Message 316 of 468 (631074) 08-30-2011 8:47 AM

Reply to: Message 301 by Just being real 08-30-2011 12:18 AM

I have no desire to discuss the inconsistencies and fallacies of various religious claims. I'm just pointing out that you're not taking into account the whole picture.

You're right, your analogy of the space ship employed a single, historical event. Whearas my "editing" incorporated many historical events over vast and various times. Of course... the thing you didn't mention is that all these events deal with the same thing... whether or not any particular religious icon actually exists. Maybe you think "all the other events" shouldn't matter, but when attempting to find out the truth I tend to take into account all the information.

If we only look at one piece of the puzzle. Then, yes, of course it looks just fine. Why would there be any defects with it?
It's only when we take in all the information so as to look at the entire picture that we see that none of the pieces seem to fit together... anywhere. I'll even concede that all the Christian religions are exactly the same (kind of ridiculous... but it's unrequired for this discussion)... there are so many different religions in the first place that it doesn't matter. In fact, it really only takes two different religions that can't be true at the same time to wash away this kind of subjective evidence... and yet, there are many, many more than that. Hundreds? Thousands?

So, which version of the analogy do you think should be used? The one that ignores any contrary subjective evidence? Or the one that takes into account all the information? It's not really much of a choice...

Message 317 of 468 (631083) 08-30-2011 9:49 AM

Reply to: Message 311 by Butterflytyrant 08-30-2011 4:24 AM

Do you mean a universe that has no end, or an infinite end? Because the creation of anything infinite is an oxymoron. We have terms in English that have meanings. A square is never round because the definition of a square excludes this.The term infinite means without beginning or ending. The concept of a number line is infinite. God certainly could have created a universe that has an an infinite end, but according to science it definitely had a beginning.

Again according to all scientific observations, something that came into being must originate from something else. That means something has always been here. If we try to make it an infinite number of finite things we have a problem. Finite things by definition cannot exist infinitely. Eventually even in a long chain of finite rebirths we have to come to a point where something infinite started the whole chain. The chain universe theory only pushes back the problem, it doesn't overcome it.

I want to point out to you I didn't just say "patterns." I said patterns of "specificity." It's the specificity that is the key, not the patterns. Patterns occur all the time in nature. And as far as images in the clouds go, I can conjure up images in clouds all day long that might sort of look like Micky Mouse or Donald Duck. However we both know that if we saw the words "Eat at Joe's Cafe" in the clouds, that a specific pattern of English letters like that would require intelligence.

Again I didn't suggest that "complexity" proves design. I suggested that "SPECIFICITY" requires design. That is because in order for something to have a particular purpose it had to have been formed for that purpose which requires it to have been "designed."

Perhaps a "perceived" one no. But a clear purpose...yes. A key only fits a certain lock and performs a particular function of lining up all the tumbles and unlocking the the locking system. DNA code is much more specified than that.

Jimminy Christmas. I didn't say anything about the "complexity" of DNA, I said it was highly "specified."

So in other words... let's toss out all observation and go with what we hope to imagine to find some day. That's not science. Science is grounding your conclusions in what has been observed thus far. Not what you hope to observe someday. And thus far science has never observed anything with specificity form by random unguided processes.

Oh... could you please point out where exactly I invoked "faith" here... because I missed it. And the only fallacies I see are where you keep misquoting me.

Message 318 of 468 (631088) 08-30-2011 10:27 AM

Reply to: Message 304 by Just being real 08-30-2011 1:44 AM

I made no claim at all that the Bible was written at one place or in one time - it is far too inconsistent for that to even be a possibility.

You made the claim that these unnamed 500 and the disciples were tortured and killed. Where is that claim documented? Certainly not by Paul - yes, he claims he persecuted some, or perhaps made a few "fall asleep." Do you really accept all that dodgy hagiography of the early Catholic Church?

I do. I'm almost certain that Poseidon never did doo-squat to interfere with Trojans vs. Athenians.

Message 320 of 468 (631093) 08-30-2011 10:37 AM

Reply to: Message 318 by Coragyps 08-30-2011 10:27 AM

Although, there probably were some Athenians there too.

Message 321 of 468 (631094) 08-30-2011 10:46 AM

Reply to: Message 313 by Just being real 08-30-2011 6:36 AM

Good tests. So much for the book of Genesis, then.

Message 322 of 468 (631095) 08-30-2011 10:49 AM

Reply to: Message 310 by Dr Adequate 08-30-2011 3:30 AM

This just isn't correct. Scientists have looked at the DNA code and found natural processes at work, which tells us nothing about whether or not it was intelligently produced or not. It is like gravity or intelligence - they exist but is it a result of an intelligent or non-intelligent first cause.

Francis Collins the head of the "Human Genome Project" calls DNA the language of God.

Message 323 of 468 (631103) 08-30-2011 11:15 AM

Reply to: Message 289 by RAZD 08-29-2011 8:48 PM

And it seems that nobody can say how old you consider the Earth to be despite you claiming to have explicitly answered the following two questions:

Can anyone state what RAZ's answers are?

It depends on the supernatural concept in question. Obviously. In the case of a werewolf for example we would watch to see if the person in question actually transformed into a wolf at full moon. In the case of Thor as commonly conceived we see if a big godly viking waving his magic hammer around really is the cause of thunder and lightning.

If something is empirically detectable there is no reason in principle why we cannot test for it is there? Given the prevalence of religious experiences and the level of sophistication of our detection devices isn't is astonishing that we have never detected one of these beings? If they are empirically detectable to humans then any modern camera phone will pick them up.

If it isn't empirrically detectable then you are confronted with explaining how something immaterial can possibly interact with the physical world in the shape of the human brain. The mind body problem by any other name.

Can you test to see whether or not internal sexual experiences are caused by supernatural beings? Why do you think religious expereinces are any more likely to have a supernatural cause?

If someone claims to have had an audio-visual expereince of any kind whilst they are in a room being audio-visually monitored and recorded then - Yes - We can say whether or not they had a genuine empirically detectable experience.

Can you give an example of the sort of expereince you have in mind?

Message 324 of 468 (631106) 08-30-2011 11:30 AM

Reply to: Message 296 by GDR 08-29-2011 9:43 PM

Which is why it boils down to asking why there is something rather than nothing. And even if there is this eternal God that you believe in he will necessarily be fruitlessly asking himself that very same question. "Why is it that I, rather than nothing at all, exist?"

How can it be based on the conclusion that God doesn't exist when God remains as one of the multitude of possible answers? Your assertion doesn't make sense at all.

Message 325 of 468 (631114) 08-30-2011 11:54 AM

Reply to: Message 317 by Just being real 08-30-2011 9:49 AM

The creation of anything infinite is not an oxymoron. The beginning is a statement of time. The universe is measured in distance. An infinite universe, as in a universe that has no boundary, can be created by an all powerful god. You mash together time and space. This is a mistake. A universe with infinite space can have a beginning.

I quick wiki search on infinite in relation to cosmology yields this...

quote:

---

In ancient cosmologies, the sky was perceived as a solid dome, or firmament.[9] In 1584, Bruno proposed an unbounded universe in On the Infinite Universe and Worlds: "Innumerable suns exist; innumerable earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our sun. Living beings inhabit these worlds."

Cosmologists have long sought to discover whether infinity exists in our physical universe: Are there an infinite number of stars? Does the universe have infinite volume? Does space "go on forever"? This is an open question of cosmology. Note that the question of being infinite is logically separate from the question of having boundaries. The two-dimensional surface of the Earth, for example, is finite, yet has no edge. By travelling in a straight line one will eventually return to the exact spot one started from. The universe, at least in principle, might have a similar topology; if one travelled in a straight line through the universe perhaps one would eventually revisit one's starting point.

If, on the other hand, the universe were not curved like a sphere but had a flat topology, it could be both unbounded and infinite. The curvature of the universe can be measured through multipole moments in the spectrum of the cosmic background radiation. As to date, analysis of the radiation patterns recorded by the WMAP spacecraft hints that the universe has a flat topology. This would be consistent with an infinite physical universe. The Planck spacecraft launched in 2009 is expected to record the cosmic background radiation with 10 times higher precision, and will give more insight into the question of whether the universe is infinite or not.

---

(source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity)

As to you comment "according to science it definitely had a beginning."

No scientist will say that the universe "definitely had a beginning". You source states that the universe as we understand it today had a beginning. However, this is a hypothesis. Stephen Hawking's newer work includes another hypothesis. Again, a hypothesis. Not definite.

quote:

---

the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation.

---

(Source : http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/62)

His idea is that there was a beginning in time but a universe without boundaries.

There is another recent theory suggesting that the Big Bang was not the beginning.

quote:

---

According to Turok, who teaches at Cambridge University, the Big Bang represents just one stage in an infinitely repeated cycle of universal expansion and contraction. Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end.

---

(Source : http://www.wired.com/...ce/discoveries/news/2008/02/qa_turok)

Science has theories and hypothoses but no definites.

The only message I am really trying to get accros here is that 'in the beginning' God had the ability to create an infinite universe. From what I have read, being all powerful means he can do this. Unless you are telling me that God is incapable of doing this?

That is true, an infinite length of finite things does not solve the problem. However, having something finite now, does not prove that something infinite existed beforehand. There is no proof of this. There is conjecture.

ok, lets run with this for a while. What do you actually mean by specificity. The def of specificity is : the quality or state of being specific. How does that differ from the argument from design?

So basically you believe that if you use the term 'specificity' in an unusual manner, people wont recognise the arguement from design?

Can you provide a link to the work you are reading that uses specificity so I can have a read. Or is this your own work?

yep, this sounds like the arguement from design to me.

Are you saying that the purpose of an object indicates that an object is designed?

If it walks like a duck and fucks like a duck its usually a duck. Your argument has all the hallmarks of the standard arguement from design apart from the swapping of the word complexity with specificity.

And I have also read a fair few of your arguments already over on The evidence for design and a designer - AS OF 10/27, SUMMARY MESSAGES ONLY

No, not at all. I am saying that we need to be open to the possability that we have not discovered the true theory yet. Deciding to stop thinking because we have chosen to believe that God did it is not a scientificaly valid option. We always need to keep open the option that we just dont know.

There is nothing wrong with faith. Dont treat me suggesting you have faith as a negative. In order to make your arguement, you require faith. In order to suggest an all powerful God started it, you need faith. Also, in Message 304 you stated this : "my main source (the Bible)". This indicates that you have faith. You are using a bronze age book of myths and legends as you main source. And your use of a variation of the Teleological argument to prove god exists requires faith.

And phrases like this :

You have come to a single conclusion. In your mind the only conclusion. And you have come to this conclusion without any doubt in about 30 lines of text. To solve one of the worlds most argued about issues, without any doubt, in 30 lines of text, that requires a large amount of faith.

Edited by Butterflytyrant, : No reason given.

Message 326 of 468 (631115) 08-30-2011 11:58 AM

Reply to: Message 322 by GDR 08-30-2011 10:49 AM

But if we're talking about the first cause, then you might as well chide Jbr for his unwarranted assumption that dolphin speech is the product of intelligence. Sure, dolphins are intelligent, but dolphins are not the first cause of the fact that dolphins talk.

Again, you should have pulled him up for suggesting that SETI would detect intelligence. Sure, it could detect intelligent aliens, but not an intelligent first cause.

However, the criterion that he suggested and that I adopted was the practice of scientists, who do not investigate the first causes of dolphins or DNA or Little Green Men.

Message 328 of 468 (631119) 08-30-2011 12:05 PM

Reply to: Message 307 by Just being real 08-30-2011 2:34 AM

If detecting "if an object is natural or man-made" is the same as detecting intelligence and "specificity", then you implicitly concede that natural objects are not the product of intelligence and do not possess this "specificity" of which you speak. Which is not, I believe, what you intend to do.

According to creationist dogma, an archeologist who puts a clay pot and a knapped flint in the "man-made" pile and a tree-root and the skull of a goat in the "natural" pile cannot really be discriminating between the two classes on the criterion of whether they have an intelligent origin, but must be using some other criterion altogether.

Actually, much the same could be said of pretty much any other example you might chose to give. For example, the SETI guys are trying to distinguish signals made by radio transmitters (the product of intelligence) from natural radio signals made by stars, which according to Genesis are also the direct product of intelligence. Indeed, of supreme intelligence, so from the point of view of a fiat creationist what the SETI people are actually looking for are signs of (relative) stupidity --- they are winnowing out the grain in search of the chaff.

Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Message 329 of 468 (631132) 08-30-2011 1:40 PM

Reply to: Message 324 by Straggler 08-30-2011 11:30 AM

But that isn't what we are talking about. We are talking about god(s), (essentially a prime mover), existing or not existing. There are only two possible answers we are considering.

Message 330 of 468 (631137) 08-30-2011 3:38 PM

Reply to: Message 323 by Straggler 08-30-2011 11:15 AM

Yes, correct: it depends on the supernatural concept in question, so you cannot lump them all together as you keep trying to do.

Yes that would falsify that the person/s observed were not {werewolves-that-changed-during-full-moons} -- but would it demonstrate that other werewolves do not exist? In native (and many other) lore there are "shapechangers" that can merely change into wolves at will. If werewolves are defined (as Dr Adequate stated) merely as people that can change into wolves, this would include those shapechangers, and they would not be detectable in this manner.

So, again, this only means that this "commonly conceived" caricature (strawman image) of Thor (rather than one found in original beliefs) is a false conception, not that Thor is necessarily a product of human imagination. I repeat:

Thor causes thunder and lightening. We have thunder and lightening.

Can you test for supernatural essence in thunder and lightening to see if it is present or not?

Ben Franklin in a field without a means to detect electricity in lightening.

You still fail to see that this is NOT A DICHOTOMY. All you need is a detectable effect that is inconsistent and variable, thus making empirical evaluation unreliable. Again this type of behavior can virtually be predicted about supernatural beings, based on various documents of them.

What I think about "internal sexual experiences" and religious experiences is irrelevant and a red herring logical fallacy here.

The issue is whether or not you can detect supernatural presence. If you are unable to test for supernatural presence\effects\essences\forces\etc then you cannot honestly say whether or not they are involved in religious experiences, and all you have is your opinion.

Enjoy.

Edited by RAZD, : spling