Let's start here.
So you agree with me that Mathematics can form the Mona Lisa if it is complex enough, that stochastical chance can form proteins and DNA and that not accepting it is preposterous.
What, you didn't say that? I misrepresented what you said?
Well, that is just your opinion, and no datum of truth.
You get what I want to say, don't you? What "misrepresenting other human beings" means? That is, in plain english: LYING ABOUT OTHERS. Which should be a big no-no for a Christian, with their precious Ten Commandments.
And they still do it. Should give you pause.
Did God create me, exactly the way I am? Or did he create my parents, so that they could have child, which would, by "natural processes" become the way I am? Or their parents? Or Adam and Eve? Or a universe where natural process would by evolution result in human beings, going down the line until it came to me?
If you want to end it at the first step, they you have a God who created a life-long atheist who is now here on this forum debating the existance of this same God. Weird fellow, that God.
And that would be the nice guy. It would also be the God who creates little children who die from horrible deformations the minute they leave the womb... or even before, even killing their own mothers in the process. He creates, intentionally, the world that is "red in tooth and claw". He created, intentionally, the guy who fought for "moral reasons" against the adoption of the 8 year old foster child in his care by a gay couple... while raping this same girl. He created, intentionally, the priest who started a campaign to prevent this girl being adopted by the gay couple, fearing for her "moral wellbeing".
Free will? Ok, free will. That would absolve, in some views, God from creating all these horrors.
But it would also mean that he did NOT create everything directly.
You either have a God who creates everything, directly, just as he wants it... with all the disbelieve, hate, death... or you have a God who only created a world where such things are possible, and "allows" it, even if he doesn't like it.
Take your pick.
That's just stochastics. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the formation of a protein and the formation of a simple water molecule. It's based on their inherent attributes.
But consider this: if you have one enormously complex arrangement of proteins - a cell, and after some time you suddenly have two enourmously complex arrangements of proteins - two cells.... then you have either an enourmously complex arrangement of proteins
that can duplicate itself.... or you have God having just created two cells.
In the second case, you would have to explain why God gets so sloppy so often.
I told you that it is a little more complex and difficult to explain quickly.
Look at it this way: something either exists, or it does not exist. Right? That's a "fundamental truth". It's logical. It's basic rule of existence.
Ok. We have "nothing". All things done away with. So, there are no basic rules of existence. There is no logic. There is no fundamental truth. There is nothing.
So there is also nothing that states "something either exists or it does not exist".
You cannot fathom it. It is not something that you can understand, or describe how that could be.
That's the point.
Well, I didn't think you would understand it. But, hey, you asked.
At 4:29.
This is not part of the interview, this is not something that Dawkins says: this is Ben Stein's interpretation of what Dawkins said. A "spin".
Is that really so difficult to understand. HE. DOES. NOT. SAY. THAT.
He said, and I quote: "...that is a possibility..."
What you said... and I quote again (post #87) "...Richard Dawson [sic] stated that we
must of came [sic] from some other intelligent designer..."
(my emphasis)
Can you really not understand the difference between "it's possible" and "it must have been"?
Humans make shoes. Humans make morals.
You "know" it is wrong, because someone "wrote in on your heart".
Sorry, atheists think about their morals. They don't have to read organs of the circulatory system.
That's a misleading question. It doesn't "come from" somewhere. It is part of what we are, what we have become.
It is like a triangle. The sum of angles in a plane triangle is that of half a circle... 180°.
How does a triangle know that? Where does that come from?
It doesn't know. It didn't come from anywhere. It was never decreed by any deity that it should be that way.
It is part of what a plane triangle is.
And it is similar in that way to "morals". It is part of what "humans" are. More complex, but basically similar.
Yes. Such a system could have survived.
But here's the rub, and the problem that you do not seem to understand. You are hooked on the "survival" part. You ignore the "fittest" part.
An individual - or, in this case: a group of individuals - who care about each other are BETTER at procreating and surviving. They are "fitter".
You was the one who brought this "survival of the fittest" into this. If you don't want to talk about it...
But again, you are are describing a caricature. A strawman. After all, we are not discussing the existence of a "moral framework". We are asking for the reason for a moral framework.
From the viewpoint of Evolution a single "organism" is meaningless. It's the genetical line that is important.
But you ignored two of the important points in this case.
First one is entropy. "An organism" who will "over take" all others, and will only be concerned with it's own survival... will die. Entropy. You cannot escape it.
And if this organism didn't manage to ensure the continued existence of successors... this line will die. Permanently.
Now you might disagree... but cooperation is one the working strategies to ensure the continued existence of successors. There are others... but Evolution doesn't care about "being the best". It just cares about "good enough".
And cooperation - which included a "moral framework" - has shown to be "good enough" for humanity.
Second thing I mentioned and that you ignored: this is not a "perfect" system. It doesn't work all the time and in all instances. It can very easily lead into dead ends. It can fail due to its own mechanisms.
But that is irrelevant as long as the continued existence of successors does not fail.
And if it fails at that... well, there are enough extinctions in the history of the Earth. But because Evolution isn't about a goal... this again is irrelevant.
Triangle. 180°
That is wrong on at least two levels. A group of organisms without moral does not necessarily "run over" a group with morals.
But what is worse for this argument: without morals, you wouldn't even have a group of organisms.
Well, that reassures me. Atheists do not believe in the existence of God, so they aren't bothered with being accepted by a non-existent entity.
Puh, for a moment I was worried that I could be arrogant.
I will never understand the strange view Christians have about their creator.
Well, because the first part is based on a position that unbelievers do not hold, and the second is... just weird, I still wouldn't bet any money on it winning a price at the local debate club.
