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Time is the relationship between motion and distance such that objects in motion travel definable distances in a predictable ratios to other objects in motion.
Time is the relationship between motion and distance such that objects in motion travel definable distances in a predictable ratios to other objects in motion.
So... if something is not moving there is no time?
Just a reality check, for those interested in telling the truth vs selling an agenda...
If science has validity, but also has a counterpart we call junk science, what is the equivalent of that phenomena in religion? Moreover, what makes the majority of creationist defenders convinced that if they continue on with their version of 'junk religion' (or cult practices or whatever you'd like to call it) that a healthy outcome will prevail? Truth and justice be damned?
I can see much homework done among by so many, but if you've clung to a jaundiced eye all the while the efforts amount to spinning your wheels sure as a scientist running 5 million versions of the same experiment because he refuses to let go of the flaws in his theory.
As for Christians, particularly those with the intellectual capacity to articulate why it is they remain believers... it's beyond my comprehension you can prove anything when you offer a face of utter contempt for your audience (all of humanity). Is that your real God? The God of contempt and supremacy? Food for thought, and most importantly, a reminder of the righteous path you claim to believe in. I sincerely wish you'd find it.
You can hide behind the Bible, fearfully defend it because the concept of any conclusion you made about it being wrong would rock your ego too much, OR you can have the courage to open up that book and go deeper into it. Find that deeper faith. Those resisting the opening of that book are non believers and they don't want to admit that about themselves. As the adage goes, you can lead a horse to water... but if the horse has the water before him and incessantly whines others stole his water I have no sympathy. Public policy should not need alteration to satisfy what amounts to be a psychiatric problem.
Time is the relationship between motion and distance such that objects in motion travel definable distances in a predictable ratios to other objects in motion.
I wasn't expecting a formula from middle school Physics. Never mind, defining time may be quite a challenge. At least you can tell me about its beginning? Do you also think of it as one of the dimensions? Or separate?
Small correction... an alternative is that all which now exists spontaneously came into being from nothing and without a cause.
But there are others.
One is that the universe never "came into being" in the first place... it is eternal and uncreated.
Before the theists start declaring that impossible or absurd, they have already conceded the possibility of eternal and uncreated things. In their case they call it "God."
Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
Doesn't work that way.
Assuming space exists (necessary for an eternal Universe) along with a place from which to observe time, and if the material Universe were eternal as you propose, the present moment would never arrive from eternity past since it would be forever in the infinite future.
For our linear time to exist with both future and past, it cannot be eternal.
Something independent of time had to have created time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HistorianDude
Oh? You know this how?
Wrong.
You are essentially falling for Zeno's paradox... something that we all knew was not true thousands of years ago. Achilles really can catch the turtle.
To get to now from one year ago, you only need one year. It is a good thing that we actually have had that one year, because as we all know, it really is now.
To get to now from one million years ago, you need one million years. It is a good thing that we actually have had that one million years, because as we all know, it really is now.
To get to now from an infinite number of years ago, you need an infinite number of years. It is a good thing that we actually have had that infinite number of years, because as we all know, it really is now.
No matter how old the universe is... we still end up at now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
You've mixed finite with infinite to make your point.
If the turtle were given an infinite head start, Achilles could never catch up since the turtle would be infinitely in the future.
Any point in finite time is infinitely in the future from a point infinitely in the past.
The present moment cannot exist in infinite time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HistorianDude
So... if something is not moving there is no time?
"Something"?
Something is always moving.
If no object in the Universe were moving relative to any and all other objects, time would be undefinable. Once motion began, time would be definable by that motion and have a starting point (see Big Bang).
If no object in the Universe were moving relative to any and all other objects, time would be undefinable. Once motion began, time would be definable by that motion and have a starting point (see Big Bang).
What makes you think there was no motion before the Big Bang?
Because you have pretty much otherwise just made the case for an eternal universe.
Just a reality check, for those interested in telling the truth vs selling an agenda...
If science has validity, but also has a counterpart we call junk science, what is the equivalent of that phenomena in religion? Moreover, what makes the majority of creationist defenders convinced that if they continue on with their version of 'junk religion' (or cult practices or whatever you'd like to call it) that a healthy outcome will prevail? Truth and justice be damned?
I can see much homework done among by so many, but if you've clung to a jaundiced eye all the while the efforts amount to spinning your wheels sure as a scientist running 5 million versions of the same experiment because he refuses to let go of the flaws in his theory.
As for Christians, particularly those with the intellectual capacity to articulate why it is they remain believers... it's beyond my comprehension you can prove anything when you offer a face of utter contempt for your audience (all of humanity). Is that your real God? The God of contempt and supremacy? Food for thought, and most importantly, a reminder of the righteous path you claim to believe in. I sincerely wish you'd find it.
You can hide behind the Bible, fearfully defend it because the concept of any conclusion you made about it being wrong would rock your ego too much, OR you can have the courage to open up that book and go deeper into it. Find that deeper faith. Those resisting the opening of that book are non believers and they don't want to admit that about themselves. As the adage goes, you can lead a horse to water... but if the horse has the water before him and incessantly whines others stole his water I have no sympathy. Public policy should not need alteration to satisfy what amounts to be a psychiatric problem.
To be fair, belief in a "creator" can exist independant of organized religion. And most here that have been supporting creationism haven't made mention of said creators demands for the saccarine adoration of his creations, or the reward of heaven or punishment of eternal fire as a result of that choice. Nor have they damned anyone here for questioning that belief.
To be honest, though I've taken the side of the "evolutionists" here, I consider myself an "athestically leaning agnostic". I have seen no evidence to support the hypothesis of a creator, but admit that there may still be unanswered gaps in evolutionary theory. Evolution doesn't explain the creation of life completely (as far as I know, I am not a geneticist), but at least they are researching and attempting to do so.
It isn't suppose to, but it does beg the question which abiogeneticist are making strides towards determining.
Of course, the validation of evolution or abiogenesis has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a god just to the invalidity of a literal Abrahamic creation narrative. And that is the crux of the problem.
Yes... we all know that human engineered machines are sometimes irreducibly complex... though your example may not actually be a very good one. After all... the environmental system on the space station is redundant and therfore your description of what happens when one part breaks is not correct.
But that's neither here nor there.
The problem for IDers is to demonstrate an example of a biological machine that is irreducibly complex.
And after years of trying, the effort remains a total fail.
The space station example was hypothetical ... you know what hypothetical means don't you?
And the "irreducibly complex" hypothesis, in my view, is very distorted, and largely lacking context in such debates as you've presented them. Whether or not all of the proteins in precise forms are available in a cell is far less significant than is the more important point ... the construction of the mechanism itself, when dozens upon dozens .... as many as 50 separate parts must be constructed precisely and in exact order for the mechanism to function ... with just one part missing or out of order, reducing the mechanism to uselessness insofar as THAT PARTICULAR mechanism is supposed to function and the job that it is designed to do. It's totally irrelevant how many of those 50 parts might be common to other mechanisms when considering the issues associated with constructing that specific mechanism. If it is a critical function for which that mechanism is needed ... the amount of time required, along with the mathematical probabilities of this mechanism having it's 50 required parts being assembled in precise order, naturally and randomly, without specific instructions is BEYOND rational reasoning.
Now, the real issue here is that without organization, there is chaos. And without instructions, complex mechanisms are not likely to be 1) constructed properly, 2) recognized as being needed at all 3) able to be constructed randomly in time to see to the survival of the organism requiring that mechanism.
Again, this is one tiny argument, in my opinion, as compared to the greater argument ... DNA. DNA contains all of the instructions for constructing every cell, and every component of every cell needed by a particular organism ... including the information to replicate and repair itself.
We also know that manipulating the code can produce unexpected, and most often, undesirable results and consequences. We also know that mutagens can wreak havoc on an organism by damaging that code. But evolution theory demands that we accept the hypothesis that natural selection keeps those few, randomly generated beneficial outcomes, while the billions of undesirable, negative and often fatal outcomes are discarded or die off. The theory therefore suggests that given enough time and darts to throw, a blind man will eventually make a few bulls eyes. I can buy that theory ... totally. Nothing at all irrational about that. But the problem is not the concept ... it is the scope.
There are billions of interrelated processes and mechanisms working together, with only the slightest deviation that can disrupt the entire system. Taken individually, the spontaneous development of one, or even a few may be plausible, but the scope exceeds such plausibility when considered as a whole.
The part that has not been explained is WHERE DID THE INSTRUCTIONS COME FROM that are contained in the DNA. Neither the evolutionists nor Intelligent Designer's have the answer to this fundamental question. Both have nothing more than theories.
Evolution theory suggests that this DNA and it's code is a totally random mixing of amino acids to which sprung forth a single, evolutionary parent organism to which everything else came into existence ... and that the Billions of different species of life in all of it's astronomical complexity are the result of equally random mutations and natural selection. This, YOU claim is "real science". Ha! This is nothing more than another religious theory ... praying to the God of random forces of nature that ignores the fundamental foundation of all that science is built upon .... MATHEMATICS ... and the mathematical improbability of such a thing occurring randomly, without designed purpose. Taken further, the entirety of life and it's symbiotic connections to all that is, increases that mathematical improbability, exponentially.
So don't tell me that ID theory is not science based in the same breath that you claim evolution theory actually is. Once again, you have things slightly backwards.
That ID theory might be embraced by the religious crowd is not surprising, even though ID theory doesn't endorse theological constructs insofar as any of the man made religions are concerned. But contrary to what evolutionists insist ... it is not religion disguising itself as intelligent design. Far from it. The reverse is what most often seems to be the case ... as the evolutionists are so anti-religion, that anything that could be misconstrued as admitting a God exists is to be totally rejected ... and they'll spare no effort to quash any discussion ogf that sort. And this includes the all out effort to make Creationism and Intelligent Design synonymous, when it really is not.
I would cite one of the key figures in modern evolution theory, Richard Dawkins as a prime example of this observation of mine. Here, Prof. Dawkins admits that Intelligent Design is a possibility ... that in fact, complex biological processes may indeed contain a "signature" of a designer ... and that if true, it must be that a highly advanced civilization (who themselves had to come into existence by some Darwinian evolutionary process) designed life as we know it, and "seeded" here. Now this is ASTOUNDING !!! He's so fervently atheistic, he cannot conceive of a "God", but can conceive that extraterrestrials may have designed life and seeded it on planet earth ... so long as THEY themselves were not designed. UN-Freaking-Believable!
I tell you what this is ... this is PURE ATHEIST DOGMA ... on par with any religious dogma in existence! This man's absolute rejection and hatred for the mere concept of a "Creator" is evident ... while the irony of his remarks drips with hypocrisy. I'd like to suggest to Mr. Dawkins that if his "extraterrestrial seeding" theory could be true ... would it not make those extraterrestrials OUR CREATOR ?
By contrast, there are a lot of Intelligent Design theorists that acknowledge the role of evolution in explaining species variation when such evidence exists and is proven. And my personal belief is that both theories are required to accurately explain all of the evidence that has been gathered, and that the exclusion of either theory leaves holes that the other cannot fill.
The bottom line here is that the "Creationists" who believe that the Biblical God of the bible created the Universe in 6 days, and rested with a cup of hot cocoa on the 7th day have far more in common with the Evolutionists than they do with those embracing Intelligent Design.
Two of the main things they both have in common is 1) Both theories are preposterous 2) Both theories are ideologically based, dictated by beliefs, and not by scientific analysis.
Here's the deal:
Intelligent Design = science and mathematics based, including a higher intelligence designed basis of life, with evolutionary processes also at work.
Creationism = Religion based, God created everything in 6 days.
Evolution = There is no God, there is no God, there is no God ... any idea that explains the existence of life, no matter how outlandish, is preferable to acknowledging anything that might remotely be misconstrued as having anything to do with the existence of a "creator".
Now, go ahead and continue claiming that Evolution Theory is the only science based theory.
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