AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

Which is a logical contradiction bluehillside, therefore your statement is incorrect.

No doubt you'll be along soon to explain what that logical contradiction might be rather than just assert it then?

Incorrect

No doubt you'll be along soon to explain what that incorrectness might be rather than just assert it then?

No, they won't because as usual
1. You make it an either-or when no-one here is doing this.
2. There is at least one other option (I say, at least because there may be other options I've overlooked)

1. Yes they do do this, and even if no-one did it the force of the argument would remain.

2. No doubt you'll be along soon to share this "other option" then won't you?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

AB,

You fundamentally misunderstand how evolution works, and for that matter how the reference point error works too.

Imagine a single cell organism that copies its DNA as it self-replicates.

Ok

Every now and then the copying will be imperfect, and mutations will occur.

Agreed

Often those mutations will be harmful or will have no effect, but sometimes they will be beneficial for subsequent generations.

Agreed

There's no-one there though with a set of blueprints hoping that one day the organism will evolve into albatrosses or sharks or people. Over time complexity builds and speciation occurs until we arrive at the flora and fauna we happen to observe today

This is what I take issue with. Mutation + natural selection is used to explain away a gain in genetic information.

What's the difference between complexity arising from something simple and a gain? Complexity can arise from what exists; what is already present. A gain cannot.

Example: You give me a black and white photo. An increase in complexity can lead to an enhancement of that photo (sharper image, etc). What cannot happen is a gain of information to turn it into a colour photo, or a hologram. The information for that has to come from outside of the photo.

Another example: I take my CD of Windows Vista. If I copied it perfectly, I would have a replica. If I copy it imperfectly, then copy the copy, then copy the copy, did this a few hundred times, how many here think that when I looked to see what I had, I found a nearly working version of Windows 7? Is it possible statistically? Yes, because the information on the files on the CD is numerical. Is it likely? Not really!

People are expected to believe that if you copy something perfectly, you end up with an identical version but if you copy something imperfectly, you end up with something greater than what you started with? Really? Observation shows that the options are an identical version, a variation, or something inferior. That is always going to be the problem with single-ancestry evolutionary theories; another something from nothing problem neatly covered up!!

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

No doubt you'll be along soon to explain what that logical contradiction might be rather than just assert it then?

ok

It's axiomatically true inasmuch as "God does not exist" is unknowable.

You are claiming as truth that we can't know what that truth is. The best you can say is that you don't know, or even you find it difficult to establish the truth (or otherwise) of the matter.

The most you can say is that there are no cogent reasons to think that God does exist.

That may be true for you. It's clearly not true for all, otherwise there would be no religious believers anywhere on the planet!

You may disagree with their reasons. That doesn't make them not cogent.

1. Yes they do do this, and even if no-one did it the force of the argument would remain.

Then you are contradicting yourself, because the whole point of the Celestial Teapot analogy is for those who would use absence of a disproof to claim proof by default. If no-one is doing that, then you are misusing the analogy to claim non-belief as a default so that there is never any burden of proof on your side.

2. No doubt you'll be along soon to share this "other option" then won't you?

Some here are honest enough to say, I don't know. Some can see merits in the arguments on both sides but retain an open mind.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

This is what I take issue with. Mutation + natural selection is used to explain away a gain in genetic information.

What's the difference between complexity arising from something simple and a gain? Complexity can arise from what exists; what is already present. A gain cannot.

Example: You give me a black and white photo. An increase in complexity can lead to an enhancement of that photo (sharper image, etc). What cannot happen is a gain of information to turn it into a colour photo, or a hologram. The information for that has to come from outside of the photo.

Another example: I take my CD of Windows Vista. If I copied it perfectly, I would have a replica. If I copy it imperfectly, then copy the copy, then copy the copy, did this a few hundred times, how many here think that when I looked to see what I had, I found a nearly working version of Windows 7? Is it possible statistically? Yes, because the information on the files on the CD is numerical. Is it likely? Not really!

People are expected to believe that if you copy something perfectly, you end up with an identical version but if you copy something imperfectly, you end up with something greater than what you started with? Really? Observation shows that the options are an identical version, a variation, or something inferior. That is always going to be the problem with single-ancestry evolutionary theories; another something from nothing problem neatly covered up!!

Oh dear. Suggest you start here for a basic primer:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evolution_of_new_information

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

You are claiming as truth that we can't know what that truth is. The best you can say is that you don't know, or even you find it difficult to establish the truth (or otherwise) of the matter.

Oh dear redux. No, I'm claiming as a probabilistic truth that there's no way to eliminate unknown unknowns, so "God does not exist" is, in strict epistemic terms, unsupportable. 

That may be true for you. It's clearly not true for all, otherwise there would be no religious believers anywhere on the planet!

First, there are lots of religious believers who don't rely on arguments - cogent or otherwise - for their faith beliefs.

Second, fallacious arguments aren't just "fallacious for me". A fallacy is a fallacy as I explained to AB earlier - if arguments are not cogent because they rely on fallacious thinking then they're not cogent because they rely on fallacious thinking regardless of who happens to be considering them.

You may disagree with their reasons. That doesn't make them not cogent.

Yes it does when the arguments are demonstrably false. "Lions are cats, therefore all cats are lions" is demonstrably false regardless of the "reasons" of the person who attempts that argument.

Then you are contradicting yourself, because the whole point of the Celestial Teapot analogy is for those who would use absence of a disproof to claim proof by default. If no-one is doing that, then you are misusing the analogy to claim non-belief as a default so that there is never any burden of proof on your side.

Oh dear yet again. First (again) people do do that, Hope being a good example. Presumably they did it too when Russell wrote his essay "Why I am not a Christian" for the same reason.

Second, a point in logic is a point in logic is a point in logic - whether it's addressing an argument anyone actually makes is entirely unnecessary for that to be so. Even if no-one ever said, "Lions are cats, therefore all cats are lions" the formation of the argument would still be false. 

Some here are honest enough to say, I don't know. Some can see merits in the arguments on both sides but retain an open mind.

So? How does that help you?

The point I was making was in any case pretty much the same. We cannot know that there is no God, but we can know that - so far at least - no-one has managed to construct an argument for a "true for you too" God that's logically sound.

[Gordon]

You are claiming as truth that we can't know what that truth is. The best you can say is that you don't know, or even you find it difficult to establish the truth (or otherwise) of the matter.

When it comes to unfalsifiable conjectures the notion of 'truth' is irrelevant - for everyone.

That may be true for you. It's clearly not true for all, otherwise there would be no religious believers anywhere on the planet!

You may disagree with their reasons. That doesn't make them not cogent.

Where their reasons are fallacious, or incoherent, then they aren't cogent no matter how much religious believers are convinced. Of course not all believers pin their faith on fallacies, as you seem to do.

Then you are contradicting yourself, because the whole point of the Celestial Teapot analogy is for those who would use absence of a disproof to claim proof by default. If no-one is doing that, then you are misusing the analogy to claim non-belief as a default so that there is never any burden of proof on your side.

It seems you still don't understand this fallacy, or fallacies in general.

Some here are honest enough to say, I don't know. Some can see merits in the arguments on both sides but retain an open mind.

There are no merits in fallacious reasoning: such arguments are devoid of merit and can simply be dismissed.

[Enki]

Sword,

Oh dear. Suggest you start here for a basic primer:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evolution_of_new_information

Or this article, perhaps?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13673-evolution-myths-mutations-can-only-destroy-information

[SusanDoris]

This is what I take issue with. Mutation + natural selection is used to explain away a gain in genetic information.

You use the word 'gain' as if it must be something that is added to a living organism, but the word 'change' is more applicable I think, since a mutation could be the loss of something which in fact enables the species to survive.

[torridon]

No doubt you'll be along soon to share this "other option" then won't you?

Some here are honest enough to say, I don't know. Some can see merits in the arguments on both sides but retain an open mind.

You didn't mention what your 'other options' are, so how can people be expected to keep an open mind on them ?

[Alan Burns]

This show you simply misunderstand the process of evolution by natural selection.  Blue has probably already pulled you up on this, but it is absolutely incorrect to think that beneficial mutations require the extinction of other individuals of the same species to be passed on.  Extinction happens to species, death happens to individuals, and change through natural selection works across populations over time. You have a beneficial mutation that allows you to tolerate lactose in adulthood, but it does not require the death of everybody else for that to be conserved. The human genome also carries some number of deleterious mutations that cause ill health such as cystic fibrosis, but it doesn't necessarily lead to the extinction of the species.

The point I am making involves the method by which incremental mutations get passed on to the species.  For example, the ability to grip with your hand provides an obvious survival advantage.  But each incremental mutation needed to develop a gripping hand has less obvious survival advantage.  So I find it difficult to imagine how each of these incremental mutations get passed on through natural selection.  (And this does not address the viability of how probable these incremental mutations can be generated by random events, but that is another subject)

And even if it were true that natural selection only provides a fine tuning, do you suppose there is some glass ceiling limiting the amount of change that selection pressures can induce in a population ?  What you call 'fine tuning' is really just change across populations in response to environmental change and the longer the change goes on, the longer species will keep on evolving, it is a process and it is not going to suddenly and arbitrarily stop.

My point is that the fine tuning occurs on something which has already been developed to a high degree of complex functionality.  You can't use the fine tuning technique to develop the complexity in the first place because it can only adjust existing complexity, it can't create it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The point I am making involves the method by which incremental mutations get passed on to the species.  For example, the ability to grip with your hand provides an obvious survival advantage.  But each incremental mutation needed to develop a gripping hand has less obvious survival advantage.  So I find it difficult to imagine how each of these incremental mutations get passed on through natural selection.  (And this does not address the viability of how probable these incremental mutations can be generated by random events, but that is another subject)

My point is that the fine tuning occurs on something which has already been developed to a high degree of complex functionality.  You can't use the fine tuning technique to develop the complexity in the first place because it can only adjust existing complexity, it can't create it.

Big nope. Consider the eye (which has evolved independently various times by the way). Each "incremental step" conferred enough benefit to the host organism to give it an evolutionary advantage. A slight dip in the skin surface for example would create a shadow at predicatble times of the day/night cycle, which in turn is key to circadian rhythms, which in turn would allow the organisms to release eggs and sperm on a co-ordinated basis, which in turn would lead to disproportionately more organisms with dips, which in turn would create a population with dips as the pool from which the next beneficial mutation would occur and so on until complex eyes emerged.

Here's a link that may help you: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

That you think some advantages to be "less obvious" and that you "find it difficult to imagine" something is neither here nor there. The overwhelming evidence from the disciplines that actually study these matters falsify your personal incredulity, so your position here is equivalent to flat-earthism.

incidentally, have you now abandoned your earlier mistake about extinction being necessary for a genetic mutation to become embedded in a population?

[torridon]

The point I am making involves the method by which incremental mutations get passed on to the species.  For example, the ability to grip with your hand provides an obvious survival advantage.  But each incremental mutation needed to develop a gripping hand has less obvious survival advantage.  So I find it difficult to imagine how each of these incremental mutations get passed on through natural selection.  (And this does not address the viability of how probable these incremental mutations can be generated by random events, but that is another subject)My point is that the fine tuning occurs on something which has already been developed to a high degree of complex functionality.  You can't use the fine tuning technique to develop the complexity in the first place because it can only adjust existing complexity, it can't create it.

You're just regurgitating reheated old arguments from intelligent design that were debunked by real biologists years ago. Your incredulity is not an argument.  If you struggle with the science that is just something for you to work on. I struggle with many areas of science, particularly relativity and quantum theory but I accept that is my own shortcoming and need to work harder to get my head round it.  I don't work in those fields, I don't have a particle accelerator, so I am not justified in taking issue with people working in those fields. What is your justification for thinking you know better than people working in evolutionary biology ?  That field anyway is one of the few areas of science that laymen should be able to understand, the base concepts of selection operating on descent with modification are not hugely counterintuitive as are many finds in relativity and quantum theory.

[Walter]

AB

your tag line is 'the truth will set you free'

you must be living a nightmare of eternal imprisonment languishing in darkness flailing your arms in desperation hoping someone will come and open the door.

The key to that door has been offered to you on this board, you could open that door yourself , just pick up the key and open that door to freedom.

[Walter]

see Torris excellent post above

[Gonnagle]

Dear Waltz,

What door! Where is the door! Show me the door! Where is this key!

I have been a member of this forum and the old Beeb for more years than I care to mention and no one has shown/mentioned any key or door, maybe it is because there are so many atheists standing in front of the door blocking my view.

Nevermind, I will keep searching, reading/listening to great minds who no matter how much they keep waffling on about a world without God still can't help bringing God into the equation.

https://www.closertotruth.com/

Gonnagle.

[Maeght]

The point I am making involves the method by which incremental mutations get passed on to the species.  For example, the ability to grip with your hand provides an obvious survival advantage.  But each incremental mutation needed to develop a gripping hand has less obvious survival advantage.  So I find it difficult to imagine how each of these incremental mutations get passed on through natural selection.  (And this does not address the viability of how probable these incremental mutations can be generated by random events, but that is another subject)My point is that the fine tuning occurs on something which has already been developed to a high degree of complex functionality.  You can't use the fine tuning technique to develop the complexity in the first place because it can only adjust existing complexity, it can't create it.

Personal incredulity again.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gonners,

Where is this key!

It's under the mat!

[Enki]

Gonners,

It's under the mat!

Where's the mat?

[torridon]

Where's the mat?

It's over the key, silly

[Udayana]

Where's the mat?

You are sitting on it?

[Enki]

It's over the key, silly

Is this a circular mat?

[bluehillside Retd.]

enki,

Where's the mat?

It's under the cat (which may be alive or dead, or both.)

[torridon]

Is this a circular mat?

Standard issue for a theological household

[bluehillside Retd.]

enki,

Is this a circular mat?

For Alan Burns a circular mat would be less obvious and more difficult to imagine so it can't exist.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Blue,

Under the mat!! Typical atheist thinking!! My door is unlocked 

7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Gonnagle.