Searching for GOD...

[Sebastian Toe]

I do not know how the forces of evil work, just as I do not know how the force of gravity works.  But I know they both exist by knowing what they do.  The force of gravity pulls us toward the earth.  The forces of evil pull us away from God.

Not much help then are you?

[SusanDoris]

Life did evolve over billions of years, yes – but not by “chance” as you imply. Evolution is descent with adaptation. Adaptation is anything but chance.

As you know, ;I very rarely disagree with what you say!, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with this. Any adaptation can only be seen with hindsight, can't it, when it becomes clear that a mutation has enabled a species to survive a subsequent event. An adaptation, i.e. a mutation, might luckily occur during an event and could, I suppose, be triggered in some way by said event, but it will have happened by chance, I think.

I have been counteracting quite a few assertions about evolution on GH just this week, so I shall be particularly interested in your response.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Susan,

As you know, ;I very rarely disagree with what you say!, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with this. Any adaptation can only be seen with hindsight, can't it, when it becomes clear that a mutation has enabled a species to survive a subsequent event. An adaptation, i.e. a mutation, might luckily occur during an event and could, I suppose, be triggered in some way by said event, but it will have happened by chance, I think.

I have been counteracting quite a few assertions about evolution on GH just this week, so I shall be particularly interested in your response.

Please, disagree whenever you like! I think we may be at cross purposes here though. A particularly dimwitted argument creationists try is that all the vast number of features and processes in the human body couldn’t have come about by chance, therefore a designer. I was explaining that there’s no “chance” about it: the mutations are for practical purposes "chance", but whether or not they become embedded in the genome depends on their host's relationship with the its environment. That’s the non-chance part.     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Better to say, 'can't be explained yet' and endeavour to seek understanding.  The alternative is to remain in some child-like world of make-believe where we just accept that magic happens.  In that case, we never make any progress.

Since Outrider has just Invoked Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[Enki]

Since Outrider has just Invoked Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Agreed, and that is one very good reason not to jump to the conclusion 'magic', as Torri suggests.

[Alan Burns]

   

It'd also be interesting to know just how does this invisible friend of yours communicate with you, facebook, email, zoom or any of the other numerous channels there are available these days.

I communicate with God by:
Personal prayer
Prayerful reading of scripture.
Listening to other witnesses.
Listening to my conscience.

What is the point of your convoluted wriggling avoidance strategies such as your unqualified cognitive dissonance based ravings going on about free will when you never rise to the challenge and answer the multitude of  requests for anything that you might have there that would support any single one of your many assertions.

The multitude of replies I get aptly demonstrates the conscious freedom employed to think up reasons to deny they have such freedom.

It's very unlikely many posters on this thread will be taking your gratuitous posts seriously without some sign of reason which to date has been absent from all the posts of your's that I've seen. 

The signs and reasons lie within you.  Once you have discovered your true self - you will discover God.

[Stranger]

The multitude of replies I get aptly demonstrates the conscious freedom employed to think up reasons to deny they have such freedom.

Once again the dishonest switch in the meanings of words an phrases. Nobody is denying the freedom necessary to think and come to conclusions but pretending that this is the same thing as what you call "free will" - the ability to have done differently without randomness - is totally dishonest.

You have provided not a single hint of any logical reason to think the two things are even related to each other, let alone that they are the same.

You say you have logic but you will neither produce it nor have the honesty to admit you can't. You keep on with the dishonest pretence that "freedom" in the sense of the ability to have done differently, is demonstrated in what people post, despite the fact you have never once managed to back up such a claim.

For somebody who claims to be a Christian, I'm wondering why you seem to be one of the most shamelessly dishonest posters on this forum.

[Roses]

I communicate with God by:
Personal prayer
Prayerful reading of scripture.
Listening to other witnesses.
Listening to my conscience.The multitude of replies I get aptly demonstrates the conscious freedom employed to think up reasons to deny they have such freedom.The signs and reasons lie within you.  Once you have discovered your true self - you will discover God.

How do know for sure you are communicating with god and it isn't your imagination working overtime?

[torridon]

I communicate with God by:
Personal prayer
Prayerful reading of scripture.
Listening to other witnesses.

Those are all things you do, things originating within you. Anyone can pray or read or listen, none of that is evidence of fantastical supernatural goings on.  What you need to describe is the communication you get back from god, what form it takes etc etc.

[torridon]

The multitude of replies I get aptly demonstrates the conscious freedom employed to think up reasons to deny they have such freedom.

We only deny your personal irrational conceptualisation of freedom, not real freedom per se.

[Spud]

Spud,

You're still not getting it. The analogy isn’t about puddles – it’s about the mistake of assuming that an environment is placed there just-so to suit you rather than realising that you suit the environment. You’re evolved to a being that needs a certain amount of rain for various reasons; rain isn’t put there in the right amount just for you as you are now.   

Life did evolve over billions of years, yes – but not by “chance” as you imply. Evolution is descent with adaptation. Adaptation is anything but chance.

No, the watchmaker’s argument is refuted by other means – easily so. The “argument” such as it is boils down to, “X look designed, therefore X is designed”. The ToE blows that out of the water very quickly.   

And if I think the evidence for gravity doesn’t point to gravity making apples fall, then for me the invisible pixies with strings argument stands. The problem with each position alike though is that they provide no good reason for anyone for anyone to take them seriously. 

Not a problem – I’ve been away for a couple of days too.

Hi again,
I guess the question that comes to mind from this is what are the other means by which the teleological argument can easily be refuted? I am aware of one, that the design is imperfect since death and disease also exist. Two, who designed God. Any others?

[Alan Burns]

Once again the dishonest switch in the meanings of words an phrases. Nobody is denying the freedom necessary to think and come to conclusions but pretending that this is the same thing as what you call "free will" - the ability to have done differently without randomness - is totally dishonest.

You have provided not a single hint of any logical reason to think the two things are even related to each other, let alone that they are the same.

You say you have logic but you will neither produce it nor have the honesty to admit you can't. You keep on with the dishonest pretence that "freedom" in the sense of the ability to have done differently, is demonstrated in what people post, despite the fact you have never once managed to back up such a claim.

For somebody who claims to be a Christian, I'm wondering why you seem to be one of the most shamelessly dishonest posters on this forum.

The logic is easy to understand.
Any results determined entirely from direct consequences to past events have no means of being verified for correctness.
You need a means of conscious control of the events involved in thought processing in order to achieve verification, but such conscious control cannot take place within the inevitable chains of cause and effect driven by past events.  Conscious control is incompatible with chains of reaction where each event will be entirely defined by past events trailing back to the beginning of time.   

[ippy]

As you know, ;I very rarely disagree with what you say!, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with this. Any adaptation can only be seen with hindsight, can't it, when it becomes clear that a mutation has enabled a species to survive a subsequent event. An adaptation, i.e. a mutation, might luckily occur during an event and could, I suppose, be triggered in some way by said event, but it will have happened by chance, I think.

I have been counteracting quite a few assertions about evolution on GH just this week, so I shall be particularly interested in your response.

I'll take a guess you'll be able to find the evolution of the peppered moth somewhere on YouTube, it was the subject of a Darwin day lecture at one of the U C L buildings one year a little while back, quiet interesting and does a far better job of demonstrating the evolutionary process than most of us here could do.

The changes in this moths appearance was very rapid in evolutionary terms, the next best thing to instant on the evolutionary scale of time.

I was thinking about how much turmoil there must be in poor old Alan's head when he reads the indisputable facts about evolution and at the same time tries to reconcile them with the nonsense that has obviously and successfully been indoctrinated into his head, probably inflicted on him in his earlier years.

Kindest regards, ippy.

[ippy]

Not much help then are you?

Apparently gravity is a combination of time and space being distorted by mass that's more pushing us down on to this Earth of ours.

That was the last time I heard someone describing his theory about how gravity works, I'll assume he was basing his ideas about how gravity works on some form of maths rather than the small minded irrational stupidity of the 'god did it mentality', that you seem to prefer.

Commiserations to you Alan, ippy.

[Stranger]

The logic is easy to understand.

Logic appears to be something you have no grasp of whatsoever. What you've posted here is just a series of utterly baseless, totally logic-free assertions.

Any results determined entirely from direct consequences to past events have no means of being verified for correctness.

Why not? In what way would being able to have done differently help in any way at all with verifying anything?

You need a means of conscious control of the events involved in thought processing in order to achieve verification...

Another baseless, and in this case irrelevant, assertion. Nobody disputes "conscious control" in the sense of being able to think things through and make choices using the conscious mind.

...but such conscious control cannot take place within the inevitable chains of cause and effect driven by past events.  Conscious control is incompatible with chains of reaction where each event will be entirely defined by past events trailing back to the beginning of time.

More baseless assertions.

As I said, you seem to have no grasp at all of what a logical argument even entails and can't distinguish logic from assertion and other assorted fallacies (those are basic mistakes in logic) that you keep repeating and ignore everybody who points them out. You don't seem to even care that you keep making basic, well known mistakes in reasoning. That alone makes you look arrogant, complacent, or just plain stupid.

I gave you a link to a book about critical thinking, that explained about how to construct logical arguments, some time back, did you even bother looking at it?

Here it is again: Critical Thinking (pdf). Chapters 8 (categorical logic) and 9 (truth-functional logic) deal with deductive arguments, which seems to be what you've deluded yourself into thinking is what you are doing.

[ippy]

I communicate with God by:
Personal prayer
Prayerful reading of scripture.
Listening to other witnesses.
Listening to my conscience.The multitude of replies I get aptly demonstrates the conscious freedom employed to think up reasons to deny they have such freedom.The signs and reasons lie within you.  Once you have discovered your true self - you will discover God.

I see we're needing to fall back onto the Douglas Addams quotes territory gardens, fairies, misunderstood puddle quotes etc etc

I, meaning you Alan, come from planet Zog would have been enough of a response.

It's a shame you waste your time on this zero evidenced rather obvious nonsense, you can still live a rather ethical and moral life without it, like I say, why wast your time, I live a reasonably moral and ethical life without any superstitious belief I've not murdered that many people lately mind you tripping up old ladies on the street, difficult to resist.

Commiserations to you Alan, ippy.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

I guess the question that comes to mind from this is what are the other means by which the teleological argument can easily be refuted? I am aware of one, that the design is imperfect since death and disease also exist. Two, who designed God. Any others?

Yes – it's the argument from personal incredulity: "I can't imagine how X came to be without design, therefore design".

 

[SusanDoris]

ippy

Thank you for mentioning the moth. The woo lot will, however, find any way they can to need an outside agency for evolution.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

he logic is easy to understand.

Good - tell us what this logic is then.

Any results determined entirely from direct consequences to past events have no means of being verified for correctness.
You need a means of conscious control of the events involved in thought processing in order to achieve verification, but such conscious control cannot take place within the inevitable chains of cause and effect driven by past events.  Conscious control is incompatible with chains of reaction where each event will be entirely defined by past events trailing back to the beginning of time.

Nope, no logic there then. Perhaps if you found out the difference between logic and assertion ("Any results determined entirely from direct consequences to past events have no means of being verified for correctness" etc) you wouldn't keep making the mistake of confusing the two?

[Spud]

Spud,

Yes – it's the argument from personal incredulity: "I can't imagine how X came to be without design, therefore design".

Thanks. Actually it's "I can't imagine how A, B, C, D, E ......X, Y, Z came to be without design, therefore design" where A-Z represents An Awful Lot of examples of design, and a lot of examples are more convincing than just one.
Add to that, Everything Reproduces after its Kind - we never observe bacteria evolving into anything that aren't still bacteria, for example. So the ToE itself doesn't refute the teleological argument, it only gives a theory as to why the design seems to have imperfections (disease and death) in it.
Also the who made God question doesn't refute the teleological argument, because a creator would not be part of the cosmos, such that it could be made or destroyed.

[Gordon]

Thanks. Actually it's "I can't imagine how A, B, C, D, E ......X, Y, Z came to be without design, therefore design" where A-Z represents An Awful Lot of examples of design, and a lot of examples are more convincing than just one.

All it convinces is that you have an especially bad dose of personal incredulity'

Add to that, Everything Reproduces after its Kind - we never observe bacteria evolving into anything that aren't still bacteria, for example. So the ToE itself doesn't refute the teleological argument, it only gives a theory as to why the design seems to have imperfections (disease and death) in it.

Not even wrong, Spud.
 

Also the who made God question doesn't refute the teleological argument, because a creator would not be part of the cosmos, such that it could be made or destroyed.

You really do need to take a step back, do some homework, and stop mixing-up stuff like this - unless of course your intention was to post an incoherent mess.

[Stranger]

Thanks. Actually it's "I can't imagine how A, B, C, D, E ......X, Y, Z came to be without design, therefore design" where A-Z represents An Awful Lot of examples of design, and a lot of examples are more convincing than just one.

Name a few.

Add to that, Everything Reproduces after its Kind - we never observe bacteria evolving into anything that aren't still bacteria, for example. So the ToE itself doesn't refute the teleological argument, it only gives a theory as to why the design seems to have imperfections (disease and death) in it.

Simplistic idiocy, ignorance, or indoctrination. The word 'kind' has no accepted definition, except that things are the same 'kind' when the evidence for the evolution between members of it becomes so great that even ultra-gullible creationist groupies can't be fooled any more.

The evidence for common descent can be made from genetics alone now, even discounting all the previous evidence on which the theory was first proposed. If some supposed creator did individually design different 'kinds' it would have had to have gone to a lot of trouble to leave evidence that it didn't, i.e. it would be dishonest. Why, for example, would humans have a mutated version of the gene for producing egg yoke in their genome, if not from egg-laying ancestors? How come we can independently confirm the relationship between humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans entirely from the exact mutations that disable the hundreds of olfactory receptor genes (those for the sense of smell) that the species all have mutated versions of, as we deduced from other evidence?

Also the who made God question doesn't refute the teleological argument, because a creator would not be part of the cosmos, such that it could be made or destroyed.

Special pleading.

[Spud]

Name a few.

Gladly: The Goldilocks zone, which is the distance from the sun at which water can exist in a liquid state. Earth is in that zone. Also Earth has a near-circular orbit around the sun, so that temperature fluctuations are small enough to allow life to survive.

Simplistic idiocy, ignorance, or indoctrination. The word 'kind' has no accepted definition, except that things are the same 'kind' when the evidence for the evolution between members of it becomes so great that even ultra-gullible creationist groupies can't be fooled any more.

The evidence for common descent can be made from genetics alone now, even discounting all the previous evidence on which the theory was first proposed. If some supposed creator did individually design different 'kinds' it would have had to have gone to a lot of trouble to leave evidence that it didn't, i.e. it would be dishonest. Why, for example, would humans have a mutated version of the gene for producing egg yoke in their genome, if not from egg-laying ancestors? How come we can independently confirm the relationship between humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans entirely from the exact mutations that disable the hundreds of olfactory receptor genes (those for the sense of smell) that the species all have mutated versions of, as we deduced from other evidence?

If you want to address my example of bacteria, then I'll have a go at yours.

Special pleading.

[Alan Burns]

Another baseless, and in this case irrelevant, assertion. Nobody disputes "conscious control" in the sense of being able to think things through and make choices using the conscious mind.

You need to figure out the profound difference between conscious control and inevitable reaction.

[Nearly Sane]

You need to figure out the profound difference between conscious control and inevitable reaction.

You need to show it.