Honest Question

razzelflabben · Sep 7, 2009

Naraoia said:
Yeah, I kind of ignored non-humans in that post. As with humans, we have countless examples of other animals creating structures. In the end, it comes down to the plausibility of natural explanations (see the nest example in my reply to part 1) and/or the similarity of the structure to known natural and known animal-made structures. And I'm pretty sure that sometimes you just can't tell.

is it necessary for me to watch a bird build a nest to know that an eagle built a nest? Let me rephrase that to make more sense...let's say I find a new creature, my youngest is into deep sea creatures, so let's say that I am in the sea and spot a new creature...it hides in some coral (I'm not deep sea right now) and I find laying close by a lump of something kind of squishy, nothing like anything I know. How do I identify it? Do I just say, well, it must be natural because I haven't seen it before? Do I say it can't be from our new creature because I haven't observed it creating anything like this? What allows me to identify this new squishy thing? That is the point here. I understand what you are saying, and it is by far the best argument so far presented on any of the threads I have participated on, but your missing the bigger picture. Just because it's a new creature, just because it hasn't been observed making a squishy nest, doesn't mean we can't test to see what or if that squishy thing is created and what it's purpose is...where your logic falls appart is that a some point, everything we observe as new and different and of unknown origins which didn't stop science from exploring and testing and observing.

The point stands: you don't have the same luxury of data points with the supernatural.

why not? Please explain

I'm not quite sure what the question is.

Comparison. Do they look like scratch marks made by animal claws/teeth/antlers? Or are they something a random wind-/water-borne sharp object could produce? You can look at scratch marks of known animal origin, you can observe animals scratching trees, you can use the body parts that you think were involved to simulate the forces they could inflict on a tree, the number, depth, length, shape, regularity of the scratches that can be produced (I don't know what parameters could be useful; these are a few I think would be). You can get a wind tunnel or an artificial water current and blow things at pieces of trees to analyse them in similar ways. Then take your stats software and quantify the similarity of the marks under examination to samples of both kinds of marks.

and we can experiment and explore and observe to see if there are any other options but a creator...see above for more indepth explaination.

The point remains: you need comparison.

But do they have characteristics that identify them as "created", or only characteristics that identify them as a "member of X class of created object"?

Not really. Evolving life forms obey different rules from non-evolving chemicals, and the origin of the earth or the universe is another matter entirely. Just because they are all "origins" doesn't mean they represent comparable situations. And once again, you don't know if God created the universe (remember, that's one thing we are trying to test).

what tests are we doing for createdness? I've been told we weren't testing for it because we couldn't....

A naturally occurring what?

Can you give me a link so I can see the context?

BTW, I did NOT say that "a base line is a requirement for science". A base line is a requirement when you have no other means of answering a question. Most of the time, you can use observations, logic and mathematics to generate and test predictions.

yep...and a baseline helps to identify what does not fit the expected.

With evolution, for example, a unique tree of life (or, more precisely, of life forms that don't swap genes too often) is an inevitable logical consequence of a branching evolutionary process from a common ancestor. The bending of light by massive objects is similarly a logical consequence of the general theory of relativity. Therefore, you don't need things that don't evolve, or things that don't obey general relativity, to falsify these theories. (You DO need a kind of baseline to verify them - OK, evolution must produce a branching pattern, but can't other processes also do so? What's the likelihood that they do?) What are the logical consequences of createdness? How unique are they to this hypothesis? How likely are the alternative explanations?

all awesome questions that must be asked in order to test for createdness...I wish I had more time at the moment to deal with this, but I am in a rush and was afraid if I did this post tomorrow I would forget and be accused of ignoring it altogether, just because it slipped by me.

See, no double standards here: these are the same questions you could ask about evolution, general relativity, wave-particle duality, germ theory or any other scientific hypothesis you care to name.

You probably know that I'm not convinced, so that's why

Are you saying that because you don't think I'm listening? Then please tell me how I could indicate I'm listening without agreeing?

actually I find you to be mostly listening, a few things here and there that indicated more of a communication problem, other posters however arent' listening and sometimes, when pressed for time, I mix the two, sorry if I did that with you.

Do I really look this clueless?

Saying so won't make it so.

In what? BTW, I did say that "purpose" was specific... I just didn't agree that it was a good metric.

I don't understand what you mean. Grammatically, the last bit reads like this to me: "we can test by comparing the purpose of life to [the purpose of] those without purpose." That's clearly not what you mean, so could you please... rephrase your point in such a way that my brain can parse it?

I have a feeling that you aren't completely comfortable with the scientific meaning of "testing"

I love the scientific method, including testing....

I find it quite amusing that you are trying to tell me what science is about.

(BTW, "testing" is how we find answers in science.)

Limiting science to questions we can answer is kind of the definition of science.

If memory serves, I acknowledged that "purpose" was something specific. I think it's a worthless indicator of createdness, and I told you why I think that, but that doesn't equal claiming you have not given specifics.

I dearly hope that's not an accusation of dishonesty. If I ignored your points and kept claiming you didn't answer my question, now THAT would've been dishonest. I didn't do that. So far, I've answered your posts pretty much point by point.

I spent literally hours trying to put my thoughts into some kind of a digestible form, and I'm quickly approaching the point where I can't be bothered any more.

as have I, so I'm not sure where that leaves us, if I confused you with another post, I am sincerely sorry. I am so used to being ignored, falsely accused, lied to, etc. that I do sometimes confuse people especially when pushed for time. If, however, you simple dont' want to deal with my arguments (as some of your posts hint at) then I'm not sure where we stand. Maybe the "hints" are just communication barriers we need to work around.

razzelflabben · Sep 7, 2009

Naraoia said:
To be fair, it's my own fault that I got into this. I've seen her "let's test createdness" show before, and I should've known that asking an innocent little question related to that would lead to the same endless talking past each other... Maybe I'll learn the lesson this time.

*perks up* May I be curious?

Cheers

I'll be blunt. This is a ginormous, roaring stupid PRATT.

Since when does human understanding of, let alone ability to replicate, a natural process prevent it from occurring? Your son is, in effect, saying that water didn't "just" freeze before we discovered intermolecular forces, that birds couldn't "just" fly before we built ornithopters... I could go on.

(BTW, this is also a pretty standard god of the gaps argument. We don't understand it, therefore God did it.)

then you totally missed his point.

Naraoia · Sep 7, 2009

razzelflabben said:
then you totally missed his point.

Which was...?

random325nicaea · Sep 7, 2009

¨we can then use science to test for what is impossible in our world????¨

read again

¨just about anything is possible¨

¨there is nothing in the story that would tell us at this point it is a scientific impossiblity..¨

depending on how you interpret it, yes.
if you enterpret ALL the mountains and all life when god sais all life.
then YES there certainly is something indicating it is physically impossible.

¨To which I brought up the scientific evidence that shows that claim to be a lie.¨

to which i replied that you completely misunderstood what mEve actually was and how it does NOT support the population size mentioned in the bible.

¨That man could have indeed been a population of less that a few 10 thousand individuals...¨

i did not contend 10 000, i contended 8!, like is said in the book.

¨I would welcome a discussion about probabilities, in fact, I have all but gotten on one knee and beg to talk about it scientifically¨

you have not, youe been suprisingly keen on withholdign such discussion, until AFTER we agree with you on ¨what is possible according to the bible¨.

¨but instead all I get is insults about insisting we base the tests on what the text acutally says rather than what some want to read into it.¨

admittance of streching, and admittance that the bible isn´t factually correct regarding gen.
tnx.

¨Why does that concept scare you so?¨

because then the entire discussion about a divine being or factual correctness in the bible becomes moot to me as we are treating the work as a embelished folk tale with a tiny kernel of truth, rather then a accurate historical work.
in other words, a ripoff of the flood of gilgamesh would suffice.

¨ When you present an argument with substance based on my claims, we'll be off and running. ¨

then iĺl ask you for the 5th time.
for simplicity, put them into a list please.

¨what is created. ¨

....which doesn´t answer squat.
lemmi rephrase,
HOW do we know god created it? what would the defining charactaristics be?

¨all kinds,¨

again, answers squat. specifics please.

¨but gave an example of which you pushed aside to make more false assumptions about my claims¨

if i recall correctly the example was either first single celled population or really complex biological systems.
the former having nothing to do with ToE, and the latter being nonspecific.

¨ because I have tested and found that Yahweh is evidenced in this world, but Krishna is not.¨

now, HOW did you TEST that? i like to see the results, the setup, the instructions, the hypothesi, the conclusion..you know the kind of papers all those scientists would write (undergrads included)

on a side note,
do you know what the hindu texts say about creation?

¨but we can and someone here admitted it.¨

did they? where? i gave you a way of testign such a thing, but then again that way is irrelivent because you can counjur up ANY ad hoc explination how god changed the results.

¨Therefore, we can test for the supernatural as it interacts with our world.¨

SHOW ME WHERE!

¨ But we need to know where the intersecting marks are, so we have something to test.¨

shouldn we be testign FOR those intersection marks?

¨what deity do you want to test for¨

any, name one.
let´s pick yahweh so we can keep it in your field of expertiese.

¨ you didn't answer my question¨

i recall you really DIDN´T answer my question as to how we test for these things (as in specifying the hows and whats).

¨To bad you can't deal with what I am saying instead of what you want me to say.¨

sign...-_- can we stop with this haphazerd **** and just get a simple list outline from you?

¨he even thought of yet another test for "God".¨

THEN by all means...GIVE US THAT METHOD!

¨which is a companion to the creation story,¨

no, because the creation story speaks of very clear taxanomical distictions, somethign the evidence doesn´t indicate.

¨so what then should be see if something is created, how would it differ from what we see from what we know is not created?¨

there you stumble apon your problem. if everythign is created we have no refrance point, and if we don´t know the charactaristics of what created means, we cannot hope to identify it as such.
ofc, this COULD be easily solved...by...lets say...a signature that is (nearly)statistically impossible to have gotten there by chance and certainly not via natural means.

¨Think it through, use your own brain, not just your parroting skills.¨

parroting skills my )*(. i am using my brain, you are the one who doesn´t seem to be able to speficy anythign that would support your position.

¨yep, purpose, same thing we see in createdness.¨

noooooooo, there is a difference.
the function isn´t intented. purpose implies intent. a mutation leadign to...lets say nylonase, WASN´T INTENDED. it happened, and it turned out to have benefit. no divine providence required there. (we can run this stuff in simulations and see traits emerging out of ¨nothing¨.

¨again, this evidences createdness, not falsifies it,¨

no it doesn;t. createdness would do the exact opposite. god would create a system the was impossible to evolve. HENCE we can know it didn´t get there by natural means (ergo ID)

¨you need a way to falsify createdness, so what then would falsify createdness¨
finding no evidence that would neccesitate creation means we really should think of it as an alternative.

burden of proof is on existance, not on non existance. if no design is neccesary, then we don´t need to assume it happened...because....how do we observe god?

¨remember, at this point in our exploration if we cannot falsify createdness, there is an equal viablility.¨

the irony here is that, youŕe admitting here that createdness is not science, as itś not a falsifiable hypothesis XD.

¨therefore we need a way to falsify createdness or, both createdness (creation) and evolution (TOE) are viable.¨

NO! you need to get this out of your skull if you say you like science. if somehting is untestable. IT´S NOT SCIENCE. evolution is falsifiable, i just gave you a means to do it, ¨find somehting that couldn have evolved¨.

¨I came right out and said that I don't believe that science has nor will ever be able to falsify the bible,¨

because you can claim something is factually accurate and still say ¨hands off!¨ to anythign that seeks to test itś accuracy....apparently (/sarcasm)

¨ That is after all what the bible specifies, which is suppose to be what we are testing. ¨

so we should be testign for a population bottleneck in the ethnic groups originating from the fertile cresent?

EEEEEEERRRP! nope, didn´t find evidence of a bottleneck after the agricultural revolution.\

:¨yep, as with man, we see that the time period referred to is not what is traditionally thought.¨

aaaah more bending....
the bible speaks of husbandry and farming around that time period, ergo we place it after the agricultural revolution. min 12 000 BCE. WAY after any sort of bottleneck.

¨and, earth, ground, can all refer to universal or the area limited to the author,¨

no, and you´d know this if you actually read old texts.
the words can referr to very specific usages. ¨omnia terram¨ for example refers to the ENTIRE earth, despite how much who ever wrote it knew of the world. but notice that there IS alteration in the usage of the words ¨earth¨ and ¨ground¨. which implies different meanings.

and you part abou heaven is even more rididculus. there is only 1 sky and there is only 1 place people are referrign to when they name the word.

¨claiming that according to the text, it is possible that a massive local flood could have succeeded in the task.¨ accordign to the text, yes, accordign to reality. no.

random325nicaea · Sep 7, 2009

¨not a clue what you are trying to say...try again, this time try to make sense so I can follow your argument.¨

mmm i ws expecting you wouldn´t... nvm, it´s probably to hard for you to grasp, perhaps you biology inclined son migth explain better. (tell her about behe´s idea)

¨you can't even explain in a comprehensible way what you think would evidence a creator¨

i just DID.

¨3 a : fusion of usually similar gametes with ultimate union of their nuclei and sexual reproduction that occurs in most fungi and in some algae (as green algae) b : temporary cytoplasmic union with exchange of nuclear material that is the usual sexual process in ciliated protozoans c : the one-way transfer of DNA between bacteria in cellular contact¨

WOW what do you know!. somehtign that muddles commen descent when youŕe talking about only single celled, closely related archae!

¨All of which could apply to what you are responding to being that you are not responding to my posts but rather your own biases and trying to make them fit what I am saying.¨

no, it is to reply to whatever notion you have in your head about ToE beign at odds with multiple strains of unicellular life beign responsible for the current diversity while still retainign commen descent in animalia. anyone with a biology education could have knows how the simpel word ¨conjugation¨ would have solved your misconception.

¨so you believe science has no doubts????¨

HOW did you read that?
it´s about formualting the most accurate explanatory mechanism XD.

¨ do you know what science believes?¨

i know how it works, not what you believe.

¨.so you believe math and logic have no doubts¨

A is A and it is not NOT A.
1+1 will always be 2.
any triangle with a 90 degree angle in it will still allow for pythagoras.
yes, maths and logic have absolute, and no doubts about those.

¨ I think you need to study more before attempting college. ¨

i think you should read that book i linked. oh, and itś university.

¨that your can't evidence a theory or hypothesis with another theory or hypothesis.¨

when did i do that?

thick rustbands deep down in the strata layer indicate a envoronment that was extremely low in oxygen for millions of years. WOW how hard is that.

¨he is smarter than you think. ¨

i´m doubting it, ever since ¨we haven´t been capable of creatign life yet¨.

¨see above, he's right on the money.¨

indeed, see above.

¨"science goes beyond the shadow of the doubt, math and logic goes beyond doubt."¨

aaactually, that can be easily be resolved by fixing that missing comma to better conveigh the message.

"science goes, beyond the shadow of the doubt, math and logic goes beyond doubt."

you see, ¨shadow of the doubt¨ doesn´t mean tha all doubt has been erased.

in other words, only mats and logic can provide absolute proof.

¨.boy do you need yours eyes opened¨

--_--

¨years ago the ToE stopped being a theory and became an axiom because most people followed it blindly with pure faith¨

k, i have no more doubts.
kid, you are brainwashed. why ? because i and many other like em have to use ToE on a daily basis. otherwise we would never know how we would get that citric acid metabolizing strain of E. colai.
¨ And would not listen to any form of logic or question¨
damm....that is surely a slap in the face to all those biologist nomiterign the distribution of genes throughout current day fauna on flora populations.

¨ Anything that challenged thier blind faith in the ToE was attacked and removed from society so to speak.¨

and thatś why good old natural selction was infused with that newer sexual selextion, genetic drift and all that DNA? get your head out of ¨of pandas and people¨ and into some good old evodivo, evolutionary biology, life science, text books.

¨ a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference¨

evolution happens. that would be a closer to an axiom

¨so now you think trying to bash a teen is good argument?¨

coming from the person who started mocking....who had the poor sportsmanship again?

¨so where do you get your bachelors today? in high school? Elementary maybe????¨

read again. 18 years old, started this year. bachelors life science.
and i´ll give you the university now.
Universiteit Leiden
Life Science & Technology ~ Studies ~ Studeren in Leiden

¨ I must have missed that change in our education system.¨
fortunately i live in europe.

¨ you just told us you weren't in university¨
read again.

¨What degree must you hold to start university?¨

6 year higher scientific education. (VWO in dutch) which is about the highest level you get here. i would be comparable to a grammar school, but minus the religious note.

¨1. I am not just a form of a woman but I am a woman, we'll assume that is a typo¨

it was. it should have read ¨from¨

¨2. I went straight to the point time and time and time again but you refussed to address the points I am making¨

no list.

¨3. I don't draw out animo (again we'll assume a typo) amino's for any argument, at least not to point ¨

youŕe reclusiveness to actually state what and why ina comprehensive and clear manner and your entire ¨what is possible¨ strategy, are making it ver frustrarign to get a descent discussion out of you.

¨it is not an attempt to remove probablity, but rather a way to establish stance and then defend or falsify it with science. ¨

take your stance.
i have had mine ready since post 1.

¨what do you want to evidence with it? What the bible says or doesn't say? Whether or not I am a skeptic? Those are the two things I have claims on here.¨

your understandign of cell biology and chemesrty, and your notion of createness.

you will learn a LOT from this book.
i would suggest you read such things so you can rid of a few of those horrendus misconceptions you have on science, biology, and organic chemistry probobility.

random325nicaea · Sep 8, 2009

"so, when then, in your understanding, did the flood occur? The text specifies 10 generations, I havent' found any other time marker....so we go from the origins of mankind 10 generations, and that is the time of the flood according to the text. Most people try to take it from today backward rather than from the origins of man forward...so, what we have is a bottleneck theory that goes back to 10 generations after the appearance of man....what does the evidence say about that. Remember, we are testing what the bible says, not what tradition says. When do we see the "bottleneck" you show in the diagram above? "

what? did you miss the entire part of the bible where it was made clear that there was farming and husbandry?
you know, the stuff that came WELL after the origin of homo sapiens....

the text said 10 generations after adam and that there was husbandry and farming (cain and abel)..so either there wasn't any farming or husbandry (in which case god's entire "clean animals" command is rendered useless among other things)
or the "10th generation" mentioned in the bible, isn't the 10th generation of humans at all.

"what would compel anyone to think that animal population would have been only 2 or 7 pairs....I'm not following the logic...."

" 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, 58 male and female, to keep them alive 59 with you. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive. 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, 58 male and female, to keep them alive 59 with you. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive."

" 7:2 You must take with you seven 2 of every kind of clean animal, 3 the male and its mate, 4 two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate, 7:3 and also seven 5 of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, 6 to preserve their offspring 7 on the face of the earth."

do i see god mentioning anything other then 2 of very unclean and 7 of every clean?

"the bible is not falsified from a scientific (note scientific not theological, religious, etc.) standpoint to be evidenced to date."

only if you stretch away the claims made by god and men in the bible.

"
"That would mean that the flood happened not only millions of years ago, but when the population was still centrally located to the single celled population. ""

that is so ludicrus it's just bizar.
you do realize that this would entirely remove noah from the story, let alone the trees with wich the ark was built (god was VERY specific about the ark). let alone the actual mechanics of the flood to whipe out the earth! almost all these unicellular populations lived in water! how are you going to whipe em out with MORE water!? even when we would be talking about a massive change in salinity killing off a large varyigty of unicellular organism, evolution would produce a new dominant organism relatively quickly. instead of whiping out life, god would be creatign a monocuture.

and the notion of "centrally located single cell population" is even MORE bizar! do you have any idea how fast unicellular organism can spread in marine environments?

random325nicaea · Sep 8, 2009

"Leap day of 1980, I was driving to an appointment. Now before I go on, let's clarify two things in scripture, God's claim for intervention. First, His common intervention is through the Spirit living within, this means that the natural evidence is inward, not outward, it flows from within to the natural world. Secondly, when He does intervene in the natural world it is for one of two reasons 1. Evidence of who He is so that one might believe, and 2. for the purpose of protection for those obedient to His purpose and call. This account will fall into evidnec of who He is so that one might believe, it could overlap into 2 but that is not evidenced by the story."

satan sat next to my bed last night, then i realized i was lucid.
woooooo.

"Anyway, leap day of 1980 I was struck by a train. "
....fail...were the boom barrier out of service, or did you just not pay attention?

"(No that isn't the supernatural evidence that could be considered luck by some)"

oh yes it is.
you cna have a physisist run a simulation and show you what all happened and how it could have been worse.

"What was the force, condition, situation, that allowed me to not only survive, but have little more than a scratch, while others died? "

where the other hit exactly the same way as you?

"That night, she borrowed a car from a friend, drove to a railroad crossing, she sat on the tracks and waited. She saw the train coming and in that moment thought of what I said, and drove off. "

yay! for self preservation of religiously inspired suicide notions!

"the biblical God in that it fits the claims made by that deity. "

HOW is this the biblical god? if this where to happen to a hindu, he'd call it brahma, if it where to happen to a buddist, karma.
do you see how utterly non convincing this is for the christian god?

"whether you find it conclusive or not, is indeed evidence of a god"

yes...personal testimony over hard evidence....very convincing.
like i said. i had satan sitten next to my bed last night.
then i realized i was lucid.

either hard evidence (foto's, simulations,video footage) , or don't even try.

random325nicaea · Sep 8, 2009

" Do I just say, well, it must be natural because I haven't seen it before?"

no you say it's natural becasue it exists in this universe and therefore you have no reason to assume it isn somehting beyond this universe.

"Do I say it can't be from our new creature because I haven't observed it creating anything like this? "

no, you say : "what could have made this? possible the new creature? IS it possibly a new creature itself? lets sample it and find out what it is!"

" just because it hasn't been observed making a squishy nest, doesn't mean we can't test to see what or if that squishy thing is created and what it's purpose is..."

the fault in this analogy is that the "new creature" is actually observable, unlike our supernatural friend, who's existance you're trying to convince us of is via the inference of existing systems he supposidly created.

"everything we observe as new and different and of unknown origins which didn't stop science from exploring and testing and observing. "

so how can we get god to appear in front of a detector so we can measure his creative capacity?

"and we can experiment and explore and observe to see if there are any other options but a creator"

1) it appaears you seem to be handling "a creator" as a defeult position, just saying.
2) if natural means can explain it, i call occam's.

"what tests are we doing for createdness? I've been told we weren't testing for it because we couldn't...."

we can't. but we can still offer hypothetical tests if god was actually natural and you couldn't use his supernatural status to ad hoc every problem away.

"I love the scientific method, including testing...."

your insistance of testing supernatural intervention, and then your reluctance to provide the test scematics (hypothesis, test means, materials) sais otherwise.

"I am so used to being ignored, falsely accused, lied to, etc."

i think those last 2 should read "misunderstood". you're making "reading into it what you want" sound like something worse then it actually is.

"If, however, you simple dont' want to deal with my arguments "

but we do, if only you'd just do us all a favor and put them intoa clear list they'd be ever so much more easy to deal with.

random325nicaea · Sep 8, 2009

razzelflabben said:
then you totally missed his point.

then he should leanr how to word himself better, because what nariaoa said was actually what your kid conveigned.

razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

Originally Posted by razzelflabben

Now, since my son is driving my crazy by reading over my shoulder tonight, let me type his words to your argument, and remember he has no clue what the argument is, only your current posts..."even though scientists have under specific and completely controled conditions created some of these molecules they have been unable to create any form of life, even the simpalist, how can life have just sprang up if we can't even create it under controled circumstances?"

I'll be blunt. This is a ginormous, roaring stupid PRATT.

Since when does human understanding of, let alone ability to replicate, a natural process prevent it from occurring? Your son is, in effect, saying that water didn't "just" freeze before we discovered intermolecular forces, that birds couldn't "just" fly before we built ornithopters... I could go on.

(BTW, this is also a pretty standard god of the gaps argument. We don't understand it, therefore God did it.)[/quote]His words...What I was saying, was how can we assume that just because we can created the molecules in these conditions doesn't mean the conditions existed. The arguments you respond to relies on the fact that these conditions existed until you bring proof these conditions existed, you can't use this as evidence. One cannot use theory as evidence for another theory.

Razz words...Now, sitting here listening to him go on and on and on that day, driving me nuts, let me add this clarification to what he was saying. The lack of evidence does not evidenced a God which is what the god of the gaps would say, but rather it does not falsify the possiblity or lessen the probability of a God creator. Which was his point.

He just read over my shoulder and said...that is exactly what I was trying to say (of what I just typed as my words not his)

random325nicaea · Sep 8, 2009

¨The arguments you respond to relies on the fact that these conditions existed until you bring proof these conditions existed, you can't use this as evidence¨

Massive rust bands that absorbed all oxygen for millions of years in the early earth.
huge amounts of volcanic activity (we can see that in the old rocks)
no biological systems in existence to utilize organic compounds
more UV radiation then now (less ozone layer)
large amounts of heat fuels intense weather systems.

what is there to indicate that organic compounds could NOT freely combine?

¨.that is exactly what I was trying to say¨
and it´s still flawed in the exact same way.
again, since you have had organic chemisrty, you do realize the incredible variety of situations carbon can react in, don´t you? and you do know that with molecules reacting as fast as they do, a lot can happen in a 1 billion year time period.
and you DO realize, that once you have a stable self replicator, proto natural selection is gonna speed the process up like hell don´t you? (watch the ENTIRE vid this time).

¨The lack of evidence does not evidenced a God which is what the god of the gaps would say, but rather it does not falsify the possiblity or lessen the probability of a God creator.¨

nothing can falsify a god creator, since he´s supernatural you can ad hoc your way out of anything.

and indeed it doesn´t lessen the increadably low possibility of there beigna creator god.

remember, possibility =/= probability.

razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

These posts are quickly getting tooo long, I'm going to take the bull by the horns and try to cut irrelavent material out, if I cut something you think is too valuable to do without please in kindness reenter it.

random325nicaea said:
¨just about anything is possible¨

JUST ABOUT ANYTHING...leaves room for some things not to be. This whole discussion began with the claim by one poster that the biblical flood and creation account were not possibles. I then took the time to show that they were indeed possibles when we understand what it actually says. So unless you claim is that everything is possible (you already right here disagree with that) or that the actual biblical claims are possible (which I have shown them to be) I don't think there is anything left here to discuss. We can move into probablity, but only after we understand possible.

depending on how you interpret it, yes.

I realize this in intended to be a jab about interpretation and how since some people don't follow the rules of literature, we can't know what the text says, but I'm going to for the most part ignore that jab to say, bravo, we're finally getting close to an actual intelligent discussion. But please do keep in mind that since you either don't already know the rules of "interpretation" of literature, you would do well to study them and add them to your educational plan. It helps in all kinds of areas of our lives. If you know them and just refuse to apply them to the bible, then I would challenge you to sit down and apply them sometime, it really is a fascinating experience.

then YES there certainly is something indicating it is physically impossible.

How? If as the bible describes creation, this time period is 10 generations from the creation of all life...life that all began as the evidence suggests with one "single celled population" why should we even suggest or hint that it isn't possible? If you read into the text the ToE, or various strands of traditional beliefs, yes, I would agree, it is impossible, but looking only at the text and how it fits the evidence, no, you would be wrong, it is very possible and the probability continues to go up....the mistake most people make here is that they look at the issue from now backwards. But the text looks at the "beginning" and moves forward. If we look at the "beginning" and move forward, the possibles all change. It is only when we look backwards (which unfortunately allows for bias to be applied through manipulation) that we get messed up. As my son was trying to say, we can't use theory to evidence theory...when we go from now backwards in time, that is exactly what we are doing, we are using theory to evidence theories. When we move forward, the picture changes, there can be less manipulation and we are closer to truth, whatever that truth is (in other words don't try to interpret that to mean created, because that isn't what it says.)

i did not contend 10 000, i contended 8!,

The possible mathematically figured population would have been huge at the 10,000 range, as to what the bible specifies as who survived, that number is 8...not sure what is not clear here????

you have not, youe been suprisingly keen on withholdign such discussion, until AFTER we agree with you on ¨what is possible according to the bible¨.

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according to the claims I have personally made here, what the bible says is the only testable probability we have...not understanding what it says would be like asking you to explain the probability of ejowitund before explaining to you what ejowitund is...care to tell me what the probability of ejowitund is? Or had we better define it for you before you attempt the probabilites of ejowitund? Personally, I wouldn't even dream of test the probable until I knew at least what ejowitund was, or even if it was testable....but that's me, if you are the scientist, have a go at it and when your probability test is done, let me know how it comes out and then I'll tell you what it is...you see, the only way to avoid the god of the gaps argument is to first identify what the text specifies, that way, it is impossible to reinvent the text to fit a given bias....by demanding that we test before we know what it says, you are opening the door and inviting others to apply the god of the gaps theory to everything science shows us.

because then the entire discussion about a divine being or factual correctness in the bible becomes moot to me as we are treating the work as a embelished folk tale with a tiny kernel of truth, rather then a accurate historical work.

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we can only treat the text according to the conclusions found when applying literary rules and logic....it's no different than how science works, logical conclusions can only be based on information evaluated when applying scientific rules and logic. It's nothing to be scared of, it's how the disciplines function.

in other words, a ripoff of the flood of gilgamesh would suffice.

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not in my world, I like the search for truth too much for that.

for simplicity, put them into a list please.

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all I can say to this is you have to be joking, it's been done so many times it hurts, read the posts.

HOW do we know god created it? what would the defining charactaristics be?

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to which I asked you what characteristics define any new thing we see? Using the example of a new creature found in the sea and a squishy lumpy thing that we did not observe being created. Anything I personally offer as characteristic, will be dismissed because of "my ignorance of science", "my ignorance of the ToE", "a twisting of my words", "a series of questions which force us to further define, thus not an answer at all", or some equally pathetic argument invented to dismiss anything you or others here don't like and don't want to deal with...so instead of getting into that nonsense, I won't be nearly so hard on you, tell us how we would study that squishy lump as created or not.

now, HOW did you TEST that? i like to see the results, the setup, the instructions, the hypothesi, the conclusion..you know the kind of papers all those scientists would write (undergrads included)

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well first off, I am not a scientist, and therefore do not need a paper, however, if you have a grant available so that I can focus enough time on the project, I'll be happy to ablige you and will do some further testing even. In the second place, I provided one such test for you already, when we couple that test with a host of others, the evidence testifies without doubt to the existance of God...but I'm sure that wouldn't convince you either.....when will my grant be ready?

do you know what the hindu texts say about creation?

well since I referred to Islam before and their understanding, I'm would logically conclude that I know more than you think I do, but just to be fair, let me quote it for you, that way you can't nit pick out wording to make it sound like I said something different...Hindu views on evolution snip for space
Hindu views on evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and I'll just reference this one A Hindu Creation Story

Got a special point you want to make, or just checking to see if I was more than just a "ever lovin, bible thumpin, tie died Hippie chick for Jesus" (quote from a play my kids are working on, funny line really)

did they? where? ...how god changed the results.

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not at all, if you are referring to how the animals survived the ride in the ark, I answered that. It does not specify in the text, therefore we cannot test for how it happened. We can speculate of which I offered one logical conclusion, but as to knowing and testing, not possible, the only thing we can test for right now is what the text specifies and that isn't specified...remember, this isn't a scientific treatise, so we can't treat it as if it is, and expect all the answers we might ask.

SHOW ME WHERE!

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did and provided an example, what more do you need? I know, I know. specifics, only problem is, that is what you were given, specifics. and still you ask for more....what kind of specifics do you want when specifics were given and you refuse them? Please be specific so that I can provide you with what you want...

shouldn we be testign FOR those intersection marks?

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might not hurt a quest for truth? But hey, your the genius, I'm just a pathetic excuse of a human being who only toys with people even though I give answers, and specifics and explainations and evidences that aren't given but are.

let´s pick yahweh so we can keep it in your field of expertiese.

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already showed you an example of a test and why it evidenced God. How about you picking another so we have a contrast to work with.

no, because the creation story speaks of very clear taxanomical distictions, ...

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which is the greatest problem science gives to the story of creation, so let's look at the evidence that is problematic and see what that evidence actually tells us...lay out your first evidence...be specific...what is the first evidence that shows the taxanomical distictions to be falsified, be specific and start at the beginning, I'm not currently into backtracking....in other words, we will move forward, as the "evolution" shows we should

if everythign is created we have no refrance point, and if we don´t know the charactaristics of what created means, we cannot hope to identify it as such.

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but we don't have a problem because we have a host of observations of what is not created to use as our "refrance" point....I've been telling you this and still you aren't listening to what I am saying to you...

ofc, this COULD be easily solved...by...lets say...a signature that is (nearly)statistically impossible to have gotten there by chance and certainly not via natural means.

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well, creationists have been doing that since the start of this debate, but it is ignored and in place of viable arguments, insults reign.

the function isn´t intented. purpose implies intent. a mutation leadign to...lets say nylonase, WASN´T INTENDED. it happened, and it turned out to have benefit. no divine providence required there. (we can run this stuff in simulations and see traits emerging out of ¨nothing¨.

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what if the purpose is that life could function without the direct intervention of God? In other words, God created a mechanism, a function for life to continue on without supernatural intervention...problem solved....your basal problem here is that you still refuse to accept that God isn't intervening in every aspect of this world. Till you understand this, the discussion cannot move forward because you continue to argue anothers pov rather than mine.

no it doesn;t. createdness would do the exact opposite. god would create a system the was impossible to evolve. ...

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Why could that be the prediction? It doesn't follow the logical rules of science to assume that a created thing cannot "evolve" (change) without direct intervention of it's creator....Wow where did you get that assumption from?

finding no evidence that would neccesitate creation means we really should think of it as an alternative.

Click to expand...

if no design is neccesary, then we don´t need to assume it happened...because....how do we observe god?

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who's assuming here, I'm suggesting we test, not assume. If testing is not part of science, why do the teachers and scientists all support testing?

the irony here is that, youŕe admitting here that createdness is not science, as itś not a falsifiable hypothesis XD.

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but that is just not what I said, in fact, from the beginning to the present, I have been proposing to you that there are falsifiables to the hypothesis.

if somehting is untestable. IT´S NOT SCIENCE. evolution is falsifiable, i just gave you a means to do it, ¨find somehting that couldn have evolved¨.

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see above, your missing the whole point, createdness is falsifiable or science wouldn't test for it every dog gone day.

because you can claim something is factually accurate and still say ¨hands off!¨ to anythign that seeks to test itś accuracy....apparently (/sarcasm)

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hummmm....so finding enough evidence to draw only one viable conclusion is now hands off? its refusing to test for accuracy? Wow, you have an absolutely warped sense of science and how it works....Yeah, I know that you attempted sarcasm, only problem is, all you showed is that you still aren't addressing the things I am telling you...In fact, I got to wonder why all the examples of what I am saying end up missing from your replies????

so we should be testign for a population bottleneck in the ethnic groups originating from the fertile cresent?

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back from 10 generations sure...

nope, didn´t find evidence of a bottleneck after the agricultural revolution.\

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your looking backwards, look forwards...just as both theories demand....nor did you provide evidence of your claims

the bible speaks of husbandry and farming around that time period, ergo we place it after the agricultural revolution. min 12 000 BCE. WAY after any sort of bottleneck.

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your still backward, the text specifies 10 generations after the appearance of man...neither theory can hope for truth if we always look from now backward, only when we look from the "beginning" forward can we hope to understand....

but notice that there IS alteration in the usage of the words ¨earth¨ and ¨ground¨. which implies different meanings.

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do you really want me to pull out the greek on this, how much study are you willing to look at on this topic?

accordign to the text, yes, accordign to reality. no.

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What evidence do you present that shows that a massive local flood is not possible?? I asked for this before and was told that something else was provided as evidence thus the claim was changed to fit the evidence which is not admissable as evidence to the claim....what evidence can you provide that a massive local flood is not possible on the earth since the appearance of man???? I provided lots that it is not only possible but happened, and it isn't even my burden of proof....you can look back at the previous part of this discussion if you like, it was long and drawn out and the only argument presented against the evidence was a change in claim...not very sportsmanlike...

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razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

random325nicaea said:
mmm i ws expecting you wouldn´t... nvm, it´s probably to hard for you to grasp, perhaps you biology inclined son migth explain better. (tell her about behe´s idea)

I'm not asking about what you presented, but rather how what you presented addresses any of the claims I have made??? Shall I send my son over to read for you?

¨3 a : fusion of usually similar gametes with ultimate union of their nuclei and sexual reproduction that occurs in most fungi and in some algae (as green algae) b : temporary cytoplasmic union with exchange of nuclear material that is the usual sexual process in ciliated protozoans c : the one-way transfer of DNA between bacteria in cellular contact¨

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Let me get this right...these are the things you would accept as evidence of a creator???

no, it is to reply to whatever notion you have in your head about ToE beign at odds with multiple strains of unicellular life beign responsible for the current diversity while still retainign commen descent in animalia. anyone with a biology education could have knows how the simpel word ¨conjugation¨ would have solved your misconception.

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only problem, there was no misconception to start with...therefore you are NOT addressing me...this is tiring, when will you address me and my claims?

i know how it works, not what you believe.

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thought you didn't know what I believe because I didn't list it for you??? So which is it, you don't know what I believe because I won't answer you, or you know what I believe and this ain't it???? Please be specific in your answer, I don't want to get confused again...

A is A and it is not NOT A.
1+1 will always be 2.
any triangle with a 90 degree angle in it will still allow for pythagoras.
yes, maths and logic have absolute, and no doubts about those.

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please just answer the question... I'm so slow that I can't follow all this educational stuff you throwing at me....

evolution happens. that would be a closer to an axiom

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but we aren't talking about evolution (small e) we are talking about Evolution (big E) or also known as the TOE...why is it when an evolutionist is caught, trapped they always resort to this slight of hand and think no one is watching?

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razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

random325nicaea said:
what? did you miss the entire part of the bible where it was made clear that there was farming and husbandry?
you know, the stuff that came WELL after the origin of homo sapiens....

that is what one of these arguments has been specifically talking about. Whether civilization is the "starting" point, or all the other claims of man? Please try to keep up, I've been moving slowly so you all could keep up, but I can't move that slowly

" 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, 58 male and female, to keep them alive 59 with you. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive. 6:19 You must bring into the ark two of every kind of living creature from all flesh, 58 male and female, to keep them alive 59 with you. 6:20 Of the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, and of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you so you can keep them alive."

that still leaves all those animals that didn't make it, nothing in this specifies only a pair or 7 pair of animals existed at the time....you aren't keeping up very well....

" 7:2 You must take with you seven 2 of every kind of clean animal, 3 the male and its mate, 4 two of every kind of unclean animal, the male and its mate, 7:3 and also seven 5 of every kind of bird in the sky, male and female, 6 to preserve their offspring 7 on the face of the earth."

that still leaves all those animals that didn't make it, nothing in this specifies only a pair or 7 pair of animals existed at the time....you aren't keeping up very well....please point out specifically your claim, where does it say that only a pair, or 7 pair of animals existed at the time of the flood? After the flood is a different question...

do i see god mentioning anything other then 2 of very unclean and 7 of every clean?

nothing at all in that indicates that there only existed a pair or 7 pair depending on the animal...that is what I asked you to evidence, so your gonna have to do better.

only if you stretch away the claims made by god and men in the bible.

you can't even evidence the claims you are making that assume falsification here in this very thread...you don't have any chance outside this thread if you can't even do it here. This is a nice friendly chat, show where it says that only a pair or 7 pair existed.

you do realize that this would entirely remove noah from the story, let alone the trees with wich the ark was built (god was VERY specific about the ark). let alone the actual mechanics of the flood to whipe out the earth! almost all these unicellular populations lived in water! how are you going to whipe em out with MORE water!? even when we would be talking about a massive change in salinity killing off a large varyigty of unicellular organism, evolution would produce a new dominant organism relatively quickly. instead of whiping out life, god would be creatign a monocuture.[/quote]Well since we aren't talking about single celled population being destroyed, but rather 10 generations after man appeared, your arguments is about as useful as...I can't think of anything so useless...Secondly, your claims are based on the assumption that the theory of Evolution is fact, which it is not, it's a theory...and no slight of hand about evolution being fact.

razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

random325nicaea said:
satan sat next to my bed last night, then i realized i was lucid.

see, this is why people don't like talking on these evolutionist biased threads, there is evidence to support what I said and you dismiss it with mocking and insinuations of crazyness, it's evidence man, if you dismiss all evidence so causually, it's no wonder you believe what you do and can't put a rational thought to screen.

....fail...were the boom barrier out of service, or did you just not pay attention?

actually the train had to go around a big curve before it got to the road, the train was not visible, nor was I visible to the train, to complicate things even further, the train because of where the crossing was was not required to blow his horn and therefore did not.

you cna have a physisist run a simulation and show you what all happened and how it could have been worse.

bring him on...

where the other hit exactly the same way as you?

well since the train hit pretty much right on me, that would be a pretty good bet.

yay! for self preservation of religiously inspired suicide notions!

not what I said, now is it!

HOW is this the biblical god? if this where to happen to a hindu, he'd call it brahma, if it where to happen to a buddist, karma.
do you see how utterly non convincing this is for the christian god?

it's all about the claims of the deity that tells us who is responsible...consider this...Refinement of the Soul (Tazkiyat an-Nafs )
Going for Refuge
Therein lies the claims of two gods and they are falsified by the evidence. Oh btw, also notice how their claims open the door for the god of the gaps theory whereas the claims by Yaweh are not so fluid and open to interpretation, one of many things I find intreguing about Yaweh...specifics are provided, things we can test...can't find that with these other gods..

yes...personal testimony over hard evidence....very convincing.

as I said, the insident was witnessed and evidenced, with that evidence being recorded. So you are wrong in claiming it is personal testimony over hard evidence. The evidence to what I say is a matter of record.

razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

random325nicaea said:
the fault in this analogy is that the "new creature" is actually observable, unlike our supernatural friend, who's existance you're trying to convince us of is via the inference of existing systems he supposidly created.

God is absolutely observable, you just have to know what He looks like...and yes, we know what He looks like because of the claims He makes and the tests that confirm those claims.

1) it appaears you seem to be handling "a creator" as a defeult position, just saying.
2) if natural means can explain it, i call occam's.

interesting claim since I have consistantly suggested we actually test a falsifiable and showed how to do that.

we can't. but we can still offer hypothetical tests if god was actually natural and you couldn't use his supernatural status to ad hoc every problem away.

hummm? Still not getting it I see, we aren't testing to see if God is actually natural, but rather if the supernatural God leaves His mark, His evidence, His signature on our natural world. Until you figure out the claim, you can't hope to make a rational argument against it.

razzelflabben · Sep 8, 2009

random325nicaea said:
Massive rust bands that absorbed all oxygen for millions of years in the early earth.
huge amounts of volcanic activity (we can see that in the old rocks)
no biological systems in existence to utilize organic compounds
more UV radiation then now (less ozone layer)
large amounts of heat fuels intense weather systems.

what claim are you trying to falsify here?

¨

.that is exactly what I was trying to say¨
and it´s still flawed in the exact same way.
again, since you have had organic chemisrty, you do realize the incredible variety of situations carbon can react in, don´t you? and you do know that with molecules reacting as fast as they do, a lot can happen in a 1 billion year time period.
and you DO realize, that once you have a stable self replicator, proto natural selection is gonna speed the process up like hell don´t you? (watch the ENTIRE vid this time).

all predictions and theory, no evidence...where is your evidence man....it's all about evidence...

nothing can falsify a god creator, since he´s supernatural you can ad hoc your way out of anything.

one could but personally, I refuse to, I maintain only what is claimed by that creator as testable and only the evidence of science as evidence of or against that same creator god/God/gods.

random325nicaea · Oct 4, 2009

"all predictions and theory, no evidence...where is your evidence man....it's all about evidence..."

....do you know what all happend before the atomic theory got into text books?
people did a lot of experiments and processed the data. when a correct model was formulated they had their theory. and that would eventually get into textbooks in sentences like "when a electron changes from a energy state, it releases an photon that is of the exact ect..."

when the video sais "lipid bubbles that allow small molecules through whcih can then polymerize inside the cell with the produced macromolecule unable to leave the cell" the same thign happens.

in a way the video only listed the existing knowledge and explain how these mechanism can produce a self replicating cell.

either you ignore all those experiments that put that knowledge into the textbooks, or you should retract "all predictions and theory, no evidence...where is your evidence man....it's all about evidence..."

"I maintain only what is claimed by that creator as testable and only the evidence of science as evidence of or against that same creator god/God/gods."

then how about you back up that position by providing us a experiment?
come on, lets be scientific here.

razzelflabben · Oct 4, 2009

random325nicaea said:
"all predictions and theory, no evidence...where is your evidence man....it's all about evidence..."

....do you know what all happend before the atomic theory got into text books?
people did a lot of experiments and processed the data. when a correct model was formulated they had their theory. and that would eventually get into textbooks in sentences like "when a electron changes from a energy state, it releases an photon that is of the exact ect..."

chalk one up to real science...

when the video sais "lipid bubbles that allow small molecules through whcih can then polymerize inside the cell with the produced macromolecule unable to leave the cell" the same thign happens.

in a way the video only listed the existing knowledge and explain how these mechanism can produce a self replicating cell.

can and do are not the same thing...

either you ignore all those experiments that put that knowledge into the textbooks, or you should retract "

all predictions and theory, no evidence...where is your evidence man....it's all about evidence..."

hummm??? So if one lives by evidence, they must throw it all away when it comes to the TOE because of the scientific method???? Doesn't make an ounce of sense, maybe you should try again.

"

I maintain only what is claimed by that creator as testable and only the evidence of science as evidence of or against that same creator god/God/gods."

then how about you back up that position by providing us a experiment?
come on, lets be scientific here.

I have many, many, many, many times over....how about if you deal with what has already been done before asking me to provide it again?

random325nicaea · Oct 11, 2009

"can and do are not the same thing..."

and that is the entire misunderstanding you people have with science.
when we talk about these complex things. we make predictions of possible outcomes.
it is EXTREMELY hard to say exactly what happened. so we'd rather take the intellectually honest route of "can" instead of "do" when we aren't a 100% certain.

"So if one lives by evidence, they must throw it all away when it comes to the TOE because of the scientific method"

??
do you even knows how asinine that sounds to a person who actually does science?

" Doesn't make an ounce of sense, "

indeed your comment doesn't "maybe you should try again."

"I have many, many, many, many times over....how about if you deal with what has already been done before asking me to provide it again?"

no you have NOT.
what you've provided constitutes as a vague "well somehting like this".
there is a WHOLE lot more you can do to specify your proposed experiment.
like name the species of organism your are planning to use, detail the procedures (methodology), give a list of the needed resources, hell i could go on.
THIS is how you propose an experiment to test your hypothesis.
NOT "we should test for design by testing for purpose", which says NOTHING when it comes to providing an experiment.

either you show your scientific literacy or you should shut up about being capable of scientifically testing for god.

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