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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2010 18:09:14 GMT -5
To me this is like saying if you dismantled the effile tower and had a huge crane pick up all the peices and drop it enough times in the same spot eventually we would have the effile tower back. Really? You beleive that? You think their are facts to support this? Yes. Mathematically speaking, it is certain that it would happen eventually. Of course, it would most likely be billions of years before it did happen, by which time the Earth may have been destroyed If you leave nature alone everything works... The predators only kill the right number of animials that are food. There is a harmonious balance that is to intricate to happen by chance. I haven't read the entire thread but I thought you said you were atheist? From what I've read it seems like the two extracts I have quoted are the opposite. Have I read it wrong? What exactly are you supporting here? Anyway, it is completely natural that balance in ecosystems is established. It is a reason that the species that exist today still do, and, if it has not occured, the species that do not exist today have become extinct.
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Post by Lex on Mar 17, 2010 18:09:17 GMT -5
So your rational is the "infinate probabilty" theory? are you really Douglas Adams in disguise?? 1) This is a theory at best 2) There is also a theory that William Shakespeare was the stage name for Sir Francis Bacon (not that that applys in any way really) 3) The way the entire world works does not really lend itself to coincidence. If you leave nature alone everything works... The predators only kill the right number of animials that are food. There is a harmonious balance that is to intricate to happen by chance. To me this is like saying if you dismantled the effile tower and had a huge crane pick up all the peices and drop it enough times in the same spot eventually we would have the effile tower back. Really? You beleive that? You think their are facts to support this? The whole "we were created in God's image" thing that makes us thinkers and shapers is what causes issues. We are by nature curious beings. We poke stuff just because we can (both physicaly and figuratively). We have the ability to create something out of a pile of stuff that until we had the vision to form nothing into something. Maybe God is just a super advanced "person" and we are an experiment. I just dont see us poofing into existance. The probability of being struck by lightniing twice is once in 360billion! I can only imagine the probability of all of the diffrent species being created even over time. I dont even know how to begin to caculate that... You missed the point. The point is that the argument that 'everything magically work out this way, therefore there must be a God!' is not a valid argument.
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 17, 2010 18:41:28 GMT -5
Okay, but as my argument shows, infinite probably isn't needed to explain it anyway. We have a pretty solid idea of how big the universe is now, and we know the likelihood of life happening somewhere is high. Therefore life happening here on Earth is no surprise. Once life started on Earth, evolution took over, and over millennia upon millennia evolution slowly branched that first life off into the countless forms of life we have today.
All of this was not unlikely at all. In fact, it was highly likely, one could even say expected. One preemptively may not be able to predict exactly what planet it would happen on, but that it would happen somewhere would have been pretty easy to predict given the knowledge we have now.
Now, as for life surviving, that's no coincidence. In fact, your argument about predators killing the exact right number of animals is interesting -- because in reality, that rarely happens at all. Most of the time nature goes through phases where predators kill off a lot of their pray, and become overpopulated. Then they begin to starve out, and the pendulum swings the other way. When predators become sparse because of the lack of food, prey species are able to proliferate more easily, and slowly predators regain their foot hold... and so forth.
As the situation changes, animals well adapted to the new situation thrive, while animals that are not do not. Moreover, animals whose mutations are beneficial to their situation are more likely to survive than animals who have no beneficial mutations who in turn are more likely to survive than animals with detrimental mutations. This is expected, and is significantly responsible for existing species' survival.
So, it took no luck whatsoever for anything in evolutionary history to happen. Nothing at all happened that is particularly unlikely retrospectively.
Finally, please be careful about calling things "a theory at best" without actually looking up the progress of the theory. I'm not too familiar with the theory in question, but in science nearly everything is called a theory. It's a theory that time multiplied by velocity equals displacement, but it's also certain fact. But, like I said, in this argument infinite probability isn't necessary -- the universe is not infinite, and even considering just our existing universe that we know exists, the odds of a planet like ours with life like we have happening are high; we were not unlikely at all.
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zeromerc
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Post by zeromerc on Mar 18, 2010 11:30:26 GMT -5
My point is actually quite the opposite. My point is that it did not magically work out this way and that it was designed so there must be a designer.
Also I never said I was atheist. I said I was not religious as to me religious people are the ones who sit in a group and talk about how they are better than everybody else and whoever doesnt beleive exactly the way they do is going to hell.
I was under the impression that evolutionists that do not believe in a designer were convinced the universe was infinite. Is this not the case? Because if you ask me the fact that the universe has borders so to speak again causes the argument to lean towards a designer.
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 18, 2010 12:04:36 GMT -5
Wait, what? Because nothing magical or unexpected happened, it must have a divine creator? You're saying that because it makes sense that evolution could have happened on its own without divine interference that this points toward there having been divine interference?
Also, what "evolutionists" (This, I assume, is your word for anyone sane enough to not disregard science because it conflicts with their religion -- but what about "gravitationists" who believe gravity really happens or "velocitists" who I assume either believe velocity=displacement*time or that velociraptors are awesome? But seriously, "evolutionism" is a meaningless term invented by creationists to try to convince people that evolution is some kind of deceptive myth.) think is true is whatever science finds out is true. What science has learned is that the universe is finite, but also constantly growing in size. (As this happens, matter becomes more and more spread out over it, meaning that there is no actual change in the total mass and energy of the universe, which is also finite.) Related, scientists have some evidence pointing toward the possibility that our universe (or more specifically, the big bang that started it) may have been caused by two other universes (possibly by colliding or some other act), however this is far from conclusive yet.
As for that pointing toward a holy designer, I think you'd best connect the dots before making that argument. Why would a finite universe point toward a creator where an infinite one does not? Why does something happening being likely to happen without interference, and then happening just as one would predict it would, therefore point to divine interference being likely? Give me all your premises and logic that add up to that so I can tell where you're coming from, because this time you lost me completely.
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zeromerc
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This above all to thine own self be true
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Post by zeromerc on Mar 18, 2010 13:21:13 GMT -5
I use the term evolutionist to catagorize people who accept evolution is as fact v. the people who do not, nothing more.
I believe that an inteligent deisnger and adaptation can exist, and even possibly to the point of evolution into another species entirely.
I find that most people who are evolutionist think it is mutually exclusive from intelligent design just like people who are intelligent designists(?) feel the same way.
My postion is pulled from the world in which we live in. If there is a plan there is a planner. If there is a building there was an arcitect. If there is a dam there was an engineer.
A finite universe points to a designer just like a structured building with an entrance and a top points to an arcitect. You also suggested as one possibility that the big bang could have possibly been two universes colliding. Who or what set them in motion. Nothing happens without cause based on the rules of earth which is all we can go on. Something or Someone had to start it all based on the science of our world.
Which leads me to think that for somebody to say it might have all happend by chance, however mathmatcily possible it may be given enough time, they have more "faith" than the average intelligent designist who believes there was a being of some kind designing it all.
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 18, 2010 14:33:19 GMT -5
Indeed, at no point do I argue that evolution is proof that there is no intelligent designer. In fact, I fully accept that one can't prove that God didn't exist (merely that if he did intend to create us, his method of doing so was everything from the big bang through to the forming of life on Earth and through the evolutionary process). I merely do not believe that is the case.
Moreover, I think you'd find most atheists would not argue that evolution does not disprove intelligent design. Most of us are aware of what we can and cannot prove. Also, the vast majority of the religious do know and are fine with the fact that evolution occurred, and it hasn't affected their faith in intelligent design.
It is only creationists (those who believe man was created in the image of god literally -- from nothing to human with no steps between) who oppose evolution.
Indeed, if there is a plan there is a planner. But you have not proven that there was a plan. I contend that it's entirely possible that nothing intended for life to happen, and that this is merely the way the universe is.
Ah, the familiar "if human-created things were created by humans then things we didn't create must've been created by something else" argument. There's no evidence of this. Moreover, it's not because a thing is finite that we believe it was created, it is because we see evidence specific to its creation. Things that we know do not happen in nature (which evolution does) such as evenly cut planks of wood and so forth. There is no evidence that anything finite must therefore have been created by an intelligent being.
Now then, on to the topic of infinite cause-and-effect. If nothing happens without a cause, then what caused God? You can't have it both ways. Either:
1. Absolutely everything has a cause. There is an infinite chain of cause and effect. (Note that even if true this does not prove there is or is not a god, it merely would prove that no matter how far back we go, there will be more causes to find, and that if there is a god, then something else came before that god to cause it.); or, 2. Some things do not have a cause, or are their own cause. Again, this doesn't prove there is/is not a god. Such a thing could be a god, but it could also be whatever realm our universe(s) reside in, and so forth. (By the by, we don't know where those other universes might be if they exist; perhaps that is infinite... perhaps not.) Again, this does not prove that there is a god; it could be anything that is the starting cause. It could just be the laws of physics that all existence is based on.
You use a few premises that you can't prove, or at least haven't proven.
A. That all things that exist and are finite have a cause. (Where is the basis? And why segregate infinite things, if any such things exist?) B. That all things that exist were planned for by something intelligent, or that at the very least humans were. (Again, no basis.) C. That God is the only possible being that could have planned them. (This seems more feasible if you could prove A & B, but is still unproven at best. What if there is some grander form of life that isn't infinite or god-like that created us for some reason? It's no less (or more) likely than the existence of a god.) D. That despite A, God does not require to be caused by something else. (This, in fact, is contradictory.)
Any argument that is based on premises that are unproven (and in this case probably unprovable) is unsound, and its result is not to be trusted.
There's the abuse of the word faith again. Let me narrow down its use for you.
Faith is active. To believe in a premise for which there is no proof (or to believe with more conviction than is warranted by the proof at hand) is faith. The lack of faith is passive. To lack belief in something is not faith.
Or, in other words: It is not that I believe God does not exist, it is that I do not believe that he does. If that sounds agnostic, it wouldn't be far off the mark, because by definition most atheists are also agnostic (as logical thinkers, they are aware they cannot disprove god, nor bother to try).
We merely lack faith as there are, at least as of yet, no grounds for it. In short, faith would only apply if my belief were of a stronger conviction in the lack of a god than the evidence warrants, which it is not; any conviction I have is based fully upon the evidence before me. I have no conviction whatsoever that there is a god, so I don't believe in it.
Let me explain for a second what evidence I (or most rational atheists, if I may set aside the few that like to toss insults, pretend that religion is a big joke for them to prod at, and run) would accept for the existence of a god:
Observable, empirical and measurable evidence, to which we can apply valid logic, the testing of which evidence would result in repeatable, predictable outcomes. This is, in short, what is known as "the scientific method." An argument for the existence of a god following the scientific method must first make its premises known, and those premises must be proven (usually done via experimentation, or by citing work or evidence that already existed, sometimes merely via observation available to everyone). It could then apply valid logic to them to come to new conclusions based on the premises it went in with. If a conclusion were based solely on premises known to be true and logic that is clearly valid, then barring someone else providing equally legitimate evidence against it, I would accept that conclusion.
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zeromerc
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Post by zeromerc on Mar 18, 2010 15:04:29 GMT -5
So by your position of mathmatic probablilty compounded by the scientific method... everything in this world up to and including recoreded history given infinate amounts of time could have been created yesterday?
Also note: As to my "if there is a plan there is a planner" comment and your response - I am of the thought that the more complex something is the more likely it is to have a plan that got it there not the other way around. I dont know how anybody can beleive that something as complex (perfect or not) as the globe we life in and the way it interacts with itself cannot see some sort of design.
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 18, 2010 15:43:08 GMT -5
Not sure I follow. But no, obviously everything that happened from the big bang through to today could not have happened in the span of a single day. Particles just plain don't move that fast.
The complexity of our world is amazing, but being amazing doesn't mean it was designed. There's no reason to believe that in the absence of a god, everything couldn't have turned out exactly the way it has. Where is the evidence that complexity indicates design? "Because I can't fathom it happening naturally" really doesn't count. That's emotion. We used to be unable to fathom that the earth was spinning around the sun, or that it was round and yet people didn't fall off the bottom.
In short: You must prove that complexity requires an intelligent creator for that argument to hold water.
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zeromerc
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This above all to thine own self be true
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Post by zeromerc on Mar 18, 2010 16:03:38 GMT -5
Proof to me is as simple as this
A skyscrapper which does not equal the complexity of our world required a plan for it to be built.
Speed of movement is not required it seems as that would require some other force of effect. If I pick up all the parts of the eiffle tower and drop them I might need to do it 1 gagillion (made up number) times for it to reform the eiffle tower but it could also happen the first time.
So if all the parts were here that are needed to create life have always been here and it was only a matter of time, as it seems you suggest, before life happened then it could have happend yesterday.
----------- P.S. - Still having fun Zak??? LOL
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 18, 2010 16:33:07 GMT -5
The parts of the Eiffel Tower don't stick together naturally. We had to create compounds like glues and drive nails through things (which would require more force than merely dropping something). The thing about the creation of life is that when the right things came together, a chemical reaction resulted in life. It's a fair bit different. Once the parts can naturally come together (due to chemical reactions or any other reason) then randomly matching parts together, and eliminating those that do not fit toward the final construct, will eventually achieve the Eiffle Tower. Note that this is not the same as dropping everything and having the tower. It is more like randomly matching together any two parts. If they become something useful (in this case a part that can be used in the Eiffel Tower's creation), keep them, otherwise discard them. Then match together another two random parts. Eventually the Eiffel Tower will be created, although it would take much, much longer and have more redundant unnecessary bits than it would had someone simply decided to put it together intelligently. (You know, like human life took an incredible long time to come along and has redundant parts no longer necessary and has many mutations that never had any effect on us at all, when a god - assuming it was omnipotent - could theoretically have created us much faster and without all the pointless bits.) This video gives a better explanation of how evolution can actually be a "blind watchmaker": www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0And if you mean could somewhere in the universe life have spontaneously been created yesterday (much as it was for us ages ago on Earth) then yes. But the odds of guessing the exact day it happens are rather low, it is only objectively that the odds are high. Of course, that wouldn't be a spontaneous creation of anything advanced like us; it would be the spontaneous creation of a single-celled organism, just like it started on Earth, most likely. To compare to a lottery that has 1:2000000 odds of winning and 2000000 tickets with random numbers (and in which tickets can have duplicate numbers, like the Lotto 6/49 here), the subjective odds of a person winning are low (1:2000000 against), but the objective odds of someone at all winning are high (a little under 2:1 in favour). Just like we can predict that someone will probably win beforehand but not who, so too can we accurately predict that life will probably begin again somewhere (due to high objective odds), but not accurately predict on what day it will (due to low subjective odds).
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Post by Jake on Mar 18, 2010 16:34:33 GMT -5
There is a very interesting - and confusing - argument that is occasionally used to prove God exists: "We think of God as a perfect being. If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect. God is perfect, therefore God exists." Anyone care to explain how this works?
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zeromerc
Meteorite
This above all to thine own self be true
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Post by zeromerc on Mar 18, 2010 17:11:00 GMT -5
Nakor - the more I read what you say the more I think we actually believe similar things but I start with the fundamental belief God exists and you do not. I will watch the video and get back to you and think some There is a very interesting - and confusing - argument that is occasionally used to prove God exists: "We think of God as a perfect being. If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect. God is perfect, therefore God exists." Anyone care to explain how this works? The other side of that statement is "If god is perfect then god should be able to create something god cannot move... and it cannot be moved it then god is not god" To me those are just word traps
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Post by swan on Mar 18, 2010 17:11:17 GMT -5
There is a very interesting - and confusing - argument that is occasionally used to prove God exists: "We think of God as a perfect being. If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect. God is perfect, therefore God exists." Anyone care to explain how this works? It doesn't really work, it assumes that god is perfect and because of that he exists. It assumes that something that is perfect must exist, but the world we live in is very much imperfect, and it exists, so whether or not anything that is perfect can actually exist in reality (not just in our thoughts) is completely debatable. It also sounds like there is a fallacy at work here, but I'm not sure which one (begging the question?).
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Post by nickgreyden on Mar 18, 2010 17:26:31 GMT -5
There is a very interesting - and confusing - argument that is occasionally used to prove God exists: "We think of God as a perfect being. If God didn't exist he wouldn't be perfect. God is perfect, therefore God exists." Anyone care to explain how this works? Please don't take this the wrong way, but that is retarded and I'll prove to you how. I think of Jake as a tomato. If Jake were a person, he wouldn't be a tomato. Jake is a tomato, therefore Jake is a tomato. Another take would be: I think of Jake as smart. If Jake were a mental vegetable, he wouldn't be smart. Jake is smart. So no matter what else happens, because I believe that Jake is smart, that makes it so. I can't remember what kind of fallious statement that is, but it's the "I want it to be true so it is" arguement. I am also (as stated way way back) a believer that there is a God. I've been mad at Him, mad at myself, denied His existence, but in the end, I can't run from the truth that I know. It is a sad sad thing really to be defeated by yourself. If you want proof, talk to a homosexual that lied to others and their own person about who they were and what it took to admit to themselves that they were living a lie.
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Post by Jake on Mar 18, 2010 17:36:39 GMT -5
Thanks for your opinions everyone who replied to that! I didn't think it made much sense either: I mean, out of all the arguments to prove God - it's probably the worst of them all. It's like saying....We think of House M.D. as being the perfect Doctor. If House didn't exsist he wouldn't perfect. House is perfect, therefore House exists. Except we all know he's a fictional character! So that argument doesn't make any sense!
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Nakor
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Post by Nakor on Mar 18, 2010 18:23:45 GMT -5
Jake: In short, the problem is cyclical. Here it is layed out in full form. (And before anyone else knocks Jake, this is a very old argument called the "ontological argument" that was first used by Avicenna circa 980-1037. Thus it's historical in nature, and however flawed it is, it has interest due to historical significance.)
The Ontological Argument:
Premise A. God is perfect. Premise B. Anything that is perfect must exist. Conclusion C. God must exist.
The problem? Premise A presumes that the description of God is accurate; without proof of God's existence, whether or not we refer to Him as perfect is meaningless. In short, it attempts to prove that a perfect god exists based on the statement that a perfect god exists -- circular logic.
I'll agree with that, but at the same time, I think that my stance is the more correct one. You see, you can't prove an assertion true by using it in your argument. (Actually, that's kind of what the argument above does lol.) Belief in god is not a neutral position, so to prove the hypothesis that a god exists true, one would have to first provide a proof that doesn't use the hypothesis of a god's existence within the argument as a premise.
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<random off-topic logic lesson>
Conversely, you can use a hypothesis as a premise within your argument in an attempt to prove it false. In this case the hypothesis is called an 'assertion'. If the assertion is the only premise within the argument whose truth is uncertain, and all the logic is valid, and the argument results in a contradiction, then the assertion must have been false.
Example:
Assertion A: All mammals have four legs. Premise B: Dolphins are mammals. (Source: Lots.) Premise C: Dolphins have no legs. (Source: Take your pick.) Conclusion D: There is a mammal that does not have four legs.
A contradicts D, which means at least one premise was false. As we know every other premise to be true, the false one must be the uncertain "Assertion A".
There is a roundabout way to prove a hypothesis true using this method -- by making an assertion that, if proven false, would prove your initial hypothesis true. For example, you cannot prove God exists by using "God exists" as a premise within your argument. You could prove that God exists by using "God does not exist" as a premise (an assertion to be exact, and one that if proven false would inherently prove "God exists" to be true) and showing through otherwise certain facts and valid logic that this would result in a contradiction.
I decided to throw that bit in there because I touched on it in my initial reply, and didn't want to leave half-facts about the rules of arguing out there, preferring to explain in full for anyone curious.
</random off-topic logic lesson>
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Post by Lex on Mar 18, 2010 18:45:34 GMT -5
I believe in God, but the ontological argument is a massive failure at logic.
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Dom
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Post by Dom on Mar 21, 2010 20:07:26 GMT -5
To me this is like saying if you dismantled the effile tower and had a huge crane pick up all the peices and drop it enough times in the same spot eventually we would have the effile tower back. Really? You beleive that? You think their are facts to support this? Interesting you bring this up. I have thought about this time and time again. Imagine this. If you put a type writer in a room, and sealed a monkey in with it. Given infinite time (assuming the monkey can't die) the monkey will exactly replicate Shakespeare's romeo and Juliet and infinite amount of times. So yes, the Eiffel tower would eventually re-shape, it could take the span of the liftimes of several universes, but it would happen. If you want to read up more on it, search entropy.
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darkless
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Post by darkless on Mar 21, 2010 20:18:01 GMT -5
I actually have no spiritual belief what-so-ever, at the same time though I dont mind people who do, there is nothing wrong with a belief in god so long as it isn't being taken to extremes.
The one argument (Well there are a few but this one bothers me the most for some reason) is, "But the world is perfect for us, how could it have been made so perfect for us without a higher being shaping it to suit us"...are you serious? have you seen the world lately? half of it wants to kill us and the other half already has.
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