• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Scientists speak out about evidence of Intelligent Design in nature..

RamiC

Well-Known Member
Jan 1, 2025
658
519
Brighton
✟28,664.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Female
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Married
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
Your apparent claim that "nothing physical exists outside physics" is of course, itself a metaphysical claim, not a physical one. Thus, it's self-refuting because your are invoking a non-physical truth claim. Even methodological naturalism relies on the immaterial, such as logic--laws of thought, math, laws of physics, which proves that reality transcends mere materialism.
Hans Blaster said that he is "unaware of anything physical outside the scope of physics.", there is no claim about what does not exist there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dlamberth
Upvote 0

Hans Blaster

Hood was a loser.
Mar 11, 2017
21,399
16,163
55
USA
✟406,415.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
Your apparent claim that "nothing physical exists outside physics" is of course, itself a metaphysical claim, not a physical one. Thus, it's self-refuting because your are invoking a non-physical truth claim. Even methodological naturalism relies on the immaterial, such as logic--laws of thought, math, laws of physics, which proves that reality transcends mere materialism.
You've confused my description of my limits of understanding for a metaphysical claim. If you can find some physical thing not subject to physics feel free to enlighten me.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: RamiC
Upvote 0

AACJ

Please Pray
Nov 17, 2016
2,005
1,597
US
✟111,652.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Private
Politics
US-Republican
@Hans Blaster
"You've confused my description of my limits of understanding for a metaphysical claim. If you can find some physical thing not subject to physics feel free to enlighten me."

I misunderstood your last comment to me.

One should be careful about standing on a possible false dichotomy of realities. That is, claiming that something must be either physical or non-physical. There may be a third category of reality; that is, an entity that operates under higher-order laws—not the abolition of physics, but its mastery, e.g., Christ's well documented Resurrection and post resurrection interactions. Quantum mechanics may be a good example of how the physical world itself defies rigid materialist assumptions--and it may directly supports an overall argument for a "third category" of reality. Related to this is the Mind-Body Problem, which may be possible evidence for the idea of a hybrid reality, if you will. Even atheists struggle to explain consciousness in purely material terms.
 
Upvote 0

Ophiolite

Recalcitrant Procrastinating Ape
Nov 12, 2008
9,181
10,075
✟280,156.00
Country
United Kingdom
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Private
Christ's well documented Resurrection and post resurrection interactions.
I stopped reading at this point. Regardless of the seeming elegance of your arguments and the clarity with which they are presented, I can place zero credence upon the writing of anyone who can make this assertion with a straight face. (Critical words emboldened for identification)
 
Upvote 0

AACJ

Please Pray
Nov 17, 2016
2,005
1,597
US
✟111,652.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Private
Politics
US-Republican
I stopped reading at this point. Regardless of the seeming elegance of your arguments and the clarity with which they are presented, I can place zero credence upon the writing of anyone who can make this assertion with a straight face. (Critical words emboldened for identification)
Actually, your dismissal of the Resurrection of Christ--a priori--exposes your bias, certainly not the evidence. The Resurrection is the single most historically attested miracle in ancient history and is affirmed by skeptical scholars, such as atheist Bart Ehrman (The New Testament: A Historical Introduction): early creedal accounts (1 Corinthians. 15:3-8) date to within years of the event, not legends. Even atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann states, "The resurrection appearances cannot be denied" (What Really Happened to Jesus?).

If you reject all historical testimony because it challenges materialism, then you’ve abandoned reason for dogma. The evidence stands, and your refusal to engage it does not change it and certainly does not refute it.

References:

Ehrman, B. (2000). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Lüdemann, G. (1995). What Really Happened to Jesus? SCM Press.
 
Upvote 0

RamiC

Well-Known Member
Jan 1, 2025
658
519
Brighton
✟28,664.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Female
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Married
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
Even atheists struggle to explain consciousness in purely material terms.
Atheist's do not have to be able to explain everything to be atheists though, do they?
 
Upvote 0

Ophiolite

Recalcitrant Procrastinating Ape
Nov 12, 2008
9,181
10,075
✟280,156.00
Country
United Kingdom
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Private
Actually, your dismissal of the Resurrection of Christ
I didn't reject the Resurrection of Christ in my post. I have rejected your assertion that there is "well documented" evidence for it.
The Resurrection is the single most historically attested miracle in ancient history
If you are going to set the bar that low you merely justify my provisional conclusion.

The meme, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is not perfect, but it is a useful guide. Since the available evidence, all anecdotal, largely or totally written not by eyewitnesses, but by those they told their stories to, fails to meet even the standards I would expect to validate a normal event.

Actually, your dismissal of the Resurrection of Christ--a priori--exposes your bias
Au contraire! As a Christian I accepted the Resurrection on faith. When, later, I concluded that faith was a poor servant, then I rejected the plausibility of the Resurrection based on the absence of evidence.

If you reject all historical testimony because it challenges materialism,
I don't. Thus far I have seen no historical testimony that would lead me to accept non-material claims. I would be delighted to find that there were some. So far I have seen none. However, we are drifting in apologetics and that is not the subject of this thread. If you wish to pursue this in a manner that is consistent with forum rules on a new thread, let me know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hans Blaster
Upvote 0

Hans Blaster

Hood was a loser.
Mar 11, 2017
21,399
16,163
55
USA
✟406,415.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
@Hans Blaster
"You've confused my description of my limits of understanding for a metaphysical claim. If you can find some physical thing not subject to physics feel free to enlighten me."

I misunderstood your last comment to me.
Understood.
One should be careful about standing on a possible false dichotomy of realities. That is, claiming that something must be either physical or non-physical.
I didn't mention "non-physical realities" at all, just about the operative laws of physical realities.
There may be a third category of reality; that is, an entity that operates under higher-order laws—not the abolition of physics, but its mastery,
Then those need to be demonstrated.
e.g., Christ's well documented Resurrection and post resurrection interactions.
Paul wrote about a vision he had of Jesus after his death and Mark wrote a very theologically motivated book *40* years after the events in question without being a witness to any of it. The other gospels are clearly dependent on Mark's and therefore even later. We have plenty of evidence of people *believing* in a resurrection fairly early, but that is not the same as evidence of the event itself. The thinness of the evidence in the texts doesn't make the resurrection false, but it certainly is nothing to build a claim for something beyond physics for the physical world.
Quantum mechanics may be a good example of how the physical world itself defies rigid materialist assumptions--and it may directly supports an overall argument for a "third category" of reality.
It really isn't. QM follows well defined and repeatable physical processes. It is the simplest and most fundamental QM processes that are the *most* directly tied to the laws of physics. (Indeed, that's what the fundamenal laws of physics mostly are. [Gravity excepted.]) That QM includes an element of probability has no impact on the the fundamental physical nature of it. In fact what you experience as touching a physical object at our scale is nothing more than an enormous amount of simple QM exchanges of photons between electrons in us and electrons in the other object.
Related to this is the Mind-Body Problem, which may be possible evidence for the idea of a hybrid reality, if you will. Even atheists struggle to explain consciousness in purely material terms.
The only thing atheists have to do with consciousness is that all of us are conscious beings, but then again, so are all of you non-atheists. As for the Mind-Body "problem", "mind" clearly interacts with brain and through it the rest of the body. Whatever "mind" is it interacts with the physical flesh of the body, so it must do so through a force/mechanism that interacts with flesh and the substance flesh is made of.

None of this has anything to do with "intelligent design" so a comprehensive discussion should be elsewhere.
 
Upvote 0

BCP1928

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2024
8,186
4,112
82
Goldsboro NC
✟255,068.00
Country
United States
Faith
Other Religion
Marital Status
Married
Atheist's do not have to be able to explain everything to be atheists though, do they?
I think they are being called upon to explain their rejection of a literal Genesis. Since belief in the existence of God does not depend on either the literal truth of Genesis or the validity of the theory of evolution, the theist/atheist issue has no relevance whatever to the creation/evolution issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hans Blaster
Upvote 0

AV1611VET

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE
Site Supporter
Jun 18, 2006
3,855,389
52,469
Guam
✟5,120,761.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
The absence of supernatural explanations in physics does not disprove God, but it does confirm physics’ limited scope.

Correct.

Science is myopic.
 
Upvote 0

dlamberth

Senior Contributor
Site Supporter
Oct 12, 2003
20,121
3,173
Oregon
✟924,237.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Other Religion
Politics
US-Others
The absence of supernatural explanations in physics does not disprove God, ...
More often than not, so called "supernatural explanations" are nothing more than "religious beliefs" and have nothing to do with the supernatural.
 
Upvote 0

AV1611VET

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE
Site Supporter
Jun 18, 2006
3,855,389
52,469
Guam
✟5,120,761.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
More often than not, so called "supernatural explanations" are nothing more than "religious beliefs" and have nothing to do with the supernatural.

That's no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
 
Upvote 0

RamiC

Well-Known Member
Jan 1, 2025
658
519
Brighton
✟28,664.00
Country
United Kingdom
Gender
Female
Faith
Anglican
Marital Status
Married
Politics
UK-Liberal-Democrats
I think they are being called upon to explain their rejection of a literal Genesis. Since belief in the existence of God does not depend on either the literal truth of Genesis or the validity of the theory of evolution, the theist/atheist issue has no relevance whatever to the creation/evolution issue.
Well since there is no believing in a literal Genesis without believing God, (God being the fourth word in there), I would simply take it that the non-belief in God explains the non-belief in Genesis.

I would also figure that belief in the theory of evolution depends only on whether a person is convinced by the current scientific consensus, or if they are for any reason willing to argue against it.
 
Upvote 0

Fervent

Well-Known Member
Sep 22, 2020
5,989
2,544
45
San jacinto
✟197,782.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
The meme, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is not perfect, but it is a useful guide. Since the available evidence, all anecdotal, largely or totally written not by eyewitnesses, but by those they told their stories to, fails to meet even the standards I would expect to validate a normal event.
Without proper definitions, that meme is nothing more than special pleading. The only way to understand it in a non-special pleading manner is if it is a statement about evidential support, in that claims for which there is more evidence that they are false require substantial evidence to overcome such evidence. But to assume that there is more evidence that the resurrection is false due to materialist/naturalist presuppositions is nothing more than begging the question. So no matter how you slice it, appealing to that mantra as a means of dismissing claims is nothing more thn engaging in fallacious reasoning more often than not.
 
Upvote 0

Ophiolite

Recalcitrant Procrastinating Ape
Nov 12, 2008
9,181
10,075
✟280,156.00
Country
United Kingdom
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Private
Without proper definitions, that meme is nothing more than special pleading. The only way to understand it in a non-special pleading manner is if it is a statement about evidential support, in that claims for which there is more evidence that they are false require substantial evidence to overcome such evidence. But to assume that there is more evidence that the resurrection is false due to materialist/naturalist presuppositions is nothing more than begging the question. So no matter how you slice it, appealing to that mantra as a means of dismissing claims is nothing more thn engaging in fallacious reasoning more often than not.
Well, to aovid the time and trouble and subsequent disagreements relating to any definitions, let's go with the simpler more direct statment: There is no meaningful evidence for the Resurrection. Belief in the resurrection is a matter of faith. I try not to challenge those whose belief is based on faith. I do challenge those who claim adequate evidence for any hypothesis, or assertion that does not exist.

And really! I almost missed your third sentence. I make no assumption that there is more evidence that the resurrection is false. I do not claim there is any evidence that it is false. I don't even claim that it is false. I don't need to. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim to prove that it is true. That proof requires evidence. Solid evidence. You have provided none.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hans Blaster
Upvote 0

Fervent

Well-Known Member
Sep 22, 2020
5,989
2,544
45
San jacinto
✟197,782.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Well, to aovid the time and trouble and subsequent disagreements relating to any definitions, let's go with the simpler more direct statment: There is no meaningful evidence for the Resurrection. Belief in the resurrection is a matter of faith. I try not to challenge those whose belief is based on faith. I do challenge those who claim adequate evidence for any hypothesis, or assertion that does not exist.
Again, definitions matter here. What, exactly, do you mean by "meaningful"? I certainly think there is historical evidence such that we can make a circumstantial argument from generally agreed upon facts and standard heuristic devices. Whether that qualifies as "meaningful" is a matter of subjective opinion, though.
And really! I almost missed your third sentence. I make no assumption that there is more evidence that the resurrection is false. I do not claim there is any evidence that it is false. I don't even claim that it is false. I don't need to. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim to prove that it is true. That proof requires evidence. Solid evidence. You have provided none.
Your qualification of it as a "extraordinary" claim presupposes as much, unless you are simply engaged in special pleading. As for "burden of proof", that's a whole other kettle of fish as it requires agreements within the discussion and not simply some magical requirement that exists distended in space. I certainly haven't engaged in a presentation of evidence, smply pointing out the fallacious nature of employing maxims such as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" as blanket statements.
 
Upvote 0

Ophiolite

Recalcitrant Procrastinating Ape
Nov 12, 2008
9,181
10,075
✟280,156.00
Country
United Kingdom
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Private
Again, definitions matter here. What, exactly, do you mean by "meaningful"? I certainly think there is historical evidence such that we can make a circumstantial argument from generally agreed upon facts and standard heuristic devices. Whether that qualifies as "meaningful" is a matter of subjective opinion, though.

Your qualification of it as a "extraordinary" claim presupposes as much, unless you are simply engaged in special pleading. As for "burden of proof", that's a whole other kettle of fish as it requires agreements within the discussion and not simply some magical requirement that exists distended in space. I certainly haven't engaged in a presentation of evidence, smply pointing out the fallacious nature of employing maxims such as "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" as blanket statements.
You are side tracking. The central point is you made a claim that the resurrection of Christ was "well dcoumented". I basically responded: nonsense.

You seem fond of definitions. How do you define "well documented"? (And here is a hint - eye witness testimony, especially second and third hand does not cut it.) Try to focus.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Hans Blaster
Upvote 0

Fervent

Well-Known Member
Sep 22, 2020
5,989
2,544
45
San jacinto
✟197,782.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
You are side tracking. The central point is you made a claim that the resurrection of Christ was "well dcoumented". I basically responded: nonsense.
I didn't make that claim, though another poster did. I simply pointed out the fallacious nature of your invokation of a common "skeptical" canard by citing a maxim that involves either special pleading or begging the question in order to apply.
You seem fond of definitions. How do you define "well documented"? (And here is a hint - eye witness testimony, especially second and third hand does not cut it.) Try to focus.
Who made that rule? Is testimony not documentation all of a sudden? Seems to me a form of special pleading since it is treating what is essentially a historical question as something other than a historical question by discounting the kinds of evidence that exist for historical questions.
 
Upvote 0

BCP1928

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2024
8,186
4,112
82
Goldsboro NC
✟255,068.00
Country
United States
Faith
Other Religion
Marital Status
Married
Well since there is no believing in a literal Genesis without believing God, (God being the fourth word in there), I would simply take it that the non-belief in God explains the non-belief in Genesis.
And many believe in God, but not in a literal Genesis, so as I said, the two are not really related.
I would also figure that belief in the theory of evolution depends only on whether a person is convinced by the current scientific consensus, or if they are for any reason willing to argue against it.
That I am agree with. Scientific theories are only accepted provisionally, not as absolute truth, so the current consensus is enough to be going on with.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dlamberth
Upvote 0

dlamberth

Senior Contributor
Site Supporter
Oct 12, 2003
20,121
3,173
Oregon
✟924,237.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Other Religion
Politics
US-Others
Well since there is no believing in a literal Genesis without believing God, (God being the fourth word in there), I would simply take it that the non-belief in God explains the non-belief in Genesis.
Well, just so that you know, this Lover of God does not believe in the Creation story of some old ancient middle-eastern desert tribe.
 
Upvote 0