Questions About the Source of Your Faith

[musicman30mm]

Digit,

You are right about not getting side tracked, since it seems we are now very close to the crux of our difference. I was up at four (commercial helicopter pilot license checkride- I passed, yippie!) and it is twenty three hundred, so I may stumble through this.

I on the other hand believe God created the stars and He did so after He created light, as such light did not originate from the stars themselves, therefore concluding it is not accurate to determine the age of the universe based on the viewable distance of stars. I believe this, because the Bible documents it as such.

So you are saying that the light from the stars I see in the sky is not produced by some physical process like every other bit of light humans have studied throughout history, bearing in mind it behaives exactly as we could expect it to if it were from a star? It is shaped like a star. It is the correct brightness. When it's spectrum is seperated and analized it reveals that it's source must have the same composition as we would expect a star to have. This isn't just one baseless assumption I am resting my case on. It is not just one mountain of meticulously, objectively, logically obtained observations. It is several mountains of clear evidence that agree with each other. Further, they don't just point in the same general direction, their predictions, made through seperate methodologies, developed by scores of different people from around the world and through the last several hundred years, are exactly the same. You ignore all of that in favor of a vague verse in a book that was written in the bronze age which, of your own admittance, is riddled with mistranslations.

The fact that you go on saying that you have come to these conclusions in anything close to the scientific method, logic or rational thought is an affront. As a matter of fact, you revealed your line of reasoning precisely in this statement:

I believe this, because the Bible documents it as such.

Every shred of emprical evidence screams that the light from the oldest known stars was emitted by them billions of years ago. Why do you believe that light was always there?

I believe this, because the Bible documents it as such.

Circular reasoning- it's plain as the nose on your face.

It would be one thing if you admitted that Christianity has serious shortcomings when it comes to answering big questions about the universe, or even if you just omitted those questions all together. You go the other way, convoluting sound theories to fit around god, and calling it science.

Your computer is an amazing work of electromagnetics and logic languages. The same principals that let us know the truth about the stars are making it work right now. You would not dispute thermodynamics if someone used them to describe your computer to you, because computers don't make it hard for you to believe in god. Apparantly the stars do.

Let's move on to your claims that atheism somehow starts with a byass. It doesn't. I don't start with the assumption that god doesn't exist. I never woke up and said, hmmm god doesn't exist and I'm going to try to prove it. There is simply no reason to believe that he does. It is possible that god is out there only in the same way it is possible that there is an underground icecream parlor on Mars. There is an equal amount of evidence for both. I don't go about studying the possibility of the icecream parlor, because there is nothing to beg the question of me. Why should god recieve any more attention.

The core difference here is that you consider logic that is seriously erroneous, right on it's face, intellectually acceptable. This is where religion passes from benign to dangerous. It encourages people to stop thinking for themselves, and accept non-answers to important questions. The worse part is that most of those people don't have a choice. They are indoctrinated with fear from birth.

There is a subforum here where homosexuals and young men who touch use false pennames (out of deep shame) to confess their so-called sins. They talk about fearing that they are evil, that their souls are lost, that they are deviant. They are sick with guilt, because God told them to be. Should masturbation, a perfectly normal part of adolescense, really elicit such a reaction? Does homosexuality warrent isolation and hatered? Are these things evil? No, but the poor kids in the christian fold are scared to death that they are. How alone and depressed must a child be made for hitting puberty? Whatever the intentions, the effect christianity's hell scare-tactics and shame mongering seem to be very detrimental to self-image. You don't have to look further than some of the members of this forum to find examples.

In international policy, there is a principal that a fair solution can always be accepted unless there is a belief of religious birthright involved. The Abrahamic religions are engaged in a horrible war right now over religious birthright, and other such atrocities have plagued mankind. Only someone afflicted with the same disreguard for sound logic that leads to theism would strap a bomb to their chest and walk into a crowd of strangers. Religion is devisive that way. Children are raised as holy soldiers, never exposed to anything remotely resembling truth or even a method to find it.

Why would so many people behaved so horribly in the light of other more logical, intellectually honest, communally productive options? They all give the same answer. "God told me."

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

Digit,

You are right about not getting side tracked, since it seems we are now very close to the crux of our difference. I was up at four (commercial helicopter pilot license checkride- I passed, yippie!) and it is twenty three hundred, so I may stumble through this.

Congratulations! What an hour to have to do that? I've barely gotten to sleep by then heh.

So you are saying that the light from the stars I see in the sky is not produced by some physical process like every other bit of light humans have studied throughout history, bearing in mind it behaives exactly as we could expect it to if it were from a star?

There are three main theories. I'm open to any of them really, but there are two I quite like. Pre-created light, and gravitational time-dilation. Pre-created light actually has a few issues I wasn't aware of, but I've read some more about it now. Gravitational time-dilation is actually not a Creationist or Christian theory. Essentially it says that gravity changes from the universes edge to it's center, which affects the speed of light. There were some papers published in 2002 that also spoke of this as also did Einstein who told us for ages that time is not a constant.

Anyhow, at this point it's important not to get drawn into a debate about this. All I wish to assure you, is that we both have presuppositions as demonstrated. I hope we agree with this, but we can go on if you do not.

Circular reasoning- it's plain as the nose on your face.

It's my presupposition. From there I work out everything else. For example secular cosmology believes the universe is infinte. There is not one single scrap of evidence that even so much as hints at this. It's a presupposition.

Another example, C-14 dating relies on the following presuppositions:

* C-14 decayed in the past as it does today
* That the C-14 in the atmosphere of the past was the same as today.
* That the system is uncontaminated.
* The laws of probability.
* The equivalence of C-14 atoms.

Are we getting there yet?

Let's move on to your claims that atheism somehow starts with a byass.

Let's stop here, until we can agree we both have presuppositions in our worldviews. Nothing can be gained until that moment comes.

There is a subforum here where homosexuals and young men who touch use false pennames (out of deep shame) to confess their so-called sins.

Ok, I will address this. But I won't respond to anything further unless you wish to PM me about it, I simply want to focus on presuppositions until we have reached an agreement.

They talk about fearing that they are evil, that their souls are lost, that they are deviant.

Well, all of mankind is evil, I'm afraid. That is something that almost every Christian will accept, as it's written in black and white in the Bible, that all have fallen short of the glory of God, and that from the moment we are born, our very first thought is evil. Even Augustine wrote and addressed that, saying that had he the will and strength when he was an infant, he would have strangled his mother for more milk.

They are sick with guilt, because God told them to be.

I don't believe this, and they should not either. Guilt doesn't come from God, He forgives just for the asking, guilt has another source.

Should masturbation, a perfectly normal part of adolescense, really elicit such a reaction?

No, there is nothing in the Bible that says anything about masturbation. Some people cite the story of Onan, yet this is to do with upholding a law back then, and Onan violating it and being punished by God. I find it hard to believe that God listed all the sexual sins, but totally forgot about masturbation, or elluded to it in such a way that it takes a serious genius to figure it out from scripture.

Does homosexuality warrent isolation and hatered?

No, no sins warrant isolation and hatred. Christ loved the sinner, but not the sin.

Are these things evil?

Some are sinful.

No, but the poor kids in the christian fold are scared to death that they are.

That is a failing of how Christians raise their children, not of God's. The Church has had a bad history with sexuality, and I was blessed to be part of a recent church sermon on our sexuality. It's a hard thing to do, in a culture that is uncomfortable about any openness about sex, especially in public. Yet behind closed doors and shuttered windows many of us watch people in videos doing things we would never dare, and would never want anyone we knew doing. How fallen are we? How hipocritical?

For the record, I can totally understand this belief in Christians and it's not unfounded, but it absolutely should not be this way, and it's only up to us, and by placing our faith in God that we can ever hope to change this.

You don't have to look further than some of the members of this forum to find examples.

I would caution against pointing the finger at another, until you can boldly look in the mirror and claim no flaw, in truth.

In Christ,
Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

Thanks for the congradulations. I'm extremely excited about it.

Originally Posted by musicman30mm
You don't have to look further than some of the members of this forum to find examples.

I would caution against pointing the finger at another, until you can boldly look in the mirror and claim no flaw, in truth.

I guess that was unclear of me. I meant you can find the victims of that kind of guilt in this forum.

This whole thing about the presuppositions is so inaine. I have addressed it. You just are't listening, or I guess maybe you are just not trying to understand.

Originally Posted by musicman30mm
Let's move on to your claims that atheism somehow starts with a byass.
Let's stop here, until we can agree we both have presuppositions in our worldviews. Nothing can be gained until that moment comes.

Here, as elsewhere it this argument, I am completely ignored when I refute your strident fiat that science makes leaps across logical gaps that are somehow on the same order of magnitude as:

I believe this, because the Bible documents it as such.

Just as you dismiss laws of thermodynamics, you dismiss explaination of my own rational logic, by blunt, unexplained fiat. Science does not start with presuppositions, and I won't admit that it does just to continue down your line of erroneous reasoning. Certainly you would be right to say specific scientific theories must rely on other scientific theories, but they pile them up gradually. Newton, for instance started with "What goes up must come down." He didn't just blindly believe it. He observed it as a simple, unwaivering consistancy throughout nature. It is not a leap of faith, or intellectually difficult at all to evaluate the evidence at hand and conclude (conclude through carefull consideration of undeniably apparant evidence, not "presuppose" despite the evidence), "What goes up, must come down." Newton observed other such phenomina, and piled it together with smooth, reasonable, observable transitions to further our understanding of the universe.

Jump forward to the 20th century and a guy named Einstein. Advances in mathematics, physics and technology made it possible for him to notice inconsistancies that Newton could not detect with his naked eye. Did Einstein proclaim, "I found a gap in Newton's logic! This must mean that God did it!" No.* That would be a non-answer. Instead he sat down and rewrote them, using the same process of gradual, reasonable, cross supporting observations. Never was there a massive, intellectually counterintuitive leap of faith such as the one you employ to cross the chasem between logical reason and "The Bible is absolute truth."

There are certainly gaps in the understanding that science offers, but science moves us closer and closer to closing those gaps off via, gradual, logical, baby steps. Religion is the one making baseless claims that since science does not explain everything perfectly yet, religion by defacto does.

For example secular cosmology believes the universe is infinte.

This is a moot point for two reasons:

First, this is plainly a false allegation. Show me this trend of contemporairy scientists to believe the universe to be infinate in the absence of evidence. That theory has by-in-large been thrown out in the light of evidence of the big bang and universal expansion.

Second, belief is not an apt way to describe adherance to scientific theory. It comes up with a possible explaination, a hypothesis, then goes to work, ravenously, trying to disprove it. Once evidence mounts against the hypothesis, it alters or dismisses it for something that has proven to be more accurate. If it stands up to the most intense scrutiny, it becomes accepted as a good theory, but never immune to revision or further criticism, as Einstein showed us with Newton's laws. At no point does it claim that anything it has produced is absolute truth, just that it is the most worthy theory at the particular time, a step in the right direction if you will. Religion is the only option that claims absolute truth, and this is a shortcoming, not a virtue.

This carbon-14 thing you keep coming back to is also moot. It does not debunk Darwin, certainly not the scientific method. There are some problems with that particular radiometric dating method, but it is not the only way science dates fossels. Actually, it is not even the predominant method. Carbon dating, is only used to date things back to about 60,000 years. Before that it is useless. Even if it is completely useless, it does not change the fact that natural selection happens. We can observe it:

<H3>Evidence of Natural Selection

[SIZE=-1]Let's look at an example to help make natural selection clear.

[SIZE=-1]Industrial melanism is a phenomenon that affected over 70 species of moths in England. It has been best studied in the peppered moth, Biston betularia. Prior to 1800, the typical moth of the species had a light pattern (see Figure 3). Dark colored or melanic moths were rare and were therefore collectors' items.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Figure 3. Image of Peppered Moth[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]During the Industrial Revolution, soot and other industrial wastes darkened tree trunks and killed off lichens. The light-colored morph of the moth became rare and the dark morph became abundant. In 1819, the first melanic morph was seen; by 1886, it was far more common -- illustrating rapid evolutionary change. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Eventually light morphs were common in only a few locales, far from industrial areas. The cause of this change was thought to be selective predation by birds, which favored camouflage coloration in the moth.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In the 1950's, the biologist Kettlewell did release-recapture experiments using both morphs. A brief summary of his results are shown below. By observing bird predation from blinds, he could confirm that conspicuousness of moth greatly influenced the chance it would be eaten.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Recapture Success[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]light moth[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dark moth[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]non-industrial woods[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]14.6 %[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]4.7 %[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]industrial woods[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]13 %[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]27.5 %[/SIZE]

[/SIZE]</H3>
Here we see a clearly observable example of natural selection happening right before our eyes. Also, genetic research points conspicuously towards natural selection. There is no reason to throw out the entire fossil record, which clearly documents natural selection, based on a few inconsistancies in a single dating method, but even if we do, the rest of evidence makes the case by itself. So why is it we must throw out such sound reasonable, gradually, cross-supporting chains of logic and observation for a theory that lacks anything resembling evidence, "The Bible is truth."

You wouldn't want to see murderers getting mistrails despite smoking guns because they quoted some obscure biblical passage. Would you?

It's a hard thing to do, in a culture that is uncomfortable about any openness about sex, especially in public.

My point is, that discomfort you speek of, is a byproduct of Aberhamic religion, not secularism.

However, I really shouldn't have broadened my argument to morality. There is plenty to work with here, and I am incapable, motivation and time wise, to do justice to this discussion if I widen my stance any more. Therefore, I will retract the entire section that starts with, "There is a subforum here..." and ends with, "Why would so many people behaved so horribly in the light of other more logical, intellectually honest, communally productive options? They all give the same answer. 'God told me.'" It belongs in another thread.

* I know you are itching to claim that since Einstein evoked god on several occasions, he was a theist. This is completely false.

"It was of course a lie what you read about my religiouse convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

-Albert Einstein

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.

-Albert Einstein

I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinly religiose feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

-Albert Einstein

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God.

-Albert Einstein

http://skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id8.html

 

[musicman30mm]

There are three main theories. I'm open to any of them really, but there are two I quite like. Pre-created light, and gravitational time-dilation. Pre-created light actually has a few issues I wasn't aware of, but I've read some more about it now. Gravitational time-dilation is actually not a Creationist or Christian theory. Essentially it says that gravity changes from the universes edge to it's center, which affects the speed of light. There were some papers published in 2002 that also spoke of this as also did Einstein who told us for ages that time is not a constant.

I don't want to neglect this, so will ammend it to may last post.

Of the three things to which you allude, two could be called scientific theory, because they are based on mathematical proofs, physical observations, and logical methodologies. Pre-created light is the odd man out. It is not science, and no respectable scientist, not even a theistic one, would claim that it belongs next to the other two theories.

Gravitational time dialation is something neither you nor I full understand, however it is not ignored by current scientifically popular models of the universe. It is accounted for, right there in the math, experiments, observations etc... If those things don't jive, as you're pre-creation light nonesense doesn't, science is willing to throw out the theory for better ideas. You on the otherhand, will never throw out your Bible, no matter what evidence is mounted against it. You would rather throw out the evidence.

It is possible that the current estimated age of the universe, 14 billion years, will have to be ammended if new evidence arises. Science is working it's magic slowly, systematically making inroads into an unfathomably vast world of concepts. However, if the Hubble constant (It could very well need to be adjusted in the light of new, more accurate theories) proves to be an innacurate estimate of the age of the universe, it is preeminantly unlikely that it will be in favor of 10,000 years or whatever highly improbably, counterintuitive age you need it to be to go on worshiping god.

 

[VCViking]

Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells?




Charles Darwin said:

"To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."​

If man cannot begin to make a human eye, how could anyone in his right mind think that eyes formed by mere chance? In fact, man cannot make anything from nothing. We don't know how to do it. We can re-create, reform, develop . . . but we cannot create even one grain of sand from nothing. Yet, the eye is only a small part of the most sophisticated part of creation-the human body.



George Gallup, the famous statistician, said:

"I could prove God statistically; take the human body alone; the chance that all the functions of the individual would just happen, is a statistical monstrosity."


Even though Einstein wasn't a Christian, he still had the sense to say this:

"Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."

 

[VCViking]

We have faith in plenty of things we don't understand. Did you understand the mechanics of television before you turned it on? Probably not. You took a step of faith, turned it on, and after it worked, understanding how it worked wasn't that important. We accept that there are unseen television waves right in front of our eyes. We can't see them because they are invisible. For them to manifest, we need a receiver, then we can enjoy the experience of television.

God is not flesh and blood. He is an eternal Spirit-immortal and invisible. Like the television waves, He cannot be experienced until the "receiver" is switched on. Here is something you will find hard to believe: Jesus said, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21).

Either that is true or it isn't. Jesus Christ says that He will manifest Himself to anyone who obeys Him. Approach the subject the same way you approached your first television set. Just take a small step of faith. If it works, enjoy it, if it doesn't, forget it.

Could it be that the "atheist" can't find God, for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman? Could it be that your love for sin is clouding your good judgment? If the Bible is true, and Jesus Christ has "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel," then you owe it to yourself just to check it out.

Here is how to do that:

1. Have I always loved God my Creator with all my heart, mind, soul and strength?
2. Have I made a god in my own image&#65533;a god to suit myself?
3. Have I ever used God's name in vain?
4. Have I kept the Sabbath holy?
5. Have I always honored my parents implicitly?
6. Have I murdered (God considers hatred as murder)?
7. Have I committed adultery (including premarital sex and lust)?
8. Have I stolen (the value is irrelevant)?
9. Have I lied (including fibs and these questions)?
10. Have I coveted (been greedy or materialistic)?

If you have even broken one Law, then you have sinned against God and therefore will "surely die," for the "wages of sin is death."

We are all guilty of breaking the Commandments. Listen to the voice of your conscience, and let it remind you of some of the sins of the past. We are not perfect as we are commanded to be (Matthew 5:48), neither is our heart pure. On Judgment Day our transgressions will be evidence of our shame. Think of it: God has seen every sin we have ever committed. We share our thought-life with Him.

We are guilty of violating His Law a multitude of times, yet if we repent, God can forgive us because Jesus stepped into the courtroom 2.000 years ago and paid the fine for us.

His death on the cross satisfied the Law we so blatantly transgressed, and at the same time demonstrated how much God loves us—"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." His shed blood on the cross can make you clean in the sight of a holy God...as though you have never sinned.

God doesn't want you to go to Hell. Please, repent and put your trust in Jesus and be saved from God's wrath. Make Psalm 51 your prayer, then read your Bible daily and always obey what you read; God will never let you down.

God Bless

 

[musicman30mm]

VCViking

Charles Darwin said:

"To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."​

You probably don't even know what you just did, but it was very sneaky and disrespectful to me and Darwin both.

First off, it's a misquote. Several phrases are removed and replaced by "formed by natural selection".

More importantly, you took Darwin's words out of context. I suspect you gleaned this quote from a christian web site, and have never read Origin of Species or any other book written by an evolutionairy biologist.

Here is the quote in it's original context:

Origin of Species, P 167

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

So you can see that so oft misused (and apparantly altered) sentence was a rhetorical question, followed on by a brief explaination of the principles Darwin uses to show that natural selection is actually highly plausable.

As to the statistical improbablity arguement, natural selection does not happen by random chance. It is shaped by an extremely gradual, highly logical method of adaptation. A process of directly removing that which does not work, and therefore, indirectly building up that which does.

The really statistically improbable event would be the existence of a highly complex (wildly more so than an eye or wing) god, who can read our thoughts, design physics and the like, without any kind of gradual building up process. According to christians he just appeared, or always was there. Now that's improbable.

The most glairing error I see in theism, reguarding statistical improbability, is that it requires false dichotomy. That is to say, if you reject natural selection, which I don't, then by default you must accept theism. Even if natural selection was proven beyond a doubt to be completely false, that would not raise the likeliness of a god, or worse, as creationists seem to think, prove him.

Einstein was being poetic when he used the word "spirit". As you said, he wasn't a christian or a theist, so what is your point? I already quoted him in my last post. I did so, not because weather or not Einstein was a believer has any bearing on the issue. Actually, I quoted him to get it out of the way snce his personal views in-fact have no bearing at all on the issue.

I knew that point would come up eventually, but I didn't think one would be so illogical to bring it up in favor of their opinion when I have already demonstrated that it is not.
​

 

[musicman30mm]

Back to Digit:

As to the "presupposition" error I introduced way back at the beginning of this thread, this should clarify:

When you call creationism science, or logical/rational... You comit a serious logical fallacy (described in depth below) because you set out to answer the question, "How did god create the universe?" I ask the question, "What is the nature of the universe?" We both make presuppositions, I will give you that. Mine is simply that there is a universe at all, which I would say is the closest thing to a pure self-evidency you're going to get. Yours is both that there is a universe, and that the Bible god must have created it. In light of all the other options, no-god, Oden, Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster etc..., you presuppose without qualification that the Bible god created the universe.

The following is from a widly accepted among scholars, including theologins, list of classical logical fallacies:

Fallacy of presupposition

This is the interrogative form of Begging the Question. One example is the classic loaded question:
"Have you stopped beating your wife?"
The question presupposes a definite answer to another question which has not even been asked. This trick is often used by lawyers in cross-examination, when they ask questions like:
"Where did you hide the money you stole?"
Similarly, politicians often ask loaded questions such as:
"How long will this EU interference in our affairs be allowed to continue?"
or
"Does the Chancellor plan two more years of ruinous privatization?"
Another form of this fallacy is to ask for an explanation of something which is untrue or not yet established.

The last sentence of that quote is important because it is exactly what I am accusing your argumentation of.

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

I guess that was unclear of me. I meant you can find the victims of that kind of guilt in this forum.

Irrespectively, you judge that guilt as being caused by Christians and/or God, this is not a wise thing to do. I will say no more on this, as it has a very real backlash which if pursued you will no doubt experience.

This whole thing about the presuppositions is so inaine. I have addressed it. You just are't listening, or I guess maybe you are just not trying to understand.

It is not inane, it's very important in understanding if your beliefs match with your worldview.

Here, as elsewhere it this argument, I am completely ignored when I refute your strident fiat that science makes leaps across logical gaps that are somehow on the same order of magnitude as.

You seem to feel that somehow I am saying science is unuseful, or that it's wrong or whatever. I am not saying that, I am simply saying that we don't assume the same things, when we start at out at the begining.

Just as you dismiss laws of thermodynamics

Wait... what? I do? Since when?

Science does not start with presuppositions, and I won't admit that it does just to continue down your line of erroneous reasoning.

Well, then we won't see eye to eye on anything. Sorry.

Newton, for instance started with "What goes up must come down." He didn't just blindly believe it. He observed it as a simple, unwaivering consistancy throughout

Every single logical thought relies on axioms. It's a fact, you can take your own time to read up about it and then PM me when you are done if you wish.

Never was there a massive, intellectually counterintuitive leap of faith such as the one you employ to cross the chasem between logical reason and "The Bible is absolute truth."

Lets rule the Bible out for a moment. Because really, you don't need another set of beliefs to see that yours, start out with assumptions.

Religion is the one making baseless claims that since science does not explain everything perfectly yet, religion by defacto does.

Nope, that's absolutely not true. You see, this is where your closedmindedness comes into evidence. This is most certainly not about proving religion right because science has failed to supply answers. "I don't know." Is as good an answer as any in my eyes, and I believe in scienctists eyes too. I hope you can understand that, because it's very much not about me or anyone proving God through an inability of science to examine Him.

It's about us following the evidence wherever it may lead. I don't want to believe in a fake god, a false reality, a lie. What possible reason do I have to wish such a thing? Answers in Genesis have recently opened their research journal website, which is where they will attempt to build a Biblical worldview with peer reviewed papers. Them, having the freedom to pursue that, and establish their evidence for a Biblical creation, is what it's about. Numerous other sites, and fields of study too have their own right to follow the evidence. Why, is questioning evolution, such a crime? I hear constantly how everyone would love to prove evolution wrong, it be a scintific breakthrought, yet as soon as someone tries, they get slandered for it. I guess, anyone can try, so long as they do not believe in God hmm?

First, this is plainly a false allegation. Show me this trend of contemporairy scientists to believe the universe to be infinate in the absence of evidence. That theory has by-in-large been thrown out in the light of evidence of the big bang and universal expansion.

Please use google and one can find numerous articles, in fact even wikipedia (as suspect a source as it is) talks of an infinite universe.

This carbon-14 thing you keep coming back to is also moot. It does not debunk Darwin, certainly not the scientific method.

It wasn't supposed to, all I said was that there are assumptions, presuppositions and if you can't agree on that, when they are right there in front of you, then I can't help you. I'm not sure what scares you more, to have to agree with a Christian, or to discover your worldview rests on faith also...

Even if it is completely useless, it does not change the fact that natural selection happens.

Did someone say it doesn't happen?

Cheers,
Digit

Edit: I'm not sure what your quote about the presupposition fallacy has to do with anything here btw? It has no bearing on the way I am talking about presuppositions here, as I do not demand you change anything about the way you view things, I am simply asking that you acknowledge your view rests on presuppositions, which are assumptions. The sooner you discard the, "Science can't prove God, so God must be true." line of thought, the sooner we can see eye to eye. Discard God, discard the Bible discard everything to do with Christianity and religion, and simply ask if your worldview rests on presuppositions. You may wish to read to up on the skeptical worldview.

 

[musicman30mm]

I'm going to give my understanding of presupposition to make sure we get rid of any symantic problems, and so you can stop repeating this cycle ad nauseum:

Obviously any reasonable line of thinking must begin with a claim that goes unqualified, otherwise it would require an infinite regression of explainations. We can call this a presupposition, and I will say (again) that science is not free from them.

The reason I am so resistant on this matter is that you are trying to equate the presuppositions science uses to those of Christianity. They are vastly different in that science begins with extremely reasonable presuppositions such as 1+1=2, what goes up must come down and such, while Christianity begins with the wildly dificult to accept presupposition that an entire text of over 30,000 verses, written around 1700 years ago is absolute truth.

I have sensed you saying that things like the speed of light and whatnot are presuppositions. They are not. They are conclusions backed by chains of plausable explainations and undeniable observations that arc unbroken back to 1+1=2, what goes up must come down etc...

I'm not saying you can not apply the same methods with the Bible inserted as a self-evident presupposition. I am saying it is an intensely more difficult starting point to justify.

Given enough time, Einstein could have taken you step by step down a chain of emminent logical connections from the amazing complexities of relativity theory all the way back to 1+1=2 and what goes up must come down. The only concepts you would have to accept on faith would be 1+1=2 and what goes up must come down, and those are not unreasonable things to accept.

The creationist could do the same, starting with "God created the universe", and taking me back through the progression of logic that lead him there, but the most rudimentairy step of the chain, the beginning presupposition, would have to be acceptance of the Bible as ultimate truth on pure faith. This is a much greater problem than 1+1=2 or what goes up must come down.

If you want to begin all branches of logic from the Bible, that's fine, but if you want me to accept that as a viable option you will have to undertake the monumental task of proving that the bible is truth. This is where I have personally observed Christians winding up in a few common bad arguments:

Circular-reasoning:
The bible is truth because god wrote it and he is truth.

Subjective experiences passed as objective evidence:
How could a tree be so beautiful if god didn't make it that way?

Appeal to popularity:
Millions throughout history have found personal comfort and morality in the Bible. How could they all be wrong?

False Dichotomy:
The world is too complex to have just happened, so god must have made it.

This is usually combined with circular reasoning as in; There must have been a creator, the Bible says the Christian God is the one true creator and he wrote the Bible; therefore, the Bible is truth.

These are a few. They are not always so easy to spot because as you said, Christians aren't stupid. However, when boiled down I have never heard an argument for the infallability of the Bible that did not amount to a logical fallacy.

Elsewhere in this forum you posted a link to an article, offering it to another atheist as objective reasoning in favor of the belief in god. I read it, and would love to debate you on any one of it's premises because they all fall easily into common logical errors.

http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

I hope this satisfies your requirement of me to concede that science relies on presuppositions. You can see that I am trying to find common ground with you, but I must be afforded the opportunity to prove that the presuppositions science makes are more logical (so much so they only fit the description only in a very technical sense) than those of Christianity, for this is my whole point. If you prove me wrong, I will reconsider the very foundations of my atheism, or reject science in the same manner that I reject Cristianity.

Now, I woul like to address a certain tone I noticed in your last post, frustration. I'm sure we are both experiencing some of it. I will endevor to rope my frustrations in, and hope that you do the same in light of moving this conversation to new, greener pastures. Of course feel free to continue the presupposition line of questioning if you are unsatisfied with my explaination.

I will say no more on this, as it has a very real backlash which if pursued you will no doubt experience.

I trust this comment was made out of frustration, but I think it should be noted that it is a threat, an ad homonym. It has no place in a logical discussion. I'm quite sure I have been slightly irreverant here, but I havn't threatened you. It makes me wonder what kind of "backlash" exactly you are talking about; a good tongue lashing, a banning perhaps? Either way, I ask you to maintain civility.

As to the point of my morality comments, I retracted that entire section of my argument. If you want to discuss, with civility, my ideas therin, we can do that; but please don't bait me into experiencing "backlash".

When I said that you dismiss the laws of thermodynamics it was in reference to your claims that light could be "pre-emitted" without a physical source. This clearly would violate thermodynamics. It is a massive gap in logic you bridged with god the ultimate presupposition.

I think I see what you are getting at with the carbon-dating line. You are trying to illustrate that science's presuppositions can lead it astray just as anything else, and I agree.

However I would ask you not to cherry pick specific extremes like that. There are of course instances of scientific theories being mistakenly built on false premises. These theories don't last long, because of the truth seeking nature of science itself.

You could also have a field day probing the most cutting edge fields of cosmology. Of course those ideas are subject to intense scrutiny, and should be. They are newborn, but some of them will lead to better, more accurate models and a greater human understanding of truth.

For example of this truthful nature of the scientific method, take into consideration that if carbon-dating is an unreliable method for dating fossils, it is scientists who are having that debate, and who will reevaluate their positions if proven that they were built on erroneous information.

I took you up on looking into the infinite-universe thing on wikipedia, and found that wikipedia agreed exactly with my claim that the scientific community in general no longer adhears to it.

the number of supporters decreased markedly in the late 1960s with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and today only a very small number of supporters remain.

If the point was that the infinite universe (more commonly called Steady State) theory is a presupposition, it is not. It is a theory. If it were a presuppostion Hoyel, the theory's most prominant proponant, would have said "I know the universe is infinite, so it must be constantly regenerating matter as it expands." Rather he said, "There is evidence that the universe is constantly regenerating matter and expanding, ergo it must be infinite." There is a big difference. One is a presupposition, the other is a conclusion. Either way, the scientific method found it an erroneous theory, and it has since gone the way of the Dodo.

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

I'm going to give my understanding of presupposition to make sure we get rid of any symantic problems, and so you can stop repeating this cycle ad nauseum:

Obviously any reasonable line of thinking must begin with a claim that goes unqualified, otherwise it would require an infinite regression of explainations. We can call this a presupposition, and I will say (again) that science is not free from them.

Then we agree, finally.

The reason I am so resistant on this matter is that you are trying to equate the presuppositions science uses to those of Christianity. They are vastly different in that science begins with extremely reasonable presuppositions such as 1+1=2, what goes up must come down and such, while Christianity begins with the wildly dificult to accept presupposition that an entire text of over 30,000 verses, written around 1700 years ago is absolute truth.

Uh... huh. What I see here, is subjective opinion. You don't find Christianity reasonable, so the belief in a Biblical creation is unreasonable as a presupposition. Just like science can have a starting point, so can Christianity, the Genesis account is that point, since it tells of the creation of the universe as God's hands. That's the only real presupposition I think some Christians hold. From there we build our worldview.

I have sensed you saying that things like the speed of light and whatnot are presuppositions.

You're doing it again, those conclusions, are based on presuppositions. A constant speed of light, which after reading about I'm not so certain is inaccurate, is based on unevidenced beliefs.

In fact, lets scrap all this, lets take it back to one clear cut example of when science believed in something that there was not a single scrap of evidence for.

Dark Matter. As I said earlier to you, or another poster I forget, science does it as often as anyone with faith in God and you absolutely cannot escape that. Google it by all means. I have no issue with the fact Dark Matter was found, I just have a problem with people pretending that science somehow is outside the realm of axioms, and everything it finds is absolutel inerrant truth.

Also, lets talk briefly about how it was a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the Earth. That was based on observable and repeatable evidence, and was completely and utterly incorrect. I think I mentioned this earlier too, to you or another poster (I'm involved in a few threads so forgive me if I get confused a little in what has/has not been said).

You are basing all your beliefs on something which A) Does exactly what Christians do with their faith in God and B) Has been shown to be wrong, exactly as Christians have been in the past.

What, may I ask, in the name of all that is Holy, is the difference apart from the fact that you find one to be reasonable, and the other not, ie, you have an emotional attachment to your worldview, which I think is fair to say, we all do.

Riddle me that.

I'm not saying you can not apply the same methods with the Bible inserted as a self-evident presupposition. I am saying it is an intensely more difficult starting point to justify.

Only because people have become so closed off to the notion of God, and a living a life that honors Him, that they find it totally unreasonable, and laughable. The more this happens, the more it justifies what is written in scripture, about a wicked generation of people. It becomes greatly more believable, yet I will at no stage so it proves it.

This is where I have personally observed Christians winding up in a few common bad arguments:

Circular-reasoning:
The bible is truth because god wrote it and he is truth.

Subjective experiences passed as objective evidence:
How could a tree be so beautiful if god didn't make it that way?

Appeal to popularity:
Millions throughout history have found personal comfort and morality in the Bible. How could they all be wrong?

False Dichotomy:
The world is too complex to have just happened, so god must have made it.

I completely agree these are not great arguments to use to prove God, yet they do raise interesting points. Recall, scripture says no miraculous sign will be given to us. I doubt we will ever be able to prove God.

This is usually combined with circular reasoning as in; There must have been a creator, the Bible says the Christian God is the one true creator and he wrote the Bible; therefore, the Bible is truth.

I agree that is circular reasoning.

I trust this comment was made out of frustration, but I think it should be noted that it is a threat, an ad homonym. It has no place in a logical discussion. I'm quite sure I have been slightly irreverant here, but I havn't threatened you. It makes me wonder what kind of "backlash" exactly you are talking about; a good tongue lashing, a banning perhaps? Either way, I ask you to maintain civility.

I sincerely apologise if that seemed like a threat, despite saying I will say no more on it, I will simply add that that mindset will be subject to harsh backlash from Christians, if not outright flames. I, hopefully, will not be one of those, but I know of those on the forum who take a pretty harsh and derogatory tone when they see comments like that. That is all, remember Christians aren't perfect.

When I said that you dismiss the laws of thermodynamics it was in reference to your claims that light could be "pre-emitted" without a physical source. This clearly would violate thermodynamics. It is a massive gap in logic you bridged with god the ultimate presupposition.

Ah I see. I think we can take this further, and say that the laws of thermodynamics operate in the known physical universe. Beyond our universe there are two possibilities accepted by non-theists. 1) The multiverse. 2) An 'unknown'. For me that looks like 1) The multiverse and 2) The spiritual realm. If the light was pre-emitted, it came from a source, God. If not, well, another solution.

I think I see what you are getting at with the carbon-dating line. You are trying to illustrate that science's presuppositions can lead it astray just as anything else, and I agree.

Yay.

However I would ask you not to cherry pick specific extremes like that. There are of course instances of scientific theories being mistakenly built on false premises. These theories don't last long, because of the truth seeking nature of science itself.

Ok, in the same manner I too can request you don't pick the extreme of Christian belief. Dawkings loves this, in fact those sourceless quotes I was talking about were some of these, "Faith is belief in what you know to be untrue." or something akin to that. Whoever said that, does not, certainly, speak for all of us.

I took you up on looking into the infinite-universe thing on wikipedia, and found that wikipedia agreed exactly with my claim that the scientific community in general no longer adhears to it.

Could you link to that article, as I can't find that quote in mine or the one you linked.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

Okay, I'm still not satisfied that you are hearing my point the way I intend, but at least we moving in the right direction and are back to civility.

I think the main problem of your aim with this whole "science relies on presuppositions" thing is that it is unproductive for your case. I'm not saying science has never lead anyone astray. So proving that in some specific instances it has doesn't really strike the heart of my point, that it is a superior method for truth seeking.

Science allows for any possible explaination to be reached if it is consistant with the truth, then if later found to be based on erroneous premises, that explaination can be changed or thrown out. Science does not presuppose that god does not exist.

Religion demands that you admit god exist or your soul will be damned and other such threats of violance. Whatever explainations you come up with via religion, you have to make room for god, often through wild divergences from logic such as "the universe is only 10,000 years old". (Which at this point if you believe, I think you should just come right out and say.) God is one explaination for existence, there are many others that are very compelling which religion tosses away by default. Further, once you toss out all non-religion, you are left with the problem of justifying a particular religion.

I suspect you are going to say that you can start with a totally open mind, and come to the conclusion through the scientific method that religion is true. I am making the claim that any line of reason that leads to acceptance of the Bible God is seriously questionable, not simply because it is counter to my own ideas, because it requires so many leaps of logical improbability and is so lacking of tangible evidence.

I challange you to show me your line of reasoning.

I also repeat my thesus:

The beginning assumptions of science are far more reasonable leaps of faith (1+1=2, what goes up must come down etc...) than those of acceptance of the Bible as truth.

Also, lets talk briefly about how it was a scientific fact that the sun rotated around the Earth. That was based on observable and repeatable evidence, and was completely and utterly incorrect. I think I mentioned this earlier too, to you or another poster (I'm involved in a few threads so forgive me if I get confused a little in what has/has not been said).

I don't think this bears a tremendous amount of weight on this conversation, but since I enjoy the particular topic and since you insist...

To really talk about that, we need to talk about the history of that particular model of the universe. It is called the polemic model and was dreamed up by Aristotle. Aristotle was a philosopher not a scientist; the difference being philosophy solves problems strictly with internal thought, and science through tangeable observation. It was embraced by the church (Rome), because it jived with the Bible.

Bear with me here: Science is a method, so it is impossible to pin down a specific point in time in which it came about. There are very rudimentairy beginnings of it (catologuing species, astronomy) documented all the way back in ancient Egypt, but us science heads like to talk about when it became accepted widely as the point at which it really exploded. This is often attributed to a ramping up that ivolved discoveries and concepts from Copernicus, Galleleo, DesCartes and Newton.

Here's where it ties back into the polemic model. Copernicus was the first to widely refute the idea in favor of a heliocentric universe. He was succesfully put down by the church as a heretic. Hundreds of years later, Galleleo brought back the idea. He resisted enough, and perhaps the world was ready for it to grab foothold enough to change the paradigm. Unfortunately Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for life as a heratic, and the catholic church didn't officially recognize that the Sun does not rotate about the Earth until 1992!

http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/62
http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/71.htm

So you can see that science is what solved that erroneous logic, and the church is what propogated it.

Here is the infinate universe wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_theory

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

As I mentioned to another poster, the main thing I reject about the skeptical worldview, is that it says everything can be explained through naturalistic means. Considering that I believe in the spiritual, that is one thing which obviously I do not agree with.

I think the main problem of your aim with this whole "science relies on presuppositions" thing is that it is unproductive for your case. I'm not saying science has never lead anyone astray.

And I'm not saying Christianity has never done so either.

So proving that in some specific instances it has doesn't really strike the heart of my point, that it is a superior method for truth seeking.

It's important because you feel that science is the only method to find truth, and that scientific truth is absolute truth. You may think it's fantastic that science eventually righted it's wrongs about the heliocentric model, but there were generations of people who lived and died during that time knowing nothing other than it. What if you are basing your beliefs on something that is similarly incorrect?

Science does not presuppose that god does not exist.

By the very nature that science is physical, and God is spiritual, they are mutually exclusive. Science can look for God's handiwork, yet no one ever attributes it to God, they attribute it to 'miraculous discoveries' and 'chance'. Science does not say, "There is NO GOD." but it certainly isn't going to find one by it's nature.

I suspect you are going to say that you can start with a totally open mind, and come to the conclusion through the scientific method that religion is true.

Not really, I think openmindedness is a red-herring, no one is completely openminded, all we can hope for is a degree of interest.

I challange you to show me your line of reasoning.

Ok, for this though, I suggest we ditch God, the Bible and Christianity, and merely focus on an 'intelligent designer' behind our universe, is that ok?

Unfortunately Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for life as a heratic, and the catholic church didn't officially recognize that the Sun does not rotate about the Earth until 1992!

Like I said earlier, my reasoning for mentioning that, was not because I wish to show how awesome the church is, and how terrible and flawed science is. It was merely to show, there one can misinterpret the very obvious, clear lines of evidence, and come to an incorrect conclusion. In either situation.

Cheers,
Digit

 

[VCViking]

VCViking



You probably don't even know what you just did, but it was very sneaky and disrespectful to me and Darwin both.

First off, it's a misquote. Several phrases are removed and replaced by "formed by natural selection".

More importantly, you took Darwin's words out of context. I suspect you gleaned this quote from a Christian web site, and have never read Origin of Species or any other book written by an evolutionary biologist.

Here is the quote in it's original context:

Origin of Species, P 167

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

So you can see that so oft misused (and apparantly altered) sentence was a rhetorical question, followed on by a brief explaination of the principles Darwin uses to show that natural selection is actually highly plausable.

As to the statistical improbablity arguement, natural selection does not happen by random chance. It is shaped by an extremely gradual, highly logical method of adaptation. A process of directly removing that which does not work, and therefore, indirectly building up that which does.

The really statistically improbable event would be the existence of a highly complex (wildly more so than an eye or wing) god, who can read our thoughts, design physics and the like, without any kind of gradual building up process. According to christians he just appeared, or always was there. Now that's improbable.

The most glairing error I see in theism, reguarding statistical improbability, is that it requires false dichotomy. That is to say, if you reject natural selection, which I don't, then by default you must accept theism. Even if natural selection was proven beyond a doubt to be completely false, that would not raise the likeliness of a god, or worse, as creationists seem to think, prove him.

Einstein was being poetic when he used the word "spirit". As you said, he wasn't a Christian or a theist, so what is your point? I already quoted him in my last post. I did so, not because weather or not Einstein was a believer has any bearing on the issue. Actually, I quoted him to get it out of the way since his personal views in-fact have no bearing at all on the issue.

I knew that point would come up eventually, but I didn't think one would be so illogical to bring it up in favor of their opinion when I have already demonstrated that it is not.
[/indent]

Actually you're wrong and proved what I said.

Darwin was not an atheist but an agnostic, "an agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind&#8221; so that statement from him is in line in what he believes, especially since he was studying to become a clergyman. He turned his back on God when his daughter died.

In order for something to be altered it has to be different, to which the sentence I quoted is not. I saw no need to put in "with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration," because the meaning of the sentence is not changed. And thanks for quoting the rest.

As being disrespectful to you and Darwin, please.

As your argument about Einstein, who said he was a theist? He was an unbeliever like you except he was an agnostic because he, along with Darwin, had enough common sense to see that there might possibly some superior being out there that is greater than us, that possibly created the world but they are not quite sure.

 

[musicman30mm]

Now we're making some headway. Assume any of the premises you just made that I don't specifically address here, I agree with it.

It's important because you feel that science is the only method to find truth, and that scientific truth is absolute truth. You may think it's fantastic that science eventually righted it's wrongs about the heliocentric model, but there were generations of people who lived and died during that time knowing nothing other than it. What if you are basing your beliefs on something that is similarly incorrect?

I do believe that some form of scientific logic is the only cojent form of truth seeking humans currently have in their arsenal, and probably anything better would be an advancement along the same lines. However, I don't think science has ever resulted in absolute truth. The point I'm making is that religion, mysticism, spirituality, whatever you wish to label it is clearly untrutful.

I get the feeling that you think I believe in one of the popular cosmological models of the universe, which is not true, so I should give you an idea of my thoughts on the matter, what I 'believe' so to speak:

I think some of the cosmological models are quite compelling, and that some are very lacking; however, my conclusion is that there simply isn't enough information to answer those questions. There may never be. Humans are pretty insignifigant in the grand scheme. Perhaps we will pull that curtain back some day in the future only to find more questions. I think that would be splended, to push deeper and deeper into the bounds of knowledge. If we do put together an accurate grand concept of the universe, it will be through sound reasoning, not the Bible.

One of the main differences between us is that you claim to know how the universe started, how it will end, what happens after death etc... Your answer is always God. I understand that I know nothing.

When I say I know nothing, I mean I know nothing with absolute resolve. However, I can assign values of likelihood. I base these values on scientific reasoning because it is the most cojent form of reasoning. I am quite certain I have demonstrated that throughout this thread (although to noavail), so I will decline to go on explaining why I believe it is the best. When I say "scientific-reasoning" I'm not talking about a specific theory like the steady state model or the theory of evolution etc... I'm talking about a method of exploring the world around me. Scientific reasoning leads me to believe that it is highly unlikely that there is a god. With that out of the way, I can examine other possibilities. I never have to subscribe to any of them (I do agree very much with some, but that's beside the point here.). I can just say, I don't know and go about my life if I want.

By the very nature that science is physical, and God is spiritual, they are mutually exclusive.

Here you make a common christian claim, that god and science ar mutually exclusive, but this must be a two way street. If I can't use science to argue about god, you can't use it to argue for him. Earlier in this thread you were claiming that scientific studies have proven that prayer heals as evidence of god. Yet if I try to use scientific evidence against him, all of the sudden he exists outside of the realm of science.

Science can look for God's handiwork, yet no one ever attributes it to God, they attribute it to 'miraculous discoveries' and 'chance'.

No scientist ever attributed a sound theory to "miraculous discoveries" (whatever than means), and be absoultely certain they never attributed it to chance (I'm pretty sure I know where you're going with that).

...focus on an 'intelligent designer' behind our universe, is that ok?

That is the best way for this thing to go. Please procede. I am excited to move on to the creation vs evolution debate.

 

[musicman30mm]

VCVIking,

I find your backpedaling quite comical.

The AiG, a leading proponant of creationism, website has an artical you should read entitled "Arguments Creationists Should Not Use". It spells out the reasons for not using certain false and dishonest arguments, so you don't have to get caught in them and embarassed by atheists like me. There is a section in that creationist article dedicated to using that exact quote, in the same way you did.

Persistently using discredited arguments is both ineffectual and, more importantly, immoral&#8212;it&#8217;s the truth that sets us free (John 8:32), not error, and Christ is &#8220;the truth&#8221; (John 14:6)! Since there is so much good evidence for creation, there is no need to use any of the &#8220;doubtful&#8221; arguments.

About halfway down a list of erroneous arguments we find...

&#8220;Darwin mentioned the absurdity of eye evolution in The Origin of Species.&#8221;

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp

I also leave the possibility of gods existence open. I never said he doesn't exist. It cannot be proven either way, but this does not mean that the chances are 50-50. I'm quite certain that the chances are stacked against the existence of a god, so although in a very technical sense I am an agnostic, I label myself atheist.

And, it is very disrespectful to anyone who reads your post to propogate misunderstanding by misquoting out of context. I don't believe that you intended it in some benign way. As a matter of fact, I find it very hard to believe that you have ever read it in it's original context, The Origin of Species, and would bet that you gleaned it from another web site, completely unawair of what you were doing until I pointed it out. Of course I cannot prove it. Even if you intended it to lead to some round about, convoluted distinction between Darwin's agnosticism or atheism (which should be noted you made no mention of your original post), it is undeniably irrisponsible to misquote, out of context.

You owe an apology.

 

[Digit]

Hi again,

The point I'm making is that religion, mysticism, spirituality, whatever you wish to label it is clearly untrutful.

You are going to need to stay away from claims like that, because that leads to me asking for specifics, you providing them and us getting sidetracked.

If we do put together an accurate grand concept of the universe, it will be through sound reasoning, not the Bible.

The Bible instructs us to use sound reasoning to 'test everything', so that seems fine to me as we are merely doing what God has told us. I think what will happen is that as we discover things, they will come more and more in line with the Biblical account.

Here you make a common christian claim, that god and science ar mutually exclusive

I should clarify in that I mean God, the being. You won't get Christ in a test-tube, it's never going to happen. Often, I feel that is what atheists/seekers want, some form of God in an experiment where they can get reliable results and go, "Oh, well damn me... there IS a God as shown in this paper here *link*.". The sooner people realise that you cannot test for God the being, due to His nature, the sooner we can move past that and get onto some more interesting stuff.

but this must be a two way street. If I can't use science to argue about god, you can't use it to argue for him.

We can both use it to argue for or against occurances in our world that can testify for or against God. We just cannot use it as proof of lack of proof for the spiritual.

Earlier in this thread you were claiming that scientific studies have proven that prayer heals as evidence of god. Yet if I try to use scientific evidence against him, all of the sudden he exists outside of the realm of science.

Right, and therein lies the difference no? Prayer is not God. It's an act that by the Bible has positive benefits on our lives. Using a scientific method of study (Closed group of individuals with know histories etc etc) we can show that those who pray have better results than those who don't. Whilst this doesn't slam a hammer down and say, "GOD!" it does show exactly what we said, prayer benefits people. I hope you can agree it's a small step on the way to larger things, perhaps?

No scientist ever attributed a sound theory to "miraculous discoveries" (whatever than means), and be absoultely certain they never attributed it to chance (I'm pretty sure I know where you're going with that).

Really? Because evolution says that all of this *looks around* happened by chance, coincidence, luck, fate? Whatever you want to call it, it was an accident. If you don't believe it was a guided process, it occurred by chance.

That is the best way for this thing to go. Please procede. I am excited to move on to the creation vs evolution debate.

Next post. Also be aware that Creationism isn't the same as Intelligent Design. Creationsim says God did it, Intelligent Design says, "Someone did it.".

Cheers,
Digit

 

[Digit]

Hi musicmann30mm,

Ok, I've just read a little and also checked out some critiques of my stance. I can't say I really disagree with them, but ultimately Occam's Razor suggests we should accept the simplest exaplanation out of them all.

I would like you to have a read here. As it's the most succinct version I could find, also it links sources and has quotes and even talks about some of the critiques like the multi-verse. In addition here is a link to the wikipedia article on intelligent design. If you read down to the bottom there are both pro and con links to sites, which may help you. I did start to write up all this in my own words, but I then thought you would ask for sources and so forth, and thought it may just be better to link, as much as I hate reading external links myself, apologies for that.

In my own words, I can say that based on what I've read I feel an intelligent designer is responsible for our universe, due to the conditions required for it to support not just life, but our level of life.

I guess that's the shortest way to say it. As I said however, the article is there, apologies again for not rewriting it in my own words, but I fear I may do it injustice as some of the terms therein appeal to someone of a scientific field, rather than a layman reading it. I will also restate that this does not in any way point to the Christian God, merely an intelligence behind the makeup of our universe.

Also consider Occam's Razor, what is the simpler solution - the universe was designed to function in a specific way? Or that it occurred in a very miraculous way from random chances that are so small, they verge on the impossible. Not just one, but dozens of them. I intentionally made this a very short and precise post, just in case you were expecting some earth-shattering evidence. I think those are termed magic-bullets, and I personally don't believe they exist.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

I think you should give me your own ideas. Take your time.

I read the argument though, and noticed that it is an arguement against the big bang, not an argument for God. There is a huge defference. This is truth by false dichotomy. Even if the big bang is totally disproven, that will not make any more likely, the existence of god.

Either way, I think you should start a new thread, and actually make your own case for the existence of a creator. I also would like for you to specifically acknowledge that this creator argument, although vastly more reasonable, has nothing to do with the bible, and therefore no bearign on our previous conversation.

 

[musicman30mm]

Using a scientific method of study (Closed group of individuals with know histories etc etc) we can show that those who pray have better results than those who don't.

I think this is te third or fourth time you have made this claim without backing it up. The first time, I refuted it, and linked sources. Prayer has by no means been proven to cause healing. Go back through this thread, read my rebuttles and read my the articles I cited. If you want to continue with this claim, you will have to at least acknowledge my rebuttle instead of simply repeating your premise ad nauseum.

Really? Because evolution says that all of this *looks around* happened by chance, coincidence, luck, fate? Whatever you want to call it, it was an accident. If you don't believe it was a guided process, it occurred by chance.

You're right. If I were to say that the biological diversity on Earth had no guided process, I would be claiming pure random chance. I'm not making that claim though, so you are building a straw man to argue against.

I'm saying science has clearly and undeniably demonstrated that the process of evolution, the environmental elimination of unfavorable and preference for advantageous heritable traits is not a random. It is quite ordered, but that doesn't have anything to do with god.

I know the intelligent design (creationism in a cheap suit) arguement. It doesn't hold water. You are saying that the probability of all this amazing complexity occuring through random chance is incredibly slim. You are right. But the way you use that to come to the god conclusion is flawed for three main reasons:

1) Statistical improbability is based on complexity and order. The more of each, the less probable. Since we are very complex and ordered, we are very improbable. Anything that could create the universe, would have to be very much less probably even than us. A god with a conscioness capable of planning the universe is just about the least statistically probable, very complex and ordered, thing you could imagine. Intelligent design, gives no explaination for how this god could come about. He either just appeared, which is exactly what intelligent design argues against, or he always existed, which is no more reasonable than saying that the universe alwas existed. Intelligent design is left with the ultimate problem of infinite regression.

2) Intelligent design goes about "proving" god by attempting to disprove evolution. Disproving evolution does not prove god any more than having the wrong idea is better than having no idea. There are any number of theories you can fantasize for the universe and life. Does disproving evolution make the Matrix theory more probable? Does disproving evolution mean aliens from another dimension are growing us in a pitri dish? Why is god the defacto? Not enough evidence God, not enough evidence!

3) This is moot since I just demonstrated that disproving evolution does not disprove god, however I feel it should be said since evolution is such a cojent theory. The complexity demands a conscious creator theory doesn't disprove evolution at all. It's just bad logic.

---a)There is very strong evidence that the universe has been around for billions of years and that there are zillions of planets. Let's make an analogy here. It would be rediculouse to bet that you will get dealt a royal flush if you only get one chance. But imagine a zillion poker players being dealt cards for billions of years straight and you're chances are almost certain.

---b)Life as we know it didn't spontaneously appear this way. That would be amazingly improbable. It first started with the vastly more probable accident, of bilipid molecules randomly forming around simple protines. Given a little time and the periodic table of elements this is not hard at all to imagine. This doesn't constitute life, but it is a self replicating molecule with heritable traits. Natural selection can happen here. So these molecules given just a few years could create uncountable numbers of themselves, each duplication a chance for natural selection to ad complexity, slowly gradually, each step a logically acceptable transition from the very simple to something slightly more complex. So you can see that the initial random leap from inanimate to replicating molecules is more like being dealt two-pair than the royal flush that a human is, but we still have zillions of players being dealt hands for billions of years. Each time a molecule replicates we get more and more players gradually and smoothly moving up the mountain of complexity. God is the leap of infinite complexity that demands a single improbable event.

This does not address the cosmology/big-bang side of the argument, and I will do so later. I don't have time to go in depth, but I can foreshadow by saying the principles in this post, especially statistical, will do alot of the work for me. They address things like the "Goldilocks Zone" with remarkably intuitive and sound concepts like "The Anthropic Principle". Even if I fail to demonstrate that the Big-Bang is a reasonable, my case can ultimately rest on the fact that I don't need to prove that the big bang theory is true, I'm just arguing that god isn't. You can disprove any popular theory you want; this doesn't mean that by defacto god must be the answer.