Evolution and a supreme being.

grindle

lmaopml wrote: »

Probability is not on the side of an ordered universe such as ours that sustains conscious human people such as ourselves that can actually explore and understand and conquer our surroundings. Unless you try to insert every other possibility going universes with no evidence either than I'm afraid your living in a highly fabulous and ordered universe...

A universe too colossal in size to imagine, filled with trillions of planets, and you think there's a low probability that even one of these planets could support life?
Therefore your perceived god created this one, despite the many other gods being believed-in.
Why is it that the only reasonable explanation for the universe to the religious is that an unfathomably unlikely god (of their preference) has existed for eternity, but the universe hasn't?
Where does that leap in logic come from?
You can see this universe (a bit of it, anyway), and you live in it, yet despite being in awe of it, instead of choosing the most likely of two options, you choose the most ludicrous one (universe exists eternally VS god of choice with suitably conservative views which seem to mirror the socio-economic signs of the time exists eternally, decides to excrete an entire universe just so that one imperfect planet can get bogged down in delusional struggles in the name of his pretty badly written rule-book)?

Pushtrak

kmann wrote: »

in terms of evolution,what happened before evolution,what was the spark?

Evolution is about the adaptation and how life, er, evolved. So, before that would be the origin of life. Or abiogenesis. Before that was part of big bang cosmology. Before that? Well, aside from the fact time started with the big bang... Well, no one can tell you anything here with 100% certainty. Well, they can try.

lmaopml wrote: »

Probability is not on the side of an ordered universe such as ours that sustains conscious human people such as ourselves that can actually explore and understand and conquer our surroundings. Unless you try to insert every other possibility going universes with no evidence either than I'm afraid your living in a highly fabulous and ordered universe...

Ok, we are discussing the universe. Which is a sample size of one. Which is what we have. On what do you base your probabilities? Discussing probabilities on the scales you suggest... Well, show us your workings. Hopefully the margins will be wide enough to support this.

Pedant

kmann wrote: »

what was the spark?

Abiogenesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yet1xkAv_HY

Pushtrak

I would suggest anyone who hasn't seen Cosmos to remedy that. Also worth noting is that there will be a sequel airing on Fox next year... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/arts/television/fox-plans-new-cosmos-with-seth-macfarlane-as-a-producer.html

On Friday the Fox network is to announce that it has ordered a 13-episode series, “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey,” expected to be broadcast in 2013. As part of a creative team that includes Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and a collaborator on the original “Cosmos,” one of the executive producers is Seth MacFarlane, the creator, producer, co-star and animating spirit of “Family Guy,” the bawdy and irreverent Fox cartoon sitcom.

mickrock

Pedant wrote: »

Abiogenesis

I do enjoy a bit of science fiction.

Pedant

mickrock wrote: »

I do enjoy a bit of science fiction.

Elaborate please? Are you honestly trying to call a serious area of study mere "fiction"?

mickrock

Pedant wrote: »

Elaborate please? Are you honestly trying to call a serious area of study mere "fiction"?

Life as purely a product of matter is a fiction to me.

Deus Ex Machina

philologos wrote: »

^^ This took me pretty much two hours to write, perhaps we need to focus as to what we should prioritise?

I cannot fucking believe you went to that effort. This kind of thing really makes me question my understanding of the human mind as it stands.

Pedant

mickrock wrote: »

Life as purely a product of matter is a fiction to me.

What do you think you're made off? Everything in your body can be broken down to natural inorganic elements. You are matter! If you're not matter, then what are you?

Deus Ex Machina

And why isn't this shit sent to the creepy religious/atheist forums for them to **** over for 8 years like that absurdly long "origins of specious nonsense" thread?

Deus Ex Machina

philologos wrote: »

OK, Pushtrak, let's have a look at your three posts. Let me grab some coffee and begin

That really bugged the shit out of me for some reason. I literally wanted to fuck my computer out the window when I read it.

mickrock

Pedant wrote: »

What do you think you're made off? Everything in your body can be broken down to natural inorganic elements. You are matter! If you're not matter, then what are you?

What about a body that has just died?

One second there was life and the next it's gone, yet the material body is the same.

There's more to the life force than just matter.

philologos

Good morning

Pedant wrote: »

Hardly tackling the issue. Your trying to justify god's existence by saying he is "outside creation". That doesn't tackle anything.

We can prove that god isn't an immanent being. Accepting that god is not immanent but rather a wholly transcendent being then there is no way he could have aided in the development of earth, life or humanity or indeed the development of the entire universe.

A transcendent being can do nothing in the physical universe. This means the Bible wasn't the word of God as God couldn't have influenced physical beings to write his word. If the Bible is not the word of God then who's word are they other the words of humans. If these words are but the words of humans then they are merely the product of the human mind. If they are the product of the human mind then what of God? God here is an idea made up in the minds of humans, it doesn't reflect reality. If God is wholly transcendent, we could not have been informed about him.

I don't see how a transcendent being couldn't create the universe. Before the universe, there wasn't a universe. God created that universe, and God created what falls within it.

If God created that universe, and knows fully of all its physical laws, I don't see how it is impossible for Him to act within it. Why do you presume so, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Let's look more closely at why the infinite regress argument is IMO bogus from what I studied of the Philosophy of Religion. Let me try and illustrate it textually as best as I can. Presuming the first set of brackets is the cause, and the second set of brackets is the result and ... is an infinite prior set of causes.

[...=>Z=>X=>Y==>...][X]

If the prior set of causes had not terminated at some point, creation would have never happened. The prior set of causes would still be causing the other and causing the other and causing the other ad-infinitum without result.

Even if we argued that creation was an ongoing process, changing this to:
[...=>Z=>X=>Y==>...][X...]

This still leaves us in a situation where finite causes, require causes, and this is why we have a regress. That's why I brought into the question of God's infinity, because an infinite cause is required to terminate this process because it does not require a prior cause, thus terminating the process in which yet another cause is necessary. Creation would have never started, never mind finished.

There are only two ways that one can show that an infinite and intelligent cause to the universe is not required:
1) Show that causation is completely unnecessary. This is going to be difficult because it is simply logical to think of all finite things having causes. I will need good reason in order to discard this.
2) Show somehow that God is not infinite in the Christian faith. I.E - That He began to be a finite time ago.

Here's a link to a post I posted about the subject a few years ago which takes a look into some of the philosophical arguments.

Hopefully you can get back to me on this.

I'm going to be looking at Pushtrak's posts and The Corinthian's posts at some point when I get a chance.

I argue that God is active within Creation, and not only active, but that God spoke His word, and we received it. Rather than trusting in the conjecture of human opinion, if God has spoken, His opinion counts and must be heard and has profound consequences for all. The question is whether or not the Bible is God's word, I'm confident that it is, but this is something we're going to need to discuss in more depth.

The Corinthian

LordSmeg wrote: »

Its a logical conclusion.

No, claiming that religion during the Enlightenment constituted as significant influence on the works of people such as Newton is not a conclusion as you have not presented a complete argument to arrive at it. All you've done is:

1. Religion was influential at the time.
2. Newton was a theologian.
3. Newton was influenced by religion in his theories.

Going from the second to the third step requires quite a few presumtions, not least the level of influence that being a theologan had on Newton, which given his unorthodox views is questionable.

You also have to consider that Newton was not the only Deist of his time. His science was examined, reviewed and accepted by many other intellectuals of his time. Unless you want to suggest that they were all subliminally brainwashed by religion into arriving at a 'creator conclusion' then it weakens you own conclusion.

Of course it didnt invalidate his maths but it shows quite clearly how seriously he took the notion of the existance of god throughout his life and unless I have missed something I dont remember him putting forth a mathematical explanation of the existence of god, just a conclusion drawn from his observations and personal belief. He didnt just develop the idea of god because of his discoveries.

Nonetheless, his maths ultimately demand a prime mover for them to work and as they could be seen to empirically work in the physical World, it is very difficult not to come to that conclusion.

Note also, that his view of God was heretical as far as religion was concerned, which further dampens your assertion that it was ultimately religion that shaped his views, as he rejected the religious model of God.

I stated that belief in god in this day and age can not but come in some part from religion.

I concur. But you did not limit yourself to this day and age when you made your assertion, or I misread it (I'm not going to bother checking), because otherwise I would not disagree with you at all.

In this day and age only religion supports the concept of God. My purpose was to point out that this is not always true, as such concepts existed prior to the development of religion and more recently as a result of science.

But in this day and age? No argument there.

Seachmall

mickrock wrote: »

There's more to the life force than just matter.

Just because you believe that to be true doesn't make it true, and dismissing a valued area of science as "fiction" without reason is willful ignorance and not something to be proud of admitting.

nozzferrahhtoo

The Corinthian wrote: »

I suppose I believe in the idea of God, more-so than actually believe in God. He's a psychological comfort blanket.

Daniel Dennett is currently doing a study on such people actually. His phrase is people who "believe in belief". People who actually do not buy the god idea themselves but have some other level of emotional or intellectual investment in maintaining the idea anyway, either by acting like they believe it themselves or maintaining it in others.

More often it appears to be the latter, not the former like yourself, in that people who do not think there is a god for reasons of their own think that it is better off if OTHER people do.

Personally I can not maintain that kind of dissonance, even when I try. If there is no argument, evidence, data or reasons to suggest an idea is true I can neither act like I think it is true, convince myself it is true, or wish that other people would consider it true.

philologos wrote: »

Firstly, just to say, I have no interest in responding to slander and falsehood about me

Nor would I in your place. The problem however is that the things you refuse to defend are not falsehoods or slander. They are all perfectly true and accurate. Not a subtle difference I am sure you will grant and if anyone wants me to back any one of them up I am more than happy to provide all the quotes, links and data.

philologos wrote: »

Some others would almost expect me to give up the day job in order to respond to their posts

Not at all. You have nearly 20,000 posts here. Clearly you have the time to respond. The issue is that you pick and choose your responses and when someone shows all your basis for defending god to be perfectly false you just do a runner and pretend to have them on ignore.

You try this "Oh I just do not have the time" and "I will get back to that later" line all the time, but have been doing so for years. There comes a point when the rest of us realise you are just stalling and have no actual intention to return to anything or address anything. And with 20,000 posts it is clear that whatever resources you are lacking, time is not one of them.

philologos wrote: »

In all reality atheism is just another ideology concerning God. It shouldn't be presumed to be true.

This is as big a falsehood as last week when you claimed that atheism tells us to stop trying to find out answers to questions. Worse, you well know it too.

You are the one making claims of god, magical jesus and more. The onus is on you to establish these things as true, not for us to prove them false. Again you well know this.

Atheism is just the position of not buying your claims. It is not something one "presumes to be true". It is the position of simply realizing that the claims YOU make are not just slightly, but ENTIRELY unsubstantiated. Again, you know this.

That you know all this but keep posting like you pretend otherwise is a sign of just who and what we are dealing with in you that is clearer than anything I could say or do myself to highlight it. You are simply outright, and consistently, lying about things you very much know to be other than how you try and fail to paint them.

philologos wrote: »

^^ This took me pretty much two hours to write, perhaps we need to focus as to what we should prioritise?

Sure, pick the most important part of the post and I will deal with it. Since you have 2 hours to throw away perhaps next time you can focus on quality not quantity as having read what you spent 2 hours producing... quantity is about all it contains.

Oh no wait, you KNOW I can deal with it quite well so you are pretending to have me on ignore when you do not. Forgot again, sorry.

mickrock

Seachmall wrote: »

Just because you believe that to be true doesn't make it true, and dismissing a valued area of science as "fiction" without reason is willful ignorance and not something to be proud of admitting.

The same could be said of your belief in abiogenesis.

Just because you believe life is soley a function of matter doesn't make it so.

Abiogenesis research has been going nowhere fast for a long time.

Seachmall

mickrock wrote: »

The same could be said of your belief in abiogenesis.

I don't know enough about abiogenesis to have a belief in it.

Abiogenesis research has been going nowhere fast for a long time.

As compared to dualism which has been making strides in recent years?

nozzferrahhtoo

philologos wrote: »

If the prior set of causes had not terminated at some point, creation would have never happened. The prior set of causes would still be causing the other and causing the other and causing the other ad-infinitum without result.

That is not how infinity works at all I am afraid but even that is not the biggest problem with your post.

The biggest problem is that you are arguing not at all for god in this post, but for something that atheists and scientists already know and agree on. Time had a beginning.

Time is an attribute of the universe post-Expansion. We already know this. Therefore time, and causality which is also time based, also only make sense at this point.

Therefore whatever the explanations for our universe are, it is not clear that we can even talk about them using concepts like time, causality and causes.

Again we know all this.

The problem is not with understanding this. The problem is your wholesale invention of a god which you wheel in to fill the gap in understanding about this. You are essentially saying "My ignorance about the explanations of the universe are too uncomfortable to deal with and so I am inventing a god to explain it all away".

And then you act like this is actually a valid method for arguing for the existence of a god? It is not. "I do not understand it... therefore god" is not, has never been, and... despite your fetid desperation to make it so... will likely never be an argument for the existence of god.

Ush1

Bbbbbut what about the eye?!!!


/runs off :P

Phill Ewinn

You are essentially saying "My
ignorance about the explanations of the universe
are too uncomfortable to deal with and so I am
inventing a god to explain it all away".

I'm pretty sure God invented him. In fact God invented all of us. You too.

Go ahead and ignore every possibility except the ones that suit you. But when you're ready, God will be there for you.

Seachmall

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

Go ahead and ignore every possibility except the ones that suit you. But when you're ready, God will be there for you.

You do see the irony in this, right?

Ush1

Seachmall wrote: »

You do see the irony in this, right?

That's not a real quote in your sig is it???:pac:

coffee_cake

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

I'm pretty sure God invented him. In fact God invented all of us. You too.

Go ahead and ignore every possibility except the ones that suit you. But when you're ready, God will be there for you.

Which one?

Seachmall

Ush1 wrote: »

That's not a real quote in your sig is it???:pac:

Yup.

coffee_cake

Ush1 wrote: »

That's not a real quote in your sig is it???:pac:

don't forget the one about dashing babies against rocks and armies raping virgins

between that and "god will be waiting for you"... no thanks :rolleyes:

The Corinthian

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

More often it appears to be the latter, not the former like yourself, in that people who do not think there is a god for reasons of their own think that it is better off if OTHER people do.

Well there are some fairly compelling sociological arguments for why this might be the case.

One of the things about religion is that it tends to come with a moral framework that is inspired from the divine. You can have human-inspired moral frameworks too, but as they ultimately come from a flesh-and-bone peer, their authority is subject to question. The divine is not, because it is 'beyond our comprehension' and for bonus points likely to 'smite' you if you transgress.

Indeed, if you look at the Ten Commandments, only the first four relate to religion, while the latter six are actually a pretty basic set of rules necessary for a community to coexist peacefully; setting out rules regarding family, marriage, property and, of course, capital crimes. Such divinely inspired codes of conduct are commonplace in most civilizations in history.

From a social standpoint, Cicero probably hinted best at this when he wrote that "in this subject of the nature of the gods the first question is: do the gods exist or do they not? It is difficult, you will say, to deny that they exist. I would agree, if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind it is perfectly easy to do so."

All completely OT, of course.

Personally I can not maintain that kind of dissonance, even when I try. If there is no argument, evidence, data or reasons to suggest an idea is true I can neither act like I think it is true, convince myself it is true, or wish that other people would consider it true.

We all indulge in that kind of dissonance, even when it's not religious; patriotism, etiquette, tradition and even romance are often full of things that make no sense, we know they make no sense but it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling to run with them anyway.

nozzferrahhtoo

The Corinthian wrote: »

One of the things about religion is that it tends to come with a moral framework that is inspired from the divine.

Or more accurately moral frameworks come from moral philosophers and some of them invent gods with which to give their own moral frameworks a stamp of approval. Religion as such is more packaging for moral frameworks rather than something moral frame works actually come from. We all have opinions on what should be moral or immoral. Some of us simply want to give our opinions extra weight by inventing a powerful backing for it.

As such these "divinely inspired moral frameworks" are still just "human-inspired moral frameworks" that people are adding packaging to by inventing god(s) who agree with them.

To my mind however the effect is the opposite. Trying to elevate one moral frame work over another by using invention, fantasy and lies actually takes away from a frame work. If it is from the outset based in dishonesty then what use is it?

The Corinthian wrote: »

All completely OT, of course.

It is rare to find a 26 page long thread on here where anything actually still is OT :-)

nozzferrahhtoo

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

Go ahead and ignore every possibility except the ones that suit you. But when you're ready, God will be there for you.

It is a common theist canard to paint the atheist camp as simply "ignoring the possibility" or "rejecting the possibility" and the like. Thankfully however the disingenuous straw man does not hold at all and the truth is actually the complete opposite. Not to mention we could waste just as much time turning it back on theists by simply declaring they ignore the possibility there is no god.

People like myself are well aware of the possibility that there is a god. Of course it is possible. The possibility is not what is in question. It is also possible that I can levitate and it is also possible that you were the one who killed OJ Simpsons wife.

The issue is not with acknowledging what is "possible". The issue is looking at all the possibilities and from the pile identifying which possibility have even a shred of argument, evidence, data, or reasons to suggest they might actually be true or credible.

So we can all happily agree that it is "possible" there is a god. No one is denying or ignoring that. This however does not change the fact that there is nothing on offer whatsoever to suggest there actually is one.

Corkfeen

Phill Ewinn wrote: »

You are essentially saying "My
ignorance about the explanations of the universe
are too uncomfortable to deal with and so I am
inventing a god to explain it all away".

I'm pretty sure God invented him. In fact God invented all of us. You too.

Go ahead and ignore every possibility except the ones that suit you. But when you're ready, God will be there for you.

My parents were always adamant that I should not associate myself with people who do awful things, shoplifters , murderers etc. I guess that rules out imaginary genocidal maniacs that have much in common with wife beaters....