Onifre writes:
Theoretically they are real. All of the evidence I have points to it being real, but I could very well be trapped in a Matrix type program experiencing all of this and never know for sure. I cannot claim that the reality I experience is absolutely real.
The only point this is for is when you say you perceive things to be designed. That is theoretically possible, but not absolutely true. Even if you had some objective evidence to point to, it still remains theoretically possible.
The point then is to weigh the evidence.
LOL. Lets see, "theoretically they are real", but "I cannot claim that the reality I experience is absolutely real" then you say, 'The point is to weigh the evidence", you have go to be kidding me. If reality is only a theoretical possibility, what the heck does any of this matter in the first place, let alone whether there is design or not. How do you weigh THEORETICAL evidence, if that is indeed how you percieve IT and reality itself. Again, LOL, what evidence and how did you decide it was evidence, theoretically.
If nothing is actually or absolutely real and it is only theoretical, then none of this matters in the first place and there should be no reason for you to argue for the process of Natural or designed.
Thirdly, if it is all only theoretical, then there is no harm in presenting what may very well be a vialbe solution in the explanation of things, seeing that the only two close to real but "theoretical" solutions offer any hope of an explanation. Therefore, any conclusions drawn by science can only be theoretical and specualation, even if it appears that the conclusions are correct, that is according to you theoretical perception of reality, correct.
Hence, according to your own admissions about reality and its processes, no solution is better than anyother. Yet you want to maintain that an explanation of natural verses designed is better. How in the world will you do this, now that you have boxed yourself in with such a silly perception of reality. You do see the awful contradiction you are in here, correct? Youve no where left to turn in presenting your case for a single explanation being better than another.
As of yet that is all the evidence points to. This is the concensus by those who study the evidence, if you have evidence that disproves it other than "I see design" please bring it forward.
There is no such thing as theoretical evidence Onifre, it is either evidence or it is not, it is either theoretical or it is real. Now since you have admitted that everything and all conclusions about things are theoretical, this would include your position, which would mean that your position points no CLOSER to an explanation than design. I told you in the beginning you could not win this debate. But thats because its all THEORETICAL, correct, Ha ha.
Further, as I pointed out before, the explanation of design relies on the visible evidence in reality. Your position can do no better than this. You observe nature and reality from one perspective and I from another, but neither of us can say one position is better than the other, you have no way of knowing past the reality of physical things themselves.
Bertot writes:
But please by all means feel free to present any material you believe POINTS to natural causes,
Really?
- formation of planets
- formation of the Sun
- Gravity
- all of the elements on the Peridoc Table
- human life...all life -(not abiogenesis, I mean reproduction)
- a tree growing
- Sun rise
- solar eclipes
- etc, etc, etc, etc, etc..............
Wow I was hoping you would drop a bomb on us in the form of demonstrating that you were there when the universe was formed and could therefore explain maybe how the materials that made a tree grow got here in the first place. Or perhaps you were there before the current laws of the universe, were something different than they are now, that is for the most part, and could show us the CONTINUING exclusive NATURAL pricess. Typical.
Isnt it interesting that when you are demanding evidence from me, you complain that I have no better than to point out nature and examples in nature itself, then what does Onifre do?, he turns right around and does the very thing he complains about. Thats because its all theoretical correct.
If you notice I said the objective evidence points to natural causes, this is the consensus amongst science, that is what is taught.
You mean the theoretical scientists and thier theoretical conclusions correct. For all intents and purposes this debate is over, due to the fact that you have made contradictory and unavoidable false conclusions, from which you cannot now extricate yourself or your position. You have demonstrated by your own words that no position is any better or points ot anything verses something else, indeed by the very nature of the case it cant.
There has been more than enough time in the ID propaganda camp to put together viable evidence that points to design. And that Bertot is what has been continuously shot down. ID hasn't made it's evidence clear, therefore they will continue to be outside looking in.
Even the verbage you employ and the coloful pictures you paint of your position, defy reason. Onifre "viable evidence" is limited to the reality of the closed system in which we live.Your explanations of what the evidence points to are no stronger or better than a design explanation. If it is, present the evidence that sets it apart. My perdiction is that you cannot and will not.
"Outside looking in", at what Onifre? You do realize you reside in the same sphere of determinal evidence as I correct? Oh yes, not to poke fun, but I did forget for a moment about your out of the body experience, floating around the house and bathroom area. You are one up one me there.
As I have now stated several times, denying or disagreeing with design in nature is not the same as demonstrating it does not exist.
I study science, I have never heard the term "eternal in character" or "a product of itself". Can you be a bit more specific
1)Do you mean it has always existed? - eternal in character.
For 1, I agree,.
So I see from your above statements that you werent playing the dumb card you were simply being evasive, thanks for altleast admitting that.
There is NO obvious design in the cell. The cell is made up of independent parts, that is the only obvious thing about it. And complexity means nothing in defense for design, I thought by now that was a mute point already?
Yes there is and the parts works together to serve a function. Complexity lends credible support to design if there is evidence to suggest that the cell depends for its existence on something else. Could one cell exist outside the human body by itself in say, the atmosphere of outer space. This would describe just about everything in existence, wouldnt you say?
What do you see so obvious in the cell that points to design?
Its finite character, it will and can die, its funtionality with other lesser parts, its specific design within itself, its complexity and functionality with greater parts than itself and its specific function which it brings about to the collective part that it exists in. Any other questions?
Now if you dont mind, I will also require you to demonstrate that it was not designed.
So you think because DNA is complex to you, it requires design? Thats it, thats the proof?
Thats it, thats your response to a structure that stores and imparts thousands and thousand piecies of information about someone in a logical and orderly fashion, to make that thing correct in its porportions, exact in its application and true to its nature?
All of the collective evidence for natural phenomena are organized neatly within the frame work of science. Not one single peice, within the frame work of science, exists to support a design hypothesis.
I warned you about using your comedy routines in your attempts to make arguments. So now its science that takes the disorderly, chaotic systems in nature and organizes them for us in science neatly to help us understand what we could not otherwise. I have a better solution. Science simply interprets the ALREADY existing order and design in nature and classifies and interprests the design, to help us apply its uses.
You remind meof the Catholics, trying to tell us that they gave us the Bible, when in fact the councils simply put in organized and volumized (is that a word?) fashion what was already known for hundreds and hundreds of years before hand, the truth that had already been accepted as such for centuries.
Now Onifre tells us that we cannot interpret nature and the world around us unless science is there to tell us whether it is design or not. In other words I am unwarrented in making a decision about design until science lets me know whether it is or not. Yet science has no criteria to let me know that its not. I wonder what the poor farmers and other people did with simple processes like planting a seed to know it would produce a result, before science told them it would work? Or did they figure out it was designed to grow something once they put it in the ground all by themselves?
If they had it, it would already be in science books.
Once again you are overinflating what you and science do. Science books do not give a explanation for the origins of things, they do not make explanations of things less theoretical than design, they do not remove the very real principle of design. What they do is give explanations of the present understanding of how things presently work and that will change again and again once we understand what the exact design and nature of things is.
Its always amused me that in an attempt to overthrow the design argument, the skeptic ends up pointing out more design by showing how a process might have come about naturally, ignoring the fact that the process in all its parts and adaptation has within it the necessary functions to adapt or evolve. They ignore its innate ability to perform all of these functions.
No Onifre science does nothing but interpret an already existing design and order. Im all for science and the wonderful ways it manipulates nature,but to imply that people cannot function without its tenets is simply an overinflation of its uses.
All you are doing is telling me I'm blind for not seeing design. Sorry if I take what's in science books as a better explanation for natural phenomena rather what you perceive to be obvious.
I, like most on this site, don't see it. Please show us the objective evidence. Go deeper that "look it's complex" or "it looks like it was designed".
No you have missed the point and are trying to side track the issue once again.
Ah yes, once again the overinflated requirements for the designer. No I am not telling you are blind for not seeing design, I am telling you are blind for not recognizing that first, it is as real a posibility as natural causes, and that complaining that it is not design, is not the same as explaning why it is not. I am telling you you are blind for not recognizing that the NATURAL explanation is as theoretical as anyother. You simply sidestep these glaring issues and hope no one will pay attention to it.
I am happy to go deeper Onifre when you initially help us understand why what is obviously design or order, is not design or order. You havent even began to scrath the surface, you simply say I dont see it. Thats fine, but what is your physical evidence that it was not designed to operate in this fashion in the first place. Or are you telling now, that you have no better theoretical explanation than that of anyothers. If you do I am willing to listen to it.
What are you talking about, I followed the statement with a full paragraphs worth of explanation.
You even quote it after:
I must admit youhave an interesting way of debating. I clearly pointed out that our lack of understanding about the way in which a thing works or whether it appears orderly to us has nothing to do with whether its present condition is designed or not. You side step this valid argument by saying I ignored yours,really Onifre. Again, does the fact that something presently by our understanding not operate in a fashion that we think it should mean it is NOT following other logical processess, even if they are not know by us?
You didn't even respond to what I wrote. You think the above explanation delt with laws about QM?
Let me explain it simple:
- There is no order
- There is no logic to it
- It does not function in an orderly fashion
- Predictions can't be made about it
It defies a logical, orderly, understandable universe that cannot be described intelligently with design. There is no design function in QM that you could point to, go ahead and try.
There is no order, that we PRESENTLY understand.
There is no logic to it, YET
It does not function in an orderly fashion, that we are accoustomed to presently.
Predictions cant be made about it, at PRESENT, that is until we understand it allitle better, like those people on the Enterprise.
You very carefully sidestepped my point. I pointed out that not understanding the laws of gravity in the 2nd century BC, did not make them not real or designed. Your assertionthat they are not deigned is as baseless as it every was.
It defies a logical, orderly, understandable universe that cannot be described intelligently with design. There is no design function in QM that you could point to, go ahead and try.
Furhtermore, QM won't be understood any further, because, it is actually understood to be like that. One of the principles of QM is that it works like that. QM does not look designed by any means. If the universe at it's earliest point is QM in nature, which all evidence points to this, then at that point the universe is not orderly, or understandable. That it has become so now, due to the cosmological expansion, is a tribute to the laws of physics and how matter forms and what space and cooler teperatures do for the formation of solid matter.
You sound exacally like the guy in the 3rd century BC trying to convince someone that there is no way they can sail further than a certain point before they are doomed to fall off. It is my guess that as usual, humans are wrong about thier estimations about how QM works and what it is. The present knowledge will change 1000 times before a certain point, then andonly then, we MAY realize that what was once thought to be not understandable will then be realized in the same fashion as gravity or any other principle.
Besides this, none of this bandering by yourself, removes the desing principle, it only demonstrates that not only do you not rcognize design, you dont even understand the universe in which you reside.
Since I see no evidence to support these gods, I see no reason to assume design when it seems natural. However, if/when I see evidence for gods, then I may change my mind about design. But then again, god could still deistic in nature, so even that wouldn't make design anymore true, but it would help it a bit.
It is no surprise to me that you see no evidence for the existence of God. Why would aperson that percieves reality as theoretical, that is not real ofr all intents and purposes, see any evidence for anything else. But hey, thanks for the discussion.
D Bertot
™ Version 4.2
