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Author Topic:   Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1309 of 1677 (846297)
01-02-2019 8:57 PM
Reply to: Message 1308 by Phat
01-02-2019 7:01 PM


Re: A Spirited Occasion
Phat writes:
Then come over to the dark side. Let reality prevail.
Reality prevails no matter which side you decide to join.
Yes, exactly, reality does prevail. The choice is between reality, which has evidence, and fantasy, which doesn't. Since reality always prevails, why would anyone choose fantasy?
It's understood in this thread that evidence is required, so those choosing fantasy take whatever is handy and call it evidence. If it's hobbits you believe in, you call Tolkein's books evidence. If it's God and Jesus you believe in, you call the Bible evidence.
In courtrooms lawyers are frequently called upon to establish a chain of evidence, meaning they produce evidence and testimony tracking the crime evidence from where it was gathered at the crime scene to how it was transported to headquarters and then to the evidence locker and then from the evidence locker to the courtroom. Science performs an analog of the same idea of a chain of evidence when it establishes theory. Religionists must also do the same thing, but none ever has.
Ancient Egyptians believed as fervently in Ra as you believe in God. Their beliefs made as much sense to them as yours do to you, but you think the ancient Egyptions wrong. If they were still around they would think you as wrong as you think them. So let's say they were still around - how would you determine who's right?
It's the same question for all the modern religions. Between all the religions in GDR's image (excluding Unitarianism - it's just a branch of Christianity, like Mormonism), how do you determine which is right: Christianity, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Bah' Faith, Islam, Judaism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, spirituality, or any of dozens and dozens of more minor religions?
Your earlier answer of which is the most persuasive (or which has the most persuasive advocates) is the way people get fooled and cheated. The correct approach is to assess which has the most tightly bound chain of evidence. At present no religion has persuasive evidence, or any real evidence at all. That's why they call it faith and not reality.
It takes more guts to believe in invisible spirits than it does to drink everclear.
It only takes more guts to believe in invisible spirits if you think they're going to catch you when you jump off the building. If you only believe the invisible spirits are going to provide eternal salvation, and only after you die, then it takes no guts at all, unless you mean enduring ridicule.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1308 by Phat, posted 01-02-2019 7:01 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1312 of 1677 (846659)
01-09-2019 9:10 PM
Reply to: Message 1311 by GDR
01-09-2019 8:33 PM


GDR writes:
ringo writes:
If we're going to stop somewhere, we might as well stop at something that actually exists - i.e. chemicals.
There is no reason to stop at chemicals.
Ringo just gave you a very good reason, one you're just ignoring - chemicals actually exist. You ignore answers a lot and instead respond with some equivalent of "I'm just sticking with what I already said."
Although I suppose one could stop at chemicals, there is a regression from that point. We know where chemicals come from - they form by combining elements. And we know where elements come from - they're cooked in the furnaces of stars and in the explosions of nova and supernova. And we know where stars come from - they condense from interstellar gas clouds. And we know where the interstellar gas clouds come from - they have two sources, either primordial very light elements left over from the Big Bang (hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium) or material spewed into space by nova and supernova, the first stars forming from the primordial elements. And we know where the primordial elements came from - they condensed out of a superhot quark-gluon plasma. It gets more speculative before that so I'll just say that the various hypotheses are based upon evidence, unlike any of your ideas.
The infinite regression argument can be used to refute either position. I don't see it as an argument for either position is my point.
As I've told you before, science not only does not see an infinite regression as a necessity, it doesn't even necessarily see it as meaningful since time possibly didn't exist until the Big Bang.
I do however see the anthropic principle as pointing towards intelligent origins.
You, on the other hand, absolutely have the problem of an infinite regression.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1311 by GDR, posted 01-09-2019 8:33 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1313 by GDR, posted 01-10-2019 2:18 AM Percy has replied
 Message 1314 by Phat, posted 01-10-2019 3:32 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1318 of 1677 (846675)
01-10-2019 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 1313 by GDR
01-10-2019 2:18 AM


GDR writes:
You make my point. It requires process after process after process. Where did the first process come from? It's turtles all the way down.
You again manage to cram a great deal of misunderstanding into a small number of words, and you say this even though I rebut this view in my very next paragraph. You responded too early. All that paragraph did was provide a more detailed view showing that chemicals are not necessarily the "beginning." But it is the exact wrong conclusion that Ringo's point doesn't hold, because it most certainly does, that the stopping point, if there is one and wherever it is, is something that actually exists, that is, something there is evidence for.
To be more declarative and painfully clear this time, our universe began with the Big Bang. The most widely accepted view is that time began with the Big Bang. We cannot talk about what came before the Big Bang because time did not exist before the Big Bang. Time related words like "before" have no meaning when there is no time. Whatever caused the Big Bang did not happen before the Big Bang because there was no before.
We form our own subjective opinions about whether or not there is an intelligent root cause or not.
On that we agree. Anyone's opinion about an intelligent root cause is subjective and not based upon available evidence.
Percy writes:
As I've told you before, science not only does not see an infinite regression as a necessity, it doesn't even necessarily see it as meaningful since time possibly didn't exist until the Big Bang.
But then the same criteria can be used for God. There is no requirement then to have a creator for God as it isn't meaningful as time possibly didn't exist before the Big Bang.
Why does there need to be a Big Bang in your God scenario? You're already picking and choosing what you believe without evidence. Why, suddenly, are you letting your ideas about God be guided by Big Bang evidence? Does your God exist within time, or is he outside time, and what is your evidence?
There is absolutely evidence for what we are saying about the Big Bang, while there is no evidence for this God you keep speaking of. Tell you what. Let's trade objective evidence for the root cause of the universe one for one. I'll go first with evidence for the Big Bang: the cosmic background radiation at a temperature of 4.2K discovered by Penzias and Wilson in 1964, for which they received the Nobel Prize. This is my first item of objective evidence that the Big Bang is real.
Your turn. What's your first piece of objective evidence that God is real.
Percy writes:
You, on the other hand, absolutely have the problem of an infinite regression.
No more than a materialist.
Now materialist is a term of disparagement? If you're not as much a materialist as everyone else then prove it by drinking poison or jumping off a building or stabbing yourself.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1313 by GDR, posted 01-10-2019 2:18 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1319 by Faith, posted 01-10-2019 9:37 AM Percy has replied
 Message 1326 by GDR, posted 01-11-2019 2:52 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 1324 of 1677 (846720)
01-10-2019 9:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1314 by Phat
01-10-2019 3:32 AM


Re: The Point Of Evidence Going Back
Phat writes:
The problem, as I see it, is that one is following a trail of math and physics to arrive at the farthest regression that we can measure.
That's a problem? How is that a problem? The back and forth between hypotheses and theory on the one hand and observation and measurement on the other is how we improve our understanding and demonstrate that we actually know what we think we know.
Granted we know with reasonable certainty that math and physics work and they work very well for what they show us.
Translated, you mean that math and physics work very well for reality but not very well for fantasy.
Keep in mind, however, that you are attempting to provide evidence for a time long before humanity was even around.
Things that happen leave evidence behind. How much time has to pass for the evidence to become too old?
Thus the source of confirmation, our minds, and reasoning, did not even exist at the time described by the math.
Just math now? What happened to physics, and to the observations (the things you measure in your first sentence).
Apologists often say that one reason that humans don't like thinking/imagining an infinite eternal God is partially because they have no way to put such a concept in a box, or problem, or theory.
Realists often say that it's a lack of evidence.
God cannot be quantified nor understood...nay not even measured.
And yet you think you understand God well enough to know these things about Him.
Based on this simple math logic, God is not proven to exist. The maths provide us assurance as well as evidence. They allow us to feel certain of our calculations...
"Math logic"? I don't think you've presented any "math logic." And you're not getting these weird ideas from me, nor have I come across anyone else here making strange claims like this. I don't know anyone saying anything along the lines of, "Math logic has not proven God to exist."
...even though we are calculating a reality that predated our minds.
Why do you think science cannot tell us anything from before there were men? And what's this about "calculating a reality"? Math and science can be very helpful in deciphering evidence, but the history of the universe isn't calculated. Evidence and its analysis play a critical role, and we have evidence from before there were men. From long before there were men.
Of course, time is finite.
Oh, of course. And you know this how?
Anything that can be quantified takes time to quantify. Without time, there could be no proof...for no individual, computer, or thesis could even be compiled.
Too deep for me.
In conclusion, I would say that at best, evidenced points of regression are comforting, whereas eternal, abstract, unquantifiable points give humans an uneasy feeling.
Or maybe some people know how they know what they think they know, and some don't.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1314 by Phat, posted 01-10-2019 3:32 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1332 of 1677 (846821)
01-12-2019 9:41 AM
Reply to: Message 1326 by GDR
01-11-2019 2:52 AM


GDR writes:
Percy writes:
To be more declarative and painfully clear this time, our universe began with the Big Bang. The most widely accepted view is that time began with the Big Bang. We cannot talk about what came before the Big Bang because time did not exist before the Big Bang. Time related words like "before" have no meaning when there is no time. Whatever caused the Big Bang did not happen before the Big Bang because there was no before.
Absolutely but that is the case whether you are talking about an infinite regression of processes or of gods.
It would have been far more appropriate for you to repeat your reply to Tangle in your previous message, that it's a given you don't understand this. A regression involves time and is a series of "befores" - if there is no time there can be no regression.
Percy writes:
Why does there need to be a Big Bang in your God scenario? You're already picking and choosing what you believe without evidence. Why, suddenly, are you letting your ideas about God be guided by Big Bang evidence? Does your God exist within time, or is he outside time, and what is your evidence?
There is absolutely evidence for what we are saying about the Big Bang, while there is no evidence for this God you keep speaking of. Tell you what. Let's trade objective evidence for the root cause of the universe one for one. I'll go first with evidence for the Big Bang: the cosmic background radiation at a temperature of 4.2K discovered by Penzias and Wilson in 1964, for which they received the Nobel Prize. This is my first item of objective evidence that the Big Bang is real.
Your turn. What's your first piece of objective evidence that God is real.
OK Your evidence for the root cause of the universe...
You do not understand. No one's arguing that there is evidence for a root cause of the universe, but we do have evidence for each link in the chain of events we currently know about. When Ringo suggested chemicals as the beginning he wasn't really serious. The point you were supposed to take away root causes must have evidence that they are real. So if chemicals are the root cause (they're not, but if they were) then we have evidence for chemicals. We know they exist, and we know a great deal about their properties. Where is the evidence for your root cause?
...is evidence for the Big Bang using cosmic background radiation. Well firstly the CBR was a result of the Big Bang. I accept the scientific fact of the BB. However the BB is not a root cause.
Nobody said the Big Bang was a root cause. I have tried to be appropriately tentative in my descriptions, but it seems to be contributing more to your confusion than your understanding.
It just happens at t=0 to be the first instance of physicality as we perceive it.
Yes, and unlike NASA launches there is no T-1.
It tells us nothing about why the BB happened.
"Why" is not a science question unless you mean it in the sense of, "What caused this to happen?" If you do mean it in this latter sense then observational evidence has spawned several promising theories. But if you do actually mean "why" then that places you on exceptionally weak ground, since you can't answer any of the "why" questions for religion, such as why a loving and compassionate God allows innocent babies to suffer and die.
My evidence is that the world that we perceive requires a conscious observer, either directly or by measurement
False. The world and the universe would be here whether or not we or any other "conscious observer" were present. There are rocks on our planet older than life.
Consciousness then seems to be a foundational property of the universe.
Since your initial premise was false, this deduction from that premise is also false.
With that knowledge...
With what knowledge? You haven't described any knowledge. You've structured your argument as a chain of logic, but you began with a false statement that contained no evidence.
...it is then reasonable to believe that the universe resulted initially from a consciousness outside of our experience of time.
You haven't actually described any evidence. My evidence that the Big Bang is real is that antenna and satellite probes detect electromagnetic radiation of just the right temperature required by theory. You can read all about the evidence for the cosmic microwave background radiation at Wikipedia or at a huge number of other sources on the Internet. Please provide some equivalently hard evidence that your God is real. Or answer any of a number of other questions you've avoided, such as does your God exist within time or outside time, and what is your evidence?
Percy writes:
Now materialist is a term of disparagement?
Not at all.
Let us not play games. You used the word "materialist" in a pejorative manner, as if materialists and spiritualists were at odds with spiritualists having the superior viewpoint. I replied that you are as much a materialist as everyone else, in other words, that we are all, by necessity, materialists because we live in the real world.
But you're using disparagement as a distraction from the original point. You *do* have an infinite regression with your God, while science has no evidence that would lead it to conclude there's an infinite regression in the real world, or even that a regression is a meaningful concept where time does not exist.
But the more fundamental question, and another one that you've avoided thus far, is why you're trying to tie your immaterial spiritual beliefs to evidence from the material world.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1326 by GDR, posted 01-11-2019 2:52 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1341 by GDR, posted 01-13-2019 11:01 AM Percy has replied
 Message 1354 by GDR, posted 01-13-2019 7:52 PM Percy has replied
 Message 1376 by GDR, posted 01-15-2019 8:50 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 1333 of 1677 (846822)
01-12-2019 10:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1319 by Faith
01-10-2019 9:37 AM


Faith writes:
There is absolutely evidence for what we are saying about the Big Bang, while there is no evidence for this God you keep speaking of.
GDR does unfortunately keep cutting the evidence out from under himself by denying so much of the Bible, but the evidence for the God of Christianity is enormously abundant in sixty six books by at least forty writers over 1500 years all attesting to the same God by direct witness to His miracles and by reports of witness testimony. The evidence is lavishly given.
The evidence is absent, the claims of evidence made up.
But it is precisely that evidence you simply reject on the basis of your own prejudice.
I wouldn't call a demand for evidence a prejudice, and whatever you call it it is equal opportunity. I demand evidence of all religions, and all religions fail to deliver.
Thousands of witnesses aren't enough if all you have to do is say it couldn't happen because you believe it couldn't happen just because you believe it couldn't happen. Amazing.
But you don't have thousands of witnesses. You just keep claiming there are thousands of witnesses as if repetition could produce truth.
God certainly knew He could inspire the truth to be reported to such a huge extent and silly people would still reject it and make up lies about how it has to be fiction just because they can't imagine it being true. It has nothing of the quality of fiction but God knew you'd deceive yourself about that.
I wonder if a fictional God would also know that you'd be deceiving yourself about him?
He made sure it all got reported and then asked us simply to believe it as the honest reporting it is. Which is precisely what silly people like you refuse to do. Don't blame us then when our simple belief turns out to reveal the reality of God too late for you to recognize it.
Well, if you're right then I'll wave to you outside the Pearly Gates.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1319 by Faith, posted 01-10-2019 9:37 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1334 by Faith, posted 01-13-2019 8:22 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 1361 of 1677 (846988)
01-14-2019 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 1341 by GDR
01-13-2019 11:01 AM


GDR writes:
Percy writes:
It would have been far more appropriate for you to repeat your reply to Tangle in your previous message, that it's a given you don't understand this. A regression involves time and is a series of "befores" - if there is no time there can be no regression.
I get that Percy,...
No, you didn't. Again.
...but my point is that it is the same argument whether you talk about a regression of gods or processes. It's still turtles all the way down.
No, it is not turtles all the way down. Ringo said it better than I did. We stop at the last turtle that has evidence. We don't postulate unevidenced turtles.
Explaining something you don't understand by drawing an analog to something else you don't understand is unlikely to help, but anyway, it's like dark matter. It's a nice theory, it explains a lot of things, but there's no evidence for it. Therefore it's not a turtle in the scientific arsenal, at least not yet. And maybe never. Maybe MOND will win out in the end. Or something else.
Percy writes:
"Why" is not a science question unless you mean it in the sense of, "What caused this to happen?" If you do mean it in this latter sense then observational evidence has spawned several promising theories. But if you do actually mean "why" then that places you on exceptionally weak ground, since you can't answer any of the "why" questions for religion, such as why a loving and compassionate God allows innocent babies to suffer and die.
I have dealt with that numerous times and yes, suffering is a difficult question for a Christian to answer. I'll repeat what I've said before. Firstly a loving compassionate god is a far better explanation for why there are creatures who are able to love altruistically and minimize suffering than are blind processes.
You seem to have a great love of declaring what you believe while offering no support. For you a loving compassionate God is just a better explanation than blind processes, yet evolution is a blind process and you accept evolution. But though you believe evolution happened, you also believe it was guided by God, even though you have no evidence, probably because it just comports better with how you view things.
But then why do you need evidence for the resurrection but not for God guiding evolution? My guess is that it's because your true interests lie on the religious side and so you really feel a need for evidence for that, but the science side not so much. In other words, you only see "evidence" in places that garner your greatest attention.
I think that we have agreed that deep down people realize that the golden rule should be foundational to humanity whether they actually live it out or not.
The golden rule isn't something people realize deep down. It's simply that actions that encourage cooperation increase the chances of survival.
Concerning the suffering caused by humans is concerned, and you've heard it a thousand times, you can't have the ability to choose to love sacrificially if you can't choose to love the self even to the detriment of others.
Nope, haven't heard this one before.
Entropy seems to be a necessity for a world with only one direction of time which results in natural disasters.
Entropy and the arrow of time are involved in everything that happens, not just natural disasters.
Also from from a Christian standpoint, this isn't the end and that with new creation there will a world where the wolf lies down with the lamb and there is no suffering.
I thought original sin broke all that and it wasn't coming back.
Percy writes:
You haven't actually described any evidence. My evidence that the Big Bang is real is that antenna and satellite probes detect electromagnetic radiation of just the right temperature required by theory. You can read all about the evidence for the cosmic microwave background radiation at Wikipedia or at a huge number of other sources on the Internet. Please provide some equivalently hard evidence that your God is real. Or answer any of a number of other questions you've avoided, such as does your God exist within time or outside time, and what is your evidence?
I believe with only subjective evidence that we are an emergent property within a much greater reality. For us time flows in only one direction but in the greater reality of which we are only 4.5% time and space are infinite.
The short answer is, "No, I have no evidence."
I have no evidence...
Oh, geez, I hadn't read ahead. Did I call it or what!
...for that but it forms a way of understanding things which fits with both my Christian understanding as well as with my ultra minimal understanding of relativity and QM.
That's fine, but then why do you keep saying you have evidence, that the NT is evidence, that the resurrection is evidence, etc., etc., etc.
Percy writes:
Let us not play games. You used the word "materialist" in a pejorative manner, as if materialists and spiritualists were at odds with spiritualists having the superior viewpoint. I replied that you are as much a materialist as everyone else, in other words, that we are all, by necessity, materialists because we live in the real world.
No I didn't. I meant it is the same sense as I would use the term Christian, atheist, secular humanist etc.
"Materialist" and "atheist" are hurled as epithets by Christians all the time. I think you've become so accustomed to the terms that you've lost sight of their pejorative qualities.
Percy writes:
But the more fundamental question, and another one that you've avoided thus far, is why you're trying to tie your immaterial spiritual beliefs to evidence from the material world.
Even Paul wrote that we can see God in the physical world. IMHO it only makes sense to learn from all the sources that we have, whether it be holy books, philosophy or science. Ultimately the absolute truth has to have all of this in harmony.
Religion clashes harshly with reality, so I guess it can't be part of this "absolute truth" you seek.
I don't want to lose track of the main point. I'm not trying to change anyone's religious beliefs, but when the religious decide they need real-world evidence then they're going to have to find actual honest to God real-world evidence, not just things that only other believers accept as evidence. Real evidence is something that can't be ignored, not something you can just take or leave.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1341 by GDR, posted 01-13-2019 11:01 AM GDR has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1362 by Theodoric, posted 01-14-2019 5:51 PM Percy has replied
 Message 1365 by Phat, posted 01-15-2019 9:25 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1363 of 1677 (846994)
01-14-2019 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 1354 by GDR
01-13-2019 7:52 PM


Re: Suffering with a loving God
GDR writes:
I grew up in what IMHO was the best time and location, (Alberta Canada), that there has ever been.
My mother grew up on a farm not too distant from Calgary.
Justice will come from a loving, forgiving and merciful God, that will somehow balance the suffering endured in this world in the world to come.
But you can't really believe this since it makes no sense to alleviate any suffering in this world if all will be made right in the next. Your efforts would be redundant. Are you maybe thinking more of your own reward? Or are you maybe just filling in a religious explanation for the normal human impulse to relieve suffering?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1354 by GDR, posted 01-13-2019 7:52 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1377 by GDR, posted 01-15-2019 9:09 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1364 of 1677 (846995)
01-14-2019 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 1362 by Theodoric
01-14-2019 5:51 PM


Theodoric writes:
My only quibble is that there is evidence for dark matter. There is just no direct evidence. Dark energy though has at this time no evidence for its existence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/...ses/2015/02/150209113046.htm
Dueling links: Is Dark Matter Real?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1362 by Theodoric, posted 01-14-2019 5:51 PM Theodoric has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1381 of 1677 (847035)
01-16-2019 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 1376 by GDR
01-15-2019 8:50 PM


GDR writes:
percy writes:
A regression involves time and is a series of "befores" - if there is no time there can be no regression.
I actually did get that the first time and I agree. My point was that if you are going to invoke that rule nor a non-theistic position then a theist should be able to invoke the same. If it is not turtles all the way down for the non-theistic position then it is the same for the theistic position.
But you're ignoring key issues. I asked you, "Does your God exist within time or outside of time?" Obviously if he exists within time then you have an infinite regression problem. And if he exists outside of time then you're just adopting one of the possible implications of the Big Bang, that before T=0 there was no time. And just to be clear, an infinite regression is one of the scientific possibilities. There is at present no accepted scientific theory on what preceded the Big Bang.
Which brings me to the other key issue: evidence. Science doesn't build theory around unevidenced ideas. You have no evidence of God, but let's postulate that you do, that we know He exists and that he exists within time, and that we've decided to accept as evidence the argument that it is more rational than not to believe that sentient beings capable of love, etc., could not be created by blind processes. Isn't God a sentient being capable of love, etc? Of course He is. Therefore he could not have been created by blind processes, and so we must seek what created God, and then what created the creator of God, and so forth in an infinite regression. At some point you have to halt the regression and just admit that a sentient being capable of love, etc., could be created by blind processes. And if God could be created by blind processes then so could people, so there's no need for God as an intermediary.
Also, I would like to bring up Paley's argument about the evolution of the eye. I accept the evolutionary answer that the eye could evolve with a series of mutations rather than requiring the whole eye to be complete from day one.
It seems to me however that we should look at that more deeply. If evolution is a mindless process that has resulted in the creatures we have today, and that it all started without any cellular life, how would a blind process know that the sense of vision was something that existed at all in order to begin the evolutionary process that resulted in vision being a reality? The same is true for the evolutionary processes for any of our senses.
The key part of your question, "How would a blind process know...", is contradictory. The key quality of a blind process is that it doesn't know anything. You can't ask how a blind process would know. Obviously a blind process doesn't know. That's why we call it a blind process, or a mindless process.
Consider something much simpler than the senses, the H1N1 virus. How do the chemicals comprising these viruses in pigs in China know that such and such a mutation will wreak havoc with human health during the next flu season? Obviously chemicals know nothing. The evolutionary process is not guided by anything that knows anything. It's an unguided process of descent with modification and natural selection.
Also, you said in another post when I mentioned the observer effect that even though there was no one there to measure or observe anything that the rocks etc of our world would still exist. How do you know that or is it simply something you believe. If you know it then how do you know it?
Grab a shovel, walk outside to some bare ground, and begin digging. At some depth you will reach dirt and/or rocks that no one has ever seen before. Do you believe they didn't exist until then? Obviously not. Obviously you believe they existed before you began digging. Now just follow that logic backward in time.
Or here's something even simpler. Grab a hammer and go outside and find a big rock. Whack it with the hammer until you chip off a piece. You are now looking at rock that has never been seen before. Does it make sense to you that that rock didn't exist until you hit it with your hammer? Of course not. So answer your own question: How did you know that whatever was inside the rock was already there before you hit it with your hammer and observed it?
There is the age-old question that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it still make a sound. Assuming that there is no conscious life around I would say no it does not. It is not a sound until it is perceived as sound. It is only an increased movement of airwaves. Possibly it is the same for observing rocks.
Sound is just mechanical vibrations transmitted through a medium like a solid or gas. Those vibrations exist whether anyone hears them or not.
Say you have a clock radio that goes off at 6 AM, but you couldn't sleep and so you got up and began your day at 5:30 AM. The clock radio still turns on at 6 AM but there is no one there to hear it. Do you really believe there's no sound in the room?
The question about a falling tree making a sound is for children. Of course it produces sound, whether anyone hears it or not. A tree not producing sound unless someone hears it would be like a lightbulb not producing light unless someone sees it.
In other words, things happen whether someone observes them or not.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1376 by GDR, posted 01-15-2019 8:50 PM GDR has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 1382 of 1677 (847037)
01-16-2019 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 1377 by GDR
01-15-2019 9:09 PM


Re: Suffering with a loving God
GDR writes:
Again it is primarily only the letters that correspond with what is on the keyboard on this computer, so I am limited to pretty much that.
I see you're using square brackets, so did you figure out how to type square brackets or are you copy/pasting square brackets into your messages? I'm guessing you're in the Spanish speaking world where there is some variety in keyboards. On some the square brackets are the two keys to the right of the "P", on others to the right of the "", whether they're marked or not. On some keyboards you may have to also hit ALT or CTL or even SHFT-ALT or SHFT-CTL. If you do not have two keys to the right of the "P" or "" then your keyboard is really old.
Percy writes:
My mother grew up on a farm not too distant from Calgary.
Mine did too except it was a ranch in the Irricana area just NE of Calgary.
Delburne, then Three Hills, but none of the kids or grandkids stayed on the farm and are now in Red Deer, Olds and vicinity.
If I am right that there is a next world where there will be perfect justice it makes perfect sense to do our best to make that a reality in the present.
I'm not seeing any logic in that argument, just a declaration.
Jesus told us to pray thy kingdom come on Earth as in Heaven.
I thought it was, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."
The original question remains unanswered. If the greater the suffering on Earth the greater the reward in the eternal life of heaven, then aren't you doing people a disservice by ameliorating their suffering on Earth ("11Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Matthew 5:11-12), and increasing your own reward by increasing your own suffering through supposedly selfless service ("But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God." 1 Peter 2:20)?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1377 by GDR, posted 01-15-2019 9:09 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1387 by GDR, posted 01-16-2019 6:28 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


(1)
Message 1390 of 1677 (847067)
01-17-2019 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 1387 by GDR
01-16-2019 6:28 PM


Re: Suffering with a loving God
GDR writes:
Incidentally Percy our backgrounds seem to cross each other again as my wife is a New Englander from Melrose a suburb of Boston.
Only about 30 miles from the New Hampshire border. Maybe there's something even closer as I lived in Maynard, MA, years ago (even closer to Melrose) and worked across the street at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), once a major employer in the region and the second largest computer manufacturer in the world employing over 140,000 people. Maynard was company headquarters. I was speaking with the self-checkout assistant at Walmart the other day about the poor state of modern software (I was using the Walmart Pay app, which worked fine, she was just expressing surprise that someone in my, uh, age group was using it, and I think she just enjoys talking with people), and out of the blue she mentioned DEC and how much she loved the software her company used back in the 1980's that ran on VAX/VMS computers manufactured by DEC. Maybe your wife knew people from Maynard or DEC.
I suggest that as humans we want to find concrete reasons to support our faith.
Naturally.
I will quote John Polkinghorne...The fit between rationality in our minds and rationality in the world is to be expected if the world is a creation of the mind.
What part of the world is Polkinghorne calling rational? Scientifically, sure, but add people and the rationality drops away.
Again it is not hard evidence but it is suggestive that we are the result of intelligence.
Yet you accept evolution. Can I assume you believe evolution was guided by God?
The anthropic principle does not provide a conclusive argument for the existence of God but again I suggest that it is suggestive.
I'll call this the Goldilocks argument (because it's similar to the search for planets outside the solar system that reside in the so-called Goldilocks zone where conditions are just right for life), that the universe is just right for life (including humans), implying purposeful choosing of fundamental physical parameters. On the other hand, pride in our own unique qualities notwithstanding, we're the kind of life that could evolve in this kind of universe. Were it a different kind of universe we would be a different kind of life, and likely just as prideful of our unique qualities.
The ultra high degree of fine tuning required is what we might expect if life and consciousness were goals of a rational creator with a purpose.
The universe might seem fine-tuned for us, but different fine-tuning would have produced a different us, and likely just as amazed at how fine-tuned the universe seemed for them.
Also science has shown, although you guys have shown that I went too far with it, that a conscious observer does play a very large role in the functioning of our world.
I can't see how you arrived at that conclusion. Except at the quantum level where (widely but not universally accepted theory believes that) wave functions collapse when they encounter other wave functions (in your vernacular, "are observed," which doesn't actually require a conscious or even living observer), observing something (e.g., the light waves or sound waves of an event impinging on your eyes or ears) has no effect on that event.
It goes back to having free will I guess which also gives us freedom to believe what we will believe.
I have no objection to any faith-based beliefs. I only object to rationalizing that there is evidence for those faith-based beliefs. You've said several times that you accept on faith that there is evidence for your faith-based beliefs, and I can accept that too, but not when it's followed by an irrational leap that therefore there is scientific evidence. If it helps you to believe that the nature of the universe itself is "suggestive" then that's fine, too, but it's a starting point for seeking evidence and is not itself evidence.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1387 by GDR, posted 01-16-2019 6:28 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1394 by GDR, posted 01-17-2019 7:39 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
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