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Author | Topic: We know there's a God because... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rahvin Member Posts: 4046 Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Of course you WILL now evade and misrepresent or ignore these simple points altogether. I'd just like to point out that it is Ray himself who seems to be ignoring those who have refuted him in this thread, and not AZPaul3 or anyone else.
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CTD Member (Idle past 5899 days) Posts: 253 Joined: |
quote: Emotion is an individual part. It would have been more accurate and just as meaningless to say I was looking at an individual part and failing to see the whole.
quote: You must have someone else in mind. Nothing in my post assumes a goal-oriented process. I do assume the present is a result of the past - do you object to that? I never stated that nature intended to bring about emotions. Intentions don't even matter. Whether or not it is my goal, if I blindfold myself and wander around for a few days I won't find myself on Saturn. What I find is that if I assume the absence of God, there is no reasonable way to account for the presence of many things, and emotions are on the list.
quote: Your capacity to project selfishness onto things does not make them selfish. Is my car selfish for keeping its gas in the tank and not draining it on the ground? Or is it just doing what it must because that's how it's built? And if that's what the "theory" states, it's handily dismissed by observing ants, wolves, white blood cells, and tons of other lifeforms.
quote: That attempts to answer the later part of the issue: once emotions exist, how would they fare in competition? You're long on assertion and short on evidence. And you assume emotions would exist without explaining how they'd come about.
quote: Really? I wasn't aware of that. Survival of the horniest, eh?
quote: Oh, from assuming they're available and asserting that animals possessing them would "win the competition"? As groovy as this may seem to you, it's just not my bag.
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CTD Member (Idle past 5899 days) Posts: 253 Joined: |
quote: Part of this is precluded. Without access to prophecies, one would be unaware if their fulfillment. There are plenty of miracles to be found if one is alert. I've had at least 6 tires blow out on me, and I know other people who've encountered the problem. It frequently results in making a vehicle uncontrollable. But nobody I know has been killed or even injured as a result. Teenagers, and children in general do lots of things that should get them hurt or killed. The number who are actually harmed is very small - I'd call it under 10% of what it should be if the world were purely natural. And frequently the ones who get hurt are the ones that keep trying stupid stunts far beyond the point where they should know better. These things are habitually dismissed by those who desire another conclusion. In fact, there's not much choice: dismiss them or give up something they cherish. But it wasn't so long ago there was acknowledgement of "Providence" even among those who weren't keen on any "religious texts". It's a matter of opening one's eyes and mind, or at least declining to close them.
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mark24 Member (Idle past 5225 days) Posts: 3857 From: UK Joined: |
CTD,
These things are habitually dismissed by those who desire another conclusion. People like me are in the habit of habitually dismissing subjective opinion. The miracle is that you had that many tyres blow out on you, they should have stopped doing that decades ago because of design improvements. But anyway, how many tyre blowouts occur before a fatality occurs to the driver? You haven't a scooby. As far as you are concerned it could be anything, meaning you have no idea if 6 is miraculous or merely humdrum. Mark There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't
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black wolf Junior Member (Idle past 5902 days) Posts: 10 From: Berlin, Germany Joined: |
quote: I have trouble imagining what you base this assertion on. Less than 10% of the expected number of teens and children get hurt when touching live cables? Can you define an accident that should get one killed? Usually to detect satistical aberrations like the ones you assert, you need a comparison or an overall statistic.Comparing CensusScope -- Population Pyramid and Age Distribution Statistics with http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvacci.html we get the result that 21,42% of US citizens in the year 2000 were 14 years old or younger, and 20,51% of drowning victims were in that age group. There is a high probability that people in that age group are being watched when near water. We know that people of that age group also have a tendency for reckless or thoughtless behavior. Looking at ages 0-4 years only, we find that they make up 6.82% of the population, but 11.5% of drowning victims. If anything at all, we can conclude that God likes to watch toddlers less than teens. According to your estimate of 10%, 'the world if it were purely natural' should also contain more than double the number of children that it actually has. Ergo, the world you perceive subjectively does not correspond to the objective world. Edited by black wolf, : quote syntax Edited by black wolf, : added summary Edited by black wolf, : correction
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CTD Member (Idle past 5899 days) Posts: 253 Joined: |
quote: You don't know what I do or don't know, so why do you even bother posting this trash? Are you limited to spamming insults, or something?
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
iano writes: In terms of knowing he exists in an "as sure as night follows day" kind of way then the answer is yes. He has to provide you with clear evidence of his existance before you can know a) he exists b) get to know something about him. Note the evidence only need be sufficient to convince you. Well, what if we lowered the bar a little and didn't ask for completely certainty. Just by examining the world around us, is there anything that would lead people to suspect that there is a God? What about the argument from design? --Percy
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Percy writes: Say there were no Bible, no Qur'an, no Bhagavad Gita, no religious texts of any sort. How would we know just by examining the world around us that there is a God? Complexity logically requires a designer. I can't fathom how complexity would evolve from non living to living without intelligence.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Phat writes: Complexity logically requires a designer. I can't fathom how complexity would evolve from non living to living without intelligence. The designer would have to be non-complex, otherwise he'd "logically" require his own designer. And can he be both non-complex and intelligent? And if he's non-complex, then his creations illustrate that complexity can come from non-complexity, meaning that they wouldn't require a designer. Is that avatar of yours running around in confused circles, Phat?
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Well, what if we lowered the bar a little and didn't ask for completely certainty. Just by examining the world around us, is there anything that would lead people to suspect that there is a God? What about the argument from design? If you mean that the examination should lead all to conclude the same thing when exposed to the same argument then no, I don't think there is anything. Some will look at a clear, star-filled night and ache with a suspicion that there is/must be/could be something more. RobinRohan was such a one - gazing upon starfilled nights and vast oceans caused him discomfort. Others will look at the same thing whilst saying they are perfectly content to hold that this life is all there is. They are not driven towards the same conclusion by that same 'evidence'.
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.7 |
Hi Percy,
Percy writes: Well, what if we lowered the bar a little and didn't ask for completely certainty. Just by examining the world around us, is there anything that would lead people to suspect that there is a God? I could think of a lot of things but I will mention 3 here. Hawking states, "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size." Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. If the gravitational force were altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent, neither Earth nor our Sun would exist. Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. For physical life to exist, the mass density of the universe must be fine-tuned to better than one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. You have better odds of buying 100 Power Ball tickets and winning all 100 Power Ball lotteries consecutively. All together there are over a 100 finely tuned constants that have beat those odds. If any one failed we would not exist. It seems like anyone could look at that kind of scientific data and come to the conclusion that there was something other than chance at work. But I suppose to many those odds would not matter because that would point to something higher than man which is unacceptable. God Bless, God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
AZP3 writes: And what kind of evidence of his existance does he provide? Unless you were a Christian you wouldn't really be able to appreciate any attempt of mine aimed at describing it. Not to be insulting, but the attempt would be like trying to explain the quality red to a blind man.
Note the evidence only need be sufficient to convince you.
I don't want to seem insultive here, iano, but there are a whole lot of people out there with limited critical thinking skills and believe that finding a penny on a sidwalk is enough evidence of god. There are even more high school students who leave school convinced that ToE is fact when they are not in a position to comprehend the scientific evidence for themselves. They believe what others say the evidence says. Point being, if you are totally convinced that God exists then you are totally convinced. If a penny on the pavement suffices for one then that's the persons business. If it's God having to make himself personally evident to another then thats the persons business. Being convinced of something doesn't make it the case. It's just conviction that it is the case.
Other than the personal emotional comfort of wanting to see something as evidence, and thus declaring it so, is there any other evidence available? Or is it only personal evidence that counts? In another thread I argued that all evidence is ultimately personal evidence - including the evidence that the world around you is real. It's down ultimately to whether you trust your own perceptions as reflecting what actually is the case. I trust my perceptions w.r.t. to the world around me being real. I also trust my perceptions w.r.t. to the reality of Gods existance. Both issues are down to me alone. I cannot appeal to a higher court than that. Question for you: you know what you thought 5 seconds ago. All you have is personal evidence for it. Now, did that thought really occur?
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3673 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Hawking states, "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size." Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. If the gravitational force were altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent, neither Earth nor our Sun would exist. Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. For physical life to exist, the mass density of the universe must be fine-tuned to better than one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Odds of this happening by chance 10^128. As ever, this is all completely wrong... But let's save time and assume it's correct.
It seems like anyone could look at that kind of scientific data and come to the conclusion that there was something other than chance at work. Hmmm, you mean like the String Landscape, perhaps? That gives rise to essentially an infinite number of Universes with all possible parameter values - and thus the probablity of our Universe coming into being was about 1 in 1.
But I suppose to many those odds would not matter because that would point to something higher than man which is unacceptable. Perfectly acceptable to me as I'm a theist - it's just that those extremely erronious probabilities of yours do not point to "something higher than man". They point to deeper physics.
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.7 |
Hi cavediver,
cavediver writes: As ever, this is all completely wrong... But let's save time and assume it's correct. Remember Hawking said if expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million,either way. Smaller or larger. In other words it had to be exact. So what do you think the odds would be of this happening by chance? Then what would the scientific odds be of this happening by chance? God Bless, "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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mark24 Member (Idle past 5225 days) Posts: 3857 From: UK Joined: |
CTD,
You don't know what I do or don't know, so why do you even bother posting this trash? Are you limited to spamming insults, or something?
Insults? I fail to see where I insulted you. You posted evidentially vacuous subjective opinion & claimed the rest of us can't see the evidence. This is your problem, not mine for pointing it out. I directly responded to your point:
These things are habitually dismissed by those who desire another conclusion. My point is that your "evidence" is entirely subjective, you have no idea whatsoever what the non-miracle state is compared to the miracle state. As such, you are utterly unable to claim anything as evidence of the miraculous.
You don't know what I do or don't know Very well, please supply the statistics of tyre blowouts that should result in death/injury if miracles don't occur, & do the same if miracles do indeed happen. Failure to do this renders you completely unable to test the hypothesis that a miracle has occurred. It also means your claim that the rest of us are dismissing evidence is false, there is no evidence to be dismissed. Mark There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't
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