AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence

[Maeght]

This is an assumption with no evidence.

That's a bit rich AB, you do the same in virtually every post. Can you see that?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#773
 

It will take much more than the presence of basic ingredients to create the abundance of life as we know it.  You need the master chef.

as someone once said

This is an assumption with no evidence.

From Wikipedia about DNA:

DNA) is a molecule that carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and many viruses.

and

DNA stores biological information.

So why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

[SusanDoris]

From Wikipedia about DNA:
andSo why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

An 'entity' could if it existed, but since that 'entity' is entirely an imagined idea only, you are making an assumption that is without evidence and could be called a good example of the elephant in the room.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

So why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

You misunderstand the meanings of "instructions" and "information" here - they're not analogous to their meanings in common parlance - but nonetheless, a supernatural "entity" could do anything it wanted to do. Why an entity of that kind would use such a hugely wasteful process of waiting for faulty copies of DNA to produce enough beneficial mutations to create new species rather than just fix it with a snap of "His" fingers is anyone's guess though, as for that matter is why "He'd" choose a method that looks precisely as you'd expect it to look if there was no god there at all. 

That's your problem here when you try your, "but couldn't God have done X?" line - if you posit a god of the omnis, then that god could have done anything so it's a null question. 

[Gordon]

So why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

Yikes - just for starters this reads like a stupendous category error.

Music notation and letters are symbolic representations of other things: the pitch and arrangement of sound and/or meanings of letters when written in certain sequences that can also be expressed as speech: thus there is so such thing as an 'if' but we know what we mean when we see 'if' written or hear it said.

DNA is a different type of thing entirely, so your analogy fails.

[wigginhall]

Both jeremy and blue have made the interesting point that all this  talk of God using the elements of evolution, such as mutation, selection, genetic drift, and so on, end up with the idea that God makes the universe so that it looks unmade.    An all-powerful God could just create giraffes and stars like that.   But apparently he goes through billions of years of change in order to arrive at today. 

I've heard of the universe looking designed, but this is quite different - the idea that the universe looks non-designed, and that's how God does it.   Come again?

It shows you the weird places that ID takes you, that is, a God who makes things seem uncreated.

[Sebastian Toe]

#773
 
From Wikipedia about DNA:
andSo why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

Ignoring the 'not even wrong' parts of your reply, I was questioning AB's assertion that there 'needs' to be a 'master chef'

[Walter]

Round and FUCKING round

I wish I hadn't started this now, it was only a bit of fun. I already knew no one could do what I asked in the OP.
however I will say this ,it has shown that some people are smart and others are not. You know who you are.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

An 'entity' could if it existed, but since that 'entity' is entirely an imagined idea only, you are making an assumption that is without evidence and could be called a good example of the elephant in the room.

How is it without evidence? If someone designs & builds something, then what they design/build is evidence of their handiwork.

If one suggested a designer, the nature of that designer can be left to a separate field of study, in the same way that abiogenesis is separated from common-descent evolutionary claims (the number of times I've heard something along the lines of, "we don't need to know how life started in order to know how it developed".

[Walter]

How is it without evidence? If someone designs & builds something, then what they design/build is evidence of their handiwork.

If one suggested a designer, the nature of that designer can be left to a separate field of study, in the same way that abiogenesis is separated from common-descent evolutionary claims (the number of times I've heard something along the lines of, "we don't need to know how life started in order to know how it developed".

You know who you are .

[Gonnagle]

Dear Waltzer,

I wish I hadn't started this now, it was only a bit of fun. I already knew no one could do what I asked in the OP.
however I will say this ,it has shown that some people are smart and others are not. You know who you are.

Gee! thanks mate

Gonnagle.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Round and FUCKING round

I wish I hadn't started this now, it was only a bit of fun. I already knew no one could do what I asked in the OP.

Well, what did you expect?

You want evidence. Evidence needs some sort of methodology to interpret it. The only methodology allowed is one that has natural causes and explanations only, because any other methodology is guesswork...right?

You're asking the question and at the same time trying to dictate the nature of the answer. Why bother then?

[Walter]

Dear Waltzer,

Gee! thanks mate

Gonnagle.

you're  welcome , however I shall be making another judgment later

[Walter]

Well, what did you expect?

You want evidence. Evidence needs some sort of methodology to interpret it. The only methodology allowed is one that has natural causes and explanations only, because any other methodology is guesswork...right?

You're asking the question and at the same time trying to dictate the nature of the answer. Why bother then?

my reply would require my life ban . its one word it begins with C

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sword,

Well, what did you expect?

You want evidence. Evidence needs some sort of methodology to interpret it.

So far, so good. Absent a method, it's an assertion but it's not evidence.

The only methodology allowed is one that has natural causes and explanations only, because any other methodology is guesswork...right?

No. It's not that any other methodology is guesswork; it's that the complete absence of a method of any kind makes the claim indistinguishable from guesswork. If you think you do have a method of any kind though then - finally - why not tell us what it it?

You're asking the question and at the same time trying to dictate the nature of the answer. Why bother then?

Because that's not what he's doing. If you want to give something the status of "evidence", then it's for you to tell us what makes it so. And if you don't like empirical or naturalistic methods to do it, then think of a different one.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Walter,

my reply would require my life ban . its one word it begins with C

Casuist?

[Walter]

Walter,

Casuist?

FUCK ME !  Spot on, who knew?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Walter,

FUCK ME !  Spot on, who knew?

Well, ordinarily "casuist" would of course merit a life time ban, though - given the extreme provocation from Sword and others - perhaps on this occasion if you threw yourself on the mercy of the Mods some leniency might come your way?

[Enki]

Quote from Gonnagle's post 774:

what we do know, a fact, this Universe is a life giving Universe, we are the evidence.

If you want to put it in those terms, then we also know, a fact, this universe is a life taking away universe. The evidence is all around us.

[SusanDoris]

Sword of the Spirit

As always, you fail to notice the elephant in the room, which is the entity you call a designer; you fail to explain who designed it and so on through the infinite regression question.

[Nearly Sane]

Sword of the Spirit

As always, you fail to notice the elephant in the room, which is the entity you call a designer; you fail to explain who designed it and so on through the infinite regression question.

I'm not sure there is an infinite regress here. There would be if the argument was nothing as complex as the universe could exist without a designer but if it is rather that the universe has the appearance of something designed then there is not necessarily a regress.

[Walter]

Walter,

Well, ordinarily "casuist" would of course merit a life time ban, though - given the extreme provocation from Sword and others - perhaps on this occasion if you threw yourself on the mercy of the Mods some leniency might come your way?

I have unconditional faith in them , I have  sinned, I know not who they are , I shall pray to web site God sorry Mod

our Mod who art  in web site
hallowed be thy name
thy will be done
on earth or in cyberspace
forgive us who have critical thinking skills
for they will find truth
forgive the deluded for they will cause wars
for ever and ever
for fuck  sake
amen

[torridon]

.. why couldn't an entity use DNA as the blueprint for life in the same way that notes are the blueprint for music, or letters are the blueprint for alphabets, which in turn are used for written text?

Burden of proof shifting.

It is the claim of such an entity that needs to be justified.

What is the evidence for this entity, and why would it need to use DNA ?

[torridon]

Actually, belief would be but “faith” in its religious sense wouldn’t. In any case, being “free to choose” is fine and dandy but do you not think that this “God” of yours should at least have had the decency to make the choice a meaningful one by providing some evidence for his existence at all?

Then what would you consider as evidence?

Burden of proof shifting (yet again).

It is for people making the (theist) claim to identify the evidence.  But nothing is ever said about the nature of god that would qualify as evidence.  Nothing about his coordinates, speed, temperature, density, provenance, constitution, mass, charge, spin, there is nothing that we could use to calibrate a god detecting machine with, so we cannot ever justify theist beliefs through empirical means. If we could, well that wouldn't be god would it ?  God is an unevidencable concept, so on what grounds can anyone justify their belief ? Once objective empiricism is removed, all that is left are the deeper psychological motives and personal preferences of the believer.  This god is the god of human mind, this is the kingdom within, the part phenomenological, part cultural, part philosophical, mental construct that works for some people in the sense that it provides a good enough working backdrop to our daily experience enabling us to make sense of things. But none of this is evidence, rather, it is personal justification.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sword,

You misunderstand the meanings of "instructions" and "information" here - they're not analogous to their meanings in common parlance - but nonetheless, a supernatural "entity" could do anything it wanted to do. Why an entity of that kind would use such a hugely wasteful process of waiting for faulty copies of DNA to produce enough beneficial mutations to create new species rather than just fix it with a snap of "His" fingers is anyone's guess though, as for that matter is why "He'd" choose a method that looks precisely as you'd expect it to look if there was no god there at all. 

First of all you are setting up an all powerful entity then complaining that it doesn't do what you expect!

Secondly you are clinging to an extreme phyletic gradualism. The fossil record does not record the wastage you suggest. This is because early on evolution provided the mechanisms for early foetal rejection of genetic aberration.
Continual relentless but imperceptible change is an hyperbole since it contradicts the systems of rejection AND the rarity of the beneficial mutation.