Author Topic: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence  (Read 90302 times)

wigginhall

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #550 on: November 11, 2016, 12:22:16 PM »
"I don't know how things work, therefore God."
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

torridon

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #551 on: November 11, 2016, 12:44:05 PM »
So you are saying that positive mutations are produced by God?   What about the neutral or negative mutations?  Why doesn't God stop them?   It's a hell of a way to run a universe, isn't it?   Positive stuff - we have good immune systems, so get over colds and minor illness; negative stuff - we get cancer and our immune system falters.    So God produces the immune system, and Satan the cancer?   Or is cancer a random accident, which God kind of overlooks?

I think this is spot on.

I can see that some people have a hard time grasping the sheer extent of the Darwinian insight, the billions of years involved, the billions of individual organisms for selection to act on, the incessant environment change.  But the implications of not grasping it are just bizarre, ending up with a god scurrying round aiming a charged particle here, an asteroid there, just so's he can get the desired end result. This is a story book substitute for reality, it is breathtakingly bonkers and naïve in the extreme. On the other hand, that striving to understand the science is mind expanding, it is good for us, just as hard exercise is good for the body.  AB's theology, rather than mind-expanding, is mind-belittling, it reduces one to infantile naivety.

SwordOfTheSpirit

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #552 on: November 11, 2016, 12:53:25 PM »
I wonder if SotS has read #539?
Yes I have SusanDoris, but I agree with the points that Alan Burns is making.
I haven't enough faith to be an atheist.

wigginhall

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #553 on: November 11, 2016, 01:18:39 PM »
I think this is spot on.

I can see that some people have a hard time grasping the sheer extent of the Darwinian insight, the billions of years involved, the billions of individual organisms for selection to act on, the incessant environment change.  But the implications of not grasping it are just bizarre, ending up with a god scurrying round aiming a charged particle here, an asteroid there, just so's he can get the desired end result. This is a story book substitute for reality, it is breathtakingly bonkers and naïve in the extreme. On the other hand, that striving to understand the science is mind expanding, it is good for us, just as hard exercise is good for the body.  AB's theology, rather than mind-expanding, is mind-belittling, it reduces one to infantile naivety.

Actually, there are very few ideas of any substance in AB's theology.   Once you've got past the incredulity - how could variation and selection produce knee-joints? - there isn't much.   This is true of ID in general, isn't it?  My memory of the Dover trial is that hardly any witnesses could give a coherent defence of ID, and Miller wiped the floor with them, that is, Miller the Christian.  It's also parasitic on biology, mainly arguing that X and Y are improbable, where X and Y are derived from research into genetics and biology.
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

wigginhall

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #554 on: November 11, 2016, 03:43:42 PM »
Another odd and amusing aspect of this is that God, according to AB, behaves just as evolution would.   Hello, is anyone smelling a rat here?   Or you could just say that it is the way that evolution behaves.
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

Walter

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #555 on: November 11, 2016, 05:58:31 PM »
my little grandson carries a teddy bear around with him everywhere, you should see what happens when you try to take it away from him.

just saying.

ippy

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #556 on: November 11, 2016, 07:07:38 PM »
BH,
Thank you for another detailed response to my post.

I fully understand what you are saying.

So in summing up, you believe that random errors in copying DNA have generated every minute detail of your human body.  Every bone, every bone joint, every blood cell, every skin cell, every nerve, every hair, every organ, every component of every organ, every brain cell ....

You also believe that each incremental step in these developments produced sufficient functionality in its own right to be passed on using natural selection.

I know I am not alone in doubting the probability of this all happening by a blind evolutionary process.  Scientists who dare to profess their doubts inevitably face unwarranted derision and character assassination from their atheist peers.  Dembski once likened the natural selection process to a blind man trying to find the solution to a Rubic's cube, asking his sighted friend, "is this it?".

Alan, Blue's not referring to a couple of thousand years, human evolution goes back for at least six million years, more than enough for time for us to evolve and I'm not surprised about scientists being on the business end of derision when the are unable to see how the process works, it sounds like this Dembski is a right dipstick and I dare say he likes to think of himself as a scientist.

Evolution is no longer a debate Alan, it's a well proven theory, even when Franklin, Crick and Watson discovered DNA it fell exactly in line with the previous works on the evolutionary theories.

As for the comment about Rubics cube, you can't be that thick Alan, work it out. 

You sound exactly like one of those very unfortunate children that, in your case, the R C Church, very successfully completely indoctrinated you at the very earliest possible opportunity, probably somewhere before the age of seven years, such a shame.

ippy   

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #557 on: November 11, 2016, 07:19:47 PM »
Actually, there are very few ideas of any substance in AB's theology.   Once you've got past the incredulity - how could variation and selection produce knee-joints? - there isn't much.   This is true of ID in general, isn't it?  My memory of the Dover trial is that hardly any witnesses could give a coherent defence of ID, and Miller wiped the floor with them, that is, Miller the Christian.  It's also parasitic on biology, mainly arguing that X and Y are improbable, where X and Y are derived from research into genetics and biology.
Wigginhall....while people are debating ID some well known scientists are perfectly happy discussing simulated universes of which this could be one.

I think the necessarily unconscious naturalistic universe goose is cooked along with the Dawkinsian/smartarsian favourite ''who created the creator'' to which the answer can now legitimately come back.....''we don't know.''

Stop basking in past Dawkinsian ''Triumphs''. 

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #558 on: November 11, 2016, 07:20:26 PM »
AB,

Quote
BH,
Thank you for another detailed response to my post.

I fully understand what you are saying.

Just hold that thought for a minute...

Quote
So in summing up, you believe that random errors in copying DNA have generated every minute detail of your human body.  Every bone, every bone joint, every blood cell, every skin cell, every nerve, every hair, every organ, every component of every organ, every brain cell ....

You also believe that each incremental step in these developments produced sufficient functionality in its own right to be passed on using natural selection.

Ah, so you haven't understood it at all then. What you've actually done is just to commit the lottery winner's fallacy again - you've considered the human body and thought, "what are the chances eh"? It makes a sort of sense too if you look through the wrong end of the telescope - start with the finished article, then marvel at the unlikelihood of an unguided process arriving at it.

Here's the thing though: you have the logic completely backwards. The universe cannot know or care what organisms emerge, or indeed whether any emerge at all. It's quite possible that with different mutations and different environmental pressures different organisms entirely would have come about, and indeed that maybe one of them would be posting somewhere, "so you believe that every third eye on the back of our heads so people can't sneak up on us, every shinbone on the back of our legs so we don't bump into coffee tables, every flat round hand that makes us so good at ping pong happened by random chances then do you?"

You are in other words still fundamentally locked into the bad thinking of the lottery winner who thinks he's special, and not into the correct thinking of Camelot that really doesn't care who wins.   

As you've just ignored the other points that undo you, I won't return to them.     

Quote
I know I am not alone in doubting the probability of this all happening by a blind evolutionary process.  Scientists who dare to profess their doubts inevitably face unwarranted derision and character assassination from their atheist peers.  Dembski once likened the natural selection process to a blind man trying to find the solution to a Rubic's cube, asking his sighted friend, "is this it?".

Except of course that isn't true at all, and the "atheist" there is just a red herring. What actually happens when a Behe or similar pops up is that his arguments and evidence are tested, and found to be false - the nonsense of "irreducible complexity" for example. Why then would anyone bother with "derision and character assassination" when he has the arguments on his side?

Oh, and the Rubik's cube analogy fails in any case by the way for the same reason that your argument fails - you need to decide first that the completed puzzle is the correct answer and then wonder at the unlikelihood of chancing upon it, whereas in fact there's no blueprint to start with that chance events are trying to find.     
« Last Edit: November 11, 2016, 07:26:47 PM by bluehillside »
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God

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #559 on: November 11, 2016, 07:26:31 PM »
Quote
I think the necessarily unconscious naturalistic universe goose is cooked along with the Dawkinsian/smartarsian favourite ''who created the creator'' to which the answer can now legitimately come back.....''we don't know.''

In which, pricelessly, Vlad fails to grasp that, "We don't know" is also just the answer to "how did the universe come about?" rendering guesses about gods and the like entirely redundant.

Genius.
"Don't make me come down there."

God

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #560 on: November 11, 2016, 07:28:11 PM »
Sword,

Quote
Yes I have SusanDoris, but I agree with the points that Alan Burns is making.

Seriously?

Seriously seriously?
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #561 on: November 11, 2016, 07:34:03 PM »
In which, pricelessly, Vlad fails to grasp that, "We don't know" is also just the answer to "how did the universe come about?" rendering guesses about gods and the like entirely redundant.

Genius.

How can an ''I don't know'' render any solution to that question redundant you poor deluded dogmatic agnostic fool?

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #562 on: November 11, 2016, 07:39:00 PM »
Quote
How can an ''I don't know'' render any solution to that question redundant you poor deluded dogmatic agnostic fool?

In which Vlad continues to fail to grasp that "We don't know" not being an acceptable answer to "Whence the universe?" but being an acceptable answer to "Whence God?" is a double standard of such breathtaking idiocy as to make his already floor level bar of sense finally dig a hole for itself and vanish entirely.
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Walter

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #563 on: November 11, 2016, 07:47:58 PM »
In which, pricelessly, Vlad fails to grasp that, "We don't know" is also just the answer to "how did the universe come about?" rendering guesses about gods and the like entirely redundant.

Genius.

Blue, why the fuck do you bother ? I'm sure you could spend your time in meaningful discussion elsewhere. You have far more patience than I.
I think you are being scammed by some reprehensible shirt fronts and you have fallen for it . more fool you..

If you are happy to continue on here , I wish you well. But know this, its because people like you in real life don't speak up in elections allow whats happened in USA  TO HAPPEN

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #564 on: November 11, 2016, 07:49:02 PM »
In which Vlad continues to fail to grasp that "We don't know" not being an acceptable answer to "Whence the universe?" but being an acceptable answer to "Whence God?" is a double standard of such breathtaking idiocy as to make his already floor level bar of sense finally dig a hole for itself and vanish entirely.
So according to you Hillside by declaring ''we don't know'' we have proved naturalism and disproved gods...I think you have lost it old boy.

On the other hand if one accepts the possibility of simulated universes then one accepts the possibility of creators.

I think you've lost on two counts Hilly.

Walter

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #565 on: November 11, 2016, 07:55:10 PM »
So according to you Hillside by declaring ''we don't know'' we have proved naturalism and disproved gods...I think you have lost it old boy.

On the other hand if one accepts the possibility of simulated universes then one accepts the possibility of creators.

I think you've lost on two counts Hilly.

O M G I have just censored myself

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #566 on: November 11, 2016, 07:57:16 PM »
Blue, why the fuck do you bother ? I'm sure you could spend your time in meaningful discussion elsewhere. You have far more patience than I.
I think you are being scammed by some reprehensible shirt fronts and you have fallen for it . more fool you..

If you are happy to continue on here , I wish you well. But know this, its because people like you in real life don't speak up in elections allow whats happened in USA  TO HAPPEN
Walter. Bluehillside is a dignified person who is passionate about his beliefs and the transmission of them. Although I disagree with him I respect him. There aren't many things as bracing as getting a ''full Hillside''.
You could learn a lot from him. I have.

Walter

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #567 on: November 11, 2016, 08:27:01 PM »
Walter. Bluehillside is a dignified person who is passionate about his beliefs and the transmission of them. Although I disagree with him I respect him. There aren't many things as bracing as getting a ''full Hillside''.
You could learn a lot from him. I have.

thanks for the advice. I don't want your respect. You are not worthy of a realistic argument. You are a none entity
You no longer provide a cohesive argument . Maybe Blue plays along .I  don't know why he does it , maybe he should get out more.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #568 on: November 11, 2016, 08:56:48 PM »
thanks for the advice. I don't want your respect. You are not worthy of a realistic argument. You are a none entity
You no longer provide a cohesive argument . Maybe Blue plays along .I  don't know why he does it , maybe he should get out more.
I'm afraid one has to wonder at someone who comes onto a religion ethics website and then expresses genuine surprise and shock when he comes across religion.

I can't quite figure out what your game is.

Walter

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #569 on: November 11, 2016, 09:40:17 PM »
I'm afraid one has to wonder at someone who comes onto a religion ethics website and then expresses genuine surprise and shock when he comes across religion.

I can't quite figure out what your game is.
we can continue this later

bible study night  talk later

torridon

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #570 on: November 11, 2016, 10:15:07 PM »
Walter. Bluehillside is a dignified person who is passionate about his beliefs and the transmission of them. Although I disagree with him I respect him. There aren't many things as bracing as getting a ''full Hillside''.
You could learn a lot from him. I have.

 :D

That's nice.  Generous and funny in equal measure.  Vlad at his best.

Brownie

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #571 on: November 11, 2016, 10:45:26 PM »
Quite agree Torridon.  Also agree with what Vlad said.
Let us profit by what every day and hour teaches us

Alan Burns

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #572 on: November 12, 2016, 12:04:48 AM »
Another odd and amusing aspect of this is that God, according to AB, behaves just as evolution would. 
I believe that the process of evolution is guided by God.  It needs a lot more than random copying errors to drive it.  I am aware that some Christians do believe in Darwin's theory, which shows that faith is not entirely dependent on the validity of this theory.  But I am certain that God did not just light the blue touch paper of the big bang an then stand back.  God is intimately involved with life as we know it, and yes, there are many things which we do not understand yet, but I am certain that life would not exist if God does not exist.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
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savillerow

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #573 on: November 12, 2016, 01:01:12 AM »
msg 572 AB When you write this stuff its like you cant grow up and think maybe just maybe "i dont know" Its all right not to know, Just believing, wishing, hoping sincerely(in your case) something to be true will not cut the mustard as a "goer" I dont know. We dont know. You dont know. Your just doing a pretend manifesto.
i know this is hard for theists to agree with but . . . .we are flying this planet.

SusanDoris

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Re: AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence
« Reply #574 on: November 12, 2016, 06:55:44 AM »
I think this is spot on.

I can see that some people have a hard time grasping the sheer extent of the Darwinian insight, the billions of years involved, the billions of individual organisms for selection to act on, the incessant environment change.  But the implications of not grasping it are just bizarre, ending up with a god scurrying round aiming a charged particle here, an asteroid there, just so's he can get the desired end result. This is a story book substitute for reality, it is breathtakingly bonkers and naïve in the extreme. On the other hand, that striving to understand the science is mind expanding, it is good for us, just as hard exercise is good for the body.  AB's theology, rather than mind-expanding, is mind-belittling, it reduces one to infantile naivety.
Now, if you could just have that printed on a large poster, in all languages, and paste it worldwide, plus have it appear every day for a year or so on every TV channel and read out on every radio station, well, we might just get somewhere!! :d

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