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Please inform yourself about the current research and explanations for the origins of the universe that scientists have been coming up for quite a while now.
Please inform YOURself about the current explanations for the origin of the universe that theists AND scientists have been coming up with for a while now. This is a forum right? I wish to discuss. You can go to the library and read up on intellegent design just as quickly as I can read up on anything. Why not lay them out here? Perhaps you are above that? Or should we discuss something that has never been discussed before? Or we could spend all of our time reading every other thread ever posted.
[quote=Georgiafrog;7622181]Big Ole Cat-
I find it difficult to give any real meaning to morality without the backing of some type of supreme being. [/QUOTE
This is your problem. Your mind is apparently hostage to religion. If you ever broke the chains of religion you would think freely.
As an atheist I trust my brain, my mind, without having to rely on any supernatural critters.
Please inform YOURself about the current explanations for the origin of the universe that theists AND scientists have been coming up with for a while now. This is a forum right? I wish to discuss. You can go to the library and read up on intellegent design just as quickly as I can read up on anything. Why not lay them out here? Perhaps you are above that? Or should we discuss something that has never been discussed before? Or we could spend all of our time reading every other thread ever posted.
If you are aware of these explanations then why would you make it sound like no atheist cares about the origins of the universe?
Not caring and not knowing are completely different concepts. Whether you are religious or not, It takes some honesty and logic to accept the fact that there is no way of really knowing with any confidence how or why this universe began.
No amount of arguing that atheists haven't come up with a better explanation(Which in this context would be completely subjective) will change that.
You're prolly right! The tooth fairy certainly freaks me out! And Santa never brings what I want. And all I ever find at the end of a rainbow is a Thunderstorm. How very disappointing that I have been chained for so long.
Coos- How is it better to accept that there is nothing when there is a better alternative? Why am I driven to seek the answers? And how am I better off rejecting the possibility of the supernatural when it is a possible alternative to nothing? Why not seek the answer that best fills in the gaps? I am not saying that I would reject a Naturalist's explanation of the Universe if it appeared that it was heading toward a definitive answer, or even a better one. But for now, the balance of forces in the Universe and existence itself are better explained through a design theory, in my opinion. I will always seek a better one. It's just one of those unexplained things.
You "know" nothing of the kind.
If you cannot prove it, or show that it exists anywhere but in the confines of your mind, and other like minds, it is no different than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
Just because you believe something doesn't make it so.
I suspect that you have not even read my post before responding with your glib dismissal of "believers." Science has proven and shown (so has your personal experiences) its existence irrefutably . . . we just use different names . . . so it is vastly different from Santa or other stupid comparatives.
Oh and Montana guy- I was runner up. Was that you that beat me?
Hey, that was a snappy comeback. Unfortunately it wasn't me who beat you though because those who are successful in the head paddling competition are gifted with a large concave face that can scoop a large amount of water. As you know there are four head paddlers in a boat, two on each side, who use their faces instead of an oar to paddle through the water while a captain seated behind them shouts out instructions. This physical advantage of the large concave face may help you understand the principles of evolution. There is always variation in any population of organisms in terms of physical differences and occasionally a particular physical trait will give an advantage that other members of the population don't have. This means that those who have the advantageous physical trait are more likely to survive and pass along their genetics to future generations. Eventually that trait will become the norm and those who don't have it will be weeded out by natural selection.
I hope that makes sense and even though you were just a runnerup this year doesn't mean that you can't win next year. Happy paddling!
Even if I were to grant the premise that a divine creator be at least as complex as it's creations, this still does not change the viewpoint that the fine tuning of the universe we inhabit exhibits characteristics more preferably explained by design. And who is to say that the creator is not a simple being, and is acting/creating purely from it's nature?
I am under the assumption that you understand the concept of evolution in so much as how adaptations work to conform to a given environment. Honestly, throwing out the 'fine tuning' of the universe is like saying that the hole is just deep enough and non-porous enough to allow water to collect and form a puddle. In other words, we perceive the universe as being finely tuned because that is the universe in which we've adapted to. Most definitely, if certain cosmological constants were different, if the Earth wasn't a certain distance from the sun, etc... we wouldn't be here but that's only because we perceive it as the universe and the world in which we evolved and adapted to. We could very well be somewhere else in the universe; on a planet that is the proper distance from the sun, or perhaps even in another universe that did have a good, proper arrangement of 'tuning' suitable for life and you might still be asking the same question.
Georgiafrog just put yourself in my shoes for a minute. There are thousands of creation stories from the religious, dozens of metaphysical hypothesis from physicists and potentially, an infinite amount of other ways the universe could have gotten started. We also have no way of really knowing what happened back then or even accessing what is a possible explanation and what is not.
Based on all this, the only solution that I come up with is that "we just don't know". What is wrong with my thinking proccess?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Georgiafrog
Why not seek the answer that best fills in the gaps?
Thousands of years ago there were very big gaps in our understanding of the universe and we filled the crap out of those gaps with gods. Gods caused rain, drought, disease, famine....ect. Now the gaps keep getting smaller and smaller and Goddunit has indeed become a very stale explanation when trying to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Georgiafrog
I am not saying that I would reject a Naturalist's explanation of the Universe if it appeared that it was heading toward a definitive answer, or even a better one. But for now, the balance of forces in the Universe and existence itself are better explained through a design theory, in my opinion. I will always seek a better one. It's just one of those unexplained things.
What can I say? You've already decided that a conscious intelligent being is the only way(or at least the best way) we could get complexity but I can't see why. Holism is the idea that the total is greater than the sum of it's parts, this seems to be a perfect description of this universe but it contradicts your earlier claim.
Lastly and probably most important of all. Intelligent design is pretty much the same as saying "I don't know". Those who are honest about the conclusions of IC and other tenets of ID say that "something" "somewhere"of "unknown atributes" directed the evolution of life. It could have been aliens, Ra, time travelling super dinosaurs or anything that can be considered a "designer".
There is no answer to"what did it?" or "why did it/they do it?" and there most certainly isn't any answer to "how was it done?"
Simply put, it's basically the stage of "I don't know" but with the added(and IMO unnecessary) assumption that it was some form of entity.
I hope this has bought some clarity as to why I do not see ID as "better" than "I don't know".
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[/QUOTE
Unfortunately it wasn't me who beat you though because those who are successful in the head paddling competition are gifted with a large concave face that can scoop a large amount of water. As you know there are four head paddlers in a boat, two on each side, who use their faces instead of an oar to paddle through the water while a captain seated behind them shouts out instructions. This physical advantage of the large concave face may help you understand the principles of evolution. There is always variation in any population of organisms in terms of physical differences and occasionally a particular physical trait will give an advantage that other members of the population don't have. This means that those who have the advantageous physical trait are more likely to survive and pass along their genetics to future generations. Eventually that trait will become the norm and those who don't have it will be weeded out by natural selection.
I understand the evolutionary process, and subscribe to it.