A newspaper reveals how the debate went -

"Ray Comfort was quick of the mark to try to open his opponents mind to the fact of God’s existence. In reply to Mr Cooke’s question, ‘Who made God?’ he said that it doesn’t deserve a question mark. It is really a statement.
"However, the explanation is very simple. Does space have an end? If it does - if there is a brick wall at the end of space that reads ‘The End,’ I want to know what’s behind the brick wall," said Mr Comfort. "By faith you and I are forced to believe that no matter in which direction we set off, space will never end. It just goes on and on and on, forever." God also has no beginning and no end. "From everlasting to everlasting, You are God," Moses said. God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God. God has no past and no future. He has already lived all our tomorrows as He has lived all our yesterdays. "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2 Peter 3:8).
The glorious dawn of God’s story begins with the stunning yet profoundly simple statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). He was already there. He is eternal. God created time, but He doesn’t live within Himself. He’s not bound by or limited to it. He is greater than Creation!
God can flick through time as you and I flick through the pages of a history book. Eventually God will withdraw time, and we will then dwell in eternity.

The Atheist Test

The professing atheist is really an ‘agnostic’ - one who claims who ‘doesn’t know’ if God exists.
"I don’t believe in atheists," Mr Comfort said. "For Mr Cooke, who calls himself an atheist, to say categorically, ‘There is no God,’ is to make an absolute statement. For the statement to be true, I must know for certain that there is no God in the entire universe. However, no human being has all knowledge. Therefore, none of us is able to truthfully make this assertion. If you insist upon disbelief in God, what you must say is, ‘Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God.’
"Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, ‘We do not know a millionth of one per cent about anything.’
"If I were to make an absolute statement such as, "There is no gold in China, what is needed for that statement to be proven true? I need absolute or total knowledge. I need to have information that there is no gold in any rock, in any river, in the ground, in the bank, in any ring, or in any mouth (gold filling) in China. If there is one speck of gold in China, then my statement is false and I have no basis for it. Conversely, for me to say, ‘There is gold in China,’ I need to have seen a speck of gold in the country, and the statement is then true."

Without God

Is it possible for a mere human, less than a tiny speck on a pebble of a planet in the midst of a vast galaxy, to say that the great God who created everything doesn’t exist?
Do you know that nowhere the Bible sets out to prove that God exists? It just frankly states the obvious: "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 10:4).
It is interesting to note that the Latin equivalent for the Greek word is "ignoramus." The Bible tells us that this ignorance is "willful". It’s not that a person can’t find God, but that he won’t. In all his thoughts there is no room for God!
The word ‘atheist’ is made up of two Greek words: a - ‘without,’ and Theos - ‘God.’
By their own choice they are without God, and consequently without hope. Dwight Eisenhower said, "It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it."

Seeing is believing

For Ray Comfort, the existence of God is what’s known as an ‘axiom,’ a self-evident truth.
"The fact that parallel lines never meet is an axiom," he said. If I were to devote my life to trying to either prove or disprove that parallel lines never meet, I would lack common sense. It is so obvious it doesn’t need to be proved or disproved.
"The existence of God is an axiom. It is obvious that if there is a creation, there must be a Creator. For things to me ‘made,’ logic, reason, intellect, and rationalism demand that there be a Maker. This should neither need to be proved or disproved.
"Let’s presume your problem is that ‘seeing is believing.’ If that is so, the next time you gaze at a blue sky, tell your eyes that they are not seeing correctly. The sky has no colour - ask any astronaut. It’s an illusion.
"Why do you believe a painting has a painter? Isn’t it purely because of the existence of the painter? Do you insist on seeing da Vinci before you believe that the Mona Lisa was painted? A reasonable argument could be that there may have been another painter, but never that there was no painter.
"Do you insist on seeing the builder before you believe that the house you are in was built? Is that your criteria for belief? Again, the building is ample proof that there was a builder.

God exists

"The most brilliant minds on earth cannot begin to recreate an eye. If you lose one, the best modern science can do for you is give you a glorified marble to slip in the slot. Do you realise that each eye you are currently using at the moment has 40,000,000 nerve endings? If you have the brain-power to make one nerve-ending, tell modern science so that they can begin to see their way to making their first eye.
"The fact is, we can’t make anything from nothing. Find the most brilliant scientist on God’s earth, put him in a laboratory, and ask him to make something out of nothing. He can’t do it. He doesn’t know how. We can re-create, but we cannot create. We can’t even make one grain of sand from nothing. If that is the case, how could we even begin to think for a moment that all of creation, the human body, animals, flowers, birds, trees, fruits, the seasons, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc., fell together by mere random chance?"
Nothing on this earth that was ‘made’ has no maker. You cannot have a "creation" without a Creator. Ray Comfort said it like this: "I don’t need ‘faith’ to believe in a Creator, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works."
However, all this wasn’t enough for Mr Cooke to change his mind. He still doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible... "

Which newspaper?

The remarkable thing is that each one of the supposed "proofs" made by the Christian has long been defeated

Not much of a debate summary with only one side presented... and a bunch of half-assed arguments at that.

~Raithere

I agree.

sorry I don't know, I got it off of a site but I didn't copy down the name :( But I know the debate happened. It was advertised on Worthynew.com and heaps of other places. I thought it was pretty interesting. I'm still trying to find a copy of the whole debate though.

I agree.

The atheist couldn't have been much more than a random guy they pulled off the street. He certainly had nothing of a history in philosophy or theology.

Whats so half-assed about those arguments?

:confused:

The atheist couldn't have been much more than a random guy they pulled off the street. He certainly had nothing of a history in philosophy or theology.

I haven't heard a single atheist that mastered any such disciplines. All atheist I know read something in the Times doubting the Bible or didn't live out their freudian anal phase well.

Go ahead Tyler, do your worst.

Prove to me that God does not exist or withdraw in silence and face the fact that you know not enought to speak of such matters!

Peace.

Does space have an end?

Yes.

if there is a brick wall at the end of space that reads ‘The End,’ I want to know what’s behind the brick wall

Nothing.

The Atheist Test

Theoretically, the non-existence of God could be proven by the presence of necessary absences without all the knowledge in the universe being known. eg. The problem of evil. Presence of God requires there be no evil. There is evil. ie Presence of necessary absence. Not that I'm arguing the problem of evil, of course.
Besides, I do not have to have knowledge of something to profess it. I don't need to have absolute proof, I could have a weak proof eg. Ockam's razor. By your dubious reasoning all Christians must be agnostic

Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism is the belief that we can not know whether there is a God or not. Atheism is the belief that there isn't a God(throwing aside the weak and strong definitions, which I must say are rather crappy). I can believe there isn't a God and yet acknowledge that I can't know this for sure.

By their own choice they are without God, and consequently without hope.

Not by their own choice. By their judgement they are without God. I can't change my judgement just because I want to. The second part doesn't follow. I think it stems from the theist imagining how <i>he/she</i> would feel without God.

"The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 10:4).

What the fool says in his heart does not affect the existence of a God.

Dwight Eisenhower said, "It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it."

A stupid person might well be the one who thinks a being does exist, even though there is no evidence.

"The fact that parallel lines never meet is an axiom," he said. If I were to devote my life to trying to either prove or disprove that parallel lines never meet, I would lack common sense. It is so obvious it doesn’t need to be proved or disproved.

If something were that obvious it would not be disputed. No one would try to prove it or disprove it and you wouldn't argue that it is an a priori truth. Parallel lines do not meet in Euclidian geometry, yes. However, curved space-time makes things interesting. What you thought was an axiom is not.

It is obvious that if there is a creation, there must be a Creator

Now prove the universe is a creation. What are the hallmarks of a creation? How do you distinguish between the created and that that looks created but isn't?


If that is the case, how could we even begin to think for a moment that all of creation, the human body, animals, flowers, birds, trees, fruits, the seasons, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc., fell together by mere random chance?

Atheists and those who don't believe in magical creation do not hold that the eye, stars arranged itself by chance, nor that something came out of nothing. You and your fictitious

Your argument:

1) Life is complex

2) Look at the complexity

3) It is complex

4) Complex Complexity

5) God exists.


I suggest you go to http://www.infidels.org and check out their library.

LOL, I'm not too sure about how qualified this Atheist was in debating, but Ray Comfort also debated Ron Barrier, the national spokesman for American Atheists, Inc.


Atheist's National Spokesman Debates Christian Author on Good Friday at National Convention
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent
ASSIST NEWS SERVICE
April 18, 2001

ORLANDO, FLORIDA (ANS) -- Earlier this year, Ron Barrier, the national spokesman for American Atheists, Inc. asked if Christian author Ray Comfort had the courage to face him in a debate in front of 300 atheists in Orlando, Florida, at their national convention. That debate took place on Good Friday, April 13, 2001.

"Quite a number of folks have been wanting to know how the debate went with Ron Barrier at the American Atheists' National Convention in Florida. So here's what happened," said Comfort after the event.

"Ron Meade (one of my associates) and I arrived at the hotel in Orlando and were surprised to find a large bowl of fruit in our room, with a welcome card from American Atheists. After I removed the plastic, Ron picked up the grapes, put one in his mouth and said, 'Wow. and I didn't think that atheists were such ni....' Suddenly he grabbed his throat, choked, and fell to the floor (he was just kidding). It was a blessing that they gave us fruit, because that's why we were there -- to see fruit," Comfort said.

"The next day, about 40 Christians showed up from around the country, including the editor of Bridge-Logos Publishers, and a film crew from Cross TV. I was concerned that my permission to videotape the debate was a bit flimsy. It was a letter from Ron Barrier that simply said, 'I don't care what you do!' said Comfort.

When the crew crept into the convention hall to set up, a security guard asked them what they were doing. She turned out to be a Christian and told them that she would be in prayer for the whole thing. "We then went into the atheist's bookstore and they kindly gave me a table upon which I could put copies of, 'How to make an Atheist Backslide,' ''Comfort recalled.

"While we were in the store the president of AA approached me, introduced herself and asked if the three large cameras in the convention hall were mine. When I said that they were she replied, 'Good. We will make sure we give you plenty of time to set up.'

"A short time later, Ron Barrier and I shook hands and the debate began. Each of us had 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, 8, and a close of 5 minutes. It was like a dream come true. Not only had I been given permission to fill their convention with Christian literature, but I was presenting my case for God's existence to 300 atheists as well as being broadcast live over their website.

"They laughed at my humor, and although there was unified mockery at some of the things that I said, I was able to go through the Ten Commandments, the fact of Judgment Day, the reality of Hell, the Cross, and the necessity of repentance, and no one stopped me," said Comfort.

After the initial debate (during the question times), one man stood up and challenged Comfort to eat some arsenic-laced peanuts he had in a box, based on God's promise in Mark 16:18. "I told him that if he could find the word 'peanuts' in the verse, I would eat them. The powerful intellectual incident climaxed their arguments against God's existence. Nuts," said Comfort.

"After the question time, Ron Barrier came over and we shook hands. He even let me give him a hug. They then had us co-sign two of my books. When he saw that I hade put '[That] idiot book! Ron Barrier, American Atheists, Inc.' on the cover, he was delighted. Some angry atheists came up to the platform afterwards and spat out sarcasm, while a number of others asked me to sign books for them, which was weird," Comfort said.

"The experience was a blessing beyond words -- to not only preach the whole counsel of God, but to give out scores of copies of our new booklet 'Scientific Facts in the Bible,' as well as free copies of my book.

"But here's what I am most excited about, Comfort said. "The video of the entire debate, which is called 'BC/AD: Barrier/Comfort Atheism Debate' should be available within a week or so through www.raycomfort.com. I think that this will have tremendous evangelistic potential. It's the sort of thing you could give to your neighbors because it was hosted by American Atheists, rather than some 'church.' The audio will be available for free downloading through the website in the near future, and will also be available as a low-cost tape.

"Thank you so much for your prayers -- a special thanks to those who prayed and fasted (one lady fasted for a week)," said Comfort.

If you would like to receive Ray Comfort's free monthly e-mail newsletter just send an e-mail with your email address to newsletter@raycomfort.com. You may also visit his website at: http://www.raycomfort.com.

Originally posted by Prisme
Whats so half-assed about those arguments?

I hope you don't mind if I don't get into a full fledged response to each of these but here it goes:

Originally posted by answers
"God also has no beginning and no end.
...
God has no past and no future. He has already lived all our tomorrows as He has lived all our yesterdays.
...
He was already there. He is eternal. God created time, but He doesn’t live within Himself. He’s not bound by or limited to it. He is greater than Creation!
This is simply circular reasoning. He is defining God as that which is uncaused thus God needs no cause. He is also basing it upon the assumption that everything in existence exists only conditionally. He has no proof for this assumption. In fact, this is not really even an argument at all. He is simply making various unfounded assumptions about a God which he cannot prove exists in the first place.

The professing atheist is really an ‘agnostic’ - one who claims who ‘doesn’t know’ if God exists.Obviously, he has never heard of the "weak" atheistic position. Otherwise, I agree that making an absolute statement about an infinite unknown is absurd. However, one might state absolutely that there is no God that interacts with humanity in any evident manner.

"Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, ‘We do not know a millionth of one per cent about anything.’Argument from Authority. And rather blase statement in any case.

Do you know that nowhere the Bible sets out to prove that God exists?Of course not, because you can't.

It just frankly states the obvious: "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 10:4).Argument Ad Hominem.

It’s not that a person can’t find God, but that he won’t. In all his thoughts there is no room for God!False assumption: Many, if not most, Atheists were formerly "faithful" Theists.

By their own choice they are without God, and consequently without hope.False assumption: Personally, I had no choice. When one is faced with the realization than all statements about God are human inventions and there are no facts to warrant such statements the conclusion is rather inevitable. There's also a nice little argumentum ad consequentiam; atheists are without hope.

Dwight Eisenhower said, "It takes no brains to be an atheist. Any stupid person can deny the existence of a supernatural power because man’s physical senses cannot detect it."Double fallacy: Authority and Ad Hominem.

For Ray Comfort, the existence of God is what’s known as an ‘axiom,’ a self-evident truth.Slothful Induction: He has not yet proven his axiom. Obviously, it is false otherwise there would be no atheists.

"The fact that parallel lines never meet is an axiom,"Actually, mathematicians will tell you that this is not proven. One might also point out that it depends on the Geometry involved. Certainly this seems to be the case in plain-old Cartesian Geometry but it is patently untrue in several others. Again, he obviously has a problem making hasty generalizations.

"The existence of God is an axiom. It is obvious that if there is a creation, there must be a Creator.Circular definition: He states that the Universe is a creation thus it must have a creator.

"Why do you believe a painting has a painter? Isn’t it purely because of the existence of the painter? Do you insist on seeing da Vinci before you believe that the Mona Lisa was painted? A reasonable argument could be that there may have been another painter, but never that there was no painter.False analogy: Whether the Universe is like a painting and is thus has a creator or not is precisely what is under contention.

"Do you insist on seeing the builder before you believe that the house you are in was built? Is that your criteria for belief? Again, the building is ample proof that there was a builder.Again, false analogy. A better one would be; if you see dots in the sand do you immediately assume a human created them or do you consider that perhaps raindrops did?

"The most brilliant minds on earth cannot begin to recreate an eye. If you lose one, the best modern science can do for you is give you a glorified marble to slip in the slot. Do you realise that each eye you are currently using at the moment has 40,000,000 nerve endings? If you have the brain-power to make one nerve-ending, tell modern science so that they can begin to see their way to making their first eye.Argument from ignorance. Just because we cannot make an eye does not mean that an eye could not develop naturally. I cannot make it rain, that does not mean that rain is caused by miracles.

"The fact is, we can’t make anything from nothing. Find the most brilliant scientist on God’s earth, put him in a laboratory, and ask him to make something out of nothing. He can’t do it. He doesn’t know how. We can re-create, but we cannot create. We can’t even make one grain of sand from nothing. If that is the case, how could we even begin to think for a moment that all of creation, the human body, animals, flowers, birds, trees, fruits, the seasons, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc., fell together by mere random chance?"Syllogistic fallacy.

Nothing on this earth that was ‘made’ has no maker. You cannot have a "creation" without a Creator.Circular definition... again.

Ray Comfort said it like this: "I don’t need ‘faith’ to believe in a Creator, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works."Ad Hominem.

However, all this wasn’t enough for Mr Cooke to change his mind. He still doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible... " Because he has yet to give a single argument that is not full of errors. Duh.

~Raithere

Originally posted by Prisme
Whats so half-assed about those arguments?Please do note that it took me less than half an hour to refute every single one of his arguments. Thus my opinion stands... they were half-assed arguments.

~Raithere

You know, I haven't gone through this debate for quite some time. So maybe I'll do it for practice!


"Prove to me that God does not exist or withdraw in silence and face the fact that you know not enought to speak of such matters!"

Just to begin, I cannot prove that god does not exist. That is ridiculous. I can simply prove that it is an illogical belief. Before you begin to read my reply I urge you to stop and take a deep breath and realize that I am not your enemy. Just stop and think logically and forget your emotions when you reply and all will go smoothly. That said, I will procede to refute the arguements in the first post...


"However, the explanation is very simple. Does space have an end? If it does - if there is a brick wall at the end of space that reads ‘The End,’ I want to know what’s behind the brick wall"

If space is finite it is very possible to exist in a three-dimensional, non-ending shape. There are a number of theories on this. One is called the Orange analogy and has actually been discused quite recently at sciforums - http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15454. I seem to recall about 4 or 5 months ago I read an article about a new theory with a new part of math involving a shape which from the inside appears infinite but from the outside is quite finite. I'm no physics expert, so if you want to learn more about that - check out the Physics section!


"By faith you and I are forced to believe that no matter in which direction we set off, space will never end. It just goes on and on and on, forever"

Er....no. The idea of a finite Universe is widely believed. I'm not sure what this guy is talking about.


"The professing atheist is really an ‘agnostic’ - one who claims who ‘doesn’t know’ if God exists"

A common mistake by theists is to label an atheist an agnostic. Agnostic means you hold no real opinion of whether or not there is a god. A 'Weak Atheist' is one who professes that there is no logical way to prove god does not exist, mearly that there is no logical reason to believe in one.


"Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, ‘We do not know a millionth of one per cent about anything.’ "

This is known as arguement from authority. It is a logical fallacy. Einstein called himself an atheist - doesn't prove there's no god.


"Do you know that nowhere the Bible sets out to prove that God exists? It just frankly states the obvious: "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 10:4)."

Quoting the Bible does not prove the Bible's truth. That is circular logic and not logic at all.


"The fact that parallel lines never meet is an axiom," he said. If I were to devote my life to trying to either prove or disprove that parallel lines never meet, I would lack common sense. It is so obvious it doesn’t need to be proved or disproved"

If everyone in history had thought this way, we would be without many of our advances in medicine, sciences and math. Not to mention philosophy.


"Do you insist on seeing the builder before you believe that the house you are in was built? Is that your criteria for belief? Again, the building is ample proof that there was a builder."

I would like to ask you a question here, Prisme.
Have you ever been to the north or south pole?


"The most brilliant minds on earth cannot begin to recreate an eye. If you lose one, the best modern science can do for you is give you a glorified marble to slip in the slot. Do you realise that each eye you are currently using at the moment has 40,000,000 nerve endings? If you have the brain-power to make one nerve-ending, tell modern science so that they can begin to see their way to making their first eye."

What proof do you have that science will never be able to make an eye? A hundred years ago people would laugh their arse off at the idea of computers if you told them about what your typing on.


"He can’t do it. He doesn’t know how."

So? A hundred years ago a scientist wouldn't be able to tell you how to build my electric guitar, would he?


"If that is the case, how could we even begin to think for a moment that all of creation, the human body, animals, flowers, birds, trees, fruits, the seasons, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc., fell together by mere random chance?"

That humans cannot currently do it does not in any way prove that random chance can't do it. This is a very common mistake.


"He still doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible..."

None of these arguement prove god exists. None even deal with proving that if a god did exist, he is in indeed the god of the christian bible.

Haha, well now you got it from two of us! What's interesting is how identical our arguements are and neither of us talked about this before, eh?

I haven't grasped much of what you were saying Tyler, you tend to bounce around a lot and I can't seem to understand where you are going with your ideas... sorry.

In any event, let me propose something based on a different ground that you chaps are used to fighting on:

I believe in a God. I reject the bible and all of its scriptures for man has clearly never scientifically experienced God. Thus no church has yet to adopt such a God.
In addition, I do not claim any characteristics to this God for man is incapable of discerning them.

However, I will say this about him:
He is what makes being possible.

In order to elaborate, I will take a look at the universe:
The World is either a homogenous, closed Cosmos(Greeks and Newton) or an infinite heterogenous Universe(Einstein).

Knowing this, I can conclude that God is more likely than not playing a role in either systems:

If we live in a ordered Cosmos, God is what has stored order within the Cosmos and gathered the necessary elements for its perpetual state of 'homeostatic-ness'. It is possbile to examine phenomenons and build a science on the Cause-Effect balance in the stability of the world.
In this case, God would be to me the clock-maker, the one that could answer: why order rather than chaos?

If we live in a infinite Universe, the foundation of science is on shakyer grounds for the simple fact that knowledge would thus not follow a necessary Cause-Effect cycle. Why is that? Because the Universe, not being finite and ordered, becomes an 'amalgame' a sort of incoherent mixture of elements that are not ordered as in Newton's mecanic nor as the Greeks saw it, but rather presented as being totally contingent. Left and right we have unpredictable patterns, no existence or movement is necessary for the Universe itself is ever changing in its conditions of existence.
In such a world, God would be to me what holds such things as galaxies together and permits the statistically impossbile odds of man being made out of goo and dust. To the point, God would be what Heidegger considers: the keeper of Being.. ou "le berger de l'être".


Fun fact to chew on:

Odds of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability that all the amino acids are left handed and being combined with the proper peptide bonds 1 over 10 (950)

= 1 chance in 100, 000, 000 (add 942 zeros and your close)

When it comes to the haemoglobin molecules, there are 574 amino acids which means the odds are even less probable.
In only one out of your billions of red blood cells, there are 280,000,000 haemoglobin molecules.

The proposed age of the Earth does not allow the formation of a single protein by the trial and error method. Even if we suppose that the process of amino acids combining and decomposing at the very beginning of the Universe, there would still be hundreds of thousands years missing.

If your having trouble digesting this biological fact, remind yourselves of Stanley Miller who attempted to show that amino acids could have come into existence by chance and begin forming proteins.
Although he managed to 'create' 20 amino acids, they revealed themselves to be:

1- Inorganic

2- The "cold trap" he used isolated the amino acids from natural surroundings. Natural surroundings would have immediately corrupted the weak amino acids. And of course, this isolated mecanism did not exist in the beginning of time.

3-Miller used an unrealistic environment. American scientits such as J.P. Ferris and C.T. Chen would reproduce his experiment without the amonia that Miller used that was deemed as inexistent at the primitve stages of the Earth's life.

Today Miller's experiments are totally disregarded by the scientific community. Amino acids, proteins and cells have NEVER, EVER been produced by chance.

Now if this isn't enough, Protein sythesis cannot occur in water.
When amino acids gather to form a protein, they release one water molecule when forming this "peptide bond".
The "Chatelier Principle" in chemistry shows that it is not possible for a reaction that releases water (condensation reaction) to take place in a hydrate environement.
The realisation of such a reaction to take place in a hydrate environement is classed in the 'least probability to occur'among all chemical reactions.

Thus evolutionists have a problem that they rarely discuss: if not in water, where???? Land is even more problematic as we know.

Miller critics on which my readings were based on:

Feb 1998, Earth magazine p.34
March 1998, National Geographic p.68
1975, Journal of American Chemical Society p.2964
The origin of species revisited, 1991 p.304


My argument is simple:

Either we live in a highly, pre-defined world. (a God is necessary to instore order and perpetual movement... scientifically impossible by the way)
Or we live in a Universe that should not be and which its own existence can only be the proof of the existence of an unknown form of creation.

Peace :cool:

Well, difficult subject. One, and I hate to admit that I agree with Tyler, but those WERE half-assed arguments. R refuted them easily, as most of us could have done. But he did it with style. I've always despised anyone who would use edison as a claim of anything. The man was nasty, he didn't bathe, and was frequently called "dung" by friends and family alike. If you want to use someone, use einstein. He was brilliant. And an atheist(see earlier thread about him).

As to Prisme's last post, you cannot associate spontaneous life theory with atheists and by disputing the theory, dispute the group. That is ethically and logically wrong. Not all atheists believe in the "big bang theory" any more than all christians believe in creationist theorys(though it is strong in america). Atheists typically follow science the process vs. any particular theory that they process posits. I am atheist, but I believe in the concepts of science to base my belief. And science is the process of Testing, questioning if you will. It is not in the habit of saying "well, since we don't have a lot of data, we're just going to assume". You are using a backhanded method of dealing with Tyler. Why not deal with R this way? Because you know that he will tear up your arguments I wager.

Prisme:

<i>The World is either a homogenous, closed Cosmos(Greeks and Newton) or an infinite heterogenous Universe(Einstein).</i>

That is a false dichotomy. There are other possibilities.

<i>Odds of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability that all the amino acids are left handed and being combined with the proper peptide bonds 1 over 10 (950)</i>

You left out the words "by chance". But protein molecules don't form by chance, in general.

<i>When it comes to the haemoglobin molecules, there are 574 amino acids which means the odds are even less probable.</i>

Where did you get the 574 number from? If I remember correctly, there are only about 20 common amino acids.

<i>The proposed age of the Earth does not allow the formation of a single protein by the trial and error method.</i>

That may well be correct. We can be thankful that the trial and error method was not required.

<i>Although he managed to 'create' 20 amino acids, they revealed themselves to be:

1- Inorganic</i>

What do you mean by that?

<i>Today Miller's experiments are totally disregarded by the scientific community. Amino acids, proteins and cells have NEVER, EVER been produced by chance.</i>

They are found commonly in carbonaceous condrites (certain types of meteors). How did they get there?

:o
As to Prisme's last post, you cannot associate spontaneous life theory with atheists and by disputing the theory, dispute the group. That is ethically and logically wrong. Not all atheists believe in the "big bang theory" any more than all christians believe in creationist theorys(though it is strong in america). :D

WTF do you mean ethically and logically wrong???? There is no ethics involved in my proposition my friend, and logic refers to a structure not the validity of a statement:
ex.:

1-Birds have 3 wings = FALSE NOT ILLOGICAL!!!!!!
2-My father is either in or out of Mexico = True and logical.
3-Air is and is not = Illogical

To all the atheist that talk on this thread: please stop always saying things are illogical if you don't know what illogical means.


Not all atheists believe in the "big bang theory" any more than all christians believe in creationist theorys(though it is strong in america).

Listen man, I know you must have typed your post early but Big Bang or not, all atheists must believe in some form of evolutionism. Coming from the monkey is optional, but originating from sponteaneous cells is not if you do not believe in a Creation.
Only two ways to go about it. If you got a third possibility I am dying to know it. :cool:
Another thing, if you are a christian in the sense that you follow the Pope and the scriptures, you must belive in the Creation. You can't be the true definition of a christian if you don't accept the creation... you are just a believer and a pretty lame one if you think God let everything happen by chance.

It is not in the habit of saying "well, since we don't have a lot of data, we're just going to assume". You are using a backhanded method of dealing with Tyler. Why not deal with R this way? Because you know that he will tear up your arguments I wager.

Errr... my title is called RE: 2 atheists. R is the second one.

You think that science never assumes????? Under what rock do you live under man? Pharmaceutical companies are always claiming the purity of certain drugs only to have them silently withdrawn from the market. Physical science is barely a science in the sense that we have never actually seen an atom (it's just a theory my friends), the theory that the universe is in continuous expansion is based on mere equations while others still maintain we live in a closed Cosmos... Mathemathics are abtract concepts put together that could one day be shown to be false, it has limitations also: infinitely positive or negative, nobody knows where 'pi' actually came from certain numbers are not known to truly exist etc... Sociology and Psychology are happy when they get 60% validity in their experiments because they rarely actually get that much. Every science in the world is always contradicting themselves and re-adjusting its claims that have too hastely been said to be certain.
So a true person that seeks thruth would not say that he puts his faith on science. It is just another more socially accepted form of faith in the facts that could tomorrow be shown to be false!

Say what you like, that science is only a constant search process for the truth, but the fact is that the scientific community and its followers hold their actual 'fact's up high and act like they just got Christ delivered in their hands.


And finally: Saying that R will surely beat my arguments hasn't said anything against them yet. So you have just made an argument of authority pal.:p

Next!

Originally posted by Prisme
:o
:D

WTF do you mean ethically and logically wrong???? There is no ethics involved in my proposition my friend, and logic refers to a structure not the validity of a statement:
ex.:

1-Birds have 3 wings = FALSE NOT ILLOGICAL!!!!!!
2-My father is either in or out of Mexico = True and logical.
3-Air is and is not = Illogical

To all the atheist that talk on this thread: please stop always saying things are illogical if you don't know what illogical means.




Listen man, I know you must have typed your post early but Big Bang or not, all atheists must believe in some form of evolutionism. Coming from the monkey is optional, but originating from sponteaneous cells is not if you do not believe in a Creation.
Only two ways to go about it. If you got a third possibility I am dying to know it. :cool:


Evolution exists, it is easily tracked. The questions existing are 1. Where did life originate, and 2. Did we come to exist outside of the rest of the animal kingdom(unlikely, as we share common traits). To the first, I don't know where life originated. Could be big bang, could be we're in the middle of the biggest game of Sim life in existence. Don't know, don't really care.

Another thing, if you are a christian in the sense that you follow the Pope and the scriptures, you must belive in the Creation. You can't be the true definition of a christian if you don't accept the creation... you are just a believer and a pretty lame one if you think God let everything happen by chance.

But there are lot of people who are not christian in that sense, neh? Many christians don't follow the pope or scriptures(which makes sense considering the validity of the scriptures themselves.)



Errr... my title is called RE: 2 atheists. R is the second one.

You think that science never assumes????? Under what rock do you live under man? Pharmaceutical companies are always claiming the purity of certain drugs only to have them silently withdrawn from the market.

I would never have concluded a company who makes financial gain their primary target could be considered pure science. Money is their goal, they use science to TRY and meet it.

Physical science is barely a science in the sense that we have never actually seen an atom (it's just a theory my friends),
Actually, considering what they do with atomic theory, I'd wager on it. I seem to recall a photograph of an atom from IBM though when they were working on using individual atoms as a means of computing. Maybe I remembered incorrectly.



the theory that the universe is in continuous expansion is based on mere equations while others still maintain we live in a closed Cosmos... Mathemathics are abtract concepts put together that could one day be shown to be false, it has limitations also: infinitely positive or negative, nobody knows where 'pi' actually came from certain numbers are not known to truly exist etc...

But the difference is that if reality proves a theory wrong, it is discarded. Religion does not do this.


Sociology and Psychology are happy when they get 60% validity in their experiments because they rarely actually get that much. Every science in the world is always contradicting themselves and re-adjusting its claims that have too hastely been said to be certain.
So a true person that seeks thruth would not say that he puts his faith on science. It is just another more socially accepted form of faith in the facts that could tomorrow be shown to be false!

I didn't say I put my faith in science. I said I put my faith in the scientific PROCESS.

Say what you like, that science is only a constant search process for the truth, but the fact is that the scientific community and its followers hold their actual 'fact's up high and act like they just got Christ delivered in their hands.

See above. They have been happily disposing of their own "truths" whenever contrary evidence comes along. Every time someone destroys another maxim of christianity, they just state that it's only "figurative".



And finally: Saying that R will surely beat my arguments hasn't said anything against them yet. So you have just made an argument of authority pal.:p

Aye, but I have read his arguments, and I have read yours. I think that in all probability, that my gut feeling is correct in this case.


Next! [/B]

The World is either a homogenous, closed Cosmos(Greeks and Newton) or an infinite heterogenous Universe(Einstein)
That is a false dichotomy. There are other possibilities.

Gee thanks R, don't let me believe other wise.. you sure closed all controversy with that reply. Ouf! this is a tough group. At least I know that they are the 2 most accepted and likely to be true.

Odds of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability that all the amino acids are left handed and being combined with the proper peptide bonds 1 over 10 (950)
You left out the words "by chance". But protein molecules don't form by chance, in general.

Exactly my point, thanks for the backup my friend. Life is not an accident. Its purposeful.


When it comes to the haemoglobin molecules, there are 574 amino acids which means the odds are even less probable.

Where did you get the 574 number from? If I remember correctly, there are only about 20 common amino acids.

20 common amino acids doesn't mean there are only 20 amino acids present. There can be 574 amino acids formed of 20 common amino acids.

The proposed age of the Earth does not allow the formation of a single protein by the trial and error method.

That may well be correct. We can be thankful that the trial and error method was not required.

Not required? Are you saying that something or someone 'helped' the universe to get the proper order correctly? Were you there to see the universe not requiring such a method? What other 'method' was available? (Carefull: method could imply that something was in action other than nature)


-Miller's 20 amino acids were not alive and well.


They are found commonly in carbonaceous condrites (certain types of meteors). How did they get there?

-How did they get on meteors? I don't know where did the meteors that have amino acid come from! Most likely another planet or star of this universe. Yet nothing in our solar system can account for their presence.
So either life is fundamentally extra-terrestrial and that life would have easily started on others planets by receiving a meteor on them OR life was created only on this planet by a God.

If life is extra-terrestrial, why only life on Earth? Where does life come from? A source? A common place of amino acids creation? The origin of all living organisms?

Atheist scientists are no out of the bushes more than the average learned Christian. (which I am not)

*putting myself on my knee*

My Démiurge!!!

Quote: Evolution exists, it is easily tracked. The questions existing are 1. Where did life originate, and 2. Did we come to exist outside of the rest of the animal kingdom(unlikely, as we share common traits). To the first, I don't know where life originated. Could be big bang, could be we're in the middle of the biggest game of Sim life in existence. Don't know, don't really care.

-While your not giving a rat's ass about where you come from, others are. If you don't care, don't participate, it will be half-assed.
As for our ressemblances with animals: "It is in the differences that reality is made"
Could you please tell me where in Darwin's theaory that a monkey would be compelled by nature to evolve to the point of making sky scrapers, cell phones and enough nukes to destroy the planet?
Necks on giraffs I get, but there is no intelligent explanation that explains why a monkey would prefer our life rather than eating freakin banana's in a simili-hammack somewhere where it never snows.


-----

.But there are lot of people who are not christian in that sense, neh? Many christians don't follow the pope or scriptures(which makes sense considering the validity of the scriptures themselves.)
No, not alot of CHRISTIANS that do not follow christianity. It's like: are their a lot of celebate individuals that are married? Of course not


Actually, considering what they do with atomic theory, I'd wager on it.

As long as your ready to admit that science is as uncertain as a wager, just like your belief that there is no God.. I am happy.

But the difference is that if reality proves a theory wrong, it is discarded. Religion does not do this.

What about my God that is not housed in any church? Are you sure He does not exist?

Aye, but I have read his arguments, and I have read yours. I think that in all probability, that my gut feeling is correct in this case

Your gut feeling is as good as christiian faith in this forum. Spare me please.

Peace

One common mistake Christian made on the math about gene mutation/molecule formation is that they think things only happen linearly.

I just want to ask: How many folds need to made a 0.1 mm thick paper as high as the Mount Everest?

One common mistake Christian made on the math about gene mutation/molecule formation is that they think things only happen linearly.
I just want to ask: How many folds need to made a 0.1 mm thick paper as high as the Mount Everest?


If all you have to say in order to attempt to refute founded biological and chemical evidence is somekind of intuitive enigma concerning some stupid paper being folded 100 times...

I suggest you either stick to television or start reading scientific journals so that you won't be falling in false analogies which is precisely what you are doing by confounding mathematical statistics concerning paper with molecular behavior.

Please be more specific if you have a point.

Prisme

"To all the atheist that talk on this thread: please stop always saying things are illogical if you don't know what illogical means"

Illogical means no full reason to believe. Your statement was illogical. It stated that all atheists believe in big bang. Many do not.


"Only two ways to go about it. If you got a third possibility I am dying to know it"

This is perhaps the most common mistake theists ever make. That there does not exist a third option at the moment (or fourth, fifth... whatever the case may be) does not mean one does not exist. Consider that until 200 years ago evolution wasn't an option. By your "logic" prisme, if you lived 220 years ago you would say "The only option is god, therefore god exists!"


"Every science in the world is always contradicting themselves and re-adjusting its claims that have too hastely been said to be certain"

That's the beauty of science, it's capable of correcting itself. Religion is not.


"Say what you like, that science is only a constant search process for the truth, but the fact is that the scientific community and its followers hold their actual 'fact's up high and act like they just got Christ delivered in their hands."

Care to back this up with any evidence?


"If life is extra-terrestrial, why only life on Earth?"

What makes you think there's only life on Earth? Last I checked there was evidence life once existed on a planet as close as Mars.


"Necks on giraffs I get, but there is no intelligent explanation that explains why a monkey would prefer our life rather than eating freakin banana's in a simili-hammack somewhere where it never snows."

Have you studied evolution at all?

And I pose a question again; have you been to the north or south pole?

Tyler, grab a dictionnary and read what illogical means. It reports itself to the structure of the argument, not to the truth or false value of the statement. A statement can be logical and false = no reason to believe as you said.

This is perhaps the most common mistake theists ever make. That there does not exist a third option at the moment (or fourth, fifth... whatever the case may be) does not mean one does not exist. Consider that until 200 years ago evolution wasn't an option. By your "logic" prisme, if you lived 220 years ago you would say "The only option is god, therefore god exists!"

WTF are you doing Tyler???? Your using the same lame arguments as theists! They are alway saying: one day our knowledge will change and we will prove that God exist. You atheists say: thats not an argument... yet you are here today doing the same thing and are asking me to give you credit that
maybe, possibly there is another form of universe.
Noob please!


"Every science in the world is always contradicting themselves and re-adjusting its claims that have too hastely been said to be certain
That's the beauty of science, it's capable of correcting itself. Religion is not. "

Are we reading the same posts Tyler??
I clearly stated that my God wasn't housed in any church and I have yet to heir conclusive arguments that render his existence impossible. Science is giving you atheists an up hill battle, contrarily to what you guys think.

Care to back this up with any evidence?

-Gulf war pills that made soldiers sick
-Pregnancy aid pills in the 60's that deformed children
-City water supplies being 'purified' with chlorine, lead and aluminum.
-Chemo-therapy that has killed more than it has saved
-The idea that the evolutionist theory is nothing more than a theory and that it has plunged humanity in a systematic rejection of God without absolute certainty of the facts

Need more?

What makes you think there's only life on Earth? Last I checked there was evidence life once existed on a planet as close as Mars.

Then one of my points have been strenghten:
Life is essentially extra-terrestrial. It's source, we can call God.

Have you studied evolution at all?

Actually yes, but by your reply I'm getting the feeling you haven't.
At least not passed your 4th grade teachers explanation.

Peace

As for your idiotic distraction about the north and south pole:

No I heven't yet I know they exist.

Originally posted by Prisme
If all you have to say in order to attempt to refute founded biological and chemical evidence is somekind of intuitive enigma concerning some stupid paper being folded 100 times...

I suggest you either stick to television or start reading scientific journals so that you won't be falling in false analogies which is precisely what you are doing by confounding mathematical statistics concerning paper with molecular behavior.

Please be more specific if you have a point.

Prisme Haha, I thought so. You are thinking linearly. The real answer is only 27 folds. At the 26th fold, the height is 6711 m. At the 27th fold, the height is 13422 m, 4.5 km above Mount Everest.

"It reports itself to the structure of the argument, not to the truth or false value of the statement."

That the only option besides god is the big bang appeared to be part of your arguement. And that is an illogical statement. If this was not part of your arguement, then I'll leave it alone.


"You atheists say: thats not an argument... yet you are here today doing the same thing and are asking me to give you credit that"

Er... I'm clearing something up. Like I said; two hundred years ago nobody had a clue about evolution. Tomorrow, a new theory could be introduced. There's no way to rule that out.


"Science is giving you atheists an up hill battle, contrarily to what you guys think."

No, and I will explain that in a minute.


"Need more?"

None of those things proved that science considers itself "high". Just proved that science makes mistakes. And I never said anything contrary to that.


"Actually yes, but by your reply I'm getting the feeling you haven't.
At least not passed your 4th grade teachers explanation."

Had you studied evolution I take it you would understand the theorized reasons our particular ancestors chose to evolve into our form. While it's not actually known for certain why, there a number of theories.



Now, the point of the North Pole thing is to show the ridiculousness in the "everything has a creator" arguement. The watch in the forest arguement, that is (which has, actually, been thuroughly dispursed of for quite some time).

If you've never been to the North Pole I can gather that everywhere on Earth you have been you could travel further north to. So, by your experience, had you not known of the north pole it would be "proof" that from any point on earth you can walk further north. Regardless, I'm not even sure if you believe the watch-in-the-forest arguement, so this may be useless.


Now, about science fighting an uphill battle against. You seem to be cocky enough to have read some philosophy or science.
You then would realize that there it is illogical to believe something if there is no proof of it.

Let us imagine we're all back in time, say, 5000 years. Got that image in your head? Now imagine we see a flash of lightning come down from the sky. You look up and say to me - God made that lightning come down. I say - how do you know God did it? You reply - what other possible explination is there?

Years ago man did not know how lightning came to be, so we attributed it to gods. We did not know how life came to be, so we attributed it to gods. We did not know how the stars formed, so we attributed it to gods. We did not know the Earth formed, why the plants grew or why the rivers flooded, so we attributed it to gods. Most of what we once attributed to gods has been scientifically explained. As it stands science has not proven a full explination of the beginning of life. This does not mean god did it. All it means is that we don't know the answer. People just happen to have a history of saying "God" when we don't know the real answer.

Originally posted by Prisme
The World is either a homogenous, closed Cosmos(Greeks and Newton) or infinite heterogenous Universe(Einstein).As has already been pointed out this is a false dilemma. In fact, much current theory and fact is tending towards a rather conditional situation where the Universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. Much effort in the way of quantum physics is trending this way. Regardless, I will address your considerations.

If we live in a ordered Cosmos, God is what has stored order within the Cosmos and gathered the necessary elements for its perpetual state of 'homeostatic-ness'.No, the "laws of physics" are what seem to be sustaining the Universe in its present state. As we have discovered there are certain forces that are responsible for and regulate every interaction within the Universe. Thus far there is no need for a supernatural explanation.

In this case, God would be to me the clock-maker, the one that could answer: why order rather than chaos?This assumes that the forces which comprise this Universe are conditional. We have no reason to believe that they are and there is certainly no proof for this assumption. If they are not conditional then there is no need for a creator.

If we live in a infinite Universe, the foundation of science is on shakyer grounds for the simple fact that knowledge would thus not follow a necessary Cause-Effect cycle. Why is that? Because the Universe, not being finite and ordered, becomes an 'amalgame' a sort of incoherent mixture of elements that are not ordered as in Newton's mecanic nor as the Greeks saw it, but rather presented as being totally contingent. Left and right we have unpredictable patterns, no existence or movement is necessary for the Universe itself is ever changing in its conditions of existence.Again we can rely on the laws of physics... those essential forces that constitute everything. Additionally, there is growing evidence (superposition, wave/particle duality, entanglement, virtual particles, etc.) that the Universe is conditional.

In such a world, God would be to me what holds such things as galaxies togetherNo; that would be gravity.

Odds of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability that all the amino acids are left handed and being combined with the proper peptide bonds 1 over 10 (950)Leaving out, of course, the fact that amino acids will only be combined in particular ways and not in others and that such interactions always follow the laws of chemistry. This randomness crap is just BS, it has nothing to do with science or reality.

The proposed age of the Earth does not allow the formation of a single protein by the trial and error method. Even if we suppose that the process of amino acids combining and decomposing at the very beginning of the Universe, there would still be hundreds of thousands years missing. I'd like to see the calculation upon which you are basing this. This argument usually fails to address the enormity of parallel "trials" that would be occuring and the fact that proteins act as catalysts for further reactions. It also fails, to take into account various other hypotheses which suggest that perhaps life arose in a more protected environment.

Although he managed to 'create' 20 amino acids, they revealed themselves to be:
1- Inorganic
2- The "cold trap" he used isolated the amino acids from natural surroundings. Natural surroundings would have immediately corrupted the weak amino acids. And of course, this isolated mecanism did not exist in the beginning of time.
3-Miller used an unrealistic environment. American scientits such as J.P. Ferris and C.T. Chen would reproduce his experiment without the amonia that Miller used that was deemed as inexistent at the primitve stages of the Earth's life.1- Amino acids are, by definition, organic.
2- The experiment was not whether the amino acids would survive long in those conditions but whether they would be created in the first place. He proved this quite nicely.
3-The conditions of the prebiotic world are indeed in contention. However, the question of whether organic compounds can be formed via natural processes has been answered affirmatively.

Today Miller's experiments are totally disregarded by the scientific community.No, they are not.

Amino acids, proteins and cells have NEVER, EVER been produced by chance.Yea... they have.

The "Chatelier Principle" in chemistry shows that it is not possible for a reaction that releases water (condensation reaction) to take place in a hydrate environement.I'm not going to take the time to address the full considerations of this. Suffice to say, this is one of the reasons there are many alternative hypothesis (clay matrix, micro-spheres, etc). This does not mean that the entire realm of investigation into Abiogenesis is defunct.

Thus evolutionists have a problem that they rarely discuss: if not in water, where???? Land is even more problematic as we know.None of this has anything to do with Evolution. You are discussing Abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is as of yet, largely hypothetical but there have been some extremely interesting findings that indicate that it is well within the realm of possibility.

Of course, there is not an iota of proof for the creationist model, which is why they are entirely reliant upon attacking Abiogenesis.

Either we live in a highly, pre-defined world. (a God is necessary to instore order and perpetual movement... scientifically impossible by the way)Please note that the laws of thermodynamics only apply to systems within the Universe not to the Universe as a whole or any hypothesized meta-verse. God is therefore not necessary but simply presumed to be by the creationist "hypothesis".

Or we live in a Universe that should not be and which its own existence can only be the proof of the existence of an unknown form of creation. Again, no.

~Raithere

Linear or not, you haven't changed much in the debate.

Er... I'm clearing something up. Like I said; two hundred years ago nobody had a clue about evolution. Tomorrow, a new theory could be introduced. There's no way to rule that out.

Maybe tomorrow a lovely fairy will come and shoot an arrow up my butt and I will fall in love.

The point is that you used it as an argument at the time. Don't weasel out.

-If poisoning people and deforming kids isn't high and mighty what is Tyler?

Now, the point of the North Pole thing is to show the ridiculousness in the "everything has a creator" arguement. The watch in the forest arguement, that is (which has, actually, been thuroughly dispursed of for quite some time)If you've never been to the North Pole I can gather that everywhere on Earth you have been you could travel further north to. So, by your experience, had you not known of the north pole it would be "proof" that from any point on earth you can walk further north. Regardless, I'm not even sure if you believe the watch-in-the-forest arguement, so this may be useless.

I'm sorry Tyler, while you are out there in the north pole making analogies that have absolutly nothing to do with the existence of a God. I will skip to the next point.
If all you can do to gain knowledge is by where you have been, then we have problems.

This does not mean god did it. All it means is that we don't know the answer. People just happen to have a history of saying "God" when we don't know the real answer.

"All it means.. just happens" you seem to know something I don't Tyler. From the same facts you have stated I could easily speculate, as you did, that man's predisposition to attribute the unknown to God is an innate psychological factor which IS emperical knowledge.
By our exprience and history, God is present, in some shape or form when we live in this world.
This does not impede or prove God existence, but it sure stes off a series of interesting questions.
Now please explain why such a predisposition would exist without having any merit?

I'm sorry I can't acept the fact that "it just happens" Tyler. Theists say the same thing over and over and they aren't making any progress with you, so why should you with me?

No, the "laws of physics" are what seem to be sustaining the Universe in its present state. As we have discovered there are certain forces that are responsible for and regulate every interaction within the Universe. Thus far there is no need for a supernatural explanation.

Laws of physics are supernatural!!!! Do you ever ask yourselves where and how those "certain forces" became to be?
Most likely not... your atheists.

When you say "laws of physics" in the sense that you are using it, it is no different form mine except that the meanning in value has changed. In any case, they are both subjective value judgements.

This assumes that the forces which comprise this Universe are conditional. We have no reason to believe that they are and there is certainly no proof for this assumption. If they are not conditional then there is no need for a creator.

If they are not contingent, God can be said to the clock maker of their necessity.
If they are contingent, which Einstein has shown in his theories concerning time, space and infinity, then god becomes what makes life possible in an impossible universe.

No; that would be gravity.

Again, so quick to judge and yet to think:
Then God is what holds gravity and its laws in place.

Leaving out, of course, the fact that amino acids will only be combined in particular ways and not in others and that such interactions always follow the laws of chemistry. This randomness crap is just BS, it has nothing to do with science or reality.

Must I always draw a topographic map to explain everything? All amino acids that do not align themselves in proper order eventually corrupt, but they do begin a process of combination before they are formed an complete. you have not said anything that contradicts what I have written.
You do not seem to have grasped what I was saying.

I'd like to see the calculation upon which you are basing this. This argument usually fails to address the enormity of parallel "trials" that would be occuring and the fact that proteins act as catalysts for further reactions. It also fails, to take into account various other hypotheses which suggest that perhaps life arose in a more protected environment.

Well when those "hypothesis" will be founded, we'll talk about them.
Did you heir? A research just showed that the more ice-cream we sell, the more drownings they are in summer... geez.


So when you want to refute the fact that Miller's experiment is disregarded all you have to say is no?
Man I should use your technique more often. And if it wouldn't kill you, please leave references about what the *** you are refering about and in what journal did you come up with the "No's" you like to place around without saying anything structured and verifiable such as:

"I'm not going to take the time to address the full considerations of this. Suffice to say, this is one of the reasons there are many alternative hypothesis (clay matrix, micro-spheres, etc). This does not mean that the entire realm of investigation into Abiogenesis is defunct"

Yeah... bravo, you sure showed me. I can peddle complicated words too Raithere:

Ontological fallacy
Playdough matrix
mesi-slimy atoms
Spheric-teleology

Look! I'm debating at your level!

Please...:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Prisme
... man's predisposition to attribute the unknown to God is an innate psychological factor which IS emperical knowledge. No, it is not empirical knowledge.
Originally posted by Prisme
Now please explain why such a predisposition would exist without having any merit? The supposition that only the meritorious exist is unfounded. Furthermore, a predisposition toward superstition is hardly a viable argument for theism.

Definition of empiricism:
Facts that come from direct expericence from the world.

Tyler was telling me that it was a known fact that ancient tribes used to worship Gods when confronted with the unknown.

That is empirical:
Indians, Egyptisans, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, Incas, Mayas and pretty much every primitive culture that still persist today have natural tendencies towards faith in a mightier substance or being than they are.

If you need more empirical facts, you should start by working on your definition of empirical instead.


Quote:
"The supposition that "only" the meritous exist is false"

Where did you read anything like that Consequent? What I said was that I would like to heir the Atheist's point of view when it comes to ideas that have credible merit that tends towards faith.

Furthermore, just saying that a predisposition towards <superstition>(already defined the unknown in a pejorative way) is not an arguemnt for theism is a rather an oversimplified statement.
You see, I believe that humans have certain predispostions:

-Heavier than air (thus cannot fly without external apparatus)
-A body of mass (this prevents him from passing throught other masses)
-Needs a brain to function (cognitively and psychologically)
-Should not drink motor oil (certain death by poisoning)

Knowing this, I can whole heartedly affirm that the human psyche has prefered states:

-Rather laugh than cry (predisposition to survival)
-Prefers pleasure over pain (except pathologically)
-Rather remain one body than lose an arm ...
bla bla bla...

All these evident truths show me this:
There is what I ought to do and there is what I ought to avoid.

Now if 3000 years of human history isn't enough to rise the doubt within you that MAYBE there is something going on with this predisposition to the belief in a greater being... then nothing will ever be enough for you, because you chose it, not because it is real.

Prisme

Why must you always dissect everything other people say?
Let go of the quote button and say something logical for yourself!
Have you nothing to say personally about the world and what you think other than to perpetually trying to discredit what others say?

Prisme:

<i>Enlighten me PLZ Mr. R</i>

Thankyou for the invitation. I shall attempt to do so.

you sure closed all controversy with that reply. Ouf! this is a tough group. At least I know that they are the 2 most accepted and likely to be true.

There are many possible cosmologies, not just two. The questions of whether the universe is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded, and whether it will expand forever or recollapse are still debateable, although some possibilities are more likely than others given current data.

There can be 574 amino acids formed of 20 common amino acids.

This statement makes no sense.

Are you saying that something or someone 'helped' the universe to get the proper order correctly?

Yes. It's this wonderful thing called the <b>laws of chemistry</b>. Some combinations of atoms and molecules are permitted by the laws of chemistry - others are not. Some molecules tend to form spontaneously - others never do. The process of forming proteins is not random.

Miller's 20 amino acids were not alive and well.

What do you require in order to call something "alive"?

So either life is fundamentally extra-terrestrial and that life would have easily started on others planets by receiving a meteor on them OR life was created only on this planet by a God.

Again, a false dichotomy. Do you need me to explain this one for you as well?

Laws of physics are supernatural!!!! Do you ever ask yourselves where and how those "certain forces" became to be?

Maybe God created them.

I can peddle complicated words too Raithere:

Ontological fallacy
Playdough matrix
mesi-slimy atoms
Spheric-teleology

Look! I'm debating at your level!

No, you're parroting. Anybody can use big words. The question is: do you understand them?

Originally posted by Prisme

Quote: "The supposition that "only" the meritous exist is false"Your sloppiness does not speak well for you. What I wrote was: "The supposition that only the meritorious exist is unfounded."

Originally posted by Prisme

Where did you read anything like that Consequent? What I said ...What you said was: "Now please explain why such a predisposition would exist without having any merit?" My response stands.

As for the rest, your comments amount to the curious argument that a predisposition toward superstition and mythmaking constitutes empirical evidence for God(s) - a case of ignorance as a self fulfilling prophesy.

What, then, is the consequence of empirical knowledge? This:The known world expands, and the world of impenetrable mystery shrinks. With every expanse, something is explained which at an earlier point in history had been permanently consigned to supernatural mystery or metaphysical speculation. And the expansion of scientific knowledge has been and remains an epistemological threat to any claims which have been fashioned independently (or in defiance) of such knowledge. We are confronted with an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible.

-- Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism by Doctor Barbara Forrest

Odds of an average protein molecule made up of 500 amino acids being arranged in the correct quantity and sequence in addition to the probability that all the amino acids are left handed and being combined with the proper peptide bonds 1 over 10 (950)

= 1 chance in 100, 000, 000 (add 942 zeros and your close)

Reference? You are quoting a statistic without specifying its context, thus it is meaningless. At what stage in the evolutionary/abiogenesistic scheme of things does number this apply to? What are the relative concentrations of left and right-handed amino acids? What are they being "arranged" by? Chance? A ribosome? Flying unicorns? I rather suspect that some moron has calculated the chance of a protein spontaneously assembling itself out of its composite ingredients where the amino acids exist in equal concentrations of their stero-isomers. This doesn't mimic any theory of abiogenesis so is irrelevant and deceptive.

When it comes to the haemoglobin molecules, there are 574 amino acids which means the odds are even less probable.
In only one out of your billions of red blood cells, there are 280,000,000 haemoglobin molecules.

You're suggesting that naturalistic evolution requires the chance assembly of a haemoglobin molecule? 280 million of them? This is asinine. The haemoglobin in your blood is made by your red blood cells. It evolved from an ever so slightly simpler version of haemoglobin. Have you calculated the odds for that?

Fine, bad paraphrase. But you failed to read my comments well again:

What is empirical is that we KNOW FOR A FACT that man has forever been predisposed to believe in greater beings. (calling them myths insinuates they are false, they however took them as real) This does not show empirically that Gods exist, it simply suggest that maybe there is something to it. An inateness that show us a prefered state of beigness over the other that are undesireable.
Quote: "MAYBE THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON"

Geez I hate typing twice the same post... :0

If you make a subjective value judgement that all faith derives from ignorance that's your choice, but not fact.

As for your quote, its not worth much. May if I quoted the damn Bible I could do an equivalently bad and invalid argument of authority.

If I really must comment on it, I would say that science will never explain everything and that Ms Dr. is on a crack trip if she thinks we are finally closing in on a final conclusion on every phenomena in the universe. She is simply preaching as a priest would do for her congregation: without any tangible statement, anything is true.

Verdict: To vague, nothing to be verified in the article.

Kinda like:
The greatest mystery of the universe will yield to us another great and unexpected path to mankind's happiness. The smallest entities will come together with the infinite to form a whole that will at last present to us the true face of God.
Marc Lévesque M.A.

Like that quote?

If you would care to go and read the references I have conveniantly left for you, you could check the stats yourself.

I don't actually count the stuff Voodoo, I read it.

Thanks for saying nothing particularly useful.

You seem to enjoy taking short excerps of many post I write and putting them side by side without any coherance even when they are not directed at you! Poor sport.

Be it bounded, infinite or on its way back, the two main theories concerning the Univers and the Cosmos do not alienate God, they rather make him a part of it.
If you can quit quoting me and start explaining to me how God is impossible in every possible physical theory (since you seem to say you know more about physics than me)of the universe maybe I could start seeing you as someone that knows something rather than nothing.
---
Its funny you referred yourself to the LAWS OF CHEMISTRY without even talking about one single common law that would conclusively show that protein formation in the primitive atmosphere of the world would most likely have took place in another form than trial and error.
In addition, just saying "laws of chemistry" isn't saying much at all.

Repeating myself again, althought some chemical laws "permit" as you say certain combinations to take place, the protein cells abort themselves when inproperly coordinated. If you honestly believe that all it takes to make protein cells are the presence of the proprer gases around, Miller's experimentation will prove you wrong. that is why such research in 20 years has never advanced. Instead, they have searched to help DNA reconstruct itself... no creation here of protein cells that would show us directly how the first cells were made.. and even if we could do it, it would have to be in an unclosed environement that would not respect the all the primitve conditions of Earth.

In addtion, protein cells cannot form themselves without the presence of amonia. Amonia was shown to be absent in the primitive atmospheric climate of the Earth = no life possible.

Thank you and good night.

Miller critics on which my readings were based on:

Feb 1998, Earth magazine p.34
March 1998, National Geographic p.68
1975, Journal of American Chemical Society p.2964
The origin of species revisited, 1991 p.304

I'm sorry, I thought these were just regarding the Miller expt.
Any critique of my critique?
And could you possibly provide the journal numbers, authors?

And what do you mean by "protein cell"?

Its funny you referred yourself to the LAWS OF CHEMISTRY without even talking about one single common law that would conclusively show that protein formation in the primitive atmosphere of the world would most likely have took place in another form than trial and error.

You mean like disulphide bonds? Or the forces that form them?

Originally posted by Prisme
Laws of physics are supernatural!!!!Um... No.

supernatural adj.
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

physics n.
1. The science of matter and energy and of interactions between the two, grouped in traditional fields such as acoustics, optics, mechanics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism, as well as in modern extensions including atomic and nuclear physics, cryogenics, solid-state physics, particle physics, and plasma physics.
2. Physical properties, interactions, processes, or laws: the physics of supersonic flight.

Do you ever ask yourselves where and how those "certain forces" became to be?Certainly. It's a rather large and exciting field of physics. Of course, the ideas are largely hypothetical thus far.

When you say "laws of physics" in the sense that you are using it, it is no different form mine except that the meanning in value has changed. In any case, they are both subjective value judgements.No. I'm speaking of the empirically proven "rules" by which this Universe seems to operate. While I don't assert that any particular model is absolutely correct I do assert that the effects of these forces and the relationships between them are correctly defined.

If they are not contingent, God can be said to the clock maker of their necessity.
If they are contingent, which Einstein has shown in his theories concerning time, space and infinity, then god becomes what makes life possible in an impossible universe.God can be said to be anything you like. What does not follow is that this makes God logically necessary. I also fail to see where you have demonstrated that the Universe is impossible without God.

Then God is what holds gravity and its laws in place.The God of the Gaps. Very nice.

Must I always draw a topographic map to explain everything? All amino acids that do not align themselves in proper order eventually corrupt, but they do begin a process of combination before they are formed an complete. you have not said anything that contradicts what I have written. You do not seem to have grasped what I was saying.No, I understand the theory quite well, thank you. And I need not refute it. There are alternative hypotheses that are not dependent upon amino acids floating free in the oceans for long periods of time. n fact, Abiogenesis has pretty much discarded such a premise.

Well when those "hypothesis" will be founded, we'll talk about them.They are in various stages of development and proofing. How about Microspheres (liposomes) or clay-matrix development?

Did you heir? A research just showed that the more ice-cream we sell, the more drownings they are in summer... geez.More murders too. Correlation does not imply causality. What's your point?

So when you want to refute the fact that Miller's experiment is disregarded all you have to say is no?You haven't provided any evidence that it has been, so what is there to refute? What is under contention is that the chemicals used by Miller correctly reflect the conditions of the prebiotic Earth. This does not mean that the results are entirely disregarded or that the experiment is not a profound discovery, important to Abiogenesis. Misrepresentation does not behoove you; it only makes your intent rather obvious and your argument lame.

Man I should use your technique more often. And if it wouldn't kill you, please leave references about what the *** you are refering about and in what journal did you come up with the "No's" you like to place around without saying anything structured and verifiable
...
Yeah... bravo, you sure showed me. I can peddle complicated words too Raithere:Sorry, I had assumed that someone with such a decided opinion of Abiogenesis would have at least a working knowledge of the primary terms and hypotheses of that science. Apparently you have discredited an entire realm of investigation without even understanding what it is that is being investigated.

Here's a quick outline:

Macromolecules Evolve and Interact (p. 517)
a. Three major hypotheses on origin of life:

i. RNA-first Hypothesis:
only macromolecule RNA (ribonucleic acid) needed to progress to formation of first cell(s).
arose with discovery of ribozymes (RNA enzymes) that function in coding life processes and as proteins.
since some viruses use RNA genes, first genes could have been RNA.
first enzymes would be ribozymes also functioning as enzymes.
proponents call this an "RNA world."
ii. Protein-first Hypothesis
Sidney Fox showed that amino acids polymerize abiotically when exposed to dry heat.
proteinoids are small polypeptides with catalytic properties and form.
microspheres form when proteinoids are returned to water; have properties of cells.
hypothesis assumes enzymes came before DNA genes; protein enzymes are needed for DNA replication.
iii. Clay Hypothesis
Graham Cairns-Smith believes clay assists in polymerization of proteins and nucleic acids at the same time.
clay attracts small organic molecules; iron and zinc are inorganic catalysts for polypeptide formation.
RNA nucleotides and amino acids associate in such a way that polypeptides were ordered by and helped synthesize RNA; both polypeptides and RNA arise at same time.

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/genbio/maderinquiry/lecture/lecture27.html There are also exobiology hypotheses and extreme environments hypotheses.

More links for you:
http://exobiology.nasa.gov/ssx/biomod/papers990823/blois.20/blois.html
http://www.plluisi.org/grl_res_index.html
http://www.str.com.br/English/Scientia/life.htm

Let me know when you're conversant with the primary concepts and we can continue from there.

~Raithere

Raithere, do you ever bother to read your own stuff?

At one point you say:

Physics is an exciting fiels but most theories are "largely hypothetical thus far"

And then you go on to say:
I speak of the empirically proven rules in which the universe operates.

So which one are they??


In addition to your kind act of going to the dictionnary to sort every thing out, you defined supernatural as something that is "is outside of nature".
Did anybody see something outside of nature? As Hegel said:
"There is nothing new under the sun". He means that all there is in the world is never coming out of another world into ours. Everything, including myth making, is part of this world, or to the very least: part of humans that are part of this world.
To conclude, it is contradictory to say that natural phenomenon is what is only inside of nature, for we have never actually seen the outside of nature.
(Always thought that the dictionnary was full of philosophical problems.)

But again my critic stands:

What the dictionnay qualifies as Natural phenomenon and non-Natural phenomenon (or in this case supra-natural phenomenon)is purely subjective as to the approach that is taken when analysing those phenomenons.
Physics chose to appropriate itself of certain phenomenons that are still yet to be fully seezed... and suddenly it becomes science? Hardly my friend.

If the only thing that you are willing to take into account is the metrical value of events, you will never fully arrive to grasp the entirety of phenomenons: what are their first cause? or their conditions of being that make them be rather than not be.

I suggest you read Hume and Popper on : the problem of Induction.
Since Hume, empirical knowledge has been shown that it will never suffice in itself to validate our knowledge.

--------

I never said that the universe was impossible without God, I said that a infinite universe is impossible to live in:
-A perpetual changing of the conditions in the universe (since it is expanding, stretching, adding new componants to the totality that it represents)would not allow stability.

ex: (1+3+4+5)= 13
If this equasion keeps adding new variables
(1+3+4+5.. +1)= 14

Then the Universe balance would not be equivalent to what it used to be when it was 13. It is more probable that such continuous changes would eventually unbalance the relative stability that we enjoy now.

In such an impossible world, God would be to me what makes life possible.
---------------

The only reason I typed:

"God is what holds the laws together" is because you inscinuated that the laws were self suffiscient(sounds almost supernatural doesn't it?). I say to that: God represents to me what makes the laws possible.

This is not a God of gaps.
for he doesn't compensate for unknown facts, he is what makes the conditions possible for the facts to exist.
---------------

As always, you talk of existing alternative hypothesis and never bother to express them. How can I take you more seriously than a bible quoter?

---------------

My point with the ice cream was that you are doing the same reasoning:

Alternative theories on their way = don't have to refute my argument
(causes)
No cause effect there, but that's what your saying to me.
---------------

Again! :mad: I must repeat what I have already said:

I left you the references that I used, if you don't go and read them it's your problem not mine. I even left the damn pages!!! What do you want more!?!?
As for your behavior, it is more in concordance with high-schoolers that don't even bother to leave a single reference that can be easily searched for.

---------------

I got to the end of your post and you have still not managed to give me anything of value to our conversation:

You talk about empirical facts and all you give me are hypothesis????
IS THIS A JOKE???

-"Maybe" first genes could have been RNA?
-Enzymes and DNA (just goes to show Miller's attempt having failed, scientists are now looking at DNA rather than strict amino acids reproduction... that is of course, never in a primitive atmospheric state. They are only doing this a closed environement and with a God's hand approach- meanning they have access to every cell and chemical imaginable)
-"Believes" that Clay polimerization or proteins?

What the hell is this church? or empirical facts?

----

Also to all atheists:

As always, I haven't learned anything about the Universe or the state of man while talking to you guys. All I see is a lot of abusive quotting and hypothesis that have yet to yield anything substantiated... something that is apparantly important to you guys when it comes to religion, but not science.

Judgement of values as always,

Prisme

P.S.
I'm giving you one more chance to show me something tangible in this world that science has proven that should compell me to cease to believe in A God not the gods of religious groups.
If I don't get anything soon, my work with you self-learned atheists will be done.

P.S.S. Sorry Raithere internet sites are not yet recognized as scientific for there is too little control on the crap that is put out there... any good university will tell you that.

-If you can't type in a library computer the title, year and month of a magazine and manage to find it... your intellect will not allow you to find them with any additional information.

And yes the first 3 are directly linked to Miller.

-Did you just open a physical science dictionnary and took the 2 words your finger fell on or were you going somwhere with those two concepts?

Peace

The debate is really only agnostic vs atheist, because the only arguments I've seen for theists are "Try not to think about it and just believe." That sounds a lot like doublethink (from the book 1984 by George Orwell). This may be an oversimplification, but it is still the underlying fact in every debate.

The truth, as I see it, currently lies somewhere between agnostic and atheist. Is it possible to prove that a god exists or not? Probably not, but we can make it a whole lot less likely by tracing the origins of religion on Earth. Allow me to explain.

In more than a few posts, here and abroad, I have used a new argument - at least for me - involing a creation of my own supernatural being, The Monkey, and his son MonkeyMan (an offshoot from god and jesus, in case you didn't notice). Now, such a being cannot currently be disproven, but since we all know for a fact that I created the concept, it is obviously false. What if 12 or 13 people created the concept, with no further proof? Still false.

How does this apply to the debate? Well, it proves that just as it "doesn't take a lot of brains to be an atheist," it takes even less to create your own supernatural being and recruit others to your cause. Why is this likely? Look at Christianity. If it is truly a divine religion, then why must it appeal to our basic human vices?

"Aren't you afraid of hell?" - Appeals to fear, which is instinctive. A divine religion wouldn't have to use fear as motiviation, because it would be inherantly true and there would be no need for physical motivation. Why hasn't this point been argued more often? After all, if the supernatural is the underlying motivation, why double it through human vices? Isn't that superfluous?

"Don't you want to go to heaven?" - Greed. Desire for rewards that are greater than what you have given to the world. See above argument.

"Don't you hate the devil?" - Anger, placing the blame for all that is wrong with the world onto the shoulders of a single entity. If you "hate the devil," this generally means you want to counteract him with doing good. If it was truly the real religion, it would have no need to recruit followers in this fashion, because through its divine influence it would gain followers automatically (and this is how many people claim the first disciples began to follow jesus, not through vices - although I have yet to see convincing empirical evidence of the mortal jesus's existance).

Anyone has to admit that it would be nice to have the true religion appeal to so many of our natural human vices, while at the same time calling them evil (3 of the 7 deadly sins, I might add). The truth is that this is just contradictory and was obviously conceived by humans. Since the religion has its roots in the words a humans, whose words are quite fallible, it very much decreases the likelihood of any kind of god existing other than in the minds of the people.

"Very few people genuinely believe in god from their own free will, they were simply raised to believe in the social benefits of saying that there is a god. Ignorance in numbers is a powerful weapon. Many will die because of it."

The true philosopher is agnostic (no absolutes). If you like to argue, go ahead and be atheist (good luck proving it). If you want the social benefits, you can be Christian ("You can't disprove it! Neener neener" x 5 billion).

Let me reassert that I take no offense to christian debate, because I've heard it all before, and it remains unconvincing. Just as christians seem hell-bent (pun intended) on spreading their faith, I am determined to limit their numbers so the entire world is not enveloped in blind ignorance and scientific standstill. We've all seen what happens when you put the bible in the hands of the authorities.

Althought I agree with you that atheism can easily defeat any religious movement... but I would like for you to elaborate on the following:

Please explain to me how Atheism is not, in itself a leap of faith, since nobody has ever proven that -A God- (not the illogical christian and other church gods) could not exist.

Prisme

P.S.
I do not consider agnosticism a true position towards a problem for not knowing asserts nothing and is thus neither true nor false. Agnostics could easily decide to "convert" to any side since they have no argument to themselves. True philosophers are those that progress our knowledge by forcing us to think in a different way, not forcing us to believe that we know nothing.

Originally posted by Prisme
Please explain to me how Atheism is not, in tiself a leap of faith, since nobody has ever proven that -A God- (not the illogical christian and other church gods) could not exist.

Prisme

P.S.
I do not consider agnosticism a true position towards a problem for not knowing asserts nothing and is thus neither true nor false. Agnostics could easily decide to "convert" to any side since they have no argument to themselves.

I never said atheism wasn't a leap of faith - it's just as much a leap of faith as theism. And since it defines absolutes, it cannot be philosophically accepted, just as theism cannot. Both sides are completely equal in that they are created by humans in order to explain what we cannot any other way. The fact that there are so many belief systems could be considered evidence that there is no correct one, but that's just speculation.

If you don't consider agnosticism a position, then that is your opinion. I consider it the only true religion, because we will probably never know (note: PROBABLY) if there is or is not a god. But what is the problem? Is knowing the truth of our origins, something beyond our comprehension, really vital to our immediate existance? Attempting to find out is only a waste of resources and human lives (thanks to theistic extremists).

Any agnostic that would easily convert to either side was never a true agnostic. They tarnish the name of philosophy in doing so and represent flawed logical arguments within themselves. Although I've never actually seen it happen, have you?

Originally posted by Prisme
True philosophers are those that progress our knowledge by forcing us to think in a different way, not forcing us to believe that we know nothing.

Forcing someone to think in a different way? That sounds more like a theistic worldview than a generalization of philosophy :bugeye:

Originally posted by Prisme
Why must you always dissect everything other people say?
Let go of the quote button and say something logical for yourself!

Have you nothing to say personally about the world and what you think other than to perpetually trying to discredit what others say?If you look through the history of my posts I do indeed post my own opinions and ideas. In fact, I have railed against the fact that we're so often mired in rather simplistic arguments and explanations of things. The issue of the existence God, I find to be tertiary to so many of the issues here. Whether God exists is neither provable nor disprovable, yet we get locked into these death matches over this issue and the important ideas and exploration of these ideas fall by the wayside.

So I ask you; what does it really matter if God created life or if it is explicable through the laws of physics? Is the scientific investigation of the world somehow made extraneous to human concerns or falsified by the assertions of creationism? Should we abandon science and philosophy because the ultimate answer is always God?

Conversely, if it was proven that it was likely that life could have originated through natural processes would God or the concepts of God and spirituality somehow be invalidated or made extraneous to the human condition?

In brief I find such small and fragile conceptions of God and truth to be inherently untrue. God, if it exists, must be much more than can be denied by a simple empirical fact or defined through a single book or set of doctrine. Yet it seems that that is exactly the state of "faith" that is most prevalent. (sheesh, I'm starting to sound like Tiassa ;) )

So in stride the creationists and the IDers and, rather than offering a plausible hypothesis that might invite discussion, they concern themselves primarily with attempting to discredit science. They usually make quite a mess of it; their arguments are full of errors, assumptions, and misleading snippets. Somehow, they have come to perceive science not as the honest human pursuit of empirical discovery that it is but as some sort of religious aggressor attempting to take God to task. It is this attitude that I set myself against on occasion.

~Raithere

Bravo. ;)

Originally posted by Raithere
Somehow, they have come to perceive science ... as some sort of religious aggressor attempting to take God to task. Perhaps best seen as the threatened territorialism of the retreating defenders of the God-of-the-Gaps?

If you can't type in a library computer the title, year and month of a magazine and manage to find it... your intellect will not allow you to find them with any additional information.


No biggee, it is just hard to find something from page number alone and standard convention to list number and author.

http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter11_1.php

Actually has the calculations you refer to( along with all your tired arguments). They calculate the probability of amino acids randomly forming proteins from equal amounts of 500 types of left and right handed amino acids and only conduct one trial. These calculations are not found in the references you gave me at all, and I'm not surprised, because they really, really suck. This has the odor of futility about it, so I give up.

Originally posted by Prisme
Raithere, do you ever bother to read your own stuff?Let's take another look:

Prisme: Do you ever ask yourselves where and how those "certain forces" became to be?
Raithere: Certainly. It's a rather large and exciting field of physics. Of course, the ideas are largely hypothetical thus far.

Prisme: When you say "laws of physics" in the sense that you are using it, it is no different form mine except that the meanning in value has changed. In any case, they are both subjective value judgements.
Raithere: No. I'm speaking of the empirically proven "rules" by which this Universe seems to operate. While I don't assert that any particular model is absolutely correct I do assert that the effects of these forces and the relationships between them are correctly defined.As you should be able to discern, in the first case I was speaking as to the origins of the forces and in the second case I was referring to the forces themselves and the laws that describe their interaction. It is in no way contradictory to assert that something is known but it's origins are not.

In addition to your kind act of going to the dictionnary to sort every thing out, you defined supernatural as something that is "is outside of nature". I didn't define it, I just picked up Webster's... blame him. BTW, what would you define supernatural to mean?

To conclude, it is contradictory to say that natural phenomenon is what is only inside of nature, for we have never actually seen the outside of nature.Again, I am confused then as to what you think the difference is between natural and supernatural.

What the dictionnay qualifies as Natural phenomenon and non-Natural phenomenon (or in this case supra-natural phenomenon)is purely subjective as to the approach that is taken when analysing those phenomenons. Not at all; a supernatural phenomena would be one that was proven not to be caused by natural forces.

Physics chose to appropriate itself of certain phenomenons that are still yet to be fully seezed... and suddenly it becomes science?What are you talking about? Science explores how and why things happen... this applies to any phenomena. Thus far, however, there has been no evidence of anything supernatural going on at all.

If the only thing that you are willing to take into account is the metrical value of events, you will never fully arrive to grasp the entirety of phenomenons: what are their first cause? or their conditions of being that make them be rather than not be.I'd say that science is doing a rather good job of this actually. We've come to understand many things through observation and measument. Now, of course, when you're speaking about the entirety of existence, well it hard to observe and measure everything... particularly from within. So we rely on various mathematics and hypotheses and do what we can to evince them. God, in this context, is simply one more hypotheses with no more evidence than any other and with a rather less stable foundation.

I suggest you read Hume and Popper on : the problem of Induction.
Since Hume, empirical knowledge has been shown that it will never suffice in itself to validate our knowledge.Ugh. I have read Hume. Do you really want to get into an argument regarding infinite recursion? We can always turn the argument around and show that there can be no justified belief regarding the past. If you like, we can toss in Descartes too and state that nothing can be known except doubt and that there is something that doubts.

I never said that the universe was impossible without God, I said that a infinite universe is impossible to live in:
-A perpetual changing of the conditions in the universe (since it is expanding, stretching, adding new componants to the totality that it represents)would not allow stability.
...
Then the Universe balance would not be equivalent to what it used to be when it was 13. It is more probable that such continuous changes would eventually unbalance the relative stability that we enjoy now.And you're basing your assessment of probability upon what, exactly? You're asserting here, I think, that in an expanding Universe the laws of physics would be unstable. Upon what are you basing that assertion?

In such an impossible world, God would be to me what makes life possible.Please evince this.

"God is what holds the laws together" is because you inscinuated that the laws were self suffiscient(sounds almost supernatural doesn't it?).I did more than insinuate. It is a plausible hypothesis that the forces that occasioned the beginning of the Universe are themselves eternal.

I say to that: God represents to me what makes the laws possible.Actually, I have no problem with that, though I do wonder what can be asserted beyond it.

As always, you talk of existing alternative hypothesis and never bother to express them. How can I take you more seriously than a bible quoter?In debate it is generally assumed that both parties are conversant with the relevant topics. I'm not referencing obscure data or specific treatments of a hypothesis but referring to general and rather broad areas of investigation. Considering that you have, apparently, already dismissed all of these areas of research I figured that you would have at least some understanding of the underlying hypotheses and evidence.

My point with the ice cream was that you are doing the same reasoning:
Alternative theories on their way = don't have to refute my argument
No cause effect there, but that's what your saying to me.What argument? All I've seen so far from you is an attempt to discredit science. I've seen nothing to support your conjecture of life being miracled into existence.

I left you the references that I used, if you don't go and read them it's your problem not mine. I even left the damn pages!!! What do you want more!?!?Actually, yes; I do not have the time to run to the library to search for this so it would be appreciated if you would give the exact reference (in context) that states that the Miller experiments have been "totally disregarded by the scientific community" because in all my reading the most I have ever found towards this statement is that the initial conditions that Miller based his experiment upon are not considered today to be truly representative of the state of the prebiotic Earth.

You talk about empirical facts and all you give me are hypothesis????
IS THIS A JOKE???No, this is how science works. Obviously, we cannot travel back in time to directly observe the genesis of life on Earth. Thus we must attempt to infer what those conditions were and then hypothesize as to how life might originate under those conditions. All that has been proven thus far is that certain organic and inorganic "precursors" for life can be generated in natural conditions. But even if we manage to prove that life can evolve from this we still will not have proven that this is the way it did happen; not without more evidence.

Of course, what you consistently ignore is that there is no evidence what-so-ever to support the creationist hypothesis. Your argument, in its entirety, is simply "you can't prove Abiogenesis so God must have created life". Which is not even a valid logical argument.

What the hell is this church? or empirical facts?Please then, show me some empirical facts regarding the origin of life via God.

As always, I haven't learned anything about the Universe or the state of man while talking to you guys.One cannot learn if one is unwilling to listen.

All I see is a lot of abusive quotting and hypothesis that have yet to yield anything substantiated... something that is apparantly important to you guys when it comes to religion, but not science.Sarcastic, probably, but I have not been abusive. And I did provide substantiation upon request (see below).

I'm giving you one more chance to show me something tangible in this world that science has proven that should compell me to cease to believe in A God not the gods of religious groups.Whatever gave you the idea that I was attempting to "compel you to cease to believe in A God"?

If I don't get anything soon, my work with you self-learned atheists will be done.Frankly, based on what you've posted so far it will be a very small loss.

Sorry Raithere internet sites are not yet recognized as scientific for there is too little control on the crap that is put out there... any good university will tell you that.I am not quoting from "Bob's web site", I am careful in my selections, two of the four references were originally from published works and the other two are from research si