Evolution 1, Creationism 0.

Sam Vimes

I think my presence in this thread will prevent Jakkass from answering since he accused me of trolling when I brought it up so I promise on my honour as a heathen I will not post in this thread until the matter has been thoroughly dealt with

philologos

Overblood wrote: »

Well the mystery of life was your proof of a god not too long ago:

I need to clear this up, I would ask you all to read my post first which was quoted by Overblood:

I never once claimed it was proof of God. Infact I don't believe there is any proof of God's existence as God is unfalsifiable. I would also note that it was posed as a question, secondly I would notice that the question was posed before this research came out and I am willing to challenge my previous understanding given scientific research to do so.

I really don't care if anyone of you consider this good enough. I will be merely reading and thanking on this forum because I do not like the mode of discussion that has taken here in the last while. I'm not looking for a debate on the subject either, I merely am posting to clarify this.

I asked those questions in the expectation to get answers from atheists on them, I never asked those questions in order to suggest that it was proof of God. So I would argue that Overblood has strawmanned my position in this case.

mloc

I think the vast majority of people miss some fundamental points in this debate.

Firstly, in terms of life coming from non-life, this argument is generally irrelevant. The term life is a human concieved and oft ill-defined concept. Both life as it is popularly recognised and "pre-life" biochemical activity differ only in their complexity. Living organisms are no more than extremely complex arrangements of chemical reactions. It is a exclusively human trait to try and give more value to life than that.

Anybody with an advanced understanding of biochemistry can see an evolutionary path from simple amino acids to Homo sapiens. It is a lack of understanding, or more likely a lack of willing to understand, the science of evolution that holds back creationists from freeing themselves from their ignorance.

Owen

mloc wrote: »

Anybody with an advanced a basic understanding of biochemistry can see an evolutionary path from simple amino acids to Homo sapiens.

Fixed that for you.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

I need to clear this up, I would ask you all to read my post first which was quoted by Overblood:

I never once claimed it was proof of God. Infact I don't believe there is any proof of God's existence as God is unfalsifiable. I would also note that it was posed as a question, secondly I would notice that the question was posed before this research came out and I am willing to challenge my previous understanding given scientific research to do so.

I really don't care if anyone of you consider this good enough. I will be merely reading and thanking on this forum because I do not like the mode of discussion that has taken here in the last while. I'm not looking for a debate on the subject either, I merely am posting to clarify this.

I asked those questions in the expectation to get answers from atheists on them, I never asked those questions in order to suggest that it was proof of God. So I would argue that Overblood has strawmanned my position in this case.

Nobody else seems eager to take it so I suppose I will:

• If you're not looking for a debate you shouldn't be posting on a discussion forum. If you want to tell everyone about your beliefs without having them challenged, get a blog.
• We know you didn't use the word proof but you later said it doesn't affect the probability at all. The fact that you didn't use such a strong word changes nothing. You still considered it evidence for God
• This is not jeopardy so phrasing it in the form of a question makes no difference whatsoever to your point. If you didn't think the mystery of life coming from non-life had any effect on the probability of god's existence there would have been no reason to ask the question to atheists on an atheist forum. We gave answers which were vindicated a month later and you came back saying it made no difference to the probability of god so again, why even ask the question?
• If I brought my four year old cousin in to read Overblood's post he could see that you challenged atheists to explain the mystery of life from non-life because you saw it as evidence for god, then when it was done in a lab you changed to saying it had no effect on the probability of a god. You'd get a lot more respect from the people of this forum if you just admitted you changed your story rather than trying to wriggle out of it with things like "I phrased it in the form of a question therefore you're strawmanning me".

Feel feel not to reply if you want but please don't accuse me of personal abuse, trolling or childishness, thanks

Overblood

Jakkass, sure enough you were "merely" asking a question, but it was in the form of "oh yeah well how do you explain this so?" That unanswered question was one of your reasons for believeing in a creator. Now that it has been shown that the probability of life from non-life is quite high, you move the goalposts once again. You are one slippery debater.

AtomicHorror

Jakkass wrote: »

I need to clear this up, I would ask you all to read my post first which was quoted by Overblood:

I never once claimed it was proof of God. Infact I don't believe there is any proof of God's existence as God is unfalsifiable. I would also note that it was posed as a question, secondly I would notice that the question was posed before this research came out and I am willing to challenge my previous understanding given scientific research to do so.

I really don't care if anyone of you consider this good enough. I will be merely reading and thanking on this forum because I do not like the mode of discussion that has taken here in the last while. I'm not looking for a debate on the subject either, I merely am posting to clarify this.

I asked those questions in the expectation to get answers from atheists on them, I never asked those questions in order to suggest that it was proof of God. So I would argue that Overblood has strawmanned my position in this case.

Nah. That's crap.

Also, what the others said. It's a fair cop Jakk. Fess up.

achtungbarry

Jakkass wrote: »

I will be merely reading and thanking on this forum because I do not like the mode of discussion that has taken here in the last while.

So how many times has this guy threatened to run off and never post here again when things aren't going his way at this stage ?

Always comes back though until the next time he spectacularly loses an argument / contradicts himself and cries off due to the "mode of discussion".

And so the cycle begins again :rolleyes:

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

I never once claimed it was proof of God.

Firstly, everyone calm the f**k down. I don't know why some people gets so aggressive towards Jakkass.

Secondly, while I don't agree with the aggressive "Ha ha we got you didn't we" style of posting, there is certain some validity behind the point here.

It is very common for religious people, particularly Christians, to use the "mysteries" of the universe as a reason to think that God, or something like him, is likely to exist.

How often has a believer said something like I can't imagine how love/consciousness/life/Earth/Universe could come about by itself, surely there must be something behind all this, and surely this things must be God. That is the chain of logic used to justify this position.

The point of course is that if that holds then surely the opposite holds as well.

If the existence of these mysterious things is support for the existence of a God then explaining them without God must weaken the case for God.

Otherwise these things aren't support for God in the first place, are they. If they can be used to strengthen the case for God then they also have the ability to weaken the case for God.

A good example if the fine tuned argument. Plenty of religious people say that the "fact" that the universe is "fine tuned" for life suggests that there is a purpose behind life existing and that suggests a god.

Now the reverse of that argument is that if it demonstrated that the universe is not fine tuned for life (which pretty much has been shown) then this turns the argument above on its head, and suggests there isn't a god.

Saying that fact used to suggest the existence of god are ok but the reverse of these facts isn't any reason to suggest the non-existence of god is some what nonsensical.

Do you see the point being made.

Think of any naturalistic argument for, or suggesting, the existence of God (eg how did life appear, surely that suggests intervention by a god).

The opposite of that (an explanation of something that works without the need for god) is, by simple virtue of being the opposite of an argument for God, and argument against the existence of God or the suggestion of God

Dades

While I don't think an argument for a God's existence that is shown to be flawed is evidence for his non-existence, I think that flaw could certainly be said to "weaken" any argument for God, if it was previously used to support it.

Zombrex

Dades wrote: »

While I don't think an argument for a God's existence that is shown to be flawed is evidence for his non-existence, I think that flaw could certainly be said to "weaken" any argument for God, if it was previously used to support it.

Its not directly, but the rational position is to assume he doesn't exist until demonstrated that he does, so in weakening arguments for existence it brings the case back to a default position of non-existence (this applies to everything, not simply God).

btw before anyone pulls me up on this, when I say assume non-existence that is not the same as stating knowledge of non-existence. Assuming my brother is not about to fall through the roof and land on my head is not the same as saying I know this isn't going to happen. Just wanted to clarify that before the charge of atheist arrogance

Akrasia

kiffer wrote: »

But generally even non-creationist Christians say things like without God's actual interaction non-life can not become life....

the problem is that they will still consider it a 'miracle' even if there is a perfectly good scientific explanation. (just like so many christians describe conception and birth as 'a miracle')

mloc

I guess that comes back to the old scientific adage "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" and so on.

However the when a theory which supports the existance of god is shown to be false, then the hypothesis "there is a god" is less probable.

Sam Vimes

Dades wrote: »

While I don't think an argument for a God's existence that is shown to be flawed is evidence for his non-existence, I think that flaw could certainly be said to "weaken" any argument for God, if it was previously used to support it.

This is true, I don't think Jakkass would disagree there but I'm pretty sure that what he's now saying is that he never used the mystery of life as evidence for god because he phrased it in the form of a question and because he didn't use the word proof. It seems he never considered life coming from non-life as evidence for God.....

Zombrex

Sam Vimes wrote: »

he didn't use the word proof.

If everyone could avoid the term "proof" the world would be a better place :pac:

Dave!

Wicknight wrote: »

If everyone could avoid the term "proof" the world would be a better place :pac:

Even mathematicians? :eek:

Zombrex

Dave! wrote: »

Even mathematicians? :eek:

Particularly mathematicians ... dirty perverts ... :eek:

AtomicHorror

Wicknight wrote: »

Particularly mathematicians ... dirty perverts ... :eek:

With their deviations from the mean. Filthy.