Points for a creator (Alaninnont and Subbie only)

Let me take a moment to explain what has happened.Even though AdminNosy asked you to focus down your message to a couple of narrow topics, Adminnemooseus agreed with me that allowing it to proceed on the basis of a Great Debate would be the best way to proceed. What that means is that you and I should be the only ones posting here, but you do not need to make the changes that AdminNosy asked for.I trust you recognize that it will take me time to respond to each of your points. What I would like to see from you initially is an indication of which portions of your message are from another site or source and a reference to that source. I ask for this since AdminNosy mentioned that some of your post was copied from elsewhere.I will point out initially that the quote you began with specifically asked for evidence. At first blush, it appears that a lot of what you have posted is in fact not evidence, but argument, assumption and apologetics. That's not to say I won't respond to it, I'm simply making an opening observation.So, if you would be so kind as to put quote boxes around the stuff from other sources and identify those sources, I will begin to organize my response(s).

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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I'm in a really busy time right now so I might not be too quick in replying either.

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Well, that's one benefit of a Great Debate format. Feel free to take as long as you like to respond, the thread won't be filling up anytime soon.

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As I see it, there are two possibilities for the beginning of the universe. It was either created or it existed forever.

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There's a third option. It came into existence without a creator.As far as the rest of your comments about the various consequences about where the universe came from, how long it's been been here, what will happen in the future, I strongly suspect that you are speculating about things you really know very little about. I also strongly suspect that your speculations come from some creationist website or other.Big Rip, Big Crunch, Big Loop. Nobody knows. Those who have spent their lives studying these things don't have definitive answers, I certainly am not in a position to give better answers than they are. What's more, I'm not even in a position to evaluate the merits of the various competing theories.However, as it all relates to the topic of this thread, the existence vel non of a creator, the answers to these questions are irrelevant. The basic form of your argument is what is called the god of the gaps. In essence, the god of the gaps argument relies on unanswered questions. Because there are things that we cannot explain or understand, god must have done it.For some people, such as yourself, this is a more satisfying conclusion than accepting that we don't know the answers yet. For others, such as myself, that is no answer at all, because it simply pushes things back a step. You're unwilling to accept the idea of an infinite universe because it contradicts your understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, but you're willing to accept the idea of an infinite creator that violates those same laws. Well, that's okay with me, but it doesn't even approach the level of evidence of the existence of a creator.There's a danger inherent in any god of the gaps argument. Every time a gap is closed, god gets a little smaller. 50,000 years ago, gods were responsible for everything; the weather, the seasons, crops growing, diseases, volcanoes, earthquakes, you name it. Today, we can explain all of these things in naturalistic terms without any divine intervention. Today god has been reduced to creator, retributionist, and occasional miracle worker, and the creator part is on the way out, too.If faith gives you comfort, far be it from me to deprive you of that. But you better find a justification for believing in god other than the fact that there are things about the world that you don't understand, because sooner or later, those things are going to be explained, if they haven't been already.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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I haven't visited creationists websites unless you group ID in with creationists.

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While there are some differences, I do in fact group IDers in with creationists for a variety of reasons. That's not really our topic here, but I'd be willing to devote a subthread to it if you wish. If so, reply to this message for that discussion.

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Either way, I don't see why the source should affect the validity of a point.

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The reason relates to part of why I lump IDers in with creationists. Both groups are notorious for including known fallacious information in their arguments. As an example, your claim from the OP that complex organs like the eye could not have evolved is a common one on creationist sites. Actually, the evolution of the eye is very well known. In fact, there are living organisms that exhibit different stages in the evolution of the eye, showing that various intermediate steps are quite functional and beneficial.I'll respond to the rest of your post in my next message so that we can keep this discussion a separate subthread if you want to pursue it.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Please explain how this is possible. I can't see how it could have.

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I can't. But I also can't rule it out. We're talking about the beginning of the universe. There's no particular reason to assume that the laws of cause and effect that we see as a part of this universe necessarily existed before the universe began.

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From what I've considered so far, I feel it is more likely that some kind of creator was involved in the process. I haven't considered whether he/she/it was infinite or how involved he/she/it was. I'm not trying to bring forth arguments in the sense that I'm trying to convince you that I'm right and you should accept my opinion. My point in the first post was that it seems more logical to me that a creator was involved in the initial creation.

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I understand that. But it doesn't consist of evidence. It's your preference.My preference would be for the Big Loop theory of the universe. It's the one that makes the most sense to me, the one that I'm most comfortable with intellectually. But my comfort level has nothing to do with the facts. Likewise, your desire to live in a universe that corresponds to what you think is more logical has nothing to do with reality.Moreover, it seems you missed the point of my previous post. Resolving what you consider to be logical problems by simply invoking a creator doesn't solve anything. All of your reservations about the initial creation apply equally well to the creator. You think it's more likely that the universe was created than that it always existed, but you have no difficulty assuming that the creator always existed. I suggest that the only reason an infinite creator is more acceptable to you is because you're cultural predisposed to accept it. At least up to this point, you certainly haven't given any evidential reason to prefer one over the other.

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You're right that nobody knows and science cannot reproduce those initial moments and so hard evidence for either side is difficult. All I can do is look at the evidence at hand, theorize possibilities and then side on the most probable answer.

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Well, if we're talking specifically about the origin of the universe, neither you nor I are in a position to evaluate the evidence or the theories that scientists have developed to explain the evidence. The science and math behind cosmology is so advanced that only a fraction of a percent of people can even begin to fully comprehend all the positions.My suggestion to you, if you truly are interested in learning about this, is to look at science websites, not creationist or ID websites. They are demonstrably unreliable. They have an agenda and distort and fabricate information to fit that agenda. Despite what you may believe or have heard elsewhere, scientists have one agenda, accuracy. What's more, science relies on the peer review process to weed out inaccuracies, whether intentional or not.But beyond all that, I'd suggest to you that the search for evidence proving the existence of god is a fool's errand. If such evidence existed, everyone would believe in the same god. To me, the lack of such unanimity speaks volumes about the quality of hard evidence in support of the proposition.{ABE} I'd also suggest, if you're interested in learning, that you ask questions on this forum. There are a number of people quite learned in many different disciplines who could explain a great deal. However, the best way to learn is to ask questions seeking information, not to jump in and make assertions about topics about which you really have no knowledge. There's nothing wrong with saying something like, "I've heard that the Second Law of Thermodynamics says evolution can't happen. Is that accurate?" However, to make the assertion then argue against people who actually know what the Second Law says and means is a really poor method of learning. It certainly gives the impression that your purpose here has nothing to do with learning, but more with proselytizing.Edited by subbie, : As noted

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Wiki's not bad for an introduction to the issue, and broadly speaking I don't really disagree with what you quoted. The problem with trying to categorize creationists/IDers is that there aren't really any hard and fast distinctions. For example, even among creationists, there are also YECs and OECs. My impression is that, with a very few exceptions, most creo/IDers don't really know what they think, or why, they just don't like "evilution."

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That was my original intent but I got shuffled into this forum.

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Well, this particular thread got put into Great Debate because it's really much too broad for general participation. Threads are usually closed after about 300 posts, and with multiple people making multiple entries, it's impossible to discuss all the issues you raised in your OP in that short span. If you wanted to start another thread discussing one of the topics you raised, that would have a better chance for general participation. However, most of the things you discussed already have threads relating to them, so you might be better off looking into one of those.

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If you prefer, we could postpone while I do some digging around.

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That would suit me fine. There's really no rush, this thread will stay here for quite some time. On the other hand, there's no reason we can't continue this while you look into other things as well, if you like. I really have no preference.

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Try to take this with a stiff upper lip but my scheme is to use and abuse you, bounce ideas off of you, sqeeze some new ones out and then discard you like an old toy when we're done. Sorry but I thought you should know at the start. (tic)

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Thanks for the heads up, forewarned is forearmed.

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I don't think I'm going to agree with you on this one. My time in research demonstarted to me that there are many who incorporate fudge factors and even questionable experimental methods to continue their publication parade. My time on a university biology board was a shock. There are many agendas and some shockingly trivial among scientists.

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I was speaking about scientists as a whole, and didn't mean to suggest that all scientists are interested only in accuracy. In fact, I suspect individual scientists are no more immune from dishonesty or incompetence than any other professional group. However, science as an institution has developed the process of peer review, which functions quite well (although not perfectly) in weeding out the kinds of problems you talk about, as well as simple carelessness and honest self-deception. That's why you will frequently see posters here disparage and disregard creationist and ID works, which almost universally do not use the peer review process.

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I'd like to know what you think about the virtual reality option.

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There's no evidence suggesting that we are in a virtual reality, so entertaining the option violates the rule of parsimony. In essence, that means don't add additional assumptions to any theory unless it's necessary to account for the evidence, and the fewer assumptions needed for any theory, the better.As far as lack of alien contact, there's really nothing to explain. We are searching for extraterrestrial intelligence by looking for non-naturally occurring radio waves. Our planet hasn't been producing such radio waves for much more than 100 years. Thus, it's likely that any alien civilization would have to be within 100 light years of our planet to even be aware that there's any intelligence here. While I agree with what I take to be your general assumption that there's a high likelihood of other intelligence in the universe, I think the likelihood that any of them would have any reason for coming to our planet is very low. Thus, there's nothing to explain.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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My impression, and it's only an impression, is that the large majority of IDers accept evolution but believe that there was a creator of some sort involved at some time. (not necessarily during the evolutionary procecss)

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Well, if you're talking about the leading names among ID "experts," I think you are correct. I'm not sure what you mean by "not neccessarily during the evolutionary process." IDers generally postulate that designer intervention is necessary to account for certain steps in the evolutionary process. Exactly which steps depend on which IDer you're talking about. Behe tries to identify organisms or parts of organisms that are Irreducibly Complex, that cannot have arisen through a series of small steps. Dembski, on the other hand, argues that certain steps in the evolutionary process are so improbable that they couldn't have happened without the influence of an intelligent agent.

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Which of the five choices I listed do you think is the most probable and why? Are there any I missed?

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The possibility that you missed is that they are out there but we just haven't met yet.

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In the current model of the big bang timeline, there was a very brief period called the inflationary epoch during which matter expanded faster than the speed of light. It follows then that this is a possiblity and there may be some parts of our electronic transmissions that are moving faster than light.

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I believe your understanding of cosmic inflation is flawed. This is far outside my area of expertise, but my understanding is that it was the fabric of space that expanded, not matter itself. Matter cannot move through space faster than the speed of light, but space itself is not subject to that limitation. I do not believe that it's possible for our electronic transmissions to move faster than light. If you have an authority that says otherwise, I'd be curious to look at it.

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Given our current technological advancements, does it not seem logical that we would be able to detect and visit other life forms within a few thousand years?

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I'm no futurist, but if I had to guess I'd guess we'll reach that stage, probably sooner than a few thousand years.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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This is from Curious about Astronomy" but I've seen several references to it.

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That quote is so riddled with elementary grammatical errors I cannot help but conclude that it was written by someone who lacks sufficient education in the subject to speak authoritatively about it.

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A possiblility is that an alien or alien race is the creator.

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That's a possibility, but there's no reason to adopt it as a position in the absence of evidence. A related concept that some scientists are pursuing is what is call "panspermia." That's the theory that precursors to life, or very simple one-celled organisms, arrived here via meteorites billions of years ago.For someone who's seeking an answer to ultimate questions of origin, however, this only pushes things back a step. Where did that life come from? So, while these things are interesting to contemplate, like any creator hypothesis they do nothing more than add a further complication without really explaining anything. Thus unless there is actual evidence to support the hypotheses, there's no real reason to believe in them

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So, what have we got so far? There are a number of options for how the universe initially came into existence. Science doesn't really help us because the event is not reproducible or testable.

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But science does much, much more than reproduce and test. And there are ways to test and reproduce besides laboratory experimentation. Science studies the evidence, makes predictions based on that evidence, then looks for more evidence to support the prediction. Let me give you an example.Einstein proposed, among many other things, that gravity produces a curvature in space. If this is accurate, light waves will be curved as they pass objects in space and, if the object is massive enough, this curvature will be detectable. So, in 1922 a number of scientists went to Australia to take pictures of a solar eclipse to see if they could detect the curvature. They did, thus providing very powerful confirmation of Einstein's theory.The same thing can be done for evolution. Biologists predicted that a certain type of fossil, with certain fairly specific characteristics, would be found at a particular time in the past. Paleontologists went looking in rocks that were of the proper age and, lo and behold, they found Tiktaalik, just as predicted. This provided powerful confirmation of the Theory of Evolution.So, while we can't re-evolve the history of life on this planet, we can test the predictions of a theory. And, while nobody can reproduce Tiktaalik, any other scientist can do the same work that the Tiktaalik scientists did and come up with the same results. Thus while the event is not reproducible or testable, the science investigating is both testable and reproducible.

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Logic tells us that some of the possibilities are more probable than others and that one of them could be (there may be others we haven't thought of yet) the truth. You think the Big Loop theory is the most logical way to explain the observable data and I think the existence of a creator is most logical way to explain the observable data.

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Yes, but I was careful to point out that I don't believe that that's what happened, because as far as I'm able to determine, there isn't sufficient evidence to support the theory. Logic only gets us so far. Logic is a vital part of science, but logic alone gives us philosophy, not science. Science depends on evidence.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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First of all, in the beginning the universe expanded at precisely the right rate. Any slower and it would have collapsed back onto itself. Any faster and stars and galaxies wouldn't have formed. Stephen Hawking in "A Brief History of Time" says that if it had been a thousand million, million parts slower, the conditions for life would not have existed.

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Well, "a thousand million, million parts slower" hardly seems like "[a]ny slower" to me. But beyond that, can you cite me to an online, non-creationist source for the Hawking quote? It smells fishy.

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We need very specific and limited conditions for life to exist.

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No, we need very specific and limited condition for our life to exist. There's no reason to assume that different life can't arise under different conditions.

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Then you have the earth setup. We need water. Early earth was cooling down and there was no atmosphere or water. It was too close to the sun and probably too hot for water to condense. The prominent theory is that comets hit the earth during a period of about 150 million years and with no atmosphere to burn them up, delivered water to earth.

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Source?

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The atmosphere is an incredible piece of technology (yeah, I know I'm taking license) providing us with protection from cold, radiation, heat, etc. There is the anthropic priciple but the probability of the conditions for life here happening by chance seem astronomically small which means quadrillions of loops statistically would have occured before we got to this one. It seems more logical to me that a creator set it up.

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I have no idea what you mean by "quadrillions of loops," so I can't begin to guess what point you're making.Once we've cleared these up a little bit, I'll move on to the amino acid part.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Be careful, you're starting to drift into Gish Gallop territory. (Look it up if you don't know what I mean.) Let's try to restrict each post and subthread to a single topic, ok?You wrote The Hawking quote you supplied does not support what you said. Hawking says nothing about conditions for life, at least not in the quote that you supplied. I haven't read his book, so I can't guess what else might be in it.

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As for where a point came from, I believe a point should stand or fall on its own merit. The source, the number or people who believe it or the credentials of the submitter do not determine if a point is valid or not.

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The problem with this is that creationist sources lie about quotes. That's why I'm always going to ask for a non-creationist source for any quote.So, you propose a quote from Hawking to support your belief in a creator. Do you know what Hawking himself says about this? Here are a couple of quotes: It seems to me that you are free to come to whatever conclusions you wish to regarding Hawking's quote, but the evidence that you've cited isn't enough to support such conclusions in someone who certainly understands the subject quite a bit more than you or I do.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You never told me where Wiki talks about water, so I did my own searching. Here's what I found:1. Wiki says there's 326,000,000 cubic miles of water.2. Wiki says the question of the origin of water on this planet isn't settled.Hardly a compelling argument that there must be a creator.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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My point is that it is highly improbable that all the conditions for life just happened to come together. It is more logical that something or someone set it up.

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Yes, I know that's been your point. However, because nobody can present any credible analysis of exactly what conditions are required for life, much less how likely is it that any of those conditions will occur, your point is really nothing more than, "I don't think it's likely so I don't believe it." Again, hardly a compelling argument.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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I'm not sure I'm getting this point across but I'm not trying to "argue" anything.

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Whether you personally are arguing for anything or not is immaterial; you are presenting arguments for a particular point of view. It is these arguments that I am responding to.

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I see it like a court room and I am the jury.

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Since I'm an attorney, we ought to get along just fine.

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I realize that we are not in the area of hard evidence but evaluating the setup, it seems more logical that something or someone set it up rather than it happened by chance. Chance would mean that there are a long list of coincindences that happened to fall into place and that seems highly improbable to me.

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And the point that I've been trying to make is that it's impossible to assign any kind of meaningful probabilities to the "long list of of coincindences [sic]" you keep referring to. For a start, you've yet to even begin to describe what you think these coincidences are.

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If I see an aquarium with specific conditions for some tropical fish, my first assumption is that someone set it up for them.

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Agreed. However, that bears no relationship whatsoever to the topic at hand. You assume that the world was created with specific conditions suited to the life that exists here. You ignore the possibility that instead life evolved to fit the conditions that existed here before life began. This solves the mystery completely.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm saying that creationist sources lie. Not always, and not exclusively. But they lie with a high enough frequency so as to rend anything they say suspect. Note carefully, I did not say automatically wrong, I said suspect. That's why I look for another, non-creationist source.

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(the word "quote" is a verb. You're using it incorrectly)

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From dictionary.com: quote: noun, a quotation.From merriam-webster.com: quote: noun, quotation.If you wanna get pedantic on my ass, you better check a source first, mate.

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I'd like to see evidence for this theory.

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Seriously? You want to see evidence for the proposition that creationist sources lie?

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

The quote that you presented, in its entirety, is as follows: The word life appears nowhere in that quote. In particular, what it says about a slower expansion is that the universe would have collapsed before it reached its present size. This of course says nothing about the presence of life before the universe reached its present size.It says nothing whatsoever about planets and stars not forming if the expansion had been faster.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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I checked both of your sources and they said exactly what I told you. You are using it incorrectly. You can quote somebody or quote a price (verb) but the statement itself is a quotation.

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Then you didn't read far enough. From dictionary.com: My emphasisFrom Merriam-Webster: My emphasisClicking on the second definition gets to this: My emphasisAn honest person would admit his mistake.

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As a lawyer you would know that if you make an accusation, it must be substantiated with evidence to be credible so please clarify and back up your accusation. Do all creationist site lie?

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I will admit that I know one creationist who doesn't lie; Kurt Wise. If you read the link, you will see that he believes in a young Earth only because scripture tells him, and he honestly admits that the scientific evidence doesn't support his belief.

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Do all creationist site lie? Do they lie all the time? What percentage of the time do they lie?

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I will have to admit that I haven't read every creationist site. I will also admit that they don't lie all the time, and I cannot give you an exact percentage. However, none of that is really relevant to my point that they are unreliable.Obviously, this is getting us rather far afield from the topic, so let's do this. You pick any creationist site you like, or as many as you like, and start a new thread with the links. I guarantee that just about any scientifically minded person here will be able to find multiple lies on that site.

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Perhaps this would work better if we changed things up. Why don't you tell me why you think that there is no creator?

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Because I see no evidence for one. While I fully acknowledge that there are unexplained things in the world, that's no reason to assume the existence of an unobserved creator to explain them. As I described upthread, for thousands of years, people have attributed all sorts of things they didn't understand to gods of different sorts. Virtually all of those things have been explained in naturalistic terms. The god of the gaps argument is notoriously unsatisfying.You might cite to the fact that most people around the world believe in one god or another as a reason to believe in the existence of god. I would reply that if they all believed in an actual being, I would expect that they would all, or mostly, believe in the same one. This cite breaks down world religions by number of adherents. None even has a majority, and the biggest religion, Christianity, is deeply divided between Catholics and Protestants, who differ considerably on important matters of doctrine, sometimes to the point of violence and death. And Protestants are rather fractured as well, between fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. The second biggest religion, Islam, is similarly divided. Hardly a compelling argument, and certainly not enough to convince me.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat