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Mystic, I will grant you that DNA, for instance, is a remarkable system. Or perhaps "consequence" is a better descriptor? But given that it's also a very simple molecule, and can be formulated in a lab environment given the right even simpler precursors, I'd conclude that it's not really taking too much of God's apparent vast (unbounded? limitless?) intellect. Agreed?
The "consequences" of ALL the possible permutations are part of the overall design, rifleman . . . not just the code elements that comprise, activate and execute the fold-ups . . . and there is NOTHING simple about those. We haven't even the vaguest idea how the central nervous system folds-up . . . yet it accounts for our brain and its conscious attributes and capabilities. Our paltry knowledge of the genome sequences that affect our physical make-up is insufficient to be making the kinds of blanket dismissals that you routinely make.
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If it is an ID thing, all you'd have to do is pour some DNA, or strong precursors, into the oceans and stand back. The rest is just logical molecular interaction, "guided" by subsequent molecular interactions (like oil and water or magnetism or, or photons impacting on photosythesizing plant molecules...) until, voila, you have you and I, with our impressive intellect.)
It is beyond me how you do NOT see that all those prescribed modes of interaction are part of the design. I know you do not think it is magic that they operate that way. So what gives?
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Quite simple actually.
Hardly!
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(BTW, Mystic, you aren't a fan of ID are you? You're just arguing from a purely philosophical perspective, right? I sincerely hope...)
The ID that you reference is a bogus Creationist attempt to infiltrate science curricula with religious nonsense under the fraudulent aegis of the Discovery Institute and allied frauds. So . . . No . . . not a fan. But of the generic reality of design and the consciousness establishing the universal field within which all your "magic" interactions occur . . . I am absolutely certain.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 04-02-2010 at 12:41 PM..
You mean like the intellectual support of, "I thought about it so hard I blacked out and found god!"
At least I have a subjective reason to assert it. You have NOTHING to explain the existence of creativity in what you proclaim is unintelligent and unconscious. Did I miss your treatise explaining that?
Nature is only a "God" if it is conscious. I do not assert that it is or isn't. I assert that we don't know. You assert that it is. Yet you still don't see the difference.
You cannot assert that it is unintelligent and unconscious with the evidence of its creativity in the face of the only existing evidence associating creativity with conscious intelligence. Did I miss your treatise explaining that?
You cannot assert that it is unintelligent and unconscious with the evidence of its creativity in the face of the only existing evidence associating creativity with conscious intelligence. Did I miss your treatise explaining that?
I did not assert anything of that sort. But your argument here is just a tired old intelligent design fallacy: "It looks created to me, therefore it was created by an intelligent designer."
I did not assert anything of that sort. But your argument here is just a tired old intelligent design fallacy: "It looks created to me, therefore it was created by an intelligent designer."
Still trying to use association with frauds to discredit what you cannot refute. You aren't really going to maintain that there is no creativity in your "Nature" God?
If they truly believed that they are imperfect and are gradually gaining knowledge, then they should be willing to admit the possibility of the existence of God.
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Frankly, Jremy, "we" did. We posited a number of simple, logical questions, but as one would expect for a systematic, rigid belief system that cannot possibly cover all the aspects unless one just invokes a MAGICAL solution to all the unanswerables, there was a deafening "FAIL" sound. A true scientific study would include a test to confirm, or reject, a Godly hypothesis.
What is glaringly missing on your side is any apparent understanding of how science proceeds. Your idea that we all stumble along, with no direction or purpose other than to reject anything godly, or that we have our mind already made up, is patently errant. Every tested hypothesis in science is accompanied by a "null hypothesis" in which the alternate to the theory under test can also be an acceptable outcome. If Evolution isn't how diversity occurred, then there's some other rational reason. Now, that does not conclude what you choose to believe, that THEREFORE it's Godly. Nope.
That too would have to be tested within the same levels of rigid documentation and levels of proof, and that's where the problem comes. Given that your God has chosen to never show Himself to us, irrefutibly, incontrovertibly and unambiguously, we thus far have no evidence to accept Him. On top of that, we DO have a lot of conclusionary, logical evidence that the things we see in nature have completely non-theistic explanations that, BTW, also make complete logical sense.
Interestingly, as society has advanced and we no longer have to cower in the backs of our caves, and have more free time to ponder, even the less intellectual have come up with some good questions. The theists, on the other hand, seem content to accept less-than-rigorous evidence, faith based in most or all cases. You can't apply different standards of evidence to science versus religion, Jremy. Unless you want to appear truly biased!
The reason why religion is so widespread throughout the earth is because the desire to worship something and the sense of deity are deeply etched upon all people.
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Wrong. "Some people" is the far more accurate answer here. Do not tell me what I need, either spiritually or logically.
All peoples everywhere worship some kind of deity. If this were not etched upon their hearts by God, then the urge to explain origins in terms of deity would not be so widespread and universal, and people would find a huge variety of ways to explain that which they cannot understand.
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Originally Posted by Jremy
The last sentence is particularly true. The atheist doesn't stand back and look at the "facts" from a purely unbiased stance. He makes assumptions, he has starting points, unprovable foundations.
Wrong again. Totally incorrect, assumptive and argumentative. For the reasons I've outlined above.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Your... lumping all theists in with religionists and supernaturalists.
perhaps the most annoying thing about atheists is their ignorant and pompous assumption of the default epistemological position with absolutely no justification for it whatsoever. In fact, they frequently haven't even a clue what epistemology is all about. Sad . . . and pathetic.
....they presume that their willful ignorance and lack of interest in the source of it all must be the default that everyone must accept unless proof is presented for what they assumed away and cannot themselves prove or explain.
(rflmn: we can't? Really? Ever?)
They justify a denial that there even is a source of it all by calling it "Nature" and just "take for granted" all its attributes and powers of creation as "natural."
Mystic, please read what I said above about the well-regulated process of asking questions versus us making assumptions about "assumptions".
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Originally Posted by 007.5
Thats a very amusing story. What if the Theist would have told the Atheist that there are well over 150 physics constants that have been scientifically confirmed and their critical tolerance measured to where some are within a 10^150th power fine tuning and ALL required to work collaboratively ...otherwise We aren't here looking up at the blue sky ?! Would the 'atheist' simply say :" Well gee, arent raw materials / chemicals / and a big cosmic explosion smart enough to put all that together ?"
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What a tired and silly reversed-logic argument, but it shows up often enough that I'm sure it's out there somewhere online as some sort of irrefutable "magic argument".
Quick but logical rebuttal:
√ The things you call constants that you've determined are inalterable and necessary for life and existence are all things that existedbefore life developed and subsequently evolvedunder those conditions. So of course, they'll exactly and precisely fit with the available temperature gradients, chemical background makeup, solar input,gravitational levels, and each and every "constant" you can imagine. Rather, we fit to them, silly! The preciseness of that fit proves we evolved into them, not that some ID guy created us to fit them.
√ If life had arisen on a planet further away (and thus colder, with, let's say an average temperature much like the Arctic, where BTW life also flourishes here on Earth) or closer (and thus warmer, with av. temps like, say, the Sahara, where, ditto, life also fourishes here on Earth), then that's what we'd find here. Cold- or hot-adapted life.
√ Now we humans wouldn't have necessarily flourished as humans have, but so what? (Remembering that Cro-Magnon man did flourish in the icy shadows of the glaciers...) That's just the luck of the draw, with a nice range of available ecological niches and a resulting wide array of well-adapted life. And now, of course, we have Air Conditioning, or natural gas furnaces so that we can adapt to all the available niches.
There's no such thing as 'an atheist' ... it just takes too much religious faith to really be one.
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Or, a whole lot of ever-growing well-deduced and rational proofs that debunk a magical Creator. Read up on Occam's Razor, why don't you, and report back as to what it says...
There are , however, many who refuse to admit a personal Architect and Creator must be required for our highly personal Cosmos.
Remember, many including myself, started out as devout Christians. I/we have carefully considered both side of the evidence, realizing what we had to lose. I'm betting you haven't. My educational background includes, in order, engineering, biology, toxicology, evolution and finally geology. I think I"m qualified, even if you don't agre, to discuss the scientific approach. By the "absolute" statements you've provided, I'm willling to bet you haven't availed yourself of the other side of the argument. If so, tell me about it. if not, how can you confidently make such sweeping and unqualified statements?
At least I have a subjective reason to assert it. You have NOTHING to explain the existence of creativity in what you proclaim is unintelligent and unconscious. Did I miss your treatise explaining that?
Surely someone as well read as you has a well-thumbed copy lying on his nightstand.
But the idea that others do not have intellectual founding for their views in light of your own is appallingly hypocritical. I just like to point those instances out.
Still trying to use association with frauds to discredit what you cannot refute. You aren't really going to maintain that there is no creativity in your "Nature" God?
You know, that there is no way to refute something that lives entirely within your head don't you? There are many whack-a-loon ideas that cannot be refuted, but that certainly doesn't make them true, or real.
There is 'creativity' in the sense that mutations occur, but that is a misuse of the word IMO. The advantageous ones survive and propagate, while the others do not. As for what we "cannot refute", let's see you 'fute' it! The burden of proof lies upon the believer.
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