<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 02:21 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 02:21 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-john_sheu+Sep 24 2004, 02:55 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (john_sheu @ Sep 24 2004, 02:55 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Very good. In fact, if you wanted to put $DEITY in the picture, you could use Newton's "master watchmaker" analogy; that $DEITY, in the beginning, had the extraordinary foresight to set the laws of physics exactly in the right way to eventually bring about our evolution. Then evolution is just another tool of $DEITY. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> This was exactly my point, although I may suck at explaining myself sometimes... I am sick of people using science as a tool to try to disprove the existance of GOD it is a meager and weak arguement and makes no sense. I am by no means a hardcore literalist when it comes to the old testament with anything up to Abram. Before that I personally think its up to interpritation and tells a basic telling of the truth. I also buy into the big bang theory until something better comes along, but my point is where did those gasses come from, like someone else said there had to have been a design and a higher power must have indeed had said design.
*Edit* A very wise and enlightened Catholic Priest once gave our class that same watch analogy and he also chose to believe in the big bang. He also explained why creationism and evolutionism can co-exist because there is nothing in the Bible that says GOD couldn't have done it this way. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> If I was religious, that would be exactly my view.
But the big sticking-point for me, personally, is that the argument again <i>pre-supposes the existence of $DEITY.</i>
This is where I like to make the distinction between science and faith/philosophy. There is no way, really, to prove/disprove religion with science. Because the very nature of religion is that it is a <i>faith</i>. But then, again, I get pretty **** when people try to use science to support religion, because that is also a misuse.
<a href='http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_origins.htm' target='_blank'>here's one</a> sorry, i guess i misquoted the number of protons in the universe.
<a href='http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Proton.html' target='_blank'>guess it's really 10^80</a> <a href='http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/biological-order.html' target='_blank'>a bunch of references, haven't read them all</a>
<a href='http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W1201.pdf' target='_blank'>why creation is better than randomness</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Mathematician William Dembski calculated that if the probability of something occurring is less than one in 10150, it has no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history. He further estimates that the probability of evolving the first cell is no better than one in 104,478,146<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 03:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 03:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> well, the basic point of all the articles is that evolution by chance is ridiculously unlikely. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> And your argument is supported by <i>what</i> evidence?
Something about the whole "amazing order of the universe" :
No Mercury rock is going to post here saying "my life sucks , my home planet is way too near the sun , no self - respecting God would have designed the universe this way" , as far as we know we're the only sentient life form of this solar system. I doubt intelligent life would have been thriving on Earth if UVs were showering on any ground creature. However , this world isn't ideal either - our ancestors had to deal with the ice age , and we still have an unpredictable weather and frequent natural disasters. Earth's continents don't roll besides each other quietly , they collide and cause random earthquakes.
We're lucky to be sentient creatures on a relatively livable world ; but nothing says that there aren't luckier creatures somewhere else in the universe , who forgot about the concept of pain long ago.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->but my point is where did those gasses come from, like someone else said there had to have been a design and a higher power must have indeed had said design.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, if you want to go that route, who designed this higher power? I mean, it can't just <i>be</i> can it? An even higher power must have created it, since nothing so ordered as to be considered perfect could just happen on its own could it?
If you can accept the spontaneous existance of God, But can't accept the spontaneous existance of the universe, then you're a hypocrite.
Ah but it works the other way around too <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> If you can accept the spontaneous creation of the universe, but not such of a higher being then you are a hypocrit. Time also isn't real btw and GOD always has been and always will be. Some things we just cannot understand, but design cannot (like someone said) just appear out of nothingness.
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 04:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 04:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Ah but it works the other way around too <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> If you can accept the spontaneous creation of the universe, but not such of a higher being then you are a hypocrit. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Agreed. But I never said that the spontaneous existance of God was a problem did I?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Time also isn't real btw <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Depends on what you mean by that. As humans percieve it, time indeed works pretty much like we think it does. However, our perception is based on the laws of thermodynamics, and so time can really be just a special spacial dimension, so in that regard it isn't what we think it is. But it does indeed exist.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and GOD always has been and always will be. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
...Which could also be true of the Universe. Big bang theory isn't nessesarily true, and even if it is theres the Big bang, big crunch, big bang cycle hypothosis too.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Some things we just cannot understand, but design cannot (like someone said) just appear out of nothingness.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you're saying that God cannot appear out of nothingness now? Didn't you just argue the counterpoint? Or are you saying that God isn't designed, but that humans and the universe are? That doesn't make sense. If we MUST have been designed, then God also MUST have been designed, since he is so similar to us right? You can't have it both ways. Either things that can appear "designed" can form from relative nothingness, or they can't. Choose.
I also said somethings we just don't understand and you didn't quote that. I also said GOD always has been and always will be according to most religions. Time is just something we rely on, but multiple works show that it is just a concept of the human mind. As for having it both ways, the arguement worked so I used it. You also can't have it both ways using both as an arguement, is it big bang or the recycling universe theory.
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 05:30 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 05:30 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I also said somethings we just don't understand and you didn't quote that. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I didn't quote it because I didn't dispute it. However, if that is your basis for believing in God, why not believe in UFOs, or other such nonsense?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I also said GOD always has been and always will be according to most religions. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok... your point is? That God exists outside the universe? I thought that was a given, how else could he have created it? Just because he exists outside the universe doesn't mean that he MUST exist now does it? It also doesn't mean that, if he does exist, his own "universe" doesn't have rules similar to ours, which MUST have been designed, if you insist that ours MUST have been designed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Time is just something we rely on, but multiple works show that it is just a concept of the human mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I didn't dispute this.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As for having it both ways, the arguement worked so I used it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ok, then I can have it both ways too. I submit that God MUST have been designed (since he is supposedly perfect), and that humans MUST NOT have been designed (since they are imperfect). Does that make any sense? No. Neither does the reverse.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You also can't have it both ways using both as an arguement<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> But you can? WTH?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->,is it big bang or the recycling universe theory.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'll assume that was a question. first of all, the "recycling" is a HYPOTHOSIS. This differs from a theory in that theories have withstood at least some amount of scientific testing (take note creationist, just because evolution is a theroy doesn't mean its a random guess). Second, it could go either way. It doesn't really matter. All I was saying is that the universe is not nessesarily finite.
The upshot of what I'm trying to say is that you cannot say for certain that God exists <i>just because</i>, while the universe MUST have been created since its so ordered.
----
Annother take on the argument that the universe must ahve been created: You say that you look around and see beutifull things that couldn't possibly have occured by chance. But why not? A geode is a beutifull thing, yet we know that they do indeed occur by chance. A rondom combination of the right elements at the right temperatures and pressures, will, over a period of time, form crystals. Crystals are highly ordered, yet they occur in nature without any intervention at all, in a completely understandable process. We may not fully understand how life originally formed itself on this planet, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
No no you complained about me having it both ways then you used it so you contradicted yourself so thats why I brought up the fact that you did it too, so either we both can bring up hypothetical arguements.... or we can't but we sorta have to stick with one or the other.... and of course GOD is outside the universe my point is that he has always existed and didn't come randomly out of nothingness thus saying that like the crunch theory this could be viewed as hypothetical. You also can not say that GOD does not exist because you personally feel there is not enough proof.
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 05:51 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 05:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> No no you complained about me having it both ways then you used it so you contradicted yourself were both making this too confusing.... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're the one making it confusing. Use proper sentance structure for crying out loud. I can hardly make out what you're saying!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and of course OD is outside the universe my point is that he has always existed and didn't come randomly out of nothingness. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> And my point was that the universe may have also existed forever, meaning that it also didn't nessesarily come out of nothingness, meaning that God is not nessesarily nessesary.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You also can not say that GOD does not exist because you personally feel there is not enough proof.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're right I can't. And I'm not saying that. I am saying that you can't say god exists based on flimsy logic.
damnit man, theres a reason for the "preview post" button. Now I have to redo my response:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> No no you complained about me having it both ways then you used it so you contradicted yourself so thats why I brought up the fact that you did it too,<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> The difference is that I didnot state it as fact, I said it could go either way, so it is NOT a contradiction. You, however, say that the universe MUST be created because it is so well ordered, but that at the same time god (perfectly ordered) didn't need to be.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->so either we both can bring up hypothetical arguements.... or we can't but we sorta have to stick with one or the other.... and of course GOD is outside the universe my point is that he has always existed and didn't come randomly out of nothingness thus saying that like the crunch theory this could be viewed as hypothetical.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So now you're saying that God may or may not have always existed? Ok, but then how can you say that he MUST have created the universe, and MUST NOT have been created himself?
Nice quoting of my un-edited post before I even had time to re-read it. So now your contradicting your flismy logic that GOD isn't real? "Use proper sentance structure for crying out loud." Shouldn't there be a comma in there?
*Edit* oh yeah and nice mispelling of sentence. Ironic that you can't spell that yet you're making fun of my sentence structure... confusing indeed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And your argument is supported by what evidence?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 05:58 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 05:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Nice quoting of my un-edited post before I even had time to re-read it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> PREVIEW BUTTON!
Its not like I said to myself "I'd better quote that post before he edits it!". I just assumed you were done.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So now your contradicting your flismy logic that GOD isn't real? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I never said that God wasn't real, I said that he didn't NESSESARILY exist. BIG FREAKING DIFFERENCE!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->*Edit* oh yeah and nice mispelling of sentence. Ironic that you can't spell that yet you're making fun of my sentence structure... confusing indeed.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So I can't spell. At least you can make out what I'm saying.
---
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> this discussion forum has gone to hell.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wholeheartedly agree. It should have ended about 5 pages ago. Probably more.
I also agree I mean some people here can't spell have no arguements and can't make complete sentences......, before skulkbait tries to banter some more let me just add that I am not trying to convert anyone here. I may be preaching, but let me make it clear that religion is used by use to guide our ideals and morals. Anyone who has good morals and acts decent in their lives can make it to heaven. Atheists are the hardest to debate with it appears because when you bring up GOD they try to disprove he exists, I know what your beliefs are and you probably won't be swayed, but only if you wallow in sin "aka bad moral descisions" will we really point anyone out on it.... even George Bush, though he pretends to be religous, but that is another topic entirely.
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 06:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 06:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I also agree I mean some people here can't spell have no arguements and can't make complete sentences...... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> that's "arguments"
forget it, if we're going to be this petty, i'm withdrawing to OT and Artwork for a long time.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:00 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:00 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And your argument is supported by what evidence?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
by statistical analysis? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Citation, please. Give me a summary of a point in a paper. I do <b>not</b> mean for you to run out and Google something and paste the link; I mean for you to read the papers you find, paraphrase them, and post your point with support from your citation.
Sorry if that seems a bit much, but there is a reason why one practices writing reports in school. This is to avoid the "overwhelm your opponents with massive evidence that you haven't even digested yet" tactic.
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 03:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 03:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Ah but it works the other way around too <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> If you can accept the spontaneous creation of the universe, but not such of a higher being then you are a hypocrit. Time also isn't real btw and GOD always has been and always will be. Some things we just cannot understand, but design cannot (like someone said) just appear out of nothingness. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I'd like to frame this question in terms of causality. Meaning, does everything have to have a cause? Possible answers: <b>Yes.</b> The causality proof for the existence of $DEITY, meaning that there had to be a $DEITY around to create the universe. Well then, that means that the $DEITY also had to have a creator then, ad infinitum. So which $DEITY are we supposed to worship? <b>Sometimes.</b> One could argue that $DEITY was the one-and-only thing that doesn't have to have a cause. Well, guess what? This distinction is completely arbitrary. I could just as well argue that the Big Bang was the one-and-only thing that didn't have a cause. <b>No.</b> Nothing has a cause. Well, then, there's no reason why there should be a $DEITY, now is there?
My point is that causality is a very poor argument for the existence of a $DEITY.
It would be pointless to cite any of these because you've proven time and again that rationale and reason aren't for you. You're not welcome in this debate unless you can come to grips with the possibility that others may be correct. In laymen's terms, stop babbling.
Personally, I'm sick of you using popularity to justify your claims. It was popular in Nazi germany to persecute Jews, and it was popular in America to imprison the Japanese. Popularity does not define right. The amount of times you manage to contradict yourself on this point makes me laugh.
Swiftspear: While I have a lot of respect for you as a Christian who doesn't stuff it in my face, and is willing to acknowledge, if not accept, the arguments of both sides, consider the possibility that perhaps your entire psychological construction of faith may be the result of being surrounded with a belief in god since your youth. Do you recall making an active, informed decision that god was doubtlessly real, and that it was worth your time to spend the rest of your life worshipping him? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm sick of you not having any proof and screaming minority. I want to know how you think the world was created, because your random blithering about my supposed irrational thinking really isnt proving much other than the fact that you have zero proof which you never seem to deny. There are some people in this forum like john_sheu who are willing to debate reasonably "which I very much respect people like that and their opinions" and not say things like because Christiany is the pre-dominate religion therefore we can make analogies to Nazism and other wrongful scenarios of persecution. The KKK is a minority, so really what is your, point being a minority does not give you the god given right (LOL) to run around calling anyone who has a religious conviction wrong just because you are a minority and desrespute every shred of evidence we offer and yet have none to back up your own arguements.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Creation of the Solar System: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#Origin_and_evolution_of_planetary_systems' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems</a> (Origins of the solar system) Evolutionary theory: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution</a>
The word minority was not used once in any of my posts. I don't believe that if I were the minority, then I would be completely in the right in everything. I am certainly not in such a minority on these forums that I am fighting an uphill battle, there are plenty of people who agree with me on the existence of God. Your battle cry, on the other hand, has been filled with the word "most," most of the time. I didn't draw an analogy between Christianity and Nazi germany, and I'm speculating as to how that association was made. However, I did draw a line between two points on the chart - how both Nazi prosecution was "popular," but not neccessarily in the right.
Im too tired to continue this convo. Let me just finsih with several things.... I remember learning that there were 3 paths to heaven. If anyone knows what I'm talking about feel free to post cause I can't seem to find them... Path of blood, baptism and something else I beleive.... Any way I'm sure that GOD takes into account your upbringing and your experiences and reasoning behind such when choosing a religion (or lack of) before he judges you, they even say he has reserved a special spot in heaven for the jewish because they were his people "I'm not saying I agree with this, that they all go to heaven like some say, but I am saying that Muslims, Jewish and anyone decent can make it to heaven in the end. How did this topic even turn into a religious debate anywhere, oh well, I'm just saying I respect all your opinions and I know you truely believe what you believe, I also would like to add that in order to commit a sin 3 components are needed, you have to willingly do it, knowingly do it and know that it is a sin for it to indeed be a sin. Anyway peace out that's enough from me for now.
camO.o ..... "Creation of the Solar System: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems</a> (Origins of the solar system) Evolutionary theory: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution"' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution"</a>
That's not proof, and if you've read my other posts I believe in evolution and the big bang unless its proven otherwise and the bible does not disagrees with such possibilities.....
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 05:27 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 05:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Im too tired to continue this convo. Let me just finsih with several things.... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Peace out, man <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
by statistical analysis? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Citation, please. Give me a summary of a point in a paper. I do <b>not</b> mean for you to run out and Google something and paste the link; I mean for you to read the papers you find, paraphrase them, and post your point with support from your citation.
Sorry if that seems a bit much, but there is a reason why one practices writing reports in school. This is to avoid the "overwhelm your opponents with massive evidence that you haven't even digested yet" tactic. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ugh, that's too much work.
but for your sake, i'll summarize the first article that i read.
1) It used to be that primordial soup theory was prevalent - Oparin and Miller's little test-tube lightning experiment proved that you could build amino acids from what they conjectured were the elements most prevalent in the atmosphere or dissolved in the ocean at the time.
2) Recently, fossil evidence from the oldest known bacteria has shown that if life did spring up from chemicals, it needed to have done so fairly quickly.
3) Geologists can't find any evidence of a chemical composition of the pre-life Earth matching that Oparin/Miller used as a premise.
4) Geological/chemical evidence points to a hostile environment for which amino acids would form. <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->When Stanley Miller conducted his experiment simulating the production of amino acids on the early earth, he presupposed that the earth's atmosphere was composed of a mixture of what chemists call reducing gases such as methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). He also assumed that the earth's atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen. Miller derived his assumptions about these conditions from Oparin's 1936 book. In the years following Miller's experiment, however, new geochemical evidence made it clear that the assumptions that Oparin and Miller had made about the early atmosphere could not be justified. Instead, evidence strongly suggested that neutral gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor, not methane, ammonia and hydrogen, predominated in the early atmosphere. Moreover, a number of geochemical studies showed that significant amounts of free oxygen were also present even before the advent of plant life, probably as the result of volcanic outgassing and the photodissociation of water vapor.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
5) the simplest extant cells are much more complex than can be described by mere accidental amino-acid formation/replication.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Assume for the moment that the reducing gases used by Stanley Miller do actually simulate the conditions on the early earth. Would his experimental results, then, support chemical evolution? Not necessarily. Miller-type simulation experiments have invariably produced non-biological substances in addition to biological building blocks such as amino acids and nucleic acid bases. Without human intervention, these other substances will react readily with biologically relevant building blocks to form a biologically irrelevant compound, a chemically insoluble sludge. To prevent this from happening and to move the simulation of chemical evolution along a biologically promising trajectory, experimenters have often removed those chemicals that degrade or transform amino acids into non-biologically relevant compounds. They must also artificially manipulate the initial conditions in their experiments. Rather than using both short and long-wavelength ultraviolet light which would be present in any realistic atmosphere, they use only short-wavelength UV. Why? The presence of the long-wavelength UV light quickly degrades amino acids. Thus, investigators have routinely manipulated chemical conditions both before and after performing "simulation" experiments in order to protect their experiments from destructive naturally occurring processes. These manipulations constitute what chemist Michael Polanyi called a "profoundly informative intervention."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
btw, ultraviolet light does damage nucleic acids. so even if you could theoretically bond free-floating ions with oxygen or carbon or nitrogen into molecules, the ultraviolet radiation would prevent those amino acids from ever chaining together. while it's true that some amino acid structures aren't affected by UV, or even "deflect" them, the chances that one of these formed and crossed paths with a replicating amino acid chain at the precise moment required is mind-bogglingly low.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Various methods of calculating probabilities have been offered by Morowitz, Hoyle, Cairns-Smith, Prigogine, Yockey and more recently, Robert Sauer. For the sake of argument, these calculations have generally assumed extremely favorable prebiotic conditions (whether realistic or not) and theoretically maximal reaction rates among the constituent monomers (i.e. the constituent parts of the proteins, DNA and RNA). Such calculations have invariably shown that the probability of obtaining functionally sequenced biomacromolecules at random is, in Prigogine's words, "vanishingly small . . .even on the scale of . . .billions of years." As Cairns-Smith wrote in 1971: "Blind chance...is very limited. Low-levels of cooperation he [blind chance] can produce exceedingly easily (the equivalent of letters and small words), but he becomes very quickly incompetent as the amount of organization increases. Very soon indeed long waiting periods and massive material resources become irrelevant." Consider the probabilistic hurdles that must be overcome to construct even one short protein molecule of about one hundred amino acids in length. (A typical protein consists of about 300 amino acids, and some are very much longer).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i based my calculations from some research into morowitz, but i admit that i haven't read the other guys'. but from what it seems, it's not promising for evolution-by-chance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First, all amino acids must form a chemical bond known as a peptide bond so as to join with other amino acids in the protein chain. Yet in nature many other types of chemical bonds are possible between amino acids; in fact, peptide and non-peptide bonds occur with roughly equal probability. Thus, at any given site along a growing amino acid chain the probability of having a peptide bond is roughly 1/2. The probability of attaining four peptide bonds is: (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2)=1/16 or (1/2)4. The probability of building a chain of 100 amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide linkages is (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. Second, in nature every amino acid has a distinct mirror image of itself, one left-handed version or L-form and one right-handed version or D-form. These mirror-image forms are called optical isomers. Functioning proteins tolerate only left-handed amino acids, yet the right-handed and left-handed isomers occurs in nature with roughly equal frequency. Taking this into consideration compounds the improbability of attaining a biologically functioning protein. The probability of attaining at random only L-amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain 100 amino acids long is again (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. The probability of building a 100 amino acid length chain at random in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L-form would be (1/4)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1060 (zero for all practical purposes given the time available on the early earth). Functioning proteins have a third independent requirement, the most important of all; their amino acids must link up in a specific sequential arrangement just the letters in a meaningful sentence must. In some cases, even changing one amino acid at a given site can result in a loss of protein function.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
then, they go on to discuss whether proteins could have assembled themselves due to electronegativity or polarity based on primary structure... <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->For many current origin-of-life scientists self-organizational models now seem to offer the most promising approach to explaining the origin of biological information. Nevertheless, critics have called into question both the plausibility and the relevance of self-organizational models. Ironically, perhaps the most prominent early advocate of self-organization, Professor Dean Kenyon, has now explicitly repudiated such theories as both incompatible with empirical findings and theoretically incoherent. First, empirical studies have shown that some differential affinities do exist between various amino acids (i.e., particular amino acids do form linkages more readily with some amino acids than others). Neverthless, these differences do not correlate to actual sequencing in large classes of known proteins. In short, differing chemical affinities do not explain the multiplicity of amino acid sequences that exist in naturally occurring proteins or the sequential ordering of any single protein.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
guess that doesn't work either.
conclusion:<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->During the last forty years, molecular biology has revealed a complexity and intricacy of design that exceeds anything that was imaginable during the late-nineteenth century. We now know that organisms display any number of distinctive features of intelligently engineered high-tech systems: information storage and transfer capability; functioning codes; sorting and delivery systems; regulatory and feed-back loops; signal transduction circuitry; and everywhere, complex, mutually-interdependent networks of parts. Indeed, the complexity of the biomacromolecules discussed in this essay does not begin to exhaust the full complexity of living systems. As even the staunch materialist Richard Dawkins has allowed, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Yet the materialistic science we have inherited from the late-nineteenth century, with its exclusive conceptual reliance on matter and energy, could neither envision nor can it now account for the biology of the information age. As Werner Gitt has said, throughout the natural sciences "energy and matter are considered to be basic, universal quantities. But the concept of information has become just as fundamental and far reaching. . . information has rightly become known as the third fundamental quantity." Or as Norbert Weiner put it, "Information is information, neither energy nor matter. No materialism that fails to take account of this can survive the present day." The molecular biology of the cell raises the possibility that "no materialism" will survive the revolution beginning to take root in science. While established journals and institutions continue to propagate the orthodoxies of a generation ago, many scientists, philosophers of science and mathematicians have begun to challenge these views and to formulate alternative approaches. Recent work in probability theory has defined information more precisely and articulated clear mathematical criteria for the identification of intelligently designed systems, thus providing a theoretical framework for a new science based upon the reality of design. A new book on the "irreducible complexity" of biochemical systems explains why gradual undirected evolution cannot produce such systems, and suggests intelligent design as the most viable scientific alternative. A new peer-reviewed journal, Origins & Design, opens this spring with a seminal article by a former chemical evolutionist turned design-advocate. Other work promises to reshape our conception, not only of living things but of our science and ourselves. If the simplest life owes its origin to an intelligent Creator, then perhaps man is not the "cosmic orphan" that twentieth century scientific materialism has taught. Perhaps then, during the twenty first century, the traditional moral and spiritual foundations of the West will find support from the very sciences that once seemed to undermine them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html' target='_blank'>borel's law of chance</a> <!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->..Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10^50 have a zero probability of ever happening.... This is Borel's law in action which was derived by mathematician Emil Borel....<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I just deleted a post I've spent the last hour and a half on and am now officially resigning from this thread. There's no point in arguing my side when the entire opposition refutes it time and time again with obstinate, scientifically inconclusive, homebred theories concerning why there can be no such thing as evolution.
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES!
<!--QuoteBegin-Matthew L. Barre+Sep 24 2004, 06:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Matthew L. Barre @ Sep 24 2004, 06:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Atheists are the hardest to debate with it appears because when you bring up GOD they try to disprove he exists <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> First of all, even if you didn't intend this towards me, I want to make it clear that I am not an atheist. But even so it bothers me when people come out and state something like "God Exists" as a fact when they can't prove it. Secondly, religious people are exactly the same way. When you bring up the non-existance of God, they try to prove he exists.
No, I realize you aren't and that's not true about all religious people, but my point was this topic originally was about metallica and the bible....(ok that was wierd enough), but how'd GOD not existing get even dragged into the situation? If I saw a thread written by an atheism expressing his views I might reply, but most likely I would consider it and just leave the thread due to the intentions of the thread and the convictions of the person writing said forum and its intentions.
of course it can't be proven. but imo if it talks, walks, sounds, and looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. i mean, it could be an alien, but i'm not gonna bet on it.
<!--QuoteBegin-camO.o+Sep 24 2004, 07:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (camO.o @ Sep 24 2004, 07:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just deleted a post I've spent the last hour and a half on and am now officially resigning from this thread. There's no point in arguing my side when the entire opposition refutes it time and time again with obstinate, scientifically inconclusive, homebred theories concerning why there can be no such thing as evolution.
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> lmao man, "homebred theory" ? this is from some pretty respectable origins scientists, and they're not creationists, if that's what you mean. please, refute my evidence if you can.
Comments
Very good. In fact, if you wanted to put $DEITY in the picture, you could use Newton's "master watchmaker" analogy; that $DEITY, in the beginning, had the extraordinary foresight to set the laws of physics exactly in the right way to eventually bring about our evolution. Then evolution is just another tool of $DEITY.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This was exactly my point, although I may suck at explaining myself sometimes... I am sick of people using science as a tool to try to disprove the existance of GOD it is a meager and weak arguement and makes no sense. I am by no means a hardcore literalist when it comes to the old testament with anything up to Abram. Before that I personally think its up to interpritation and tells a basic telling of the truth. I also buy into the big bang theory until something better comes along, but my point is where did those gasses come from, like someone else said there had to have been a design and a higher power must have indeed had said design.
*Edit* A very wise and enlightened Catholic Priest once gave our class that same watch analogy and he also chose to believe in the big bang. He also explained why creationism and evolutionism can co-exist because there is nothing in the Bible that says GOD couldn't have done it this way. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If I was religious, that would be exactly my view.
But the big sticking-point for me, personally, is that the argument again <i>pre-supposes the existence of $DEITY.</i>
This is where I like to make the distinction between science and faith/philosophy. There is no way, really, to prove/disprove religion with science. Because the very nature of religion is that it is a <i>faith</i>. But then, again, I get pretty **** when people try to use science to support religion, because that is also a misuse.
sorry, i guess i misquoted the number of protons in the universe.
<a href='http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Proton.html' target='_blank'>guess it's really 10^80</a>
<a href='http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/biological-order.html' target='_blank'>a bunch of references, haven't read them all</a>
<a href='http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W1201.pdf' target='_blank'>why creation is better than randomness</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Mathematician William Dembski calculated that if the probability of something occurring is less than one in 10150, it has no possibility of happening by chance at any time by any conceivable process throughout all of cosmic history. He further estimates that the probability of evolving the first cell is no better than one in 104,478,146<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It would be better (and it would also prove that you actually read through them) if you gave specific points and used the links as citations.
And your argument is supported by <i>what</i> evidence?
No Mercury rock is going to post here saying "my life sucks , my home planet is way too near the sun , no self - respecting God would have designed the universe this way" , as far as we know we're the only sentient life form of this solar system. I doubt intelligent life would have been thriving on Earth if UVs were showering on any ground creature. However , this world isn't ideal either - our ancestors had to deal with the ice age , and we still have an unpredictable weather and frequent natural disasters. Earth's continents don't roll besides each other quietly , they collide and cause random earthquakes.
We're lucky to be sentient creatures on a relatively livable world ; but nothing says that there aren't luckier creatures somewhere else in the universe , who forgot about the concept of pain long ago.
Ok, if you want to go that route, who designed this higher power? I mean, it can't just <i>be</i> can it? An even higher power must have created it, since nothing so ordered as to be considered perfect could just happen on its own could it?
If you can accept the spontaneous existance of God, But can't accept the spontaneous existance of the universe, then you're a hypocrite.
Agreed. But I never said that the spontaneous existance of God was a problem did I?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Time also isn't real btw <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Depends on what you mean by that. As humans percieve it, time indeed works pretty much like we think it does. However, our perception is based on the laws of thermodynamics, and so time can really be just a special spacial dimension, so in that regard it isn't what we think it is. But it does indeed exist.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and GOD always has been and always will be. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
...Which could also be true of the Universe. Big bang theory isn't nessesarily true, and even if it is theres the Big bang, big crunch, big bang cycle hypothosis too.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Some things we just cannot understand, but design cannot (like someone said) just appear out of nothingness.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you're saying that God cannot appear out of nothingness now? Didn't you just argue the counterpoint? Or are you saying that God isn't designed, but that humans and the universe are? That doesn't make sense. If we MUST have been designed, then God also MUST have been designed, since he is so similar to us right? You can't have it both ways. Either things that can appear "designed" can form from relative nothingness, or they can't. Choose.
I didn't quote it because I didn't dispute it. However, if that is your basis for believing in God, why not believe in UFOs, or other such nonsense?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I also said GOD always has been and always will be according to most religions. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok... your point is? That God exists outside the universe? I thought that was a given, how else could he have created it? Just because he exists outside the universe doesn't mean that he MUST exist now does it? It also doesn't mean that, if he does exist, his own "universe" doesn't have rules similar to ours, which MUST have been designed, if you insist that ours MUST have been designed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Time is just something we rely on, but multiple works show that it is just a concept of the human mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't dispute this.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As for having it both ways, the arguement worked so I used it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, then I can have it both ways too. I submit that God MUST have been designed (since he is supposedly perfect), and that humans MUST NOT have been designed (since they are imperfect). Does that make any sense? No. Neither does the reverse.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You also can't have it both ways using both as an arguement<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But you can? WTH?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->,is it big bang or the recycling universe theory.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'll assume that was a question. first of all, the "recycling" is a HYPOTHOSIS. This differs from a theory in that theories have withstood at least some amount of scientific testing (take note creationist, just because evolution is a theroy doesn't mean its a random guess). Second, it could go either way. It doesn't really matter. All I was saying is that the universe is not nessesarily finite.
The upshot of what I'm trying to say is that you cannot say for certain that God exists <i>just because</i>, while the universe MUST have been created since its so ordered.
----
Annother take on the argument that the universe must ahve been created: You say that you look around and see beutifull things that couldn't possibly have occured by chance. But why not? A geode is a beutifull thing, yet we know that they do indeed occur by chance. A rondom combination of the right elements at the right temperatures and pressures, will, over a period of time, form crystals. Crystals are highly ordered, yet they occur in nature without any intervention at all, in a completely understandable process. We may not fully understand how life originally formed itself on this planet, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You're the one making it confusing. Use proper sentance structure for crying out loud. I can hardly make out what you're saying!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->and of course OD is outside the universe my point is that he has always existed and didn't come randomly out of nothingness. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And my point was that the universe may have also existed forever, meaning that it also didn't nessesarily come out of nothingness, meaning that God is not nessesarily nessesary.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You also can not say that GOD does not exist because you personally feel there is not enough proof.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're right I can't. And I'm not saying that. I am saying that you can't say god exists based on flimsy logic.
damnit man, theres a reason for the "preview post" button. Now I have to redo my response:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> No no you complained about me having it both ways then you used it so you contradicted yourself so thats why I brought up the fact that you did it too,<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The difference is that I didnot state it as fact, I said it could go either way, so it is NOT a contradiction. You, however, say that the universe MUST be created because it is so well ordered, but that at the same time god (perfectly ordered) didn't need to be.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->so either we both can bring up hypothetical arguements.... or we can't but we sorta have to stick with one or the other.... and of course GOD is outside the universe my point is that he has always existed and didn't come randomly out of nothingness thus saying that like the crunch theory this could be viewed as hypothetical.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So now you're saying that God may or may not have always existed? Ok, but then how can you say that he MUST have created the universe, and MUST NOT have been created himself?
*Edit* oh yeah and nice mispelling of sentence. Ironic that you can't spell that yet you're making fun of my sentence structure... confusing indeed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And your argument is supported by what evidence?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
by statistical analysis?
PREVIEW BUTTON!
Its not like I said to myself "I'd better quote that post before he edits it!". I just assumed you were done.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So now your contradicting your flismy logic that GOD isn't real? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I never said that God wasn't real, I said that he didn't NESSESARILY exist. BIG FREAKING DIFFERENCE!
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->*Edit* oh yeah and nice mispelling of sentence. Ironic that you can't spell that yet you're making fun of my sentence structure... confusing indeed.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So I can't spell. At least you can make out what I'm saying.
---
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> this discussion forum has gone to hell.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wholeheartedly agree. It should have ended about 5 pages ago. Probably more.
*edit* sloppy spelling and expansion of post
that's "arguments"
forget it, if we're going to be this petty, i'm withdrawing to OT and Artwork for a long time.
by statistical analysis? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Citation, please. Give me a summary of a point in a paper. I do <b>not</b> mean for you to run out and Google something and paste the link; I mean for you to read the papers you find, paraphrase them, and post your point with support from your citation.
Sorry if that seems a bit much, but there is a reason why one practices writing reports in school. This is to avoid the "overwhelm your opponents with massive evidence that you haven't even digested yet" tactic.
I'd like to frame this question in terms of causality. Meaning, does everything have to have a cause? Possible answers:
<b>Yes.</b> The causality proof for the existence of $DEITY, meaning that there had to be a $DEITY around to create the universe. Well then, that means that the $DEITY also had to have a creator then, ad infinitum. So which $DEITY are we supposed to worship?
<b>Sometimes.</b> One could argue that $DEITY was the one-and-only thing that doesn't have to have a cause. Well, guess what? This distinction is completely arbitrary. I could just as well argue that the Big Bang was the one-and-only thing that didn't have a cause.
<b>No.</b> Nothing has a cause. Well, then, there's no reason why there should be a $DEITY, now is there?
My point is that causality is a very poor argument for the existence of a $DEITY.
Evolution, Big Bang Theory, History, Archaelogical evidence, Astrology.
It would be pointless to cite any of these because you've proven time and again that rationale and reason aren't for you. You're not welcome in this debate unless you can come to grips with the possibility that others may be correct. In laymen's terms, stop babbling.
Personally, I'm sick of you using popularity to justify your claims. It was popular in Nazi germany to persecute Jews, and it was popular in America to imprison the Japanese. Popularity does not define right. The amount of times you manage to contradict yourself on this point makes me laugh.
Swiftspear: While I have a lot of respect for you as a Christian who doesn't stuff it in my face, and is willing to acknowledge, if not accept, the arguments of both sides, consider the possibility that perhaps your entire psychological construction of faith may be the result of being surrounded with a belief in god since your youth. Do you recall making an active, informed decision that god was doubtlessly real, and that it was worth your time to spend the rest of your life worshipping him? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sick of you not having any proof and screaming minority. I want to know how you think the world was created, because your random blithering about my supposed irrational thinking really isnt proving much other than the fact that you have zero proof which you never seem to deny. There are some people in this forum like john_sheu who are willing to debate reasonably "which I very much respect people like that and their opinions" and not say things like because Christiany is the pre-dominate religion therefore we can make analogies to Nazism and other wrongful scenarios of persecution. The KKK is a minority, so really what is your, point being a minority does not give you the god given right (LOL) to run around calling anyone who has a religious conviction wrong just because you are a minority and desrespute every shred of evidence we offer and yet have none to back up your own arguements.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Creation of the Solar System: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#Origin_and_evolution_of_planetary_systems' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems</a>
(Origins of the solar system)
Evolutionary theory: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution</a>
The word minority was not used once in any of my posts. I don't believe that if I were the minority, then I would be completely in the right in everything. I am certainly not in such a minority on these forums that I am fighting an uphill battle, there are plenty of people who agree with me on the existence of God. Your battle cry, on the other hand, has been filled with the word "most," most of the time. I didn't draw an analogy between Christianity and Nazi germany, and I'm speculating as to how that association was made. However, I did draw a line between two points on the chart - how both Nazi prosecution was "popular," but not neccessarily in the right.
"Creation of the Solar System: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#...anetary_systems</a>
(Origins of the solar system)
Evolutionary theory: <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution"' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution"</a>
That's not proof, and if you've read my other posts I believe in evolution and the big bang unless its proven otherwise and the bible does not disagrees with such possibilities.....
Peace out, man <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
by statistical analysis? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Citation, please. Give me a summary of a point in a paper. I do <b>not</b> mean for you to run out and Google something and paste the link; I mean for you to read the papers you find, paraphrase them, and post your point with support from your citation.
Sorry if that seems a bit much, but there is a reason why one practices writing reports in school. This is to avoid the "overwhelm your opponents with massive evidence that you haven't even digested yet" tactic. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ugh, that's too much work.
but for your sake, i'll summarize the first article that i read.
1) It used to be that primordial soup theory was prevalent - Oparin and Miller's little test-tube lightning experiment proved that you could build amino acids from what they conjectured were the elements most prevalent in the atmosphere or dissolved in the ocean at the time.
2) Recently, fossil evidence from the oldest known bacteria has shown that if life did spring up from chemicals, it needed to have done so fairly quickly.
3) Geologists can't find any evidence of a chemical composition of the pre-life Earth matching that Oparin/Miller used as a premise.
4) Geological/chemical evidence points to a hostile environment for which amino acids would form.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->When Stanley Miller conducted his experiment simulating the production of amino acids on the early earth, he presupposed that the earth's atmosphere was composed of a mixture of what chemists call reducing gases such as methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). He also assumed that the earth's atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen. Miller derived his assumptions about these conditions from Oparin's 1936 book. In the years following Miller's experiment, however, new geochemical evidence made it clear that the assumptions that Oparin and Miller had made about the early atmosphere could not be justified. Instead, evidence strongly suggested that neutral gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor, not methane, ammonia and hydrogen, predominated in the early atmosphere. Moreover, a number of geochemical studies showed that significant amounts of free oxygen were also present even before the advent of plant life, probably as the result of volcanic outgassing and the photodissociation of water vapor.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
5) the simplest extant cells are much more complex than can be described by mere accidental amino-acid formation/replication.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Assume for the moment that the reducing gases used by Stanley Miller do actually simulate the conditions on the early earth. Would his experimental results, then, support chemical evolution? Not necessarily. Miller-type simulation experiments have invariably produced non-biological substances in addition to biological building blocks such as amino acids and nucleic acid bases. Without human intervention, these other substances will react readily with biologically relevant building blocks to form a biologically irrelevant compound, a chemically insoluble sludge. To prevent this from happening and to move the simulation of chemical evolution along a biologically promising trajectory, experimenters have often removed those chemicals that degrade or transform amino acids into non-biologically relevant compounds. They must also artificially manipulate the initial conditions in their experiments. Rather than using both short and long-wavelength ultraviolet light which would be present in any realistic atmosphere, they use only short-wavelength UV. Why? The presence of the long-wavelength UV light quickly degrades amino acids. Thus, investigators have routinely manipulated chemical conditions both before and after performing "simulation" experiments in order to protect their experiments from destructive naturally occurring processes. These manipulations constitute what chemist Michael Polanyi called a "profoundly informative intervention."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
btw, ultraviolet light does damage nucleic acids. so even if you could theoretically bond free-floating ions with oxygen or carbon or nitrogen into molecules, the ultraviolet radiation would prevent those amino acids from ever chaining together. while it's true that some amino acid structures aren't affected by UV, or even "deflect" them, the chances that one of these formed and crossed paths with a replicating amino acid chain at the precise moment required is mind-bogglingly low.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Various methods of calculating probabilities have been offered by Morowitz, Hoyle, Cairns-Smith, Prigogine, Yockey and more recently, Robert Sauer. For the sake of argument, these calculations have generally assumed extremely favorable prebiotic conditions (whether realistic or not) and theoretically maximal reaction rates among the constituent monomers (i.e. the constituent parts of the proteins, DNA and RNA). Such calculations have invariably shown that the probability of obtaining functionally sequenced biomacromolecules at random is, in Prigogine's words, "vanishingly small . . .even on the scale of . . .billions of years." As Cairns-Smith wrote in 1971: "Blind chance...is very limited. Low-levels of cooperation he [blind chance] can produce exceedingly easily (the equivalent of letters and small words), but he becomes very quickly incompetent as the amount of organization increases. Very soon indeed long waiting periods and massive material resources become irrelevant." Consider the probabilistic hurdles that must be overcome to construct even one short protein molecule of about one hundred amino acids in length. (A typical protein consists of about 300 amino acids, and some are very much longer).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i based my calculations from some research into morowitz, but i admit that i haven't read the other guys'. but from what it seems, it's not promising for evolution-by-chance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First, all amino acids must form a chemical bond known as a peptide bond so as to join with other amino acids in the protein chain. Yet in nature many other types of chemical bonds are possible between amino acids; in fact, peptide and non-peptide bonds occur with roughly equal probability. Thus, at any given site along a growing amino acid chain the probability of having a peptide bond is roughly 1/2. The probability of attaining four peptide bonds is: (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2)=1/16 or (1/2)4. The probability of building a chain of 100 amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide linkages is (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. Second, in nature every amino acid has a distinct mirror image of itself, one left-handed version or L-form and one right-handed version or D-form. These mirror-image forms are called optical isomers. Functioning proteins tolerate only left-handed amino acids, yet the right-handed and left-handed isomers occurs in nature with roughly equal frequency. Taking this into consideration compounds the improbability of attaining a biologically functioning protein. The probability of attaining at random only L-amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain 100 amino acids long is again (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. The probability of building a 100 amino acid length chain at random in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L-form would be (1/4)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1060 (zero for all practical purposes given the time available on the early earth). Functioning proteins have a third independent requirement, the most important of all; their amino acids must link up in a specific sequential arrangement just the letters in a meaningful sentence must. In some cases, even changing one amino acid at a given site can result in a loss of protein function.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
then, they go on to discuss whether proteins could have assembled themselves due to electronegativity or polarity based on primary structure...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->For many current origin-of-life scientists self-organizational models now seem to offer the most promising approach to explaining the origin of biological information. Nevertheless, critics have called into question both the plausibility and the relevance of self-organizational models. Ironically, perhaps the most prominent early advocate of self-organization, Professor Dean Kenyon, has now explicitly repudiated such theories as both incompatible with empirical findings and theoretically incoherent. First, empirical studies have shown that some differential affinities do exist between various amino acids (i.e., particular amino acids do form linkages more readily with some amino acids than others). Neverthless, these differences do not correlate to actual sequencing in large classes of known proteins. In short, differing chemical affinities do not explain the multiplicity of amino acid sequences that exist in naturally occurring proteins or the sequential ordering of any single protein.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
guess that doesn't work either.
conclusion:<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->During the last forty years, molecular biology has revealed a complexity and intricacy of design that exceeds anything that was imaginable during the late-nineteenth century. We now know that organisms display any number of distinctive features of intelligently engineered high-tech systems: information storage and transfer capability; functioning codes; sorting and delivery systems; regulatory and feed-back loops; signal transduction circuitry; and everywhere, complex, mutually-interdependent networks of parts. Indeed, the complexity of the biomacromolecules discussed in this essay does not begin to exhaust the full complexity of living systems. As even the staunch materialist Richard Dawkins has allowed, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Yet the materialistic science we have inherited from the late-nineteenth century, with its exclusive conceptual reliance on matter and energy, could neither envision nor can it now account for the biology of the information age. As Werner Gitt has said, throughout the natural sciences "energy and matter are considered to be basic, universal quantities. But the concept of information has become just as fundamental and far reaching. . . information has rightly become known as the third fundamental quantity." Or as Norbert Weiner put it, "Information is information, neither energy nor matter. No materialism that fails to take account of this can survive the present day." The molecular biology of the cell raises the possibility that "no materialism" will survive the revolution beginning to take root in science. While established journals and institutions continue to propagate the orthodoxies of a generation ago, many scientists, philosophers of science and mathematicians have begun to challenge these views and to formulate alternative approaches. Recent work in probability theory has defined information more precisely and articulated clear mathematical criteria for the identification of intelligently designed systems, thus providing a theoretical framework for a new science based upon the reality of design. A new book on the "irreducible complexity" of biochemical systems explains why gradual undirected evolution cannot produce such systems, and suggests intelligent design as the most viable scientific alternative. A new peer-reviewed journal, Origins & Design, opens this spring with a seminal article by a former chemical evolutionist turned design-advocate. Other work promises to reshape our conception, not only of living things but of our science and ourselves. If the simplest life owes its origin to an intelligent Creator, then perhaps man is not the "cosmic orphan" that twentieth century scientific materialism has taught. Perhaps then, during the twenty first century, the traditional moral and spiritual foundations of the West will find support from the very sciences that once seemed to undermine them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html' target='_blank'>borel's law of chance</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->..Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10^50 have a zero probability of ever happening.... This is Borel's law in action which was derived by mathematician Emil Borel....<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES!
First of all, even if you didn't intend this towards me, I want to make it clear that I am not an atheist. But even so it bothers me when people come out and state something like "God Exists" as a fact when they can't prove it. Secondly, religious people are exactly the same way. When you bring up the non-existance of God, they try to prove he exists.
btw camo.o, i win!
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
lmao man, "homebred theory" ? this is from some pretty respectable origins scientists, and they're not creationists, if that's what you mean. please, refute my evidence if you can.