'Easy to be an atheist if you agnore science' [moved]

[keith99]

No. What I said was that in order to be able to call ID a scientific model, he had to redefine what a "scientific model" is. And under that "new" definition, astrology also becomes a scientific model.

In other words, he had to redefine it in such a way that pseudo-science also counts as science, in order to be able to call ID 'science'.

Draw your own conclusion. It's fairly obvious.
....

This is quite unfair... to astrology. Astrology is amenable to being tested. Things can happen to falsify astrology or at least any particular school of astrology. The same usually cannot be said for ID.

 

[Hieronymus]

I'm not sure what you're complaining about, from your previous posts you gave the impression you credit God with being the 'designer', do you not?

The definition of the word "God" with a capital G includes creator, which entails design and manufacturing.
Also God means life giver, which is what we're kind of discussing here.
It's apparently atheistic phobia that causes atheists to be scared of the word "God" though, so they object and even change the subject to religious questions.

 

[46AND2]

The definition of the word "God" with a capital G includes creator, which entails design and manufacturing.
Also God means life giver, which is what we're kind of discussing here.
It's apparently atheistic phobia that causes atheists to be scared of the word "God" though, so they object and even change the subject to religious questions.

I've got no such phobia.

 

[Radrook]

Perhaps not. Is someone of a 'God is dead' school an atheist? Where does one fit if they think there were gods of some sort but said gods no longer exist?

Ah! Now we are getting into fine details. Good question! Well, if he was a monotheist, which means a believer of one God and one God only, and now believes that no such God exists, then he is now an atheist since he now believes that no such God exists. What he once believed has absolutely nó bearing on what he now believes. If I once believed in abiogenesis but I no longer do, what I once believe is nullified by my present belief.

If the person was a polytheist and believed that gods existed but now believes that they have all ceased to exist, then the same rule applies. He is no longer a polytheist.

IMHO

BTW
However, if in the term atheist you include the requirement of the belief in the impossibility of such a God or god's ever existing. Then of course that would demand that the person consider himself as having been mistaken in the first place and view himself as now illuminated because now he holds an atheist viewpoint of impossibility of such a God or gods ever having existed.

 

[Radrook]

Hey, you proposed two options as the only possible ones when you can't possibly know if there is a third, fourth or fifth.

That's when I asked you to describe the third option and you said you don't know.

 

[Speedwell]

That's when I asked you to describe the third option and you said you don't know.

That's why I supplied a third one for you.

 

[Radrook]

Can you provide the scientific definition of ID?

Also, what is the falsifiable test you use, to determine if ID is present?

There are self evident truths that do not need tests to display themselves as self evident.
That is why they are considered self evident truths.
BTW
You place great value on falsification with tests, yet all your desperate attempts at proving abiogenesis true have falsified it but you stubbornly refuse to deal with the results and the implications of such results. Instead, you grab at straws by claiming limited chemical reactions as evidence of abiogenesis and interpret failure as success. Had these same tests offered the same results in reference to ID you would have claimed immediate success in disproving an ID's existence. That is the inconsistency which strongly indicates bias and a biased approach to science is no science at all but a self-serving mockery of it.

 

[Radrook]

That's why I supplied a third one for you.

Which was?

 

[Speedwell]

Which was?

Post #457

 

[Radrook]

Post #457

As a theist, I don't hold with either of those propositions. What I believe is that there is no "spark of life," no clear line between dead matter and living matter. What we call "life" is an emergent property of a certain kind of biochemical complexity.

That is not a third proposition. It is a description of the abiogenesis view.
The claim that there is absolutely no difference between lifeless matter and living matter can easily be refuted by providing numerous examples of how living matter differs from nonliving matter. But that shouldn't really be necessary.

 

[Speedwell]

That is not a third proposition. It is a description of the abiogenesis view.

It is, because your first alternative specifically described an atheist position.
My suggestion described a variant of your theist position; that is, that life came into being by divine agency but that there is no "hard line" between life and non-life, no "spark of life" that suddenly turned non-living matter into living matter.

The claim that there is absolutely no difference between lifeless matter and living matter can easily be refuted by providing numerous examples of how living matter differs from nonliving matter. But that shouldn't really be necessary.

You should do it anyway. Are the carbon atoms in a protein molecule not the same as the carbon atoms in a lump of coal? How do they differ?

 

[Radrook]

Rube Goldberg aspects

If you are referring to design flaws, then that would only prove either of two things:

1. An unskilled designer
2. A design which has suffered degradation.

But it would definitely not prove a lack of a designer.
So your premise is seriously flawed

 

[Speedwell]

If you are referring to design flaws, then that would only prove either of two things:

1. An unskilled designer
2. A design which has suffered degradation.

But it would definitely not prove a lack of a designer.
So your premise is seriously flawed

There is a third option here as well. Design is purpose; if we do not fully understand the purpose then we cannot evaluate the designed object. Features which appear to be flawed may not turn out to be when the purpose is fully understood.

 

[Radrook]

It is, because your first alternative specifically described an atheist position.
My suggestion described a variant of your theist position; that is, that life came into being by divine agency but that there is no "hard line" between life and non-life, no "spark of life" that suddenly turned non-living matter into living matter.

You should do it anyway. Are the carbon atoms in a protein molecule not the same as the carbon atoms in a lump of coal? How do they differ?

About the carbon atoms being identical: Please note that the whole doesn't equal the sum of its parts. Of course living thins include non living chemicals which constitute their structure and upon which they depend in order to exist as living things. But that doesn't make living things equal to nonliving things at all. We need calcium, phosphorus, selenium, iron, water, oxygen, and a host of other non-living substances to stay ALIVE. But to say that because of it we are equal to those things is tantamount to saying that a star is equal to an electric static discharge because they both have electricity associated with them.

In short, your definition of equality seems to differ substantially from what the accepted meaning.

 

[Speedwell]

About the carbon atoms being identical: Please note that the whole doesn't equal the sum of its parts. Of course living thins include non living chemicals which constitute their structure and upon which they depend in order to exist as living things. But that doesn't make living things equal to nonliving things at all. We need calcium, phosphorus, selenium, iron, water, oxygen, and a host of other non-living substances to stay ALIVE. But to say that because of it we are equal to those things is tantamount to saying that a star is equal to an electric static discharge because they both have electricity associated with them.

I'm not saying that they are equal. All I am saying is that the transition between non-living and living may be gradual and hard to pin down. For example, viruses are part way in complexity between biological structures which are definitely not alive and those which definitely are, and there is some controversy whether they are living creatures or not--a controversy which it may not be possible to resolve.

 

[Radrook]

There is a third option here as well. Design is purpose; if we do not fully understand the purpose then we cannot evaluate the designed object. Features which appear to be flawed may not turn out to be when the purpose is fully understood.

There was no third option in the other one.
About this one? True, the reason why defect might be perceived might be ignorance of the purpose for the design.
But he specifically mentioned a certain defect.

 

[Radrook]

I'm not saying that they are equal. All I am saying is that the transition between non-living and living may be gradual and hard to pin down. For example, viruses are part way in complexity between biological structures which are definitely not alive and those which definitely are, and there is some controversy whether they are living creatures or not--a controversy which it may not be possible to resolve.

Thanks for clarifying.
Viruses are indeed problematic in classification via the traditional guidelines used to differentiate between the living and non-living. The current consensus is that they were at one time part of living things that somehow became detached.

BTW
But let me ask you something. If you were miniaturized to the size of a virus and stuffed into the nucleus of a living cell-would you know how-to reprogram that nucleus so that it would cease to do its normal job and begin producing replicas of yourself instead?

 

[Radrook]

This is quite unfair... to astrology. Astrology is amenable to being tested. Things can happen to falsify astrology or at least any particular school of astrology. The same usually cannot be said for ID.

Well, testable in that fashion it is. But it definitely isn't similar to the ID concept because the ID concept has a rock solid foundation on the observable manifestation of a superhuman, creative mind at work. Now that is your queue to say:

""I cain't see!""

 

[Speedwell]

Thanks for clarifying.
Viruses are indeed problematic in classification via the traditional guidelines used to differentiate between the living and non-living. The current consensus is that they were at one time part of living things that somehow became detached.

BTW
But let me ask you something. If you were miniaturized to the size of a virus and stuffed into the nucleus of a living cell-would you know how-to reprogram that nucleus so that it would cease to do its normal job and begin producing replicas of yourself instead?

No. As it happens, I was a very poor chemistry student.

 

[Speedwell]

Well, testable in that fashion it is. But it definitely isn't similar to the ID concept because the ID concept has a rock solid foundation on the observable manifestation of a superhuman, creative mind at work. Now that is your queue to say:

""I cain't see!""

I don't think so. One of the things that sinks ID is that no test for the presence of irreducibly complex biological structures has ever been developed. The only alternative is to say that everything is intelligently designed, which reduces ID to ordinary theistic evolution--a non-falsifiable proposition.