My favorite argument for the existence of God

[Speedwell]

Agree with him; agree with him about everything. He's trying to set up a "gotcha." Let him spring his trap--it is sure to be more entertaining than this long-drawn out business with wooden self-replicating robot penguins and bicyles produced by natural forces..

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Because "very similar" is NOT the same as "identical to."

Two species of seagull can be very similar, but that doesn't mean they're the same species after all, does it?

In any case, how do you know it's similar to a walking robot? How do you recognise a robot?

If it looks like a penguin, walks like a penguin and self-replicates like a penguin but isn't actually a penguin..... it's a robot.

 

[xianghua]

A robot shaped like a penguin is a robot - but it's not a penguin.

Something identical to a penguin is a penguin - but it's not a robot.

Does this help?

why a penguin cant be consider as a robot?

 

[xianghua]

I'm afraid "similar" doesn't cut it. It really is that simple!

Once you take this on board we can forward - until then we are going to go round and round in circles getting precisely nowhere.

lets start with why its not a robot by your perspectvie.

 

[tyke]

lets start with why its not a robot by your perspectvie.

As I've said, we're going nowhere.

 

[Speedwell]

lets start with why its not a robot by your perspectvie.

I agree it's a robot. What's your point?

 

[xianghua]

I agree it's a robot. What's your point?

so you agree that a robot can evolve naturally if you dont believe in a designer.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

why a penguin cant be consider as a robot?

Here's one reason: penguins are living biological creatures and robots aren't.

 

[Speedwell]

so you agree that a robot can evolve naturally if you dont believe in a designer.

Sure. What's your point?

 

[pitabread]

why a penguin cant be consider as a robot?

How is this even a question? I mean, how?

 

[Kylie]

why a penguin cant be consider as a robot?

Because a robot is not a penguin.

You need to actually DEFINE the terms you are using. Define what a robot is! You have consistently refused to do this, and your attempt to show why definitions aren't very good has fallen flat.

 

[Speedwell]

Because a robot is not a penguin.

You need to actually DEFINE the terms you are using. Define what a robot is! You have consistently refused to do this, and your attempt to show why definitions aren't very good has fallen flat.

No, we should agree with him in every particular. Let him spring the rhetorical "trap" he has been laboring so hard to build all these months. This business has gone on long enough.

 

[Kylie]

No, we should agree with him in every particular. Let him spring the rhetorical "trap" he has been laboring so hard to build all these months. This business has gone on long enough.

I suspect that the payoff will be something like, "You agree with me, therefore I am right," but very well.

xianghua, I agree that penguins are robots. Please continue.

 

[tyke]

So, xianghua, we all agree with you about cars, penguins watches etc. What is your point/

 

[Speedwell]

I suspect that the payoff will be something like, "You agree with me, therefore I am right," but very well.

xianghua, I agree that penguins are robots. Please continue.

ID only has one argument: That functional complexity is evidence of design. All of his sleight-of-hand with robots, penguins, naturally produced bicycles, evolved wooden watches and so on is to force us into a situation where we have to admit that we have concluded design based on functional complexity. He's not doing it very well, perhaps because of the language difficulty, but that's what he's trying to do. Different IDers handle it in a variety of ways. You'll remember that we had here for a while an IDist poster who accused us of always using functional complexity to conclude design except in situations where it might lead to the further conclusion that God exists, when we hypocritically substitute another method.

 

[Archie Dupont]

Of course a real penguin is designed, just like the robotic one.

The robotic one is designed and built (probably) by humans in one go. As much as the penguin robot may look like a penguin, it is still made of unchanging unevolving static parts that are joined together to form a whole.

The real penguin is designed by it's previous version. The reproduction process adds the blueprints in the form of dna (yes this is a very simplistic explanation but it works) and after that the cell reproduces and reproduces, reprinting itself and copying the dna on to the next cell. Up to the point a fully functioning penguin has formed.

So even if we assume that God created the original penguin and imprinted every cell of that penguin with dna, God was only the creator of the original penguin. All the other versions are self made by that particular first penguin cell.

Now we know that a cell can evolve into a fully functioning penguin, how deep does the rabbit hole go? If cells can construct themselves into such intricate designed designs with blueprints that were written by the intricate design that wrote it and so on.. Where is God needed in this process?

 

[AV1611VET]

Now we know that a cell can evolve into a fully functioning penguin, how deep does the rabbit hole go? If cells can construct themselves into such intricate designed designs with blueprints that were written by the intricate design that wrote it and so on.. Where is God needed in this process?

Leave it to scientists today to blur the lines between life and tissue, life and artificial intelligence, good and bad, morals and ethics, apes and humans, etc.

Then they wonder why the world is going to entropy in a hand basket.

 

[Speedwell]

Of course a real penguin is designed, just like the robotic one.

The robotic one is designed and built (probably) by humans in one go. As much as the penguin robot may look like a penguin, it is still made of unchanging unevolving static parts that are joined together to form a whole.

The real penguin is designed by it's previous version. The reproduction process adds the blueprints in the form of dna (yes this is a very simplistic explanation but it works) and after that the cell reproduces and reproduces, reprinting itself and copying the dna on to the next cell. Up to the point a fully functioning penguin has formed.

So even if we assume that God created the original penguin and imprinted every cell of that penguin with dna, God was only the creator of the original penguin. All the other versions are self made by that particular first penguin cell.

Now we know that a cell can evolve into a fully functioning penguin, how deep does the rabbit hole go? If cells can construct themselves into such intricate designed designs with blueprints that were written by the intricate design that wrote it and so on.. Where is God needed in this process?

To conceive of the process in the first place and to infuse it with divine purpose as it proceeds.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... they wonder why the world is going to entropy in a hand basket.

It's entropy that makes it all possible in the first place. Complexity emerges as a result of increasing entropy providing useful energy gradients in a mixed entropy state. That's why the universe has become full of complex structures (including us) at this stage of its development.

 

[AV1611VET]

It's entropy that makes it all possible in the first place. Complexity emerges as a result of increasing entropy providing useful energy gradients in a mixed entropy state. That's why the universe has become full of complex structures (including us) at this stage of its development.

Sounds like you believe in evolution.