Disturbing Passage from The Bible

Carl Zeiss 50mm ZE f/1.4 Planar T for Canon

01/04/2007 06:25:08 PM · #276

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by EducatedSavage:
And, though the likelihood that each specific event could occur are fairly reasonable, the likelihood that they all occurred just so are not.

This is fallacy when speaking of past events. Imagine that any sequence of numbers from 1 to 9 are possible and they come up 4, 6, 4, 1, 8, 8, 7, 3, 5, 9, 0, 1, 1, 2, 6, 5, 8, 4, 7, 1, 5, 5, 8, 6, 2, 4, 1, 1. You are essentially saying that the odds of each particular number coming up is 1 in 9, but the odds of that particular sequence appearing are astronomical (even though it obviously did). The odds of the universe appearing in its present form may be long, but if some other sequence of events occurred, then the universe wouldn't be in its present form, now would it?

This is really all mute anyway because you can't calculate whether the universe's existence was a long shot or not. Perhaps we are all just microbes on a blade of grass unable to see that there are millions of other blades of grass all around us. Perhaps the odds of the universe existing is not a long shot at all but rather a virtual certainity?

01/04/2007 06:28:21 PM · #277

Originally posted by scalvert:

Ancient peoples attributed lots of spectacular things to the will of an intelligent being (lightning, aurora, earthquakes, etc), but eventually we came to understand the natural causes. We have a pretty good undertanding of evolution and cosmology, too, but even in 2007 some people fear Pele when a volcano erupts.

And in another 5,000 years WE will be the 'stupid ancient people' whos understanding of the universe is ridiculed.

How much do we really understand about matter and energy, cosmology, dark matter, gravitational fields, the human brain, consciousness?

We are still in our infancy.

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/04/2007 06:31:17 PM · #278

The arguments tend to get a bit lost in the noise of the thread. Let me just refresh us and we can see if you are moving goalposts or not...

Shannon started with his analogy that fighting people who believe in God is like fighting cartoon characters because anything can happen in the cartoon world.

Jason relied:
Just please be aware that at least in the current conversation about what came "before" the Big Bang, you are wearing ACME underwear just as much as anybody else.

Shannon came back with:
I terms of unproven speculation perhaps, but not reason. It's irrational to me to claim that the universe is too complex to "just exist" without a creator when the counterclaim is that it was willfully formed by a higher intelligence that "just exists" without a creator. Think about it. (This is where I think Shannon was trying to use Occam's Razor)

Jason replied:
It doesn't seem so irrational to me. Occam's Razor is a tool of science, not of philosophy. I would also point out that the number of people who believe the former in history far outweigh those that believe in the latter. So either you feel you are one of the few "rational" beings on the planet, or you are overstating your case. (I did notice that at least you said it was irrational "to you". Fair enough.)

Shannon came back with:
The number of people in history who believe(d) in Zeus, Odin, Baal, Horus, dragons, fairies, UFOs or the Tooth Fairy likely outweighs either. So? 1000 years after the Gospels were written, most Europeans believed the earth was flat, the sun orbited us, sneezing expelled demons through your nose and wearing gemstones could cure disease. Does this mean it's true? :-O (Here's where he gets sneaky. Did you see the goalpost starting to move? We have changed from talking about "rational" and are now talking about "true". I think I missed that.)

Jason replies:
So it was probably not "irrational" to believe it at the time. "consistent with or based on reason." Every time I put a tooth under my pillow, it disappears, I get a nickel and my parents tell me it's the tooth fairy. I think it would be quite rational to believe she existed. It's wrong...but it's rational. (See, I'm still talking about "rational")

As science filled in the natural world things started to become "irrational". The Gods who lived on Mt. Olympus were never found, yet Mt. Olympus was there for the exploration. The actual size of the universe was understood, UFOs become harder to believe in. None of these matter for the above argument (what came "before" the Big Bang) because we have now taken our speculation OUT of the universe. There is absolutely no way to get at the information using scientific principle. It all comes down to reason and philosophy.

Shannon comes back with:
Intelligent Design's claim that the universe is too complex to have been formed without the guidance of an intelligent being makes no sense given the required complexity of a being able to provide such guidance. Saying that one thing is impossible while claiming something else is true that requires that same thing to BE possible is irrational to me in any time. To your point though, nothing is irrational to those who believe.
(And we're now totally off subject...)

Just busting on you Shannon. It's like nailing Jello to the wall...

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

01/04/2007 06:34:29 PM · #279

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

But so far, no-one has found the equivalent of the watch on the equivalent of the beach: things only ever appear in the order predicted by the theory of evolution/natural selection. Finding the watch on the beach would be instant nobel time!

On this I respectfully disagree. The "watch" is homo sapiens and the "beach" is the only planet in the universe that we have so far ascertained to be hospitable to that life form.
And, as far as I know, the theory of evolution / natural selection has never predicted a higher life form than homo sapiens, though it should - unless evolution / natural selection somehow ceased its upward march when that species "evolved" into existence. But as I look around, I just can't find a 'super race' of people that will inexorably take homo sapiens to the next evolutionary level.
Then again, I have always been curious as to why we don't have a hippo sub-species that can breathe under water, given that hippos have been around for so long and spend so much of their lives submerged in water - one would think that evolution / natural selection would have brought about an adaptation that would extend their currently meager ability to survive under water. But perhaps they will evolve to that state, given another 200-300 million years ( though I doubt it ).

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/04/2007 06:36:25 PM · #280

Haven't you seen X-Men Ron?

01/04/2007 06:36:27 PM · #281

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

I then said, "'fraid not." and pointed out that Occam's Razor (if it was being employed) had no bearing. I further pointed out that Shannon was calling the vast majority of people who have lived on this planet as being "irrational".

Occam's Razor deals with the simplest explanation being the most likely. While that may be true, I haven't touched on it in this thread. My point in a nutshell (yet again):

Biblical accounts (and ID proponents) claim that there was nothing until God created it. This is an irrational stance to me because you can't claim there was nothing and something (God) at the same time. You didn't seem to get it, so I tried a more obvious example of the same principle. The idea that the universe is too complex to have formed without intelligent guidance is irrational to me because it requires something else at least as complex (but with no similar requirement) to provide that guidance.

P.S., I find the concepts irrational, not the people.

01/04/2007 06:42:15 PM · #282

Originally posted by jhonan:

How much do we really understand about matter and energy, cosmology, dark matter, gravitational fields, the human brain, consciousness?

We are still in our infancy.

Indeed, but I believe what little we DO know provides a more likely explanation than Zeus on a cloud moving little dolls around.

01/04/2007 06:45:51 PM · #283

Originally posted by scalvert:

Biblical accounts (and ID proponents) claim that there was nothing until God created it. This is an irrational stance to me because you can't claim there was nothing and something (God) at the same time. You didn't seem to get it, so I tried a more obvious example of the same principle. The idea that the universe is too complex to have formed without intelligent guidance is irrational to me because it requires something else at least as complex (but with no similar requirement) to provide that guidance.

P.S., I find the concepts irrational, not the people.

But isn't it just as irrational to claim that out of pure nothingness came the big bang, with all the matter, energy, time, physics, chemistry and eventually biology so perfectly in place that here we are floating through space on our little rock.

If I hand a hypothetical creator entity a flask containing pure nothing - no matter or energy or time. And asked him to sit there for infinity and let me know when a universe forms... How long before he sticks his finger in? :)

01/04/2007 06:51:17 PM · #284

Originally posted by RonB:

And, as far as I know, the theory of evolution / natural selection has never predicted a higher life form than homo sapiens, though it should - unless evolution / natural selection somehow ceased its upward march when that species "evolved" into existence. But as I look around, I just can't find a 'super race' of people that will inexorably take homo sapiens to the next evolutionary level.

Your apparent ignorance of the theory is painful to witness. It concerns subtle changes that confer a survival advantage gradually developing into bigger changes over many thousands of years. New species didn't just suddenly appear on a Thursday.

01/04/2007 06:53:03 PM · #285

Originally posted by jhonan:

But isn't it just as irrational to claim that out of pure nothingness came the big bang...

I've never made that claim, and don't personally think there was nothingness before the Big Bang.

01/04/2007 06:53:47 PM · #286

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

The arguments tend to get a bit lost in the noise of the thread.

ack... now I feel silenced!

01/04/2007 06:55:07 PM · #287

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by jhonan:
But isn't it just as irrational to claim that out of pure nothingness came the big bang...

I've never made that claim, and don't personally think there was nothingness before the Big Bang.

Enlighten us.... ;)

01/04/2007 07:08:14 PM · #288

Originally posted by RonB:

Then again, I have always been curious as to why we don't have a hippo sub-species that can breathe under water, given that hippos have been around for so long and spend so much of their lives submerged in water - one would think that evolution / natural selection would have brought about an adaptation that would extend their currently meager ability to survive under water. But perhaps they will evolve to that state, given another 200-300 million years ( though I doubt it ).

hippos have adapted rather well to shallow water existence. if you are looking for mammalians that have adapted for deep water and long term submersion, I can think of a few examples (whales, dolphins, seals), or birds (cormorants, penguins). The theory postulates that species naturally evolve through natural selection to better suit survival in niches within the changing environment. hippos won't evolve to survive under oceans unless there is a biological imperative for them to do so.

as for humans, there is a clear lineage and biological niche that we are in the course of occupying - when the environment changes, that biological imperative may exert its evolutionary force on our species once again. in the meantime, without external pressure, our Biological urge is towards racial purity and genetic health - don't expect to see change for no reason (and certainly not in the scale of hundreds or thousands of years - the evidence we see indicates long term development).

01/04/2007 07:13:45 PM · #289

Originally posted by jhonan:

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by jhonan:
But isn't it just as irrational to claim that out of pure nothingness came the big bang...

I've never made that claim, and don't personally think there was nothingness before the Big Bang.

Enlighten us.... ;)

I still think that it is a silly argument to debate what has/does happen/ed outside our universe. such a remote subject should discursive of possibility rather than a debate - no argument can carry force, except and only to the extent that it affects our universe.

01/04/2007 07:30:36 PM · #290

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

But this is exactly the crux of the discussion. To debate the question of God, one must debate the question of a creator. To debate the question of a creator logically brings the argument to this point; If the universe was created, was it created by a creator?

On the first page of this thread you asked;

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

Why not eliminate the energy expended on observing the perceived wishes of some supernatural being and focus our attention on improving our communal lot in this world that we do inhabit?

The only way to eliminate mankind's belief in a 'supernatural being' is to prove or disprove it's existence - And one way of 'disproving' something like this is to demonstrate that we know all the answers of how and why we were created. Who knows, maybe halfway through our experiments he'll make an appearance, just to put us out of our misery. (Now, where have I heard that before?)

It is inevitable that this kind of debate ends up in the realm of cosmology and philosophy.

01/04/2007 07:33:27 PM · #291

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

My basic point is if you find something complex, it is not irrational to speculate that something more complex created it. The rationality comes from the fact we see complex objects created by more complex being every day of our lives. I'm not arguing the truth to it, I'm merely arguing the logic of it.

conversely, we also see extraordinarily complex calculations emerging from basic things. The science of this is called emergence. Examples include the way in which collections of individuals make sophisticated decisions, such as ants calcualating with great accuracy the most efficient paths, or people moving about their daily business in extraordinarily sophisticated ways without thinking about it.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Way up above I jumped back into this crazy argument to point out to Shannon that all speculations (including his) about anything "before" the Big Bang are on an equal scientific footing (i.e. no footing at all).

I have to agree with you this as I have already said - if there is something extra-universal, without some impact on the universe as we see it, all speculation is very weak. The only differentiating factor is that the more complex the speculation, the weaker its probability of being accurate (so arguments that there may be some 'force' are stronger than arguments that there is a god outside the universe who largely conforms to the detailed description in the bible).

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

Tokina AF 12-24mm f/4.0 AT-X Pro DX

01/04/2007 07:45:00 PM · #292

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

I agree and this is exactly why we are having this debate. People look at the same evidence. Some see design while others see "emergence" (if that's what you want to call it). Both are logical.

Originally posted by leaglebeagle:

If you are utilizing Occam's razor then I will once again point out that in non-scientific principles it does not hold true. A) Occam's razor says that given two scientific principles, the simpler tends to be the correct one. (It is often misquoted and misapplied.) B) Everybody tends to forget that the word "tends" is in there anyway. I'm not saying you did, but it bears reminding. I don't know how many times I've had atheists try to slit my neck with Occam's Razor only to find it not as sharp as they thought....

milo655321

Nikon D70

01/04/2007 07:45:09 PM · #293

Originally posted by RonB:

ThatÃ¢€™s because youÃ¢€™ve created a strawman version of evolution. You (or whoever youÃ¢€™re reading/listening to) confuse Ã¢€œevolutionÃ¢€ with Ã¢€œprogressÃ¢€. Biological evolution didnÃ¢€™t predict Ã¢€œweÃ¢€ (homo sapiens) would be here, but Ã¢€œweÃ¢€ are here due to evolutionary processes. What evolution does predict, however, are the sorts of things we will find in the fossil record (e.g. Tiktaalik ), genetics (e.g., pseudogenes and retrovisuses) and it is useful in explaining biogeography (e.g., marsupials in Australia and Ã¢€œring speciesÃ¢€). Making predictions about the course evolution will take in the future is like making predictions today about which companies will be the blue chips stocks of the New York Stock Exchange 500 hundred years from now.

Edited to add: I should note that evolution has been used to predict Ã¢€œsomeÃ¢€ future events, such as which influenza viruses will most active in the near future in order to produce enough vaccine for the population.

Message edited by author 2007-01-04 19:55:46.

01/04/2007 07:47:48 PM · #294

Originally posted by jhonan:

To debate the question of God, one must debate the question of a creator. To debate the question of a creator logically brings the argument to this point; If the universe was created, was it created by a creator?

Hardly.

It is one thing to argue that there is a god for whom we have no evidence but belief, who does interact with people and the world, in this life or a supposed 'next'. This kind of belief represents mainstream and extremist religious belief. It promotes people to act in arbitrary ways in accordance with the relevant superstition.

It is a very diffent thing to say that there was some kind of force that set up the universe, who has nothing more to do with it. It matters little what you call such a force, and because it has nothing more to do with us, we can presumably ignore it. in the absence of all information , it makes little sense to guess what that force might be - and indeed, even less sense to argue over it (until someone promotes the source to some kind of current relevancy).

Originally posted by jhonan:

The only way to eliminate mankind's belief in a 'supernatural being' is to prove or disprove it's existence

since proving a negative in this case is impossible, on your formulation, you have won. However, you would also demonstrate the impossibility of eliminating belief in all other gods, trolls, fairies and my mystical teapot. Congratulations (mine is an English breakfast tea, freshly drawn boiling water, milk, no sugar).

01/04/2007 07:59:08 PM · #295

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Some see design while others see "emergence" (if that's what you want to call it). Both are logical.

not really - we can understand how simple actions by ants in leaving and interpreting scent trails can result in sophisticated trail laying. This is not a top down organisation, but bottom up. The results from either process may be very similar - however, it is not a case of interpretation as to which applies. we can determine which process is in effect in ants because we cannot see any leadership being exercised, but we can see basic decisions being taken.

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

I am not relying on the razor. It is straightforward logic that in the absence of all information, the generic guess is more likely to be accurate than the very specific. The more detailed the guess, the less likely it will be that it is right.

01/04/2007 08:12:05 PM · #296

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

Originally posted by jhonan:
The only way to eliminate mankind's belief in a 'supernatural being' is to prove or disprove it's existence
since proving a negative in this case is impossible, on your formulation, you have won.

I'm sitting on the fence for this debate. Call me a weak agnostic. I'm not going for a 'win', just playing devil's advocate occasionally (hey, who brought Satan into this?)

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

However, you would also demonstrate the impossibility of eliminating belief in all other gods, trolls, fairies and my mystical teapot.

One big difference is that a son of a mystical teapot didn't allegedly appear on Earth 2,000 years ago and have a book written about itself.

That is proof enough for most people. God has shown himself. Why argue?

Originally posted by legalbeagle:

Congratulations (mine is an English breakfast tea, freshly drawn boiling water, milk, no sugar).

Earl grey. Hot.

01/04/2007 08:13:09 PM · #297

Originally posted by RonB:

The "watch" is homo sapiens and the "beach" is the only planet in the universe that we have so far ascertained to be hospitable to that life form.

PS - it is generally acknowledged that Earth like planets are too small for us to detect with current technology (consequently we tend to detect only Jupiter sized and fast-orbiting planets).

Out of interest, would you predict (based on your religious understanding) that we will never find such a planet outside our own?

If so, would the discovery of such a planet (maybe possible with the next gen of telescopes) shake your faith in any way?

01/04/2007 08:21:42 PM · #298

Originally posted by jhonan:

I believe that Zeus has a greater provenance, and had the benefit of appearing in many guises in person. The teapot revealed itself just yesterday, and has the benefit of a living prophet (or teasmith, as the honorific goes) of whom you are welcome to ask questions. Why argue, indeed?