The Greater Miracle

GDR writes:

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There are competing theories within the study of QM.

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That's not subjective, though. The reason they compete is because they have objective data to support them. You can run an experiment and you get results that are consistent with the theory.That's what makes them science.

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Greene even wrote "The Elegant Universe" espousing that particular theory.

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GAH! The Elegant Universe is a POPULAR PRESS BOOK, not actual science!Now, you can find journal articles about string theory: But The Elegant Universe is not one of them. It is a popular press book whose only real aim is to let people who aren't particle physicists have some idea of what particle physicists are doing with their time.Science does not look kindly on popular press. Did you know that Carl Sagan was denied membership in the National Academy of Sciences and denied tenure at Harvard? One of the most important scientists who arguably had the greatest ability in bringing the fruits of hard science to the masses was derided by his fellow scientists because they saw him as nothing more than a "popularizer." Everybody seems to forget his seminal work regarding the planet Venus. It was Sagan who came up with the concept of a runaway greenhouse.But Cosmos wasn't a scientific treatise. It was a television show and a popular press book. There's a lot of good science in it, but it isn't actual science. It's a description of the results of science.A review of a movie is not a movie. A good reviewer can give you all sorts of information about the movie, give you insight into the background of the participants, provide details about how the shoot developed, and lay the piece out in the larger framework of cinema, but it isn't a movie. It's a review of a movie.Popular press books about science are not science. They give you information about science, give you insight into the background of the participants, provide details about how the science developed, and lay the work out in the larger framework of science, but isn't science. It's a popularization of science.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

I'll try using your example of evolution. In my view we have four choices.
1/ There is no intelligent designer and evolution began and progressed as a stictly materialistic biological process.2/ An intelligence designed the whole process at the outset and it proceeded naturallywithout intervention from there.3/ An intelligence designed the whole process and then intervened periodically.4/ An intelligence initiated the process and has manipulated every genetic mutation since then.Can you agree that these choices represent all of the options accurately?

GDR writes:

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I'm not a deist, but if I was and believed that God created the world and designed it in such a way that He was able to just go away and let it run on it its own, could I then still say that God was required for everything?

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No. The fact that consciousness X created object Y does not mean that X is required to determine the outcome of the interaction of objects Y and Z.When you need a quarter for the vending machine, the machine does not care if the quarter was made at the Denver mint as opposed to the Philadelphia mint. The only thing it cares about is if the metal object being put down the slot has certain characteristics of weight, size, etc. Thus, the mint is not required for the vending machine to function.Once you leave it alone to function on its own, it no longer requires you. Thus, my question:If I take a handful of coins and toss them on the ground, do they land in their final positions all on their own or does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously put them in their final landing spot?I know I didn't do because as soon as they left my hand, I had no control over them. So do they get to where they land all on their own or does god do it?Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?I understand the hesitation: To allow that there are things that happen on their own leaves one open to the conclusion that something that you want to insist requires god might actually have happened on its own. After all, if something can happen on its own, it is possible that anything you care to name happened on its own.Perhaps the problem is not what god did or didn't do but rather your opinion about what god did or didn't do. Who are to tell god what he did? Is it not possible that god does exist but not in the way you think?

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If however Rrhain is talking about as a god that intervenes specifically in every bit of quantum activity in the universe then it becomes an entirely different question.

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Incorrect. It's the same question: Do quantum effects happen on their own or does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously make the wave functions collapse in a specific outcome?Ken Miller seems to think so. He's a Catholic and a scientist and, like the official position of the Catholic church, has no trouble reconciling evolution and god.He thinks that god works through QM.

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Objectively we can't know.

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Why not? According to your holy book, god was in the habit of revealing himself directly to people all the time. Not subtly but direct manifestations, walking with people, etc.What happened? Why did god stop?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

I think that if you go back to my posts with Percy and onifre that I've agreed that you are correct regarding what is subjective. In essence we were using the word differently.I understand your point about popular science.

GDR writes:

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A miracle by definition is something that can't be replicated.

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Huh? Not according to your holy book. The magicians of the Pharaoh were able to reproduce all the miracles of Moses.Are you saying god never does the same trick twice?

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However, we have an ancient document that says that they occurred in the Bible.

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Yeah, and that text has proven to be so amazingly reliable.By this logic, then you clearly feel that the ancient Greek gods were real and their miracles were upon the world, right? After all, the Illiad and the Odyssey document that they occurred and we have even found Troy and traced the path of Odysseus.

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The fact still remains that it is evidence

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No, it isn't evidence. It's anecdote. There's a difference.

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In my view there actually is good evidence for the truth of the Christian faith

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Nobody denies that. The problem we're pointing out to you is that your "evidence" seems to be unique to you or at the very least is contradicted by at least two-thirds of the rest of the world.Contrast this to science where the entire point is that everybody winds up with the same results no matter who does it.

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The good news for me is that I can't lose. If I'm right I'll be able to say I told you so in the next life. If you're right - c'est la vie.

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BZZZZT!Pascal's Wager. I'm so sorry, GDR. Johnny, tell him what parting gifts he has!Well, Bob, GDR has won himself a lifetime of anguish in someone else's hell! Yes, that's right. After spending all of his life fighting against Satan and worshipping the Christian god, GDR gets a reward of going straight to Hades for his hubris. He'll be sentenced to solve a series of puzzles for which the instructions can be read in many ways. Every attempt to glean more information will be met with "Since it would just be a waste of my time to tell you, I won't." Of course, every proposed solution will conflict with something in the contradictory instructions. This being for his continued insistence that those around him are unworthy of explanations.But, he won't get hungry because he'll have an afterlife-time supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.You didn't really think that the god that truly exists is the Christian one, did you?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

GDR responds to me:

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Can you agree that these choices represent all of the options accurately?

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No. I can think of at least two other options. Let's see if you can go back to the drawing board and figure them out.Here's a hint for one of them: You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!Once again, you need to consider the possibility that the problem is not god but rather your conception of god. Who are you to tell god what to do?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Sounds like this thread.

I'm here for a discussion. If you're fine with that ok, and you can quit playing professor and tell me what your two other options would be.

GDR responds to me:

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Sounds like this thread.

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So answer the question:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

GDR responds to me:

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I'm here for a discussion.

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Then it would help if you would actually discuss and not proclaim. You need to get over this sense that you have all the answers. Other people have other opinions that deserve just as much respect as you and yours. Instead, you seem to want to try and play both sides.

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you can quit playing professor and tell me what your two other options would be.

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Here's another hint: Why does the existence of god necessarily require god having anything to do with the creation or development of life? You're an intelligence in the world and yet there are plenty of things that happen without your participation or even knowledge.Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

You say you have two other options. What are they?

GDR responds to me:

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You say you have two other options. What are they?

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1) There is an intelligent designer but it did not "design the whole process" or "initiated the process" but instead came upon life and decided to adopt it and shepherd it.2) More than one designer is out there, each of which is engaging in its own plan, but the combination of the two acting together, despite the fact that they are not deliberately doing so, resulted in life.I can think of a third option. Here's a hint: An infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters....Just because you aren't clever enough to think of other options doesn't mean nobody else can. The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we even can imagine.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

The point though is that without consciousness X, Y and Z don't exist to be able to interact at all. However that at least helps clarify the question.As far as my Christian faith is concerned though I'm content with either of my last three possibilities although I lean strongly towards number three, and think number four the least likely.As I agreed earlier, yes things can happen on their own.

GDR responds to me:

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The point though is that without consciousness X, Y and Z don't exist to be able to interact at all.

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That's irrelevant. By this logic, your grandparents control everything you do since without them, you wouldn't exist and thus you should worship them as gods. I certainly hope you don't think this.Where things come from is irrelevant to the question of what they do after they come into existence. That is why evolution is compatible with every single form of origins you care to name. Life could have arisen naturally through abiogenesis, supernaturally by god zap-poofing it into existence, extraterrestrially from alien seeding or panspermia, interdimensionally through a rift in space-time, or any other method you might possibly care to name. So long as life does not replicate itself perfectly from generation to generation, evolution is satisfied.And thus, evolution is not dependent upon origins and the method of origin has no effect upon or connection to the reality of evolution.So once again, I have to ask:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?Is the only thing that is keeping us on the planet god's will such that if he stops concentrating for a moment, we'll all go flying off or does gravity keep us on the planet all on its own, no consciousness required?

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As I agreed earlier, yes things can happen on their own.

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But you keep contradicting yourself by insisting that Y and Z don't interact with the purposeful, direct, and conscious action of X.Which is it? Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Is there anything that is explained on its own or is Rrhain required for everything?Edited by lehtv, : No reason given.