Creationist theory

Well I have never yet met a creationist, who denies creation occurs per choice, so can you answer the question;Does God create by His own choice?If you would answer affirmatively I would not take this as supporting everything I said, but... when you acknowledge choices as real (which incedentally scientists generally don't do), then a whole lot of logic follows from that...It seems to me that in your theory, you tend to employ the logic of mind, rather then the logic of choice.I could largely place you theory within mine, as a proposed ethical approach to choices, which ethical approach to choices leads to gathering an optimum of information from any choice.So I can reconstrue your theory as saying, using a Biblical frame of reference for regarding any choice gives the optimum amount of information from that choice. So when someone regards a choice within a Biblical frame of reference, that person may correctly deduce the purpose of that choice.But I think you might be making a mistake in this, because you are omitting that you can only relate to a choice, by another choice. One cannot for instance program the Bible into a computeprogram, and then the computerprogram would find the purpose in a choice. This is because, as of yet, computerprograms can't choose, and therefore can't relate to choices.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

You use the term "science" frequently in your opening post. How do you define this word?

Generally as systemized knowledge about the way things are based on experience of the senses. The most useful rule in systemizing being Occam's razor, which separates knowledge in terms of efficiency of explanation.The main thing that makes science special, is that it seperates objective from subjective. The objective part would then be science.I think I explained well enough how creationism seperates objectivity from subjectivity.As also explained before, it is actually materialism, atheism, and those kinds of disciplines in thought, which tend to fail to separate the objective from subjective.This is because those disciplines do not actually acknowledge a domain to which subjectivity applies. So not acknowledging a domain where they can't go, they proceed to include everything into science as objective, including love etc.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

I would define science as the combination of the scientific method itself and the body of knowledge gained through that method. Would you agree with such a definition? The scientific method allows us to test hypotheses in a repeatable way. How has creationist theory been tested scientifically?

Assalamu alaikum,I think I understand what you are saying, but I don't think calling it science is valid. It looks more like reasoning, logic or philosophy. Science is a specific type of reasoning/philosophy, which your post doesn't seem to be. So, you start with the Creator premise: It is not necessary to know the character of the Creator of the Created entity. This is true. However, we need to have evidence that Michealangelo exists/existed in order to credit him with being the Creator of the Created object. And that is where the comparison to Creationism gets shaky since we have no actual evidence of the existence of the Creator.Next is the Creation premise. You define Creation as something only an agent with free will can do. I'm happy with the definition.The conclusion seems to be that if an act of creation happens, it is an act of free will. Conversely if free will does not exist, there is no creation.This isn't science, it is a simple set of premises, not necessarily connected that leave a conclusion. It isn't science though. To arrive at a conclusion in science we must start with a hypothesis, then seek empirical observation/evidence that would either be consistent with it, or falsify it.That isn't to say that other forms of reason are incorrect, wrong or inferior...it's just that they are not science. There we have a hypothesis. Now we need to discuss possible ways of testing it/falsifying it before it can really advance to anything other than philosophical musings. Then it isn't science, is it. We are not asking for evidence of God's character, or His height, weight, tastes etc. To hypothesise a creation entity, we must seek evidence that a creative entity exists. If we propose God is the creative entity, then it is God we need the evidence for. Otherwise, once again we are dealing in philosophy (or rather theology) and not science. In short my point is that Creationism is fine as a religious or philosophical concept but it fails as science. We cannot render equivalent the specific philosophical reasoning method called science, and the general concept of philosophical reasoning. If you wanted to do that, we would need a new word to describe the specific reasoning method we currently call science.It is futile to call something science by changing the definition of science, because then we would simply need a new word to describe what we currently call science. Creationism would still not be the same reasoning method employed by what are currently called scientists. It doesn't, unfortunately, give us any insights. That decisions exist and are pivotal to the act of creation does not get us anywhere for practical applications. This is where the important science part of the reasoning fails, unfortunately for everybody.Perhaps I've missed something important to your point, so before I go any further I hope to get some feedback from you about what I have said. Take care, and peace.

Well this is still nothing much for me to respond to.As explained before, it is wrong to ask objective evidence for identity-issues. So I deny that you have objective evidence about who Michaelangelo is as the creator of the painting.Apparently you consider it unscientific to determine the probability of anything at some point, or only the probability of human beings appearing you consider unscientific?????Then you say something about looking at things in terms of decisions on chances gives you no meaningful insight about how things are.If that is so, then explain to me how would you go about describing the randomness of the zener-diode, or the probability-distribution of an electron around an atom?For instance how can an electron go from one place to another around an atom, if not per decision?regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

Obviously creationism is based on indeterminacy, that given the same parameters you may get one of several possible results.So when you talk about repeatibility, you merely seem to be excluding indeterminacy.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

I spent several days trying to understand where you are coming from, hopefully you will spend a moment to try and understand me and we can come to a mutual understaning. And I agreed that we cannot know from looking at the painting how tall Michealangelo was or what fruits he preferred to eat. However, there is evidence that Michealangeloa) existed
b) painted that particular painting.Nobody arbitrarily assigned Michealangelo as the painter, we call it a Michealangelo painting because there is good evidence he painted it! Quite the contrary. It is scientific to calculate probabilities of things. However, stating that there are probabilities for certain things is not science in its own right. Science is a specific form of reasoning that relies on evidence and empiricism as well as testing and falsifying hypotheses. That's not what I meant, sorry for the misunderstanding. I am saying that Creationism does not give us any insights.Other than, of course, current standard scientific practice.
Maybe it'll be useful at some point, but until some way of testing and falsifying your ideas comes along its at best hyper theoretical science. With some development I could understand some connection with physics. However, I'm not sure how this element relates to Creationism and God so I'd appreciate a little more expansion on it. I'd rather you expanded on why you think that decisions are needed. Why does a decision need to be made about anything, what evidence is there that decisions are being made?

This is why scientists try to control as many parameters as possible. When only one variable remains, an experiment can be performed again and again and the same result will be obtained every time. If different results are obtained, there may be some unseen variable, or in the case of quantum mechanics, the result may be random. If it is random, this can be repeatedly demonstrated as well.This process of eliminating variables is so important that it is a requirement of the scientific method. Knowledge which is not gained in a manner including this process is not science, though I do not make judgment of its utility or value. It is something else - philosophy, common sense, whatever you want to call it, it is simply not scientific. I see no reason, therefore, to call creationist theory a science.

As before, the subjective view of Michealangelo is most important when we consider him as a creator, not the objective. So you are skewing this the wrong way when you say you have objective evidence of Michaelangelo as a creator. The only objective evidence of creation really is when you find the locations of the decisions.Well I already indicated what kind of evidence about decisions I find acceptable, with the zener-diode, the electron around the atom, and using statistics to trace back probabilities.I also indicated how creationism is relevant to God several places, by acknowleding the spiritual domain as owners to decisions, and by finding signficant decisions such as the the creation of human beings, and creationism is also instrumental in recognition of the final judgement.I agree it get's a bit hypertheoretical towards creations as informational entitities (although one can well see how deciding one of several possibilities relates closely to informationconcepts), although there still the basics that a creation exists between 2 points of decision is not IMO hyperspeculative.In any case the basics are simply useful already, as you can well see for instance by talking about the location of the electron changing per decision.It is imperative for a great many tasks that people know how to handle describing decisions. Actually it mostly is already teached in kindergarden, but this needs to simply be acknowledged as fundamental knowledge in science in general.By my experience in debating and reading about it, I am quite sure that quite a large percentage of scientists do not actually know how to describe in terms of decision. How to describe in terms of it being true that things may turn out one way or another. So really this is a huge level of ignorance about a subject which is fundamental.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

I see the problem here. That Michealangelo created the painting requires evidence. That an artist painted it doesn't.If we find a painting and we do not know who painted it, we might try and find out who painted it. We know that people paint pictures and we know of nothing else that does, so it was very probably a person. If we like the painting and many others do, it was probably an artist that painted it. This is something we cannot do with life, of course, which is problematic for Creationism. I don't want to know what evidence you consider acceptable. I want you to explain to me why decisions are necessary, I want you to show me the evidence of decisions. Right ok no problem. Now we have a hypothesis here, it seems pretty unfalsifiable right now. Can you think of some tests for it, or is it just philosophy? Fine fine. This assumes free will of course. You'll need some kind of test to demonstrate that as well before it goes from philosophy to science. The reason being is that you are proposing entities to describe another entity. The second entity is choice; I'm hoping you'll talk me through the actual evidence of decisions and how we can seperate them from deterministic explanations. Then you need to show us how to detect the spiritual domain, and tests that differentiate this realm from normal non-spiritual realms.Then we'll have a piece of theoretical science.It doesn't matter if we don't get all this, it can easily remain an interesting philosophical viewpoint and it wouldn't lose its charm. Not every great concept that is thought of has to be scientific. I have some crazy ideas which are certainly not scientific but I value them no less as a result.

Again, you are skewing this the wrong way. When a fat man makes a choice, the choice isn't neccessarily either fat or male. So your observation of a fat man painting a picture is basically meaningless.I already explained how to detect the spiritual realm, it's when you relate your spirit by your own choice, to the choice of another. It is subjective, and we do this all the time in socializing.Well I already showed you the evidence of decisions. There is just a word neccessary to describe the point where it goes from one of several possible results to an actual result, and so this word is appropiately decison.Since I gave some very specific examples already, and since you are obviously insisting that it be about specific things and not just general philosophy, why don't you just address the specific examples I gave? What your problem is with them.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

Agreed, several times now. However, there was an entity that painted the picture. We define that entity as a painter. But how do I know I have my own choice? If there was choice, I'd agree that there was something else going on (whether or not it was a spiritual realm remains to be seen). We'll call it the choice realm to avoid certain connotations for now. OK, but how do we know that it wasn't always going to go to that result and it is merely our limited perception that makes it look otherwise? More specifically if we have a radioactive element decaying, how do we know that some unseen cause (for example in the 11 dimensional membrane world) didn't deterministically cause it decay at that point rather than a choice-realm? Because they don't differentiate from other models, and they are unparsimonious. At least as far as I can see. I was hoping you'd explain/expand on them and we could discuss them.

Quite clearly you are just desperately grasping for cause and effect explanations (the 11th dimension and whatnot), when there is a giant body of knowledge which says otherwise, which says that it is indeterminate.What you are arguing is just prejudice, and arguably, a very foul prejudice. Certainly nobody likes it when their choice, their courageous or even cowardly choice, is mistaken for a cause and effect.You dismiss my description, but you haven't even shown that you are able to describe in terms of indeterminacy.So again, why don't you argue the location of an electron around the atom, in terms of indeterminacy? That's enough of a specific example.What it adds to say that the elecron changes the location per decision, is for one thing, that it makes sense, where other explanations I've seen (the kind of explanations that depend on cat's being alive and dead at the same time) fail to make sense even.And of course other things follow from closer examination in terms of decision, such as the speed of decision etc.regards,
Mohammad Nur Syamsu

Because we are incapable of determining an outcome, you jump to the conclusion that the universe is indeterminate? Its not like I'm desperately grasping for cause and effect and inventing 11 dimensions. I kind of prefer a universe that is indeterimnate...though I have been corrected for thinking that by cosmologists (see this post where it actually happens. Cavediver has gone into some more detail on the matter, and I'll have to hunt around for more information on it). Excuse me? I'm simply saying that we don't know everything, so concluding that this means that there is no determinacy is not necessarily meritorious. I'm not dismissing anything, just asking for you to expand and explain it to me further.If you'd like me to expand on determinacy I will, but it'll take some time, so you'll have to wait for me to compile the information. I'm happy to wait for you to expand and explain your idea in more depth though, as if you were teaching a student.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.