08 Jan 19
@secondson saidTo show you ~ with a wee bit of empirical evidence ~ an example of the kind of inarticulacy that your frequent emissions of word salad consist of.
Then I guess you heard it here first.
Why would you google that?
08 Jan 19
@secondson saidAt best, characterizing disagreement as "cognitively paralyzing", exhibits your fervour and sincerity. But that's all.
Obviously you have no idea what I'm talking about.
08 Jan 19
@secondson saidAnd so, with this, the content of my post, about "science" and "faith", is sidestepped.
You just did.
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidThat a transcendent unmoved mover is needed to get existence going does not, by a long shot, establish that God exists, or that that God has anything to say to man, or that that transcendent unmoved mover is equivalent to the God of the OT or the NT, or that that God is the same as the man who died on the cross at Calvary. In some religions, the maker of the material universe is not the highest God, but a meagre demi-urge.
That a transcendent unmoved mover is needed to get existence going does not, by a long shot, establish that God exists, or that that God has anything to say to man, or that that transcendent unmoved mover is equivalent to the God of the OT or the NT, or that that God is the same as the man who died on the cross at Calvary. In some religions, the maker of the material universe ...[text shortened]... s an explanatory principle, how existence got going. No design or intelligence needed.
A transcendent unmoved mover to get the universe going might have been like a match which kindles a fire, moves on to the next candle, and is eventually extinguished. Simply another mindless force external to this present universe, with no ethical message for man, would suffice as an explanatory principle, how existence got going. No design or intelligence needed.
What an excellent piece of writing. I am going to adopt it!
08 Jan 19
1 edit
@suzianne saidIn "theory" you are correct 🙂 however, as I pointed out with some simply
I don't see that.
Science should look only at the evidence. That is what the scientific method does, it is dependent on gathering the facts, regardless of where they lead, without reference to opinion.
Again, there is no evidence of God, there is no evidence of no God. You cannot prove anything through lack of evidence. No evidence does not become evidence. Science ...[text shortened]... ose a path that’s clear
I will choose free will.
-- Rush, "Freewill", Permanent Waves, 1980
suggesting ID is possible they shout religion not science. Making motivation
mongering the topic instead of the actual evidence. Even here that has already
been brought up, staying on topic looking at the data can cause problems, due
to it may dispel someone's ability to charge no evidence for God, and at the same
time poke a hole in unguided natural processes. Suggesting that they may not be
the means by which life got started and continued.
It is by default a non starter with some, they want to be blind the possibilities.
Freewill and peer pressure are at play here, and to tell you the truth I'm not sure it
can be avoided.
08 Jan 19
@ghost-of-a-duke saidI'm willing to make the case for a particular God, to the exclusions of all others.
At best Kelly, 'the whole universe' could be tendered as evidence for 'a' God. I think you will struggle to link it directly to your particular God of worship, to the exclusion of all other creation gods from other world religions.
To me (addressing the OP) the idea of God germinates from an uncertainty of the world around us. Science, on the other hand, gradually ...[text shortened]... and provides answers to the key questions of existence, the very idea of God will become redundant.
The issue here for the moment isn't which one, but is it possible one did it?
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidLets see, you take two different things from two different sources egg and sperm
What "process," what "instructions," do you have in mind? Assembling a piece of IKEA furniture? Sure, there is design in such a case.
and stick in the proper environment. What takes place next is simply mind numbing
complex! You think instructions are not part of that process, that it is automatically
occurs without something guiding the process along?
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidYou can explain where everything came from? How did everything come from
You use the word "evidence" in a manner inconsistent with scientific procedure. It certainly isn't the sort of evidence which would stand up in court (not since the Salem witch trial, anyway).
Of course, you are entitled to believe that the "whole universe" is evidence of God's hand; just don't imagine that your so-called evidence is persuasive to one who does not already subscribe to your belief system.
nothing? If you want to go the eternal universe way that too presents issues and
inconsistences with respect to what both science and religion says, in there was
a beginning.
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidApplying Occham's razor assumes you know what the simplest solution is, being
The problem with appealing to a creator to explain existence is that it does not explain anything; it replaces one mystery by an even greater one. If a theist wants to claim that God is self-explanatory, necessarily existent, and requires no further reason or cause to exist, then a philosopher can just as well make the same claims about existence: that it is self-explanatory, ...[text shortened]... st unexplained visible mystery instead of compounding it with another unexplained invisible mystery.
wrong about that voids the truthfulness of the application. If God is required He
would be the best solution.
08 Jan 19
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@secondson saidNo, you are not reading my posts correctly. Lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. I do not assert that God does not exist, for lack of evidence. I assert that the argument that existence needs some sort of 'creator' (an unmoved mover) to get it going is not sufficient to prove that it can only have been the God of Abraham.
If I'm reading your two posts above correctly, it appears that the bottom line for those that deny the existence of a creator based on the argument that states there is no evidence, not even the existence of the universe, that proves the universe was created.
Essentially, that renders all arguments, either for or against, nil and void.
Smacks of nihilism don't you thi ...[text shortened]... tively paralyzing.
Obviously that is why the thinking of many falls on the side of random chance.
EDIT: "God or random chance" is a false dichotomy. There is a third option.
08 Jan 19
@kellyjay saidYou are moving the goalposts here. Your thread poses the question, whether science, not theology or the Bible, proves something about (the possibility of) God. This limits the discussion to the methods of science and the sorts of evidence with which science deals. Science does not deal with supernatural evidence (if there be any such thing); it deals with the operation of physical laws and phenomena which are empirically verifiable or testable. It deals with hypotheses (about physical laws and natural---not supernatural--phenomena) which are falsifiable. If we had an alternative universe to run some sort of 'test' on, and an infallible God detector, then we might be able to determine whether a universe could get going without a creator. But we don't. The proposition that God created everything ex nihilo is not a falsifiable hypothesis, and therefore a claim about which science renders no decision, for lack of evidence.
You can explain where everything came from? How did everything come from
nothing? If you want to go the eternal universe way that too presents issues and
inconsistences with respect to what both science and religion says, in there was
a beginning.
No, I cannot explain where everything came from. Creation ex nihilo--which is what Creationists believe in--is exactly that: a non-explanation. It is simply a mental terminus: ask no further.
08 Jan 19
2 edits
@creationists
How does a diesel engine work? Air and fuel are pumped into a chamber, a piston moves up reducing the volume inside the chamber, the reduced volume generates pressure working on the air and fuel mixture, increasing pressure increases the temperature of the air and fuel mixture, when the temperature reaches a certain threshold spontaneous combustion occurs, spontaneous combustion causes the air and fuel mixture to expand and generate a reverse pressure against the piston, driving the piston in the opposite direction. But what started the piston moving in the 1st place? There is a battery connected to a starter motor. But how does the battery work? There is a chemical reaction involving acid and anodes...
See? That is what an explanation looks like in science, or engineering, or technology. It explains how something works by breaking it down into a sequence of smaller steps, each one of which is empirically verifiable, according to laws of nature/physics/chemistry/genetics etc.
Where did the universe come from? God created it from nothing. How? He just did. You mean ex nihilo, something from nothing? Yes something from nothing. But how does God create something from nothing? First he created the heavens, then he created the Earth, then he created plants, then he created animals and Adam. But how, how did he create the heavens from nothing? How did he create Earth from nothing? How did God create Adam from nothing? He just did, he's God he can do anything. This is not an explanation. This is a complete defiance of explanation, there is no how about it at all: God just did it. This is logically equivalent to the statement, it just happened. It's not an explanation at all, it is simply a mental terminus: ask no further.
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidWe can stick to just science, or the material world. You believe than as I started this
You are moving the goalposts here. Your thread poses the question, whether science, not theology or the Bible, proves something about (the possibility of) God. This limits the discussion to the methods of science and the sorts of evidence with which science deals. Science does not deal with supernatural evidence (if there be any such thing); it deals with the operation ...[text shortened]... ists believe in--is exactly that: a non-explanation. It is simply a mental terminus: ask no further.
off that science cannot see God or even the possibility of God so it is blind to God?
Supernatural evidence, how do you define that? Evidence would have to be where
the natrual processes fall short to do the things required. I think there are a vast
assortment of those types, and the denial of them are hidden by what people say
occurred in some vast amount of time that cannot be seen, tested, or validated.
08 Jan 19
@moonbus saidGod spoke creation into existence. That's how.
@creationists
How does a diesel engine work? Air and fuel are pumped into a chamber, a piston moves up reducing the volume inside the chamber, the reduced volume generates pressure working on the air and fuel mixture, increasing pressure increases the temperature of the air and fuel mixture, when the temperature reaches a certain threshold spontaneous combustion occurs, sp ...[text shortened]... t, it just happened. It's not an explanation at all, it is simply a mental terminus: ask no further.
No long drawn out scientific explanation necessary.