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Author Topic:   Why do people believe what they believe?
coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 476 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 31 of 51 (96117)
03-30-2004 8:08 PM


I think you will find this site more to your liking.

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by compmage, posted 03-31-2004 3:42 PM coffee_addict has not replied

  
Cman
Inactive Member


Message 32 of 51 (96229)
03-31-2004 2:33 AM


I have trouble figuring out people's beliefs. There are so many contradictions. For example, Western religion believes in a God
who created the universe. A being who is all powerful. This is plausible. Many religous scientists will look at facts from nature and tie them into proof for a creator, and many of the points can be
used as such in a valid way. However, when push comes to shove, There holy book will have the final say. There facts nature is providing do not contradict a creator, but they do contradict some of the facts in their holy book. This tells me that the ultimate core beliefs which
form an image of 'their' god are irrational. This is not to say that god doesn't exist. A supreme being is by definition above all OPINIONS and the WORDS of EXPERTS written in some book. God will not stand or fall by being contained completely within some book, an IDOL.
If god created the universe, you should be able to learn of HIM from the universe. HE is the universe.
As far as atheistic evolution is concerned, it seems very improbable to me. Entropy being the biggest stumbling block. If I am to believe that a person has a solid faith in evolution, I need something demostrated. If a soceity asserts a belief in atheistic evolution they cannot continue building gravestones and and Constructing lasting Momentos for themselves so future generations will remember them. Atheistic Evolution teaches that death is the natural end. We'll, if it really is, we should not be decieving ourselves by pretending that gravestones and pictures of a loved one somehow keeps them alive. OUR memory of them may be kept alive, the the momument does nothing to keep the INDIVIDUAL himself alive. All his thoughts, his hopes, his experience, are ANNILIATED. So as long as we build momuments and carry on the family name, I will believe that the majority of people still believe in life after death. You can't have it both ways.
[This message has been edited by Cman, 03-31-2004]

  
coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 476 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 33 of 51 (96231)
03-31-2004 2:41 AM


Cman, before we go any further and without doing a google search, can you tell us in your own words why all living things eventually die?
You really sound like someone who have absolutely no idea what science is and what its purpose, let alone the theory of evolution. I'm not trying to put you down or anything, I just want you to clarify to us what you already know about these topics that you brought up and we can go from there.

Replies to this message:
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Cman
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 51 (96239)
03-31-2004 3:46 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by coffee_addict
03-31-2004 2:41 AM


I do not know why all living things eventually die, I only known from common experience that it appears that they do. Besides which in regards to my question, it's totally irrelevant. What I was asking is,why do people who believe in physical death, that is when you're body dies "you' yourself are annialated, continue to erect gravestones in cemeteries and build lasting memorials. Simple question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by coffee_addict, posted 03-31-2004 2:41 AM coffee_addict has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by crashfrog, posted 03-31-2004 3:54 AM Cman has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 35 of 51 (96240)
03-31-2004 3:54 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by Cman
03-31-2004 3:46 AM


What I was asking is,why do people who believe in physical death, that is when you're body dies "you' yourself are annialated, continue to erect gravestones in cemeteries and build lasting memorials.
Tradition.
Furthermore, don't you think that if one believed that death was the ultimate end, they'd have all the more reason to erect rememberances of those who'd gone before?
What doesn't make sense is memorials for people who do believe in life after death. Why memorialize someone you're going to eventually meet again?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Cman, posted 03-31-2004 3:46 AM Cman has not replied

  
Cman
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 51 (96252)
03-31-2004 6:15 AM


"Furthermore, don't you think that if one believed that death was the ultimate end, they'd have all the more reason to erect rememberances of those who'd gone before?"
No I don't. Think about it. How does a gravestone keep a person alive? Why not just remember them without a momument? A person who does this believes a momument and the deceased are somehow connected.
The momument serves the purpose of deluding the rememberer into thinking that his loved one will last forever. Because a monument is a fixed external idol. If you were to say, I don't believe in life after death, but I want to remember my loved ones, that's fine. However, a monument is not required to do this. It serves another purpose. When you lose someone you love, you don't need a slab of stone to remember them. The fact that you loved them is sufficient to accomplish this. When I want to think about my deceased grandmother, I don't need to go to a special spot to remember her, but it might comfort a person to know that a lasting momument for her exists. Why? People generally don't like using logic in the subjective.
You also asked why religous people erect monuments when they 'know'
they're going to see their loved ones again. That's a good question.
I can only conclude that they don't really believe they will. Sounds strange doesn't it? They don't really believe in life after death, but pseudo life after death. They're vision of immortality is based in people. Since all religions of today have emotional foundations, where 'truth' is learned from powerful authorities, their vision of life after death will be wrong, whether there is life after death or not. I don't think religion really BELIEVES in life after death. Rather, it HOPES.

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Melchior, posted 03-31-2004 6:35 AM Cman has not replied

  
Melchior
Inactive Member


Message 37 of 51 (96257)
03-31-2004 6:35 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by Cman
03-31-2004 6:15 AM


Gravestones are, ultimately, there for the living. As both a reminder and as a marking of a place of special significance to them. People are usually special to other people, and to just throw their body away when they are dead feels very respectful, even if it's just a body.
It doesn't really help people remember, in the sense that a photo would, but it does allow them to have a direct and definite place which they can connect to that person. I think that most of the time, this helps them to confront their own feelings.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by Cman, posted 03-31-2004 6:15 AM Cman has not replied

  
secondlaw
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 51 (96266)
03-31-2004 7:26 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by coffee_addict
03-30-2004 4:03 PM


mathematical impossibility
Dear Lam:
Here is what I have to clarify my statement.
By one article's presentation, the possibility of one cell evolving through any process is 1.4,478,296 to one or 1 followed by 4,478,296 zeros).
My information is coming from an article by the organization ICR, Institute for Creation Research. The article is in an Impact article called Evolution is Biologically Impossible November 1999 by Joseph Mastropaolo, Ph.D. This information is not available electronically, so I will try my best to present it here.
"To set a better example, let us take up the evolutionist's burden of evidence to see where it leads. Our first observation is that apparently all functions in a living organism are based largely upon the structures of its proteins The trail of the first cell therefore leads us to the microbiological geometry of amino acids and a search for the probability of creating a protein by mindless chance as specified by evolution. Hubert Yockey published a monograph on the microbiology, information theory, and mathematics necessary to accomplish that feat. Accordingly, the probability of evolving one molecule of iso-1-cytochrome c, a small protein common in plants and animals, is an astonding one chance in 2.3 times ten billion vigitillion. The magnitude of this impossibility may be appreciated by realizing that ten billion vigitillion is one followed by 75 zeros. Or to put it in evolutionary terms, if a random mutation is provided every second from the alleged birth of the universe, then to date that protein molecule would be only 43% of the way to completion. Yockey concluded, "The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpertual motion machine is impossible in probability.""
Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 255, 257
The article continues:
"For a minimal cell, 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations would be needed (to create a living cell)."
Morowitz, H.J. (1996) "The Minimum Size of Cells" in Principles of Biomolecular Organization, eds. G.E.W. Wostenholme and M. O'Connor, London: J.A. Churchill pp. 446-459.
If these raw materials evolved at the same time, and if they were not more complex on average to evolve than iso-1-cytochrome c molecule, and if these proteins were stacked at the cell's construction site, then we may make a gross underestimation of what the chances would be to evolve that first cell. That probability is 10^4,478,296 power." (end of paragraph)
Now, mind you, 10 to the 150th power is deemed the standard for impossible, then this is by far even more impossible to credit evolution with.
I have read the 10^150 power standard in the article and it comes from the following information and this will come from information by William A. Dembski.
Dembski, William A. (1998) The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 5,209,210.
"(Dembski) estimated 10^80 power elementary particles in the universe and asked how many times per second an event could occur. He found 10^45. He then calculated the number of seconds from the beginning of the universe to present and for good measure multiplied by one billion for 10^25 seconds in all. He thereby obtained 10^80 x 10^45 x 10^25 = 10^150 for his Law of Small Probability.
(The author) have not been able to find a criterion more stringent than Dembski's one chance in 10^150. Anything as rare as that probability had absolutely no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable specifying agent by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history. And if the specified event is not a regularity, as the origin of life is not, and if it is not chance, as Dembski's criterion and Yockey's probability prove it is not, then it must have happened by design, the only remaining probability."
This is my long elaboration on why I said that life from non-life is mathematically impossible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by coffee_addict, posted 03-30-2004 4:03 PM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Dr Jack, posted 03-31-2004 7:30 AM secondlaw has not replied
 Message 40 by JonF, posted 03-31-2004 9:30 AM secondlaw has replied
 Message 42 by Percy, posted 03-31-2004 9:55 AM secondlaw has not replied
 Message 46 by coffee_addict, posted 03-31-2004 2:59 PM secondlaw has not replied
 Message 48 by RAZD, posted 03-31-2004 3:43 PM secondlaw has not replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 39 of 51 (96267)
03-31-2004 7:30 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 7:26 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
Which is a fabuluous demonstration that the a cell consisting of 60,000 proteins couldn't occur by chance, not why life cannot come from non-life.
No-one thinks the first cell popped, fully-formed, into existence by random chance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by secondlaw, posted 03-31-2004 7:26 AM secondlaw has not replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 167 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 40 of 51 (96288)
03-31-2004 9:30 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 7:26 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
Now, mind you, 10 to the 150th power is deemed the standard for impossible
Nope. That's a falsehood made up by creationists from a misunderstanding of Borel's Law.
Take two decks of cards. Shuffle them together. Deal them out on the table. By your criterion, what you are looking at is impossible, since the probability of the particular arrangement that you are looking at is about 1 in 10166.
The level of probability that is considered "impossible" depends on the circumstances. There is no universal probability bound.
This is my long elaboration on why I said that life from non-life is mathematically impossible.
You have mis-stated the conclusion, as did all of your sources.
Your sources proved that life from non-life is mathematically impossible by the process that they assumed. Since the processes that they assumed are not processes that any rational person has ever seriously proposed as the origin of life, what they have done is proven a "strawman" to be false. Such exercises are sutiable only for preaching ot the convereted; they fall apart upon cursory examination.
I'm not aware of any creationist, Dembski included, who has ever addressed a realistic model of abiogenesis. Real scientists haven't calculated such probabilities either, because we don't yet know enough to do so.
See Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by secondlaw, posted 03-31-2004 7:26 AM secondlaw has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by secondlaw, posted 03-31-2004 9:51 AM JonF has replied

  
secondlaw
Inactive Member


Message 41 of 51 (96295)
03-31-2004 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by JonF
03-31-2004 9:30 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
I beg to differ with you sir on your analogy, because the shuffling of two decks of cards is a mere matter of chance. There was reason to it and it spawned nothing to the level of complexity such as life. The circular reasoning of the argument, presented by many on this site, that 'because we are, it must be' is illogical and completely based on assumption.
I present this literature simply as a way of trying to perceive the reality. However, as you noted in the ending of your post:
Real scientists haven't calculated such probabilities either, because we don't yet know enough to do so.
This lends itself to strictly to allowing your assertions to go un-answered through ignorance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by JonF, posted 03-31-2004 9:30 AM JonF has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by Dr Jack, posted 03-31-2004 10:13 AM secondlaw has not replied
 Message 44 by Percy, posted 03-31-2004 10:21 AM secondlaw has not replied
 Message 45 by JonF, posted 03-31-2004 12:19 PM secondlaw has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22389
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 42 of 51 (96296)
03-31-2004 9:55 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 7:26 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
JonF has already dealt with Dembski, so I'll deal with Yockey.
You might recall that I once asked you how you could calculate the probability of something when you didn't know how it happened. No one knows how life first arose, but Yockey goes ahead and calculates its probability anyway. That should be a warning sign for you.
Yockey seems to think that evolutionists believe the first life came about when all the necessary elements combined miraculously into the proper chemical compounds in the correct physical configuration in a single event. In reality, scientists do not know or claim to know how life first arose, but they're pretty sure it didn't happen like this. I don't know if Yockey's probability calculations are correct, but the process he describes sounds like one hell of an unlikely event.
Current abiogenesis theories hold that life arose through a long and complicated unknown process. No one believes it happened all at once like a miracle. To calculate the probability of these events that led to the first life you would have to know what those events were. We don't know what they were, therefore calculating their probability isn't possible.
People like Dembski and Yockey spend at least part of their time composing scientfic-sounding pseudo-arguments that look scientific to those unfamiliar with science. If and when they come up with a genuine scientific argument it will be published in scientic journals instead of being relegated to Creationist publications and websites.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 43 of 51 (96301)
03-31-2004 10:13 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 9:51 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
We know this: at one point there was no life. Now there is. Somewhere between these two points life came to be. We do not know how. We could throw up our hands and go "must be magic!". But why would we? Every single time anyone has ever accredited anything to a supernatural process before they have been wrong. Why should we take the assumption that it is now?
We have no evidence either way, however one form of explanation has a track record of success, and the other a track record of failure. Which form then is most rational to assume?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by secondlaw, posted 03-31-2004 9:51 AM secondlaw has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22389
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 44 of 51 (96303)
03-31-2004 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 41 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 9:51 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
secondlaw writes:
I beg to differ with you sir on your analogy, because the shuffling of two decks of cards is a mere matter of chance.
Uh, yes, chance, precisely what your quote talks about in Message 38:
"(The author) have not been able to find a criterion more stringent than Dembski's one chance in 10^150. Anything as rare as that probability had absolutely no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable specifying agent by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history."
You then go on to say:
secondlaw writes:
There was reason to it and it spawned nothing to the level of complexity such as life.
Your quote says "anything", as in "Anything as rare as that probability has absolutely no possibility of happening..." It doesn't say life it says *anything*. Not that Dembski's work is correct, but you should at least be consistent with the work you're citing.
secondlaw writes:
I present this literature simply as a way of trying to perceive the reality. However, as you noted in the ending of your post:
JonF writes:
Real scientists haven't calculated such probabilities either, because we don't yet know enough to do so.
This lends itself to strictly to allowing your assertions to go un-answered through ignorance.
The honest "I don't know" is to be preferred, wouldn't you say, to a dishonest made-up answer? It is the "I don't knows" within science that provide the motivation for research, and that's what this is, an area of research. It certainly is not an area of enforced ignorance. We are not ignorant for any lack of trying. As has already been explained to you several times now, there isn't much evidence left regarding the origin of life around 3.8 billion years ago. Perhaps there's enough for us to piece together the story someday, perhaps not. Only time will tell. But for now it remains an area of research.
And until scientists are able to piece together an actual story, people like Dembski and Yockey are calculating probabilities for things they don't yet know enough about to be doing this.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by secondlaw, posted 03-31-2004 9:51 AM secondlaw has not replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 167 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 45 of 51 (96336)
03-31-2004 12:19 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by secondlaw
03-31-2004 9:51 AM


Re: mathematical impossibility
Percy's already posted a good reply, but I want to underscore a few items:
the shuffling of two decks of cards is a mere matter of chance.
Yes, and that's why it's relevant. The "analyses" of abiogenesis that you presented are based on assuming that a complex sytem appears by a mere matter of chance, and you claimed "Now, mind you, 10 to the 150th power is deemed the standard for impossible," which is talking about a mere matter of chance.
The circular reasoning of the argument, presented by many on this site, that 'because we are, it must be' is illogical and completely based on assumption.
I agree, although I don't agree with "presented by many on this site". What does this have to do with what I posted?
This lends itself to strictly to allowing your assertions to go un-answered through ignorance.
Sorry, this just doesn't parse as an English sentence.
What is wrong with the fact that we don't have enough information to evaluate the preobability of the various pathways that have been proposed as possilbe abiogenesis scenarios?
[This message has been edited by JonF, 03-31-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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