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Hmmmm, wellll, I am not so sure whether the actual practice is always in accord with that avoidance of absolutes ideal. Abiogenesis is a good example.. Scientists aren't trying to see whether or not it is false. Instead, they assume that it happened and are merely seeking ways to discover HOW it happened. But the fact that it happened or had to happen is never placed in doubt nor even open to serious discussion.
. . . and in some way began to code information into DNA which just so-happened to lead to a brain with an occipital lobe for receiving neurotransmitter signals which just so happened to be designed to interpret such signals into what just so happened to be is perceived as visual images.
I find mere chance and mindless chemical reactions as very unsatisfactory explanations for this.
Please note that anyone can claim that an explanation doesn't meet their personal criteria.
"Ï don't see hows!!!!" or whatever other phrases you folks might have in reserve for any claim involving an intelligent design? No. However, if you wish to reveal what exactly it is that has you in your self-proclaimed perpetually-befuddled state each time that intelligent design is mentioned-then I will clarify.
Not that I believe for one moment that the attempted clarification will be accepted-it won't. But it's less time-wasting than what you are enthusiastically proposing .
I have asked you many times, to provide the falsifiable test, to determine when ID is present. Anytime you are ready......
You argue against theistic evolution every time you claim life was intelligently designed.
That would be a good point except for the fact that we have the Bible, which tells us that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. I realize you don't accept the Bible, but since I do I am biased towards believing that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. Therefore, when I see evidence (i.e., the Creation) I ascribe its beginning to the supernatural.Let's say that, contrary to what TagliatelliMonster said, this was correct: a priori excluding "the supernatural" could make you misinterpret the evidence.
But than the same would be correct for the opposite: a priori assuming "the supernatural" could make you misinterpret the evidence.
Personally, I don't know how one would find out if there is a supernatural. I suppose we could assign probabilities (e.g., by going back to the supernatural nature of the Bible again), but I've had people remind me that even a high probability doesn't prove it.So, shouldn't the first step in this dilemma be to find out if there is a "supernatural" at all, and next, find out how it could be responsible for "the evidence"?
We can do that quite well for "the natural". But contrary to (repeated) claims, there doesn't seem to be a way to do that for "the supernatural"... beyond "it must be, it has to be, you don't want to accept it".
This is the basis for "atheism" and the doubt in the supernatural.
I didn't think we were looking for accounts at all...we're looking for miracles.
I don't want your opinions...I want observable effects.
Just like the effects of dark matter...they should be the same no matter who examines them.
Personal accounts shouldn't even enter the picture (and if you need an explanation why, I'll gladly provide).
When you brought up dark matter, and I knew next to nothing about the "effects" of it...I looked into it briefly. The effect I read about involved gravity and the orbit of planets and how something must be affecting them (which is theorized to be dark matter). These effects aren't personal accounts....they're available for anyone to observe (as long as they have the knowledge to know what they're observing).
This idea of something possibly existing because it has an observable effect was your point about god possibly having similarly observable effects through miracles.
I don't know how you made the leap from that to "personal accounts" I have no idea.
I understand that...but that's how were going to define him for the purposes of this discussion.
If I were to propose that dark matter exists because of its observable effects on gratvity...and then claim it had a bunch of other properties like the ability to make clouds into the shape of bunnies...I'd be leaping to using it as an explanation for phenomenon which already have other possible (and more likely) explanations.
Yet these aren't observable effects to me...or anyone else who has them. I've had multiple conversations about "talking to god" and it often appears very little talking actually happens and when it does...it's to god, not from him.
Again, I don't know....do I need to research that to have this conversation?
The reason I defined "miracles" as things which cannot happen without the intervention of god is we can know they are miracles lol.
I thought that seemed obvious. We know cancer sometimes goes into remission all on its own without therapy...so if someone claims it was a "miracle" we don't know that since it can happen without any intervention from god. If, however, someone had their eye gouged out in a fight and had nothing but an empty socket left....and then two minutes later their entire eye regrows in their head and a big booming godlike voice says "I have restored thine eye"....I think that would fairly land in the miracle category. ,
For the sake of this discussion on evidence for god....there's a good reason to limit evidence to "miracles". If we included gods' ability to make someone feel good about themselves....how do we know it's god? There's lots of things that can make one feel good about themselves so that "effect" would be rather terrible and useless evidence.
I was merely pointing out that just because a person does "x" doesn't require god to do "y"....after all, you believe god has free will and can make choices right?
What's untenable about it?
Wasn't the whole discussion you and I are having based upon the idea that god has observable effects much in the way that theorized "dark matter" has observable effects?
You realize that isn't how the theory of dark matter came about right? The effects of dark matter are genuinely unexplainable at this time. No one quite understands what causes them. The term "dark matter" is more or less just a placeholder for whatever the cause of those effects is.
What few attempts that have been made to do this have ended poorly for believers.
One of those "wide-ranging" accounts of the effects of god is prayer. So studies have been done to see if prayer has any observable effects. The result? It doesn't.
If you want to talk about observable effects as evidence...then let's do that. If you want to talk about people's feel-goods as evidence...you're sorely mistaken about the problems of personal accounts as evidence.
That doesn't change what I said at all. There is not "except" here... you just added "because the Bible" to your set of biases.That would be a good point except for the fact that we have the Bible, which tells us that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. I realize you don't accept the Bible, but since I do I am biased towards believing that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. Therefore, when I see evidence (i.e., the Creation) I ascribe its beginning to the supernatural.
(A discussion about the Bible belongs in its own thread, not this one.)
Trust someone who knows a little about mathematics / stochastics: "assigning" propabilities will always result in nonsense when you don't start with reliable facts.Personally, I don't know how one would find out if there is a supernatural. I suppose we could assign probabilities (e.g., by going back to the supernatural nature of the Bible again), but I've had people remind me that even a high probability doesn't prove it.
Trust someone who knows a little about mathematics / stochastics: "assigning" propabilities will always result in nonsense when you don't start with reliable facts.
That would be a good point except for the fact that we have the Bible, which tells us that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. I realize you don't accept the Bible, but since I do I am biased towards believing that there is a supernatural dimension to reality. Therefore, when I see evidence (i.e., the Creation) I ascribe its beginning to the supernatural.
Personally, I don't know how one would find out if there is a supernatural.
We believe what we choose to believe.
That's not evidence. Those are observations. If you ascribe observations to a supernatural process that you have no evidence for, the observations are not evidence.
Why *must* everything that God does be a "miracle"? Why can't he act through "natural" processes in your opinion?
I supposed in a general sense the numerous human writings about God are a "general effect" of his presence in their lives. God may not have exactly the same "effect" on everyone however.
No matter who examines the writings (Torah, Bible, Qur'an, Bagavad Gita), each reader sees pretty much the same words in each document.
That is of course a *simple* and external effect whereas I'm pretty sure that there are internal experiences which also result in such material.
I'm pretty sure for instance that the experiences and feelings that I experience during meditation are quite common human experiences.
You'll have to explain why then. Is love real? I can't hand love to you in bottle of course, but I "feel" it and experience it. How would I know if someone "loved' me if I didn't accept their 'personal accounts" related to their feelings?
Sure but *ordinary* matter could/does explain the same observation. The fact they can't "see" every bit of matter in distant galaxies requires them to "guestimate" the mass based on a *large number* a various assumptions, all of which could be wrong. How do I know for instance that they can even properly calculate the ordinary mass of a galaxy in the first place?
Other people report "feeling" the presence of God in their life. They report experiencing the "effects" of God via meditation and prayer. What don't those "ordinary observations" count as evidence?
I'm certain if you go back and check that you used the term "miracle" first, not me. I'm not even thining about miracles, I'm talking about *ordinary* types of effects that many humans report, not just a "one off" type of event.
I don't know how you leaped to "miracle" either, so we're even.
That's way too limiting of a restriction IMO.
Um, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's exactly what they do with "dark matter" too. Since they "assume" they can properly calculate "ordinary" matter in various galaxies, they need to assign "ad hoc" properties to this new form of matter. It has to be "cold" (slow moving) for instance. I has to be "dark/invisible" for instance. I has to be able to "pass through" ordinary matter, and other "dark matter". They made up all those "properties" about this hypothetical matter on a whim, and based upon an *assumption* that isn't true to begin with. They didn't properly calculate the amount of mass present in that 2006 study. They miscalculated the number of entire stars in those galaxies by a whopping factor of between 3 and 20 times depending on the type of galaxy and the size of the star. That's not a "little" mistake!
Admittedly I talk *to* God more often than I have "insights" as a result of talking to God. I don't tend to hear any loud voices in my head however, even when I feel a "response".
Only to the degree that I won't let you impose any restrictions on 'evidence' that don't also apply to other hypothetical areas of physics. I was trying to point out to you that your complaint/concern about "God" applies to pretty much all hypothetical areas of "science".
Your idea make sense in that we *should* try to eliminate 'natural' explanations for things before "assuming" it requires a "supernatural" agent. Then again, since I tend to hold faith in Panentheism, I would have to assume that "God" is the single most "natural" part of "nature". That's probably why I don't like the idea of limiting the potential influences of God to "supernatural" events.
Ya, ok, I understand the logic of why you want to discuss miracles, but unfortunately we're talking past one another because I don't believe that God is "supernatural" to start with, and I'd be inclined to believe that "miracles" have a "natural" cause. This is going to be a tough conversation because you seem to be limiting the definition of God to the 'supernatural', and that's a gigantic turn off from my perspective.
Well, not so fast. In physics, any particular "observation" might have multiple subjective "interpretations" as to cause. For instance, you might choose to "assume" that astronomers can accurately calculate the baryonic mass of a galaxy, therefore "exotic matter did it". I might not be so comfortable with their mass estimates, and I might call them on those estimates and assume that "ordinary matter did it". See how that works?
Likewise photons bump into things and lose momentum as they pass through any plasma medium. They "redshift" over time/distance in such environments "naturally". Moving objects also cause 'redshift' (and blueshift) as well. I therefore have *multiple* "natural" explanations for photon redshift and I have no need to resort to "space expansion did it" to explain ordinary photon redshift.
Almost any given observation can be interpreted/explained in more than one way, sometimes "natural" ways which would then preclude any need for a supernatural construct (like space expansion).
You seem to be under the illusion that external observations are immune from human interpretation.
That's simply not the case. Likewise the fact that "simpler" explanations might be possible doesn't necessarily negate the use of the term "evidence" to support a supernatural interpretation.
Sure, including the right to act "naturally".
I don't personally define God as being "supernatural". That's what's ultimately untenable about you insisting we discuss "miracles". I'm not sure that I even believe that "miracles" are "supernatural" in origin to start with.
Sure but an "observable effect" might be something like "serving others", or giving money away to the poor because they were "inspired" to do so by God.
I can't just limit the definition of God to the "supernatural" because I don't believe that God is "supernatural" to begin with. Even if I don't understand all the physics just yet, I'm sure that physics applies to God too, and that God acts "physically" in natural ways.
I fear that we're destined to speak past each other because we don't even define the term God the same way. You seem to define God as being "supernatural" in origin, and I do not. That's making this conversation a lot harder than I expected.
That just it. "Dark matter" could still turn out to be quite ordinary matter. In fact I can even provide you with observational evidence that demonstrates that the mainstream baryonic mass estimates used in 2006 wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.
It could ultimately have a "natural" explanation, so I can't just *assume* it has to imply something exotic.
What attempts have been made to find exotic forms of matter have ended very poorly for believers in exotic matter theory. They've spent *billions* at LHC, LUX, PandaX, AMDX, electron roundness tests, etc and found exactly nothing to support the idea. It's been an extremely tough past decade for LCDM believers.
Yet theists tend to be happier and healthier.
I'm really not sure if we can communicate if we can't agree on a definition of God that doesn't preclude God from being entirely "natural". I don't hold belief in a 'supernatural" God, so any such definition precludes me from trying to support such a definition of God.
I'm sorry...what are your credentials on this matter? I'll certainly take the time to look into it if you're as qualified as the people making the claims (like if you are a doctorate in astrophysics or something similar) but if you're not, and there's ample evidence of dark matter to be found, why would I have to instruct you on this?
It seems rather clear that regardless of whether or not dark matter exists....something is causing these effects.
Now, you seem to like to bring up dark matter as some sort of "Aha! See! You atheists do believe in stuff without direct evidence!" .....gotcha!
Here's the problem though...
1. I accept it because people who know a lot more about physics than me accept it....should they change their mind, so will I.
2. I don't care. If dark matter exists or not, it makes zero difference in my life. There's no "stakes" no real loss if I should turn out to be wrong on this topic.
3. Points 1 and 2 make this completely different from a belief in god...for example, a christian god. They are ways to act, think, and believe that are basically a set of limitations that I would need impose on my life.
By comparison, the stakes are huge...if I were to accept the christian god without any evidence, and he didn't exist, then I've basically wasted my entire life because I decided that some 2000+ year old jewish guys knew more about how I should live my life than I do.
So to clarify...when the s stakes of being wrong/right are so low that they couldn't possibly affect my life in any way...yes, I will accept some things on authority. When the stakes involve the way I live my entire life, the lives of loved ones, even the lives of total strangers if I were to vote based upon faith...yes, I'm going to need some evidence that amounts to more than a feeling some guy on the internet once had.
Can an "observable effect" like gravitational lensing be a result of miscalculation? Or is gravitational lensing still happening regardless of whether or not calculations are correct?
I've never heard anything "supernatural" regarding space expansion. Care to explain?
I'm not saying that...I've no problem with the idea that god can "act" through natural processes.
However, if you're to say that a baby being born was an act of god "through natural processes" we have no evidence for that because a natural process exists which doesn't require a god.
No; that's just wrong - it's not fallacious to appeal to the authority of experts on the subject - particularly if they represent the consensus of expert opinion on the subject.FYI that is a pure appeal to authority fallacy.
I beg to differ. With the assistance of my wife, I have created two intelligent organisms, both of whom have shown similar aptitude.It's not like we can even "create intelligent life" if we wanted to yet, using "intelligence" in our design. We can't even create living organisms in a test tube yet,
No; that's just wrong - it's not fallacious to appeal to the authority of experts on the subject - particularly if they represent the consensus of expert opinion on the subject.
Argument from Authority: "A logically fallacious argument from authority grounds a claim in the beliefs of a source that is not authoritative."
Typically it involves quoting as support the opinion or beliefs of an authority who is not an expert in the relevant subject.
I beg to differ. With the assistance of my wife, I have created two intelligent organisms, both of whom have shown similar aptitude.
Of course, we cannot take sole credit for this and I should like to take this opportunity to thank the preceding 3,500 million years of our ancestors who made the achievement possible.
(Side note: no test tubes were involved at any point in the process.)
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