Now, all research to date demonstrates that information always originates from a mind - there are no known natural causes that leads to the existence of meaningful information that satisfies all 4 requirements of the definition of information. If you or any other member can find evidence to the contrary, please provide. We also know meaningful information does not arise by accident - it's not like when I wrote this response I just mashed my hands into a keyboard billions of years ago and it's now just coming through to you having undergone many random mutations... and just happens to be readable, has the expectation of a response, and is purposeful - all by chance.

As you know by now, I don't view DNA as having information in it. It is a molecule with specific properties that has such properties by the same mechanisms that the properties of all molecules work. If you want to argue that DNA has information, then you better be prepared to argue that water molecules do too.

Now, humans were not making DNA before there were humans, so a logical conclusion is that from the mind of a supreme being came the information for DNA.

-_- even if I did believe that DNA contained actual information like a language, that conclusion isn't logical. You cannot presume any properties from some hypothetical creator that you want it to have. Could be barely above average from a human perspective and it just had access to the knowledge to produce DNA. Heck, it could have been accidental, because honestly, our cells are not structured as if they are optimized for DNA. They are structured as if they are optimized for RNA. There are lots of possibilities, yet you keep behaving as if there is only 1.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Now we can try to suppose beings from another dimension or some other unsubstantiated hypothetical is the causality, but that remains wishful thinking.

All universe origin crap is mostly wishful thinking, with the rest being so general as to be uselessly safe in how vague they are.

In contrast, there are written accounts of the miracles of God and His stating He made the universe, and eye witness accounts of Jesus and the miracles He performed.

This applies to literally every religion ever.

Jesus is a real and historical figure and He really did do everything that is written about Him. There is none of that for false gods, it isn't the year "2018" because that is somehow meaningful to buddha or brahma.

-_- are you seriously unaware that other calendars are used? Not that 2018 is the actual number of years even with the Gregorian calendar since the birth of Jesus (based on historical references, most likely refers to 4 BC). But yes, many religions have greatly influenced the arbitrary way various nations have kept track of time over the course of human history. It doesn't make them more valid as a result. This is by far your worst argument for your religion you have made, and I hope you never waste time with it again.

It seems your 'standard' is for unequivocal evidence - meaning that there is only 1 explanation and all others cannot be true. By that standard, you could never really trust anything then.

Nope, I have a super low standard of evidence for deities, actually. In fact, I wouldn't even have to directly observe one to believe in it. An example of what would make me believe in deities would be a book that, regardless of the languages a person knows and regardless of how literate they are, anyone can read it and get the exact same message out of it. Not a text that has been translated into many forms of media, but a singular book anyone can read. It wouldn't even have to have some deep meaning to it; I'd view that as a miracle beyond natural explanation.

For example, you could never believe that the continents were once connected... oh sure, they "look" connected to some just like the universe "looks" created to Christians.

Nope, that's pretty well evidenced. You just assumed I have some ridiculously high standard of evidence for everything, but I don't.

Artistic license. Are you really proposing that by 16th century artwork one cannot trust the accounts of the Bible?

Nope, it was but one example of inaccurate depictions people have given for whales. I challenge you to find a single artistic depiction of a whale predating 1500 that accurately depicts whale anatomy. If humans couldn't even accurately depict an animal with such a basic body shape for centuries, what makes you think that any human would have been able to depict a deity correctly? Why are you assuming that the bible MUST describe a real deity accurately? How do you know they didn't take "artistic license"?

The presence of information nullifies the null hypothesis. Information <> null.

Nope, because DNA doesn't have any information. It doesn't work like a language in the slightest. I can go into extremely great detail about how it isn't like a language, if you want. I haven't covered all the ways it is different from an actual language yet.

Good, you have demonstrated an example of information originating in the mind of an intelligent being (you), passed to an animal (the chimpanzee), producing a created object (which evidences design).

Nah, chimps can teach each other to make stuff too, even entirely independent of human interaction. It was just an example of how you wouldn't be able to tell who created the universe if two potential creators could make it the same way. That is, you cannot disregard Brahma as a possible creator of the universe if you consider YHWH to be a possible creator of the universe unless you can actually demonstrate that YHWH is the only hypothetical deity that could make a universe like the one we observe. Which is impossible to do.

This feels like progress... so, we can no longer assert that things like chance or natural causes (like a rock tumbling down the side of a mountain... or say a lightning strike) made the quilt - that would be nonsensical, agreed?

Yes, you entirely missed the point of the quilt, congratulations.

As such, atheism becomes further strained and I continue to question whether you are truly an atheist. We can talk about YHWH, Brahma, and others if you wish... right now I'm just trying to help you see how the universe requires information from an intelligent mind as a baseline.

It just doesn't, the universe is rather chaotic and disorganized to the point that if it is an attempt at producing information, it is an embarrassing excuse for an attempt.

You're being Aristotle's fish again, stop that : )
... and you using a sheet of paper as a paperweight just means you don't understand it's intended purpose, not at all meaning that it doesn't have purpose. Maybe you were just tired and it had been a long day.

Negatory, I could totally make something intended to be a paperweight that is terrible for the job, as well as make something that is better for something I didn't intend it for than it is for what I did intend it for. Slinky toys are a good example of this.

I was mentioning that the universe is terrible for life, so I suppose you view it as having a purpose independent of humanity entirely. Because otherwise, it is a bad "design".

Yes there is evidence - don't clean your house or pay your bills or go to work for a year and tell me whether your life is in order or in absolute chaos.

-_- you just described having a decent early childhood in a first world country.

You can 'make' order by doing all of these things consistently, but your ability to make order is only because you were given the ability to do so by God who created order to begin with - placing the information into you DNA.

-_- you are just making claims here, you aren't backing any of them up with evidence.

How do you think scientists are able to recognize physical laws and create mathematical models to demonstrate?? Because God created order such that there are consistent behaviors that are observable, measurable, and repeatable.

-_- physical laws aren't some inherent part of the universe. They are literally mathematical paths we find to be decently useful. They aren't even a perfect match for the actual mechanisms of the universe. We invented them, we invented math, and if the universe had no consistency, life couldn't exist so no universe that lacks observable consistency has any sentient beings questioning their origins.

Your continuing to asking for evidence makes me wonder... if God, as to the extent His nature and character are revealed in the Bible, did in fact create the universe and everything within (as He claims to have), what about our present reality do you feel is in contradiction to this claim and/or His nature and character?

Oh, the bible never actually claims that YHWH made the universe entirely. Space is implied to have already existed at the start of Genesis.

-_- nothing contradicts the concept of a deity creating universes, there just isn't any evidence for it. Like how nothing in reality contradicts the idea of there being an undiscovered family of organisms that live deep underground that look like dog sized moles. There just isn't any evidence for it, so I don't believe that such things exist.

We gotta keep things more brief on both of our parts, because I am tired of having to split my posts into two parts like this.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Just showing that information (and ultimately, intelligence) cannot be passed down endlessly from generation to generation as in an infinite loop... there was a finite beginning when there were no generations at all, and a 1st generation was established. Upon reading my prior response, I'll await your response as to sources of information (other than a mind).

-_- the capacity to learn and stuff there to learn are two different things. The latter is something any universe that contains something will inherently have, and the former can build up over time rather than having to always exist.

Cosmology is a largely theoretical science (and cosmologists/astrologists will freely admit this) given how very little has actually been explored (and much less than that, actually understood) - so grounding one's belief's to be a proponent for or in opposition of anything on cosmological hypotheses is rash. In fact, it is from the big bang model that it was hypothesized the idea of a multiverse and even within these circles the ideas became so ridiculous and bizarre that most secular scientists have rejected their plausibility. Also, there is no evidence of a mechanism that connects a big bang to the creation of time.

We literally have no idea what the universe was like physics wise before the Big Bang. For all intents and purposes, that is the start of definable time.

Intelligence requires information, information requires a mind, a mind requires a being. The Christian, believes that being... is God. Genetic mutations are shown to result in a loss of function, not a gain or improvement in function.

5% of mutations are demonstrably benign. To assert otherwise amounts to asserting that the sky is always green. Also, the first sentence's line of reasoning is complete nonsense. There would be stuff to learn even if there was no one there to learn about it. For example, it isn't as if black holes began to exist only when we invented telescopes.

What?! Yes they are ma'am, in fact, scientists have never on their own even been able to create a living cell from scratch:
http://www.icr.org/article/have-scientists-created-living-cell/

-_- really, creation institute? Also, why are you assuming that humans not creating living cells from scratch means that they are more advanced than anything we have ever made? Have you ever considered that it is just way easier to alter existing cells to do what we want, or to make machines that perform tasks, like nanobots? I mean, no humans have ever made anything exactly like the Grand Canyon, but I don't see you claiming that this is more advanced than, say, the Panama canal.

This argument fails because you assumed the fastest route possible = more advanced and everything a cell does is known to serve a purpose.

-_- no, they don't, actually. Most of your DNA doesn't do jack, for one. There's genuinely no reason human cells should be able to convert anything into hydrogen cyanide, but there are tons of chemicals our own cells break down and produce it. Those chemicals wouldn't even be toxic if our cells couldn't do that and just moved them out. Much of the complexity of cells is just unnecessary fluff.

A lack of understanding of living organisms on your part or mine does not negate their being created and demonstrating design. You contradict yourself in that you can recognize a quilt as created, but then when an even more complex pattern like that of cells are arrayed in a living organism you obtusely state it is chaotic.

Nice job continuing to miss the entire point of the quilt.

Same goes for atoms in a rock - if we look at the atoms that form silicon dioxide in granite, there is a pattern and a specific behavior, weight, etc... with every atom.

Lol, no there isn't, most elements have isotopes which do have different weights and some different properties. And despite how good we are at predicting the behavior of atoms, any chemist will tell you that there is a difference between a hypothetically possible compound and making it a reality. That is, these things don't always work out how we predict they will.

Well just ask yourself how many times of your 'significant other' responding with "I don't know" to your hints at getting married would it take before you would start to feel like you were being rejected... maybe that context will help you see more clearly.

-_- I wouldn't sentence him to a lake of fire for cheating on me, much less hesitation about getting married. By the way, by virtue of him being my fiance, we are already engaged.

PsychoSarah I can only comment from what I observe; you are correct in that you know yourself (but I'll add that God knows you better : ). Ask yourself though, if you are truly wanting to believe, why have you only been making arguments for NOT believing this entire time instead of making arguments FOR believing?

Because I have no evidence to back a belief in deities. If I did, I'd be a believer like you and I would be presenting that evidence.

If that offends, then maybe I've struck on a cord of truth. This is not me saying you're a bad person or a failure, this is me just shooting straight with you. Truth is, we're all bad, we've all failed, we're all sinners - this is just me, as one sinner to another, trying to show you the truth. If you're really interested in believing the truth, why don't you start presenting me with some reasons FOR believing God is true and God does exist?

-_- it's offensive in the same way randomly accusing you of being a racist rapist would offend you, and it is equally helpful to that.

What would be evidence to believe that the Bible is the word of God, by your standard?

-_- I can think of lots of examples, but how about the first word spoken by every child being Jesus, even if they had never heard that name before?

Now, from an intellectual perspective, there's enough to show atheism, naturalism, nihilism, humanism, and other "isms" as false,

Creationism. How awkward.

You will always find interpretations of evidence both for and against something... I could spend all day presenting evidence for God, but as long as you continue to believe either some online source or something some said that it is possible without God, then that only demonstrates a biased pattern of choosing to not believe. That reminds me, God's word says in Deuteronomy 30:19 (ESV), "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,"... so God gave you the ability to choose - hey that's 2 things now true from the Bible. Now keep going, make a list, see how many more truths you can find in there.

Again, you are treating belief as if it is a choice. Demonstrate to me that it is a choice first before telling me to make it. Force yourself to believe that the sandwich originated in Canada. Do it like your afterlife depends on it. Tell me how that turns out.

 

[Speedwell]

Why is it that when I bring up the child-to-fetus pluto, that academians respond by giving me the definition of fetus?

Is that supposed to change my mind or something?

No, it's supposed to inform you that the term "fetus" as a description of prenatal life is not an evil atheist plot to deny that it's a "baby" but merely a technical term long in use.

 

[AV1611VET]

No, it's supposed to inform you that the term "fetus" as a description of prenatal life is not an evil atheist plot to deny that it's a "baby" but merely a technical term long in use.

Does this "merely technical term" have rights?

 

[Speedwell]

Does this "merely technical term" have rights?

Not a science question.

 

[AV1611VET]

Not a science question.

How convenient.

Science gets "child" plutoed to "fetus," then turns its back on the holocaust that follows.

 

[Speedwell]

How convenient.

Science gets "child" plutoed to "fetus," then turns its back on the holocaust that follows.

No, science did not "pluto" child to fetus. The term "fetus" has been in widespread use since the 15th century, long before anyone thought of making abortion legal.

 

[AV1611VET]

No, science did not "pluto" child to fetus.

Bull.

The term "fetus" has been in widespread use since the 15th century,

So?

Why is it, whenever I bring up something that was plutoed, I get some factoid on the term, instead of an agreement?

... long before anyone thought of making abortion legal.

Which may never have happened without divorcing the term (child) from the Bible first.

 

[Speedwell]

Bull.So?

Why is it, whenever I bring up something that was plutoed, I get some factoid on the term, instead of an agreement?

Because there is no such thing as being "plutoed." At best it is ignorant fatuous nonsense. At worst it is a devious lie to turn the poorly informed against science. I don't know which it is in your case.

Which may never have happened without divorcing the term (child) from the Bible first.

No, that did not contribute to it.

 

[Aman777]

All universe origin crap is mostly wishful thinking, with the rest being so general as to be uselessly safe in how vague they are.

Cannot agree since God's Truth shows the logical progression of our beginning.

1. The ingredients (air, dust and water) are changed from invisible energy into matter. Gen 1:1 Einstein confirmed this.
2. God Himself (YHWH/Jesus) comes into the physical world. Gen 1:3
3. Adam's firmament (boundary of Universe) is made. Gen 1:6-8
4. Jesus/Lord God makes other Universes. Gen 2:4

Science theorizes that a black hole (singularity) could become a white hole which takes matter from one world into another. Voila, Big Bang. That's pretty specific. Amen?

 

[AV1611VET]

Because there is no such thing as being "plutoed."

Really?

What's this then?

Plutoed

 

[Speedwell]

Really?

What's this then?

Plutoed

That definition does not support the conspiratorial spin you like to put on it. That's the part that is fatuous.

 

[pitabread]

Which may never have happened without divorcing the term (child) from the Bible first.

Is the English language part of the atheist conspiracy too?

 

[NobleMouse]

@PsychoSarah

I'm not even sure where to begin. I am sorry to hear you have recently graduated with a degree in biology yet fail to recognize DNA as an instructional language. I'm afraid this inane belief of yours that DNA is not a language and does not contain information places you apart from even the vast majority even within the secular evolutionary community of scientists:

http://epicofevolution.com/biological-evolution/dna-language-of-life
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/accumulating-glitches/the_language_of_dna
https://bio.libretexts.org/TextMaps...RAL_DOGMA_OF_BIOLOGY/4.3:_The_Language_of_DNA
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20180124/Scientists-aim-to-decipher-language-of-DNA.aspx

I'll just stop [head shaking] - it doesn't add value to just post hundreds of links... I almost cannot even accept you would have such a failed understanding at the BIO 101 course level - you seem too intelligent. I can only assume your 3-part discourse above was simply a strategic attempt to protect the belief you've up until now chosen to adhere (that no god exists), even at the risk of not maintaining honesty.

DNA is a language, DNA contains information (if not, it would be impossible to have any of the traits from our parents), and thus far research only shows information originates from a mind. If you are going to ignore what both secular and creationist scientists know to be true from a basic understanding about even DNA, then I'm not sure further dialog back and forth here can do much for your struggle. At this point it feels you have become irrational, but this may be in haste so I'll await your response to see where we go from here, if anywhere.