Does 'Goddidit' constitute an explanation?

[3sigma]

I would venture that you hold to the statement: only empirical evidence can be used as evidence that something exists; please prove this statement empirically.

No, I don’t think I do hold to the statement that onlyempirical evidence can be used as evidence that something exists. I think we can use statistical evidence to prove the existence of something that we cannot observe directly, though you may still consider that to be empirical evidence. If we take empirical in this context to mean capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment then maybe you would consider statistical evidence to be empirical. As an aside, whenever the efficacy of intercessory prayer has been examined statistically in well-controlled trials, it has been found to be ineffective. It’s the result we would expect to see if there was nothing at the other end of the phone. Though, I would say that we should have at least some sound, objective evidence that something exists before we leap to the conclusion that it does. Otherwise, there would be nothing to stop you believing that everything imaginable actually exists. Why, you could even believe that unicorns exist.

However, I asked you to give me some examples of things I believe exist or events I believe occurred that are not supported by sound evidence or refuted by sound evidence. These are the sorts of unwarranted beliefs that religious believers hold. I gave some examples in [post=53972735]this[/post] post. You know, beliefs in nonsense such as the universe, the Earth and life were created in six literal days or a man can come back to life after being dead for days, which are refuted by sound evidence. Or unsubstantiated beliefs such as the belief that your God is real or that you will have eternal life, for which there is zero sound, objective evidence. Can you give me some examples of beliefs I hold that are as unwarranted as those? If you can, I will relinquish them promptly. Would you relinquish beliefs that are unsubstantiated or have been shown to be false? I suspect you would be reluctant to do that.

 

[SkyWriting]

RE: Eternal Life:

None of those claims has a single shred of sound, objective evidence supporting it.

Not exactly a Christian testimony, but he's offering good pay for your time:

[SIZE=-1]One million dollars is offered to any closed minded skeptic who can rebut the existing evidence for life after death. [/SIZE]Read more...

 

[SkyWriting]

As far as I know, I don’t believe things that have zero sound evidence supporting them or sound evidence refuting them (whereas religious believers do believe such things and they indoctrinate their children with this nonsense)....You seem certain that I do believe such things so can you give me some examples, please?

Sure. You couldn't even finish your sentence without casting unsubstantiated claims about religious believers and their children. Shame.Shame.

 

[SkyWriting]

I know a well-known evangelist who was committed to the psychiatric unit for answering questions similar to the above ones.
It took a Christian psychiatrist to override the resident psychiatrist's orders and get him released.
(Note: He either overrode the resident psychiatrist's orders, or he convinced the resident psychiatrist to rescind his orders.)

Where's the link to the story? I'd like to read more.

 

[SkyWriting]

• "Quotes" from 3sigma

• "The universe, the Earth and life were created in six literal days."
  -The Moon's orbit is moving farther from the earth. The Inverse Square Law says that if the Moon were just half the distance from the Earth, its pull on our tides would 4 times as much. 1/3 the distance, means 9 times the tides. Most everything would submerge twice a day. So about 1 billion years ago, the Moon would have been touching the Earth's surface.
  
  
• "Plants and animals can talk."
  -Animals are pretty vocal. Historical events are hard to refute.
• "The Earth was covered by a global flood sometime in the last 10,000 years."
  -90% of exposed surface is covered with Sedimentary(water born) layers. 71% is STILL covered with water.
• "A man can walk on water."
  -Historical Event with credible witnesses that would be allowed to testify in courtrooms today.
• "A man can come back to life after being dead."
  - A coworkers wife heart stopped soon after she turned 30. She's fine now. (Likely there is a "man" story or two out there.)

"All of those are nonsense and have been refuted by sound evidence."

Expert and eyewitness testimonies are allowed in courtrooms.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

So where's the eyewitnesses giving their testimony? Don't say the Bible, because the chain of evidence is insuficient.

Where's the experts providing evidence to support any of these claims? All those I've seen seem to fail scientific rigour

 

[SkyWriting]

...several of them have been shown to be false.

So would this be a lie, a mistake, or just drooling blather?

"All of those are nonsense and have been refuted by sound evidence."

 

[EnemyPartyII]

mistakes. People without the benefit of modern scientific knowledge trying to explain things as best they could.

 

[SkyWriting]

Mistakes = People without the benefit of modern scientific knowledge trying to explain things as best they could.

OUCH!
That throws a bunch my favorite topics in the trash heap.......RATS!

They believed that God created the world.
Then they created Science.
Were they confused or something?

COMPARATIVE ANATOMY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)
COMPUTER SCIENCE CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
DYNAMICS ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
ELECTRONICS JOHN AMBROSE FLEMING (1849-1945)
ELECTRODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
ELECTRO-MAGNETICS MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ENERGETICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ENTOMOLOGY OF LIVING INSECTS HENRI FABRE (1823-1915)
FIELD THEORY MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
FLUID MECHANICS GEORGE STOKES (1819-1903)
GALACTIC ASTRONOMY WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
GAS DYNAMICS ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
GENETICS GREGOR MENDEL (1822-1884)
GLACIAL GEOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
GYNECOLOGY JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
HYDRAULICS LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
HYDROGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
HYDROSTATICS BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
ICHTHYOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
ISOTOPIC CHEMISTRY WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
MODEL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
NATURAL HISTORY JOHN RAY (1627-1705)
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY BERNHARD RIEMANN (1826- 1866)
OCEANOGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
OPTICAL MINERALOGY DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
PALEONTOLOGY JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728)
PATHOLOGY RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (1821-1902)
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
REVERSIBLE THERMODYNAMICS JAMES JOULE (1818-1889)
STATISTICAL THERMODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
STRATIGRAPHY NICHOLAS STENO (1631-1686)
SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY CAROLUS LINNAEUS (1707-1778)
THERMODYNAMICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
THERMOKINETICS HUMPHREY DAVY (1778-1829)
VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)

 

[Cabal]

OUCH!

That eliminates a bunch my favorite topics........all mistakes now:

Ah yes, because the Bible was of course written during the 17th-20th century.

Oh wait.

Btw, Isaac Newton was an Arian heretic. Literalists today would be very quick to denounce him as not a True Christian (tm).

 

[EnemyPartyII]

OUCH!
That throws a bunch my favorite topics in the trash heap.......RATS!

I'm sorry, what's your point?

I'm not suggesting the Bible is the only example of people making well intentioned mistakes in trying to explain the world around them to the best of their ability. Such mistakes are still being made by scientists today. But the more scientific knowledge we have, the better understanding we have of how things work, and, most important, with the hyper powerful too that is the scientific method, we know have an iterative process where the flaws in our understanding are continuously being reduced.

People 2000 years from know are going to have a much better understanding of the universe than we have. Just as we have a better understanding of the universe than people from 2000 years ago.

 

[3sigma]

-The Moon's orbit is moving farther from the earth. The Inverse Square Law says that if the Moon were just half the distance from the Earth, its pull on our tides would 4 times as much. 1/3 the distance, means 9 times the tides. Most everything would submerge twice a day. So about 1 billion years ago, the Moon would have been touching the Earth's surface.
-Animals are pretty vocal. Historical events are hard to refute.
-90% of exposed surface is covered with Sedimentary(water born) layers. 71% is STILL covered with water.
-Historical Event with credible witnesses that would be allowed to testify in courtrooms today.
- A coworkers wife heart stopped soon after she turned 30. She's fine now. (Likely there is a "man" story or two out there.)

I’m surprised that you would even attempt to defend that nonsense. No, on second thought, I’m not really surprised that a religious believer would try to defend nonsense.

I found your first defence amusing. You are trying to use a creationist claim for a young Earth (Creationist claim CE110) to argue for a six-day creation. First, it is a bogus claim. Second, the Biblical age of the Earth is unrelated to the Biblical time to create it.

Your second argument makes no sense. To what historical events do you refer? Are you trying to tell us that there have been instances of animals and plants talking recorded in history? Please, don’t tell us that you think the Bible is a credible history book?

In response to your third argument, I have to say, so what? There is no sound evidence that a global flood occurred sometime within the last 10,000 years and there is sound evidence that refutes that claim. AV once claimed that the flood occurred in 2,348 BCE, yet there are trees alive today that are older than that.

Oh dear. It appears that you really do think the Bible is a credible history book and that the hearsay stories in it can be believed.

Tell us, had your co-worker’s wife been dead for days and starting to decompose when she came back to life?

So would this be a lie, a mistake, or just drooling blather?

Sadly, no. Not a lie, not a mistake and not blather—simple reality. Those claims are nonsense long since refuted by sound evidence.

 

[SkyWriting]

So where's the eyewitnesses giving their testimony? Don't say the Bible, because the chain of evidence is insufficient.
Where's the experts providing evidence to support any of these claims? All those I've seen seem to fail scientific rigor

Any Scientist can explain cause and effect.
What "caused" the cosmos to come into being?
The end result is always equal in size and energy to the initial input.

So what is equal to an infinite amount of space, time, matter and organization? There must have been an equal initial input.
Any Scientist will tell testify in court to that.
Science proves God is.

 

[Doveaman]

Care to be any more dishonest?

Dishonesty is among those who are trying to hide the truth.

Dishonesty can also be expressed directly or indirectly.

Dishonesty is often indirect so as not to appear dishonest.

I am simply exposing it.

If science tends to ignore them (I note you have not listed any more than NGC 7603), could you explain papers such as http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0203/0203466v2.pdf And the conclusion at the very end? This system is at present the most spectacular case that we know among the candidates for anomalous redshift. Future studies of this system are clearly warranted.

It would seem like you are accusing me of being dishonest, then supporting what is said with scientific data.

This system is at present the most spectacular case that we know among the candidates for anomalous redshift. Future studies of this system are clearly warranted.

Such a statement is the result of an addiction to myopia among Consensus Cosmology.

When viewed from the perspective of flawed Big Bang theology, such observations are considered “anomalous”. But it is not the observation that is anomalous; it is Big Bang theology that is anomalous, especially when viewed from the perspective of reality.

According to reality, the observation of different redshift objects being connected is expected. In fact, there is a scientific theory based on reality that predicts them. Such observations are common place throughout the Universe. You just need to know how to look.

NGC 7320 connected to NGC 7320C with a redshift 10 times that of NGC7320:

NGC 4319 (z = 0.006) connected to Markarian 205 (z = 0.070):

Close up view of NGC 4319 connected to Markarian 205:

In addition:

Quasar (z = 2.11) in front of Galaxy NGC 7319 (z = 0.0225):

Consensus Cosmology's response:

Typical.

These are just a few of the many so called "anomalous" objects that effectively falsifies the Big Bang. But Consensus Cosmology would have none of it, so the cosmic Frankenstein monster lives on.

Hypothetical Big Bang theology is filled with too much “darkness” to see anything in the real Universe. This is why mathematical fairies are the life blood of Big Bang, and not observations. Remove the mathematics and Big Bang is as dead as dead could be.

The Universe is made up of more than 99% plasma. The problem with mathematics is that Consensus Cosmology relies too heavily on it to try to understand the plasma Universe, but the plasma Universe itself ignores the mathematics. This is why many observations in the plasma Universe appear "anomalous" to Big Bang theology, but not to Plasma Cosmology.

 

[theFijian]

No, I don’t think I do hold to the statement that onlyempirical evidence can be used as evidence that something exists.

Well actually yes you do since your statistical evidence is based on emprical evidence as you go on to admit. So again can you prove (statistically or otherwise) that empirical evidence (or statistical evidence based on empirical evidence) is the only basis for assertaining the existance of something?

...for which there is zero sound, objective evidence.

Define 'sound, objective evidence'.

 

[Freodin]

The Universe is made up of more than 99% plasma. The problem with mathematics is that Consensus Cosmology relies too heavily on it to try to understand the plasma Universe, but the plasma Universe itself ignores the mathematics. This is why many observations in the plasma Universe appear "anomalous" to Big Bang theology, but not to Plasma Cosmology.

More than 99% plasma? How do you know that?

And how does all that plasma behave? What does it do? How does it explain all these anomalies?

 

[Doveaman]

I believed Jesus existed and had a personal relationship with him. Note the past tense.

Now I believe that he most likely existed, but wasn't the Son of God or anything like that. Note the present tense.

In other words, you were married to a beautiful person, then you had a divorce, and now you are not sure if that person existed.

You are making a lot of sense here.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I'm sure unmedicated schizophrenics think the people in their heads are real, too. They have a real relationship with them. So: Are they real or not?

 

[Doveaman]

On par? I though I had "more faith" than you? That places me in the lead, I´m sure.

OK, you can have that one. You’ll need it in order to maintain your religious belief in the invisible Bang.

But I fear we are still not "on par" with your assertions at all. You still ignore the most basic ways of reasoning to keep up your version.
There could be a different explanation for cosmic background raditation or red shift. But the reality of the Big Bang will inevitable result in these.

That sounds more like a religious statement than a scientific one.

That´s why we can use CBR and red shift as evidence.

You use CBR and redshift as evidence because redshift is misinterpreted and CBR is misapplied.

On the other hand, the existence of God would necessarily result in... what? Unknown. Nothing, everything, something in between. Impossible to say. That´s why the existence of the universe and life can not be used as evidence for God.

If misinterpreted redshift and misapplied CBR can be used as evidence of an invisible Bang, then Universe and Life can be used as evidence of the invisible God.

Your only connection of CBR and redshift to the invisible Bang is by hypothesizing (by guessing).

I can also hypothesize a connection between Universe and Life with the invisible God, and my hypothesis would be just as valid or even more valid than yours, since your CBR and redshift are misinterpreted and misapplied.

Far from "on par".

Correct.

In light of the fact that Universe and Life are not misinterpreted or misapplied as evidence of God, I would say I am in the lead.

 

[CoderHead]

You use CBR and redshift as evidence because redshift is misinterpreted and CBR is misapplied.

You use the Bible and God as evidence because the Bible is misinterpreted and God is misapplied. Does that mean everyone's wrong?