The known universe

rohatch

krudler wrote: »

Can you argue anythinng without coming across as pompous and condescending?

Sorry krudler, better spell anythinng correct otherwise the bishop won't know what you mean.

Turtwig

PDN's a bishop?

Awesome dude!
Fair play.

rohatch

Malty_T wrote: »

PDN's a bishop?

Awesome dude!
Fair play.

Would you want to be senior management in a delusional belief system?:D

(waits for yellow post and another temp ban .....)

PDN

rohatch wrote: »

You could just re read the thread.

But as you need help

Ah, sorry, I thought you were addressing a point one of the theists had made, or something to do with Christian beliefs. My bad.

I put the single comma in for you BISHOP pdn.

I would have thought that someone, with your level of belief in translated bible BS would have no problem reading 2 lines of text.

That was nice of you. God bless you.

Turtwig

PDN wrote: »

Actually the principle behind this is perfectly legitimate. You can argue that a certain pattern is evidence of design, but the converse is not true because your failure to discern a design is only evidence against your abilities of discernment, not against design itself.

Which is basically:
What if the designers goal was to make the design appear as if it was undesigned.

Sorry, your post is not very clear.

Are you asking a fresh question? If so it seems rather pointless or unanswerable to me.

I'm hesitant to ask this - since trying to discern someone's meaning by asking for precise language tends to get dismissed as semantics - but do the words "Which is basically" intend to say that you are rephrasing my position? If so, you are mistaken. If not, then please forgive my misunderstanding you.

Yea, I could have been clearer.:o
Your position is that the inability to discern design is not an argument against design. I think though if we go along with then that means that the inability to discern any design at all anywhere in the cosmos is still not evidence against design. Which I think basically equates to "the designer designed so as not to appear designed"
I'm sorry if I'm misrepresenting your position, but it seems to me like your position is identical to the one I outlined above.

Osgoodisgood

PDN wrote: »

If we could understand and discern a purpose in everything that God did, then that would be an indication that he wasn't a Being of infinite wisdom whose intelligence far surpasses our own

.

If we could understand his ways then he wouldn't be god?
How do you know?

So, while 'God works in mysterious ways' may indeed be useless as an argument for God's existence, it is very useful indeed when puncturing the pomposity of anyone who tries to pretend that their inability to discern a purpose in stuff is somehow evidence against God

It punctures nothing. It obfuscates and clouds the conversation. Just like it was meant to.

PDN

Malty_T wrote: »

Yea, I could have been clearer.:o
Your position is that the inability to discern design is not an argument against design. I think though if we go along with then that means that the inability to discern any design at all anywhere in the cosmos is still not evidence against design. Which I think basically equates to "the designer designed so as not to appear designed"
I'm sorry if I'm misrepresenting your position, but it seems to me like your position is identical to the one I outlined above.

No, I don't think so. It's much more likely that we are just too dumb to discern a design.

It may equate to, "the designer did not design us for the purpose of spending our time trying to discern a design"!

indough

Herbal Deity wrote: »

Maybe God is a multi-core God!

he just had hyperthreading enabled

krudler

It may equate to, "the designer did not design us for the purpose of spending our time trying to discern a design"!

Or there is no designer

PDN

Osgoodisgood wrote: »

.

If we could understand his ways then he wouldn't be god?
How do you know?

Because we are finite whereas God is infinite. It is not logical that a finite being could understand everything about the infinite.

It punctures nothing. It obfuscates and clouds the conversation. Just like it was meant to.

No, I offered a coherent philosophical point. You are entitled to disagree with it, but imputing false motives to me is little more than personal abuse.

PDN

krudler wrote: »

Or there is no designer

No, my argument would not equate to that for anyone who understands English.

You might make that assumption quite apart from anything I've said, which is your right.

rohatch

PDN wrote: »

Because we are finite whereas God is infinite.

God is not real.

PDN wrote: »

No, I don't think so. It's much more likely that we are just too dumb to discern a design.

Humans created god.

PDN wrote: »

It is not logical that a finite being could understand everything about the infinite.

But you will believe the most preposterous BS from a fictional story.

Flamed Diving

PDN wrote: »

It is not logical that a finite being could understand everything about the infinite.

A finite individual? No.

A self-replicating, exponentially increasing mass of finite individuals who dedicate their existence to study of the infinite (universe) through a self-correcting process of knowledge?

Perhaps.

rohatch

PDN wrote: »

Ah, sorry, I thought you were addressing a point one of the theists had made, or something to do with Christian beliefs. My bad.

Why? does genesis suggests something different

PDN wrote: »

That was nice of you. God bless you.

You really do come accross as a sanctimonious petty Bishop.

PDN

rohatch wrote: »

God is not real.

humans created god.

But you will believe the most preposterous BS from a fictional story.

I also believe that you have the right to make those kinds of assertions, but I'm a bit puzzled as to why you're doing it in a thread like this. Have you nothing to contribute to the subject of the thread?

PDN

rohatch wrote: »

Why? does genesis suggests something different.

It suggests the stars, the animals etc were all created before humans.

You really do come accross as a sanctimonious petty Bishop.

Your observation is noted. I'll let those who read this thread decide for themselves how we come across.

rohatch

PDN wrote: »

I also believe that you have the right to make those kinds of assertions, but I'm a bit puzzled as to why you're doing it in a thread like this. Have you nothing to contribute to the subject of the thread?

Rich coming from bishop petty, here is a selection of just some of your posts in this thread. Please explain this

PDN wrote: »

How about we stick to discussing the universe?

PDN wrote: »

I thought I was being fairly gracious in admitting that my failure to understand his post might have been my fault. It is rather hard to understand what his point might be.

We did manage 6 pages of discussion, and I only had to correct misinterpretations of my posts 3 times, before you started getting personal. I had thought we were all doing rather well.

How about we stick to discussing the universe?

PDN wrote: »

Sorry, I'm not following you (it could be my fault, or just the lack of punctuation). Did someone in this thread say God created us first? I missed that.

PDN wrote: »

Oh dear, another 'error' that, quite accidentally of course, totally misrepresents me.

That isn't what I said at all, as you well know. What I said, very clearly, was that I don't know of any branch of Christianity that teaches such a thing in its creeds. You can always find individuals who believe all kinds of stuff.

PDN wrote: »

Ah, so there should have been a comma after the 'No'?

PDN wrote: »

Actually the principle behind this is perfectly legitimate. You can argue that a certain pattern is evidence of design, but the converse is not true because your failure to discern a design is only evidence against your abilities of discernment, not against design itself.

So, for example, I might find the words "PDN is a patronising git" scratched on a rock. It would be reasonable to assume that those words were probably put there by design since I can discern a pattern.

However, if I find marks scratched on the rock that appear random to me, then that is not evidence of a lack of design. Someone's initials in Armenian script, for example, would appear to be random to me. This will especially be so if the one trying to discern the pattern is, by definition, infinitely less intelligent than the one who may have made the markings.

So, you might not like it, but the principle you describe above makes perfect sense from a philosophical standpoint.

rohatch

PDN wrote: »

It suggests the stars, the animals etc were all created before humans.

And what does science tell us about this?

Mark Hamill

PDN wrote: »

Because we are finite whereas God is infinite. It is not logical that a finite being could understand everything about the infinite.

Why is that only applies to atheists saying that there is no evidence of gods design, but it doesn't apply to thiests saying there is? Why is that you, as a finite being, are so arrogant as to think you know enough of the universe to say that we are wrong when we say that there is no evidence of design? What do you as a finite being, know of the nature of god, to say that the vast, emptiness of universe is not an argument against its perfect existence?

OK-Cancel-Apply

PDN wrote: »

Because we are finite whereas God is infinite. It is not logical that a finite being could understand everything about the infinite.

Why not? And since when do the religious deal in logic?

Dades

Rohatch banned again. I don't think I need to say why.

Those hanging on his coattails better be careful.

jhegarty

Amazing video.

Whatever your beliefs it really puts how small we are in perspective.

chozometroid

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Why is that only applies to atheists saying that there is no evidence of gods design, but it doesn't apply to thiests saying there is? Why is that you, as a finite being, are so arrogant as to think you know enough of the universe to say that we are wrong when we say that there is no evidence of design? What do you as a finite being, know of the nature of god, to say that the vast, emptiness of universe is not an argument against its perfect existence?

I understand where you are coming from, but really, how do we decide what is evidence that something was not designed by an entity such as God?

"Oh, it's just the way it would be if there was no god." (this statement assumes that the speaker knows how it would be if there was a god)

What are the criteria?
There is no parallel in the world of man. We design things, and there is evidence for that design. We also can tell when something was not designed by man. Problem is, what we design is made using existing materials, and it's always something related to a pre-existing design.
When discussing "intelligent design" for the universe, how do we decide what qualifies?

The theist will say that the patterns and structure of the universe and something such as DNA point to an intelligent design. The atheist says the design is inefficient or dumb suggesting they could've done better if they were God (this is not representative of all atheists, but it's a position I've seen enough times).

Turtwig

chozometroid wrote: »

There is no parallel in the world of man. We design things, and there is evidence for that design. We also can tell when something was not designed by man.

We cannot tell if something was designed by man or not.
If I were to give you a wordsearch and ask you to discern whether it was designed or not. How can you tell whether it was deliberatly designed or randomly generated when all you have is one single wordsearch?

chozometroid

Malty_T wrote: »

We cannot tell if something was designed by man or not.
If I were to give you a wordsearch and ask you to discern whether it was designed or not. How can you tell whether it was deliberatly designed or randomly generated when all you have is one single wordsearch?

We have to draw the line somewhere....

I'm talking about actual things. In your example, we can tell the wordsearch itself was designed. As for an actual arrangment of letters that was put into the wordsearch, we can tell that it was done by man or something man made: a program, or a device that picks letters based on where the rain falls...it doesn't matter, because there is obvious intelligence behind it at some point.

robindch

chozometroid wrote: »

When discussing "intelligent design" for the universe, how do we decide what qualifies?

You'll have to ask an ID advocate that question, but I wouldn't advise you to hold your breath, since nobody has ever said what qualifies as ID and the only guy -- William Dembski -- who ever tried, made a mess of what little he did, and has since stopped trying.

robindch

chozometroid wrote: »

we can tell the wordsearch itself was designed. As for an actual arrangment of letters that was put into the wordsearch, we can tell that it was done by man [...] because there is obvious intelligence behind it at some point.

Ever played Boggle?

chozometroid

robindch wrote: »

Ever played Boggle?

Yes, and? Wasn't it designed by man?

robindch

chozometroid wrote: »

Wasn't it designed by man?

Are the words in the puzzle designed by man?

PDN

OK-Cancel-Apply wrote: »

Why not? And since when do the religious deal in logic?

Since the days when they established most of the world's great universities.