How Can We Best Explain Our Existence ?

[Ouroboros]

My thoughts too.

 

We got rid of one, and another one jumps in. Bleh.

[MagickMonkey]

Hell, maybe in trying to convince us, he will learn a few things that will push him towards his own deconversion.

[MagickMonkey]

The fined tuned universe theory is far from being established fact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

[sciencemike]

 

Thats a funny theory. Even Nobel laureates and specialists in their field don't know, what they are talking about, but to you it seems compelling....

 

http://www.new-scien...ing-theory.html

 

Last December ('05), physicists held the 23rd Solvay Conference in Brussels, Belgium. Amongst the many topics covered in the conference was the subject matter of string theory. This theory combines the apparently irreconcilable domains of quantum physics and relativity. David Gross a Nobel Laureate made some startling statements about the state of physics including: "We don't know what we are talking about" whilst referring to string theory as well as "The state of physics today is like it was when we were mystified by radioactivity."

 

 

As advanced as string theory has gotten over the past few decades it is still an untested theory. The data gathered from the Standard Model and WMAP Cosmic Microwave Background radiation data still gives us a better indication of the state of the early universe than the navel-gazing postulates that religion uses to explain our universe. At least you're getting better with your sources though (I take that back, only that first link seems to be okay)... I would recommend reading through this site too, it provides a fairly decent layman explanation of physics.

 

 

it seems you don't know the facts :

 

http://elshamah.heav...by-one-t191.htm

 

Why the Big Bang was the most precisely planned event in all of history

If the universe had expanded a little faster, the matter would have sprayed out into space like fine mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star. If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity. A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole. The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference is. To strike the perfect balance between too fast and too slow, the force, something that physicists call “the Dark Energy Term” had to be accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros.

If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would look like this:

0.000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000000000000000000000000

0000000000000000000000000000001

Lee Smolin (a world-class physicist and a leader in quantum gravity) estimates that if the physical constants of the universe were chosen randomly, the epistemic-probability of ending up with a world with carbon chemistry is less than one part in 10^220.

This epistemic-probability is one part in: 10000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 0.

Epistemic Probability: 0.0000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 1

 

 

Okay a few things are wrong here. Particles never have enough energy to "speed to infinity", the fastest any particle can reach is the speed of light but that would require an infinite energy density. This has little to do with star formation, which is formed primarily out of three conditions: Extremely high pressures, temperatures and densities. Also the analogy to mist flowing out of a water bottle is inaccurate, as it implies that it was expanding into some space that was already there. It wasn't... the Big Bang created the space itself which then expanded in sort of the same way a rubber mat is stretched. The rate of expansion is still something that is being investigated, but I assure you that we will see much more conclusive results from astrophysics than from just saying "God did it."

 

I think we understand scientific notation as well, no need to flood up the forum with zeroes.

 

 

 

3. Life. Abiogenesis has not been able to explain the existence of life on earth.

 

Fact is, it can be explained today, and evidence simply does not lead to a natural origin, but to a supernatural one :

 

http://elshamah.heav...n-earth-t60.htm

 

In the very first cell (assuming that there was a first cell) what came first - the DNA or the protein? Of course, the protein that reads the DNA is itself coded for by the DNA. So, the protein could not be there first since its code or order is contained in the DNA that it decodes. Proteins would have to decode themselves before they could exist. So obviously, without the protein there first, the DNA would never be read and the protein would never be made. Likewise, the DNA could not have been there first since DNA is made and maintained by the proteins of the cell. Some popular theories about abiogenesis suggest that RNA probably evolved first and then DNA. But this doesn't remove the problem. RNA still has to be decoded by very specific proteins that are themselves coded for by the information contained in the RNA. Obviously both DNA and/or RNA and the fully formed decoding protein system would have to be present at the same time in order for the system as a whole to work. There simply is no stepwise function-based selection process since natural selection isn't even capable of working at this point in time.

Just like the chicken and the egg paradox, it seems like the function of the most simple living cell is dependent upon all its parts being there in the proper order simultaneously. Some have referred to such systems as "irreducibly complex" in that if any one part is removed, the higher "emergent" function of the collective system vanishes. This apparent irreducibility of the living cell is found in the fact that DNA makes the proteins that make the DNA. Without either one of them, the other cannot be made or maintained. Since these molecules are the very basics of all life, it seems rather difficult to imagine a more primitive life form to evolve from. No one has been able to adequately propose what such a life form would have looked like or how it would have functioned. Certainly no such life form or pre-life form has been discovered. Even viruses and the like are dependent upon the existence of pre-established living cells to carry out their replication. They simply do not replicate by themselves. How then could the first cell have evolved from the non-living soup of the "primitive" prebiotic oceans?

This really is quite a problem to try and explain. After all, what selective advantage would be gained for non-thinking atoms and molecules to form a living thing? They really gain nothing from this process so why would a mindless non-directed Nature select to bring life into existence? Natural selection really isn't a valid force at this point in time since there really is no conceivable advantage for mindless molecules to interact as parts of a living thing verses parts of an amorphous rock or a collection of sludge. Even if a lot of fully formed proteins and strings of fully formed DNA molecules were to come together at the same time, what are the odds that all the hundreds and thousands of uniquely specified proteins needed to decode both the DNA and mRNA, (not to mention the needed ATP molecules and the host of other unlisted "parts"), would all simultaneously fuse together in such a highly functional way? Not only has this phenomenon never been reproduced by any scientist in any laboratory on earth, but a reasonable mechanism by which such a phenomenon might even occur has never been proposed - outside of intelligent design that is.

 

 

*sigh* Read a biology textbook. I don't want to waste my time teaching things if you aren't going to listen.

 

 

4. The moral argument, and value of life.

Just because you want to find meaning in life, does not prove the existence of a deity.

 

http://elshamah.heav...highlight=moral

 

If a murderer who believed murder to be ok, came into your

house to brutally murder you and your family, would you think that HE

is wrong to do that? If you said no, that he isn't doing any thing

wrong, then you would be living consistantly with your beliefs. But if

you said yes, then you would live as if there were objective morals.

But if there is no god to define objective morality then there is only

subjective morality. So by saying it is wrong makes it only your

opinion, but not the murderers opinion. You would be "pushing your

morality on him" which is the opposite of what you believe. You

probably believe that "it is wrong to push your morality on another

person." Even that statement right there is another objective moral

statement. In other words you express your opinions, but don't always

live by them.

How do you explain where guilt comes from? How do you explain why

all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that

seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder. How come

people feel a heavy weight on their emotions called guilt when they do

something wrong, such as lie and steal, and the best thing to do to

take the weight off themselves is to tell the truth and/or ask for

forgiveness. If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally

explain all that?

 

 

You said this in your first posting, to which me (and others) have replied. If you aren't just trolling then read our responses, otherwise I'm not going to waste any more of my time responding.

[Overcame Faith]

1. The universe had most probably a beginning.

 

Ever heard of Membrane Theory? It postulates that there was no beginning.

 

Thats a funny theory. Even Nobel laureates and specialists in their field don't know, what they are talking about, but to you it seems compelling....

 

Even theologians don't know what they are talking about, but to you it seems compelling.... And if physicists don't know what they are talking about, why do theologians accept the big bang theory which postulates a beginning? That theory, by the way, was proposed by physicists and was adopted by religionists (including Moslems) to attempt to justify what the bible and Koran say about the beginning.

 

2. The universe is finely tuned to permit life on our planet.

 

Wrong. Life on our planet evolved in the way it did because our planet is the way it is. Our planet is the way it is by pure chance. Maybe there was only a one in billion chance that our planet would be the way it is, but there are billions of galaxies with each having billions of stars. Thus, the odds were met.

 

it seems you don't know the facts

 

It seems you think you know the facts but all you are arguing is that because the earth sustains life, it all must have been planned that way by some deity. I refer you to the following book which deals with the issue far better than I could: God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger, PhD (in physics). Here's an excerpt dealing with what you raise:

 

One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed. They further compound this mistake by proceeding to calculate meaningless probabilities based on the grossly erroneous assumption that all the parameters are independent. In my study I took care to allow all the parameters to vary at the same time.

 

Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which "stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise." Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. And, theoretical physicists at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been.

 

Pages 148-49.

 

In the very first cell (assuming that there was a first cell) what came first - the DNA or the protein? Of course, the protein that reads the DNA is itself coded for by the DNA. So, the protein could not be there first since its code or order is contained in the DNA that it decodes. Proteins would have to decode themselves before they could exist. So obviously, without the protein there first, the DNA would never be read and the protein would never be made. Likewise, the DNA could not have been there first since DNA is made and maintained by the proteins of the cell. Some popular theories about abiogenesis suggest that RNA probably evolved first and then DNA. But this doesn't remove the problem. RNA still has to be decoded by very specific proteins that are themselves coded for by the information contained in the RNA. Obviously both DNA and/or RNA and the fully formed decoding protein system would have to be present at the same time in order for the system as a whole to work. There simply is no stepwise function-based selection process since natural selection isn't even capable of working at this point in time.

Just like the chicken and the egg paradox, it seems like the function of the most simple living cell is dependent upon all its parts being there in the proper order simultaneously. Some have referred to such systems as "irreducibly complex" in that if any one part is removed, the higher "emergent" function of the collective system vanishes. This apparent irreducibility of the living cell is found in the fact that DNA makes the proteins that make the DNA. Without either one of them, the other cannot be made or maintained. Since these molecules are the very basics of all life, it seems rather difficult to imagine a more primitive life form to evolve from. No one has been able to adequately propose what such a life form would have looked like or how it would have functioned. Certainly no such life form or pre-life form has been discovered. Even viruses and the like are dependent upon the existence of pre-established living cells to carry out their replication. They simply do not replicate by themselves. How then could the first cell have evolved from the non-living soup of the "primitive" prebiotic oceans?

This really is quite a problem to try and explain. After all, what selective advantage would be gained for non-thinking atoms and molecules to form a living thing? They really gain nothing from this process so why would a mindless non-directed Nature select to bring life into existence? Natural selection really isn't a valid force at this point in time since there really is no conceivable advantage for mindless molecules to interact as parts of a living thing verses parts of an amorphous rock or a collection of sludge. Even if a lot of fully formed proteins and strings of fully formed DNA molecules were to come together at the same time, what are the odds that all the hundreds and thousands of uniquely specified proteins needed to decode both the DNA and mRNA, (not to mention the needed ATP molecules and the host of other unlisted "parts"), would all simultaneously fuse together in such a highly functional way? Not only has this phenomenon never been reproduced by any scientist in any laboratory on earth, but a reasonable mechanism by which such a phenomenon might even occur has never been proposed - outside of intelligent design that is.

 

This is nothing more than arguing the god of the gaps. That is, if we can't explain it then god must have done it. While we aren't yet able to explain the origin of life, scientists recently made a huge leap forward. Stay tuned for more insights in the future. Until then, here's an article for your consideration:

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090109173205.htm

 

Here's an excerpt from the article:

 

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2009) — One of the most enduring questions is how life could have begun on Earth. Molecules that can make copies of themselves are thought to be crucial to understanding this process as they provide the basis for heritability, a critical characteristic of living systems. New findings could inform biochemical questions about how life began.

 

Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question. The scientists have synthesized for the first time RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.

 

The work was recently published in the journal Science.

 

If a murderer who believed murder to be ok, came into your

house to brutally murder you and your family, would you think that HE

is wrong to do that? If you said no, that he isn't doing any thing

wrong, then you would be living consistantly with your beliefs. But if

you said yes, then you would live as if there were objective morals.

But if there is no god to define objective morality then there is only

subjective morality. So by saying it is wrong makes it only your

opinion, but not the murderers opinion. You would be "pushing your

morality on him" which is the opposite of what you believe. You

probably believe that "it is wrong to push your morality on another

person." Even that statement right there is another objective moral

statement. In other words you express your opinions, but don't always

live by them.

 

You say there is some kind of god-given objective morality. Show me this objective morality of which you speak. If it exists, tell me where it is so I, too, can see it. Hint: it doesn't exist. And if you say the bible, then be prepared to live with the "morality" or, more precisely, the "immorality" in it.

 

How do you explain where guilt comes from? How do you explain why

all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that

seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder. How come

people feel a heavy weight on their emotions called guilt when they do

something wrong, such as lie and steal, and the best thing to do to

take the weight off themselves is to tell the truth and/or ask for

forgiveness. If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally

explain all that?

 

You actually believe that "...all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder." I don't believe the 19 individuals who either attempted to or actually flew airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had this conscience of which you speak. They were murderers yet were propelled on by their religious beliefs. Have you ever heard of psychopaths? These are people with no consciences. What is more, all "consciences" are not the same. You even gave the example of someone breaking into a home intent on murder. That person obviously does not share this universal conscience you believe exists.

 

And I'm still waiting on your proof of miracles. Where's the evidence that there has been even one miracle since the first human being walked on the face of the earth?

[Guest Valk0010]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG3Y4YOHbpI

Again, dib, get to a theist god the gives a shit, a first cause doesn't help you squat if you can't get your arguments from just a first cause to theism.

Note:The guy in the first vid is not me. And the second is obviously not me.

[Realist]

How can we best explain our existence ?

I am a born again, evangelical christian, it makes 25 years now.

i believe Theism explains best our existence, and i believe, the God that revealed himself in the bible, is the creator of all that exists. What are my reasons to believe so ?

 

1. The universe had most probably a beginning. This is supported through scientific, and philosophical reasons. Therefore it had a cause. Since beyond our universe, there was no time, no space, and no matter, that cause must be timeless, beginningless, eternal, spaceless, transcendent, invisible, personal, and incredibly powerful. Why does it need to have these characteristics ? This cause cannot exist in the time/space/material universe because then it would exist within the very universe it created. That is impossible.

Whatever caused the universe, existed before the universe. Since the universe had a beginning in time, and since matter and energy do not spontaneously change and arrange themselves into something new, then the best explanation for the cause of the universe is an action that was a decision.The cause must be personal because an impersonal force would be deterministic and mechanistic, not possessing free will. A mechanistic being only operates according to the programming it received from something else. But if the cause of the universe received programming from something else, then we have again not provided the answer to the cause of the universe. We have just found a middle-man. The cause had to make a choice to create and only beings who are personal can make choices.That description fits best to the God of the bible.

2. The universe is finely tuned to permit life on our planet. Over 120 fine tune constants are know up to know, and as more time pasts, more are discovered. This might be due to chance, to physical need, or to design. Chance is a very bad explanation. Some advocate a Multiverse. But to have just one life permitting universe, you need 1 to 10^500 attempts to get it done. Thats a 1 with 500 zeros. If we put it in comparison, that in our universe, there exist around 10^80 atoms, this shows how improbable it is, that a Multiverse could explain finetuning. Beside this, the Multiverse argument does not explain away God. A mechanism needs to be in place to trigger these multiverses. It could not be by physical need, since if so, why are there many planets, which are not life permitting, but our is ? So its best explained by design. Our earth/solar/moon system is a very strong evidence. Our solar system is embedded at the right position in our galaxy, neither too close, nor too far from the center of the galaxy. Its also the only location, which alouds us to explore the universe, In a other location, and we would not see more than stellar clouds. The earth has the right distance from the sun, and so has the moon from the earth. The size of the moon, and the earth, is the right one. Our planet has the needed minerals, and water. It has the right atmosphere, and a ozon protecting mantle. Jupiter attracts all asteroids , avoiding these to fall to the earth, and make life impossible. The earths magnetic field protects us from the deadly rays of the sun. The velocity of rotation of the earth is just right. And so is the axial tilt of the earth. Beside this, volcano activities, earth quakes, the size of the crust of the earth, and more over 70 different paramenters must be just right. To believe, all these are just right by chance, needs a big leap of faith. This is indeed maibe the strongest argument for theism.

3. Life. Abiogenesis has not been able to explain the existence of life on earth. Science cannot explain it. There are strong reasons to believe, a natural origin is not probable, and a bad explanation. First of all, why whould dead rocks need to evolve, to create life ? Secondly, just one living cell is more complex than the most complex machine created by man. A living eukaryotic cell contains many hundreds of thousands of different complex parts, including various motor proteins. These parts must be assembled correctly to produce a living cell, the most complex ‘machine’ in the universe—far more complex than a Cray supercomputer. DNA molecules carry information . Information is always created by a mind. There i no natural mechanism known to man, to create information. Information is by essence spiritual, and not physical. There is no bridge to cross the gulf from material to spiritual. Even through millions of years of evolution. Its not possible.

http://www.christiscreator.com/evolutionclass101.htm

 

On the one side, we find the real world of objects, events, and tensional spacetime relations. On the other side, we find fully abstract representations that contain information about the material world. That articulate information is abstracted first by our senses, secondarily by our bodily actions, and tertiarily by our ability to use one or more particular languages . Between the two realms we find what appears to be an uncrossable gulf.

 

A small part of the evolutionists' problem is that hard objects are never observed spontaneously to transform themselves (on their own recognizance) into abstract ideas.

 

4. The moral argument, and value of life.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9675.htm

Life has no value. Everthing is permissible. There is no such thing as right and wrong because there is no all knowing and all powerful Creator to define what is good and what is bad. It becomes society who tries to define it. What does that matter though if the people making laws define right from wrong. They are just as human as any other person in the world. The only thing that truly exists is personal preference. What Hitler, Stalin, or any other mass murderer did was not wrong at all. They simply had a different personal preference than you do. The point is, you shouldn't tell anyone that they are wrong or even right because they aren't either of those things. You can believe that its wrong, but you have no place to ground it. People can do anything they want to do without getting punished for their actions if the world lived consistently with the belief that God doesn't exist. How do you explain where guilt comes from? How do you explain why all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder. How come people feel a heavy weight on their emotions called guilt when they do something wrong, such as lie and steal, and the best thing to do to take the weight off themselves is to tell the truth and/or ask for forgiveness. If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally explain all that?

5. Without God, life has no reason to be, there is no ultimate goal

<b>There is no purpose to life. Life has no ultimate goal. There is no reason for living. Sacrifice for someone else's life would be stupid. This argument shows that an atheist lives inconsistently with their own belief. If a murderer who believed murder to be ok, came into your house to brutally murder you and your family, would you think that HE is wrong to do that? If you said no, that he isn't doing any thing wrong, then you would be living consistantly with your beliefs. But if you said yes, then you would live as if there were objective morals. But if there is no god to define objective morality then there is only subjective morality. So by saying it is wrong makes it only your opinion, but not the murderers opinion. You would be "pushing your<br style="position: static !important; ">morality on him" which is the opposite of what you believe. You probably believe that "it is wrong to push your morality on another person." Even that statement right there is another objective moral statement. In other words you express your opinions, but don't always live by them.</b>

6. Religious experiences and miracles

What ever culture you go into, people are incurably religious. In every culture you see three things. 1) Everyone, except the atheist, worships a being higher than themselves. 2) Everyone has a morality they cannot keep. 3) Everyone is psychologically unsatisfied. People feel an emptiness in themselves that they want to fill. If the material world was the only thing that existed and if all your material needs were met, you should be satesfied right? But how come people who have the most wealth are usually the most unhappy. They constantly want more and more. And how can you explain the millions of people in the world who say they have felt the closeness of God in their lives? I personally am included with them. I have felt God's presence in my life on a consistent basis. Now how can you rationally explain that without God's existence? There are many people in the world who report seeing miracles. In other words there are people who say that they saw a situation occur where there is no naturalistic explanation for it. I personally know people who have had miraculous situations occur, such as immediate healings. You might argue that science will someday explain those things, but right now you can't explain them. The best explaination is God, because if God created the world then it wouldn't be hard to believe that he can intervene supernaturally in this world.

 

 

.... tell me ... how do ANY of these points PROVE the existence of your christian god! NONE do of course!

 

Your level of PROOF is your flawed mythological guidebook and your own brainwash!

[lunaticheathen]

None of your six reasons point to the god of the bible. Therefore, you have only postulated some kind of creator. Maybe that creator is dead. Or maybe you are just wrong all the way around.

 

Indeed. I'm Pagan. None of this moves me to switch to Abraham's god.

 

And this is totally absurd: "1) Everyone, except the atheist, worships a being higher than themselves." Provide proof that "everyone" worships a being higher than themselves (except, of course, atheists.) How about agnostics? How about those who simply have not thought about religion and thus worship nothing, though they are not atheists either? How about those who call themselves religious, but who do not engage in any worship whatsoever? How about babies and toddlers (you said everyone, remember)?

 

What about Thelema? It postulates that "Every man and every woman is a star." That one's Will is the highest motivation, not worship. It seeks to ascend to the understanding that we ARE gods. We are already "higher." There are other philosophies and religions that feel the same way. Worship isn't required, and if it is done, it is often worship of SELF.

[Guest Dibri501]

.... tell me ... how do ANY of these points PROVE the existence of your christian god! NONE do of course!

 

Your level of PROOF is your flawed mythological guidebook and your own brainwash!

 

http://elshamah.heav...heorem-t274.htm

 

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws. You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

No time in the history of mankind has faith in God been more reasonable, more logical, or more thoroughly supported by rational thought, science and mathematics.

[lunaticheathen]

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times.

 

Then go jump off a building.

[Overcame Faith]

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times.

 

Then go jump off a building.

 

[Legion]

Well since you didn't respond to my first (if I may say well crafted) post then I'll give it another shot Dibri.

 

Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove.

I agree with this. And I would be willing to discuss the philosophical foundations of science with you. If you don't agree with them then you will likely be operating under a different criteria for what you will allow to be called knowledge.

 

Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.

Certainly inferences drawn from our observations are a part of deriving hypotheses. But they must be tested against reality via prediction.

[recoveringfromchristianity]

Wow, I can't believe I am going to say this but I would rather have Justyna back. At least it didn't take a book to answer each of her posts.

 

You guys have a lot of patience;)

[Guest Valk0010]

 

 

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. [/Quote] Whats the difference?

 

Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.

Not much of a assumption, you can't get a thing done, if you don't assume that is the case. It would be impossible to do anything if you didn't. You can't understand what is treated as impossible to understand.

 

 

Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

 

If it passes the scientific method, its proven to be fact. You would have to believe there is no truth to say its only a inference.

 

From the wiki search inference

 

Inference is the process of drawing a conclusion by applying heuristics (based on logic, statistics etc.) to observations or hypotheses; or by interpolating the next logical step in an intuited pattern. The conclusion drawn is also called an inference. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.

 

Science comes us with hypothesis, and sees if those are valid. And if there not they are discarded. Hypothesis are also perceivable in what we know to see in the world. If the explanation works, then what ever set of things were are observing has then its most correct explaination.

 

I don't think what you said honestly made much of any sense, are you saying that science is on par with faith? If so, what testing does faith have, what about faith is like this.

 

Again from wikipedia search scientific method

 

1. Define the question

2. Gather information and resources (observe)

3. Form hypothesis

4. Perform experiment and collect data

5. Analyze data

6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis

7. Publish results

8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

 

Like an informal mathematical proof, a scientific theory is empirical, and remains subject to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered certain.

God is not subject to falsification, specific gods yes, but not the general concept. In essence religion is not empirical.

 

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2]

Faith doesn't do that, it claims in advance its right, and there is no changing to it.

 

What we can see, is all we know to understand so therefore a rock is factually known as a rock, not a star.

 

We can't see explanations, but if they fit what they can see, its assumed that they exist.

 

God and religion claims way more then this.

 

Science is asking why something is.

 

Faith (of the religious sorts) is just saying something is.

 

No one can answer for absolute certainity if say the sun will rise tommorow but we have good reason to believe it does, and its empirical.

 

Religious just says something like that will be.

[Overcame Faith]

You guys have a lot of patience;)

 

Actually, I'd call it impatience with those who come here thinking they are going to explain the "truth" to us when they ignore the truth.

[MagickMonkey]

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time.

 

 

Yeah, we can only be 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% certain. That's a decimal point followed by a shit load of 9's.

[OpheliaGinger]

How can we best explain our existence ?

Magic.

 

No, a god masturbated and we emerged from his jizz. See? It's science!

 

You cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times.

 

Then go jump off a building.

 

+1 for that.

[Ouroboros]

Gravity is not consistent. It changes with mass, and we know dark matter is affecting it as well.

 

So what's the point?

[MagickMonkey]

Gravity is not consistent. It changes with mass, and we know dark matter is affecting it as well.

 

So what's the point?

 

Well, gravity, as far as we can tell, follows a consistent set of rules, even if the force of gravity varies directly according to the quantity of mass involved. Our understanding of these rules might not apply over very large distances, which simply means our understanding of gravity might be overly simplistic.

[Guest Dibri501]

Causality (cause and effect) only have meaning when time exists. For all we know, time t=0 s occurred at the moment of the Big Bang and that event is what created what we observe as time and space. For something to exist "before" that time is a meaningless question as there is no frame of reference to adequately explain it.

 

Why could God not live in a timeless dimension ? I don't see any problem with that view.

 

 

To say that the Big Bang was an effect from a cause that existed previously in linear time is a fallacy because it is beyond the domain of the argument (or in other words it does not satisfy the boundary conditions required). And speculating things "beyond our universe" does nothing to explain the fundamental nature of our reality. Merely asserting that it is do does not make it so.

 

What do you suggest as alternative ? The universe was cause of itself ? How could it be, if it did not exist beyond the Big Bang ?

 

 

Again, that implies that time as we know it existed before the universe was created.

 

Nope, God could live in a timeless eternity.

 

 

Eternity is the simultaneous possession of boundless life which is made clearer by comparison with temporal things.

 

This becomes clear when we consider temporal things: whatever lives in time lives only in the present, which passes from the past into the future, and no temporal thing has such a nature that it can simultaneously embrace its entire existence, for it has not yet arrived at tomorrow and no longer exists in yesterday.

 

We cannot be considered eternal: Even one’s life today exists only in each and every transient moment. Therefore, anything which exists in time… cannot properly be considered eternal, for anything in time does not embrace the infinity of life all at once, since it does not embrace the future or the past.

 

Since every intellect understands according to its own nature, and since God lives in an eternal present, with no past or future, his knowledge transcends the movement of time and exists only in a single, simple, unified present.

 

Cause and effect do not apply when you have a system bounded on one end with t = 0 onward. One cannot extrapolate before this period. The universe began as an incredibly hot, dense plasma of subatomic particles, quarks, gluons, and all fundamental forces had roughly equivalent magnitude. As with the rest of physics, such phenomenon do not require the conscious act of a divine being to occur. Particles will collide, scatter, and be absorbed regardless of whether you say a god will influence its action. Anthropomorphizing a physical phenomenon is a common mistake that people make when observing physical systems, this does not imply a sense of governing consciousness to it. Life as we know it (and the choices that we have) were created by life itself. There need be no other reason for it to occur.

 

Yep. What do you suggest as alternative ?

 

 

Ah the famous anthropic principle, combined with a sound lack of statistical understanding. Just because science cannot explain how our universe developed from first principle does not mean that we must invoke a god to explain it (or "Fill in the Gaps" so to speak).

 

There is no gap to be filled, since we know the improbability of chance to cause a life permitting universe.

 

Our universe turned out the way it did due to the laws of physics in our universe.

 

And what set these physical laws ?

 

following must be finely tuned :

 

http://elshamah.heav...niverse-t31.htm

 

The laws of nature.

The constants of physics.

The initial conditions of the universe.

 

Now, I could just as easily say "What if those constants were required to be that way in order for a stable universe to develop?" Stating degrees of freedom without mentioning the constraints does little to explain the phenomena. I could say that there is a 1:14,000,000 chance of me winning the lottery, but what if I'm already holding the winning ticket?

 

But there was no universe at the beginning, with 1 to 10^500 of chance, a life permitting universe to arise by chance. What makes you believe, chance is a good explanation ?

 

 

First of all, that site is garbage. If you want to learn evolution pick up a college-level textbook on evolutionary biology and read it.

 

I guess you should do it, to learn the very basic that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.

 

Second... dead rocks don't need to evolve, they are not living. Living cells evolve due to pressures formed from the outside environment, and yes they are more complex than all of our machines because they have the benefit of several hundred million years of progress.

 

why should this progress happen, in first place ? dead rocks don't need to survive, they are already dead.

 

And supercomputers do not work in the same manner that life does, they are so different that you cannot just compare them. The burden of proof for abiogenesis does not rest on science to disprove god, but rather for believers to prove that their god exists. Abiogenesis already has several scientific theories explaining the possible ways for amino acids to form from inorganic chemical reactions.

 

Non of which are compelling. Thats why there is a one million dollar price awaiting for the first, presenting compelling explanation of natural origin of the first life.

 

The Origin-of-Life Prize" ® (hereafter called "the Prize") will be awarded for proposing a highly plausible natural-process mechanism for the spontaneous rise of genetic instructions in nature sufficient to give rise to life. The explanation must be consistent with empirical biochemical, kinetic, and thermodynamic concepts as further delineated herein, and be published in a well-respected, peer-reviewed science journal(s).

[Guest Dibri501]

This was observed in the Miller Urey experiments.

 

 

Horgan, ref. 30, p. 139.

 

Miller himself has recognized that Kauffman’s research is not viable and, consequently, he was ‘… unimpressed with any of the current proposals on the origin of life, referring to them as “nonsense” or “paper chemistry.” He was so contemptuous of some hypotheses that, when I asked his opinion of them, he merely shook his head, sighed deeply, and snickered—as if overcome by the folly of humanity. Stuart Kauffman’s theory of autocatalysis fell into this category. “Running equations through a computer does not constitute an experiment,” Miller sniffed. Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged. “We’re trying to discuss a historical event, which is very different from the usual kind of science, and so criteria and methods are very different,” he remarked.’

 

 

Also, information is not inherently spiritual or physical, but a human construct to describe states of matter in some ordered condition.

 

 

Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1997), p. 106.

 

Fundamental Law 1 (FL1)

 

A purely material entity, such as physicochemical processes, cannot create a nonmaterial entity. (Something material cannot create something nonmaterial.)

Physical entities include mass and energy (matter). Examples of something that is not material (nonmaterial entity) include thought, spirit, and volition (will).

 

Fundamental Law 2 (FL2)

 

Information is a nonmaterial fundamental entity and not a property of matter.

The information recorded on a CD is nonmaterial. If you weigh a modern blank CD, fill it with information, and weigh it again, the two weights will be the same. Likewise, erasing the information on the CD has no effect on the weight.

The same information can be transmitted on a CD, a book, a whiteboard, or using smoke signals. This means the information is independent of the material source. A material object is required to store information, but the information is not part of the material object. Much like people in an airplane are being stored and transferred in the plane, they are not part of the physical plane.

The first law of thermodynamics makes it clear that mass and energy (matter) can neither be created nor destroyed. All mass and energy in the universe is being conserved (the total sum is constant). However, someone can write a new complicated formula on a whiteboard and then erase the formula. This is a case of creating and destroying information.

 

Since the first law of thermodynamics states that mass and energy (matter) cannot be created or destroyed, and information (UDI) can be created and destroyed, information (UDI) must be nonmaterial.

The genetic information system is the software of life and, like the symbols in a computer, is purely symbolic and independent of its environment. Of course, the genetic message, when expressed as a sequence of symbols, is nonmaterial but must be recorded in matter and energy.5

 

Indeed, Einstein pointed to the nature and origin of symbolic information as one of the profound questions about the world as we know it. He could identify no means by which matter could bestow meaning to symbols. The clear implication is that symbolic information, or language, represents a category of reality distinct from matter and energy.6

 

First Law of Information (LI1)

 

Information cannot originate in statistical processes. (Chance plus time cannot create information no matter how many chances or how much time is available.)

There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.7

 

Second Law of Information (LI2)

 

Information can only originate from an intelligent sender

Corollary 18

All codes result from an intentional choice and agreement between sender and recipient.

 

We observe daily a continual input of new information (UDI) from an intelligent source (human beings). At present, on earth, the only new information we have detected being created is from human beings. Careful examination of other systems will determine if there are any other intelligent sources of new UDI.

Corollary 2

Any given chain of information can be traced backward to an intelligent source.

For two people to effectively communicate, there must be some agreement on the language or code that is used.

Hard objects don't need to transform into abstract ideas, and they never do. When's the last time you've seen a rock transform into courage?

 

you got it damn right. But that is exactly , what you assert, when you say, humans with the ability of thinking and expressing themself dilligently arose by chance, through abiogenesis.

 

Bad people do bad things. So what? Morality is a human construct, as well as guilt, conscience, etc. Godly people also lie, cheat, steal and do things that even us ex-C's would find reprehensible.

 

http://elshamah.heav...d-t349.htm#1245

 

 

How do you explain where guilt comes from? How do you explain why all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder. How come people feel a heavy weight on their emotions called guilt when they do something wrong, such as lie and steal, and the best thing to do to take the weight off themselves is to tell the truth and/or ask for forgiveness. If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally explain all that?

 

No Ultimate Value Without Immortality and God

 

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one’s destiny is ultimately unrelated to one’s behavior, you may as well just live as you please. As Dostoyevsky put it: “If there is no immortality then all things are permitted.” On this basis, a writer like Ayn Rand is absolutely correct to praise the virtues of selfishness. Live totally for self; no one holds you accountable! Indeed, it would be foolish to do anything else, for life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest. Sacrifice for another person would be stupid. Kai Nielsen, an atheist philosopher who attempts to defend the viability of ethics without God, in the end admits,

 

We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons, unhoodwinked by myth or ideology, need not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me. . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.7

 

But the problem becomes even worse. For, regardless of immortality, if there is no God, then there can be no objective standards of right and wrong. All we are confronted with is, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s words, the bare, valueless fact of existence. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In the words of one humanist philosopher, “The moral principles that govern our behavior are rooted in habit and custom, feeling and fashion.”8 In a world without God, who is to say which values are right and which are wrong? Who is to judge that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint? The concept of morality loses all meaning in a universe without God. As one contemporary atheistic ethicist points out, “to say that something is wrong because . . . it is forbidden by God, is . . . perfectly understandable to anyone who believes in a law-giving God. But to say that something is wrong . . . even though no God exists to forbid it, is not understandable. . . .” “The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.”9 In a world without God, there can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments. This means that it is impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, and love as good. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.

 

If some mick bastard tried to assault me and my family I would do my best to take him down. His freedoms ended when it encroached on my freedoms. There is no defined 'right' or 'wrong', merely self defense and survival. Perhaps a bad example to justify your point. The rest of it is almost incoherent. And if I wanted to live life knowing that there was no predefined god-built purpose, should it matter? I create my own meaning and purpose and that is all that I need.

 

 

Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur. First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood. Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood. The two are logically incompatible. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom. Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.” “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.16 The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.”

 

But Dostoyevsky also showed that man cannot live this way. He cannot live as though it is perfectly all right for soldiers to slaughter innocent children. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictatorial regimes to follow a systematic program of physical torture of political prisoners. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictators like Pol Pot to exterminate millions of their own countrymen. Everything in him cries out to say these acts are wrong—really wrong. But if there is no God, he cannot. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.

 

The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity a few years ago as I viewed a BBC television documentary called “The Gathering.” It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences. Now, I had heard stories of the Holocaust before and had even visited Dachau and Buchenwald, and I thought I was beyond shocking by further tales of horror. But I found that I was not. Perhaps I had been made more sensitive by the recent birth of our beautiful baby girl, so that I applied the situations to her as they were related on the television. In any case, one woman prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. “Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?” “Haven’t you heard?” came the reply. “Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection.”

 

Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele. A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, “I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life.” When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: “Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself.” And so this mother took the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby’s discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.

 

My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.

 

And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong; all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living “beyond good and evil,” broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer’s anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite.17 In his important essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.

 

A second problem is that if God does not exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men go unrewarded. But who can live with such a view? Richard Wurmbrand, who has been tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says,

 

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.18

 

The English theologian Cardinal Newman once said that if he believed that all evils and injustices of life throughout history were not to be made right by God in the afterlife, “Why I think I should go mad.” Rightly so.

 

And the same applies to acts of self-sacrifice. A number of years ago, a terrible mid-winter air disaster occurred in which a plane leaving the Washington, D.C. airport smashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, plunging its passengers into the icy waters. As the rescue helicopters came, attention was focused on one man who again and again pushed the dangling rope ladder to other passengers rather than be pulled to safety himself. Six times he passed the ladder by. When they came again, he was gone. He had freely given his life that others might live. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the selfless and good act he had performed. And yet, if the atheist is right, that man was not noble—he did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the ladder first, pushed others away if necessary in order to survive. But to die for others he did not even know, to give up all the brief existence he would ever have—what for? For the atheist there can be no reason. And yet the atheist, like the rest of us, instinctively reacts with praise for this man’s selfless action. Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.

[lunaticheathen]

Why do christards get a hard-on for "thermodynamics" as explanations for their pet creation theories? Since when does thermodynamics have ANYTHING to do with biology or evolution?

I still think this guy should jump off a building. Disprove gravity.

[Ouroboros]

Why do christards get a hard-on for "thermodynamics" as explanations for their pet creation theories? Since when does thermodynamics have ANYTHING to do with biology or evolution?

I still think this guy should jump off a building. Disprove gravity.

They believe in science when they use the argument from thermodynamics, but as soon as science disprove their precious religion they start screaming "bloody murder!"

[florduh]

History of the World:

 

 

Og: Why does the sky thunder?

Ng: I don't know. It must be god.

 

Og: Why did the moon turn dark?

Ng: I don't know. It must be god.

 

Og: Why does fire come out of the mountain?

Ng: I don't know. It must be god.

 

Og: Why do people ask stupid questions?

Ng: I don't know. They must be Christians.

[Guest Dibri501]

, but as soon as science disprove their precious religion they start screaming "bloody murder!"

 

what exactly is science disprooving ?