Thelema said:
1. The cosmological argument, which states that
a] within our natural psychical laws it is impossible for something to come out of nothing,
b] at the big bang something DID come out of nothing
therefore
c] something SUPERnatural must have caused the big bang
The laws before the Big Bang are unknowable, it is absurd to assume the present laws always existed. Any trying to extend the laws before the big Bang is a no-no. It is also not known to always be true within the present Universe
Radioactive decay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
At the Big Bang, there was an explosion of something. That says nothing about where that something came from. the Big Bang theory doesn't say it came out of nothing. Nobody can know what was before the Big Bang. You can't say anything about before the Big Bang, there may be no before. There was no one time there was nothing and then there was something, that implies a time line.
from nothing, nothing comes. Do you agree with this statement?
Nature [all space-time, matter and energy] had a beginning. Do you agree with this statement? Remember it is impossible to bridge an infinite string of causes and similarly it is impossible to traverse an infinite period of time, and with Einsteins theory of relativity linking all space-time matter as inseparable, that means if time had a beginning, all space and matter had a beginning too.
But from nothing, nothing comes, so nature can't have started from nothing. There must have been something. But there can't have been something because nature itself had a beginning. But from nothing, nothing comes, so nature can't have started from nothing. There must have been something. But there can't have been something because nature itself had a beginning. But from nothing, nothing comes....and on and on. How do you get out of this dilemma? There's only two options, either Einstein is wrong, or there
must have been something
outside of nature that nature started from.
"The Universe was designed for us because we exist"-My answer, to borrow poorly what I heard somewhere-"The water, upon realizing how well it fitted in the hole, conclude the hole was designed for it." If M theory is correct, there is an infinite amount of Universes, an infinite amount where we don't exist.
that's an argument from necessity. The water fits in the hole by necessity. The water doesn't have any choice in the matter. There are no alternate possibilities. A life permitting universe is not a necessity. There are 10^(10^123) alternate possibilities that would've prevented a life permitting universe. So when we find ourselves in this seemingly designed universe, we may think we fit very nicely, as the water does in its hole, but we've also learnt that there were 10^(10^123) different possibilities that could've prevented this from happening, whereas the water would've learnt that it fits by necessity. There are no other possibilities.
You may also be thinking that because the universe happened to have evolved in such a way as to permit life, humans wouldn't be around to notice it all otherwise, so we shouldn't really be surprised, but this logic is incorrect and can be exposed with a simple illustration. Imagine standing infront of a wall awaiting death from a firing squad of a thousand armed guards. The call goes up to "FIRE", and the soldiers proceed to shoot multiple rounds in your direction. A few seconds later the firing stops. You check yourself and discover that you're still alive. You look at the wall behind you to see that every single bullet somehow managed to miss you. Then you conclude, "Well....I shouldn't really be surprised that I'm alive, because, after all, if they had killed me I wouldn't be around to notice this incredible coincidence. Seeing as I'm alive I should really have expected them to have all missed".
It does matter. ID is not science, it is pseudo science. Your arguments were brought up in court, fleshed out by ID's and given equal opportunity with REAL scientists. The court case has nothing to do with the individual arguments, except for the fact that they have been dissproven in court and that's why I linked the video. If irreducible complexity was valid, the court case would have ended differently. It was dissproven, among other things, and that's very important.
I don't understand how, after seeing the flagellum being too complex trodded out in court and handily disproved, would bring it up to me as if it was something new.
The Judge, a christian appointed by Bush was presented with the evidence from both sides and ruled that creationism isn't a scientific theory. Case closed.
So if something is decided in court, that makes it true? If so, then how come creationism won out over evolution in the Scopes trial of 1925? Do you also believe that OJ Simpson was innocent? What about the Guildford Four or the Maguire Seven? Do you always believe everything the courts tell you? Like I said before, I don't think this is a good way to arrive at truth. I prefer to look at the evidence for myself and come to my own conclusions, instead of believing what someone else tells me to believe. Besides, since when do scientific problems get resolved in courts?
Here's what I think about irreducible complexity. I don't think the evidence for it is as strong as it is for the case of DNA yet, but I believe it's only a matter of time before we begin to find odds similar to that of the fine-tuning of the universe. For example, take protein sequences. Proteins are made from a specific combination of 20 different amino acids. The sequential order of these amino acids is crucial because if they're incorrectly ordered you won't get a protein that only works half as well, you'll get no protein at all. A molecular biologist named, Doug Axe, conducted a study to work out the probability of producing just one functioning protein by mutation from all the possible combinations of amino acids, and the number came to 1 in 10^74. [
link]. That means that even if we give the amino acids a billion attempts everyday for a trillion years you'd still only reduce the odds to 1 in 10^51 which is below what is mathematically regarded as zero probability. His work was published in The Journal of Molecular Biology, which is a peer-reviewed journal. This shows that ID is a scientifically testable theory. It has been peer-reviewed, and it provides positive evidence for a higher intelligence.
No, you do propose it proves something supernatural, or you wouldn't believe the Bible. The Bible, by definition, is hearsay. Without evidence supporting it, it's just a book of tall tales.
If prophecies are confirmed through archaeology, I would consider that evidence of the supernatural. If a supernatural story was confirmed through archaeology, depending on the strength of the findings, I
may consider this evidence of the supernatural. If a non-supernatural story is confirmed through archaeology I would
not consider this evidence of the supernatural. At no time would I consider archaeology as
proof of the supernatural, only differing strengths of evidence that
support the supernatural.
Yes, archeology does contradict the Bible. The lack of findings of the Exodus make it an impossibility. There is no way to miss a million people leaving a land, Egypt can't somehow cover it up. There is just no way. We can find small villages of a few hundred people thousands of years later and go "here was the tent, the fire, and here was where they pooped."
No I think you're being very unreasonable now. The lack of findings of the Exodus does not make it an
impossibility. Remember the same was said of the Hittite empire. How could there be no trace of this great civilisation anywhere outside of the biblical texts? Until one day in 1906, 10,000 tablets turned up confirming their existence. The lack of evidence for the Exodus does not surprise me. We're talking about a search area of around 10,000 square miles, looking for traces of possibly no more than 20,000 people [
link], who never stayed in one place for more than a few years, never built any cities, whose clothes never wore out. If it took all that time to eventually find evidence of the great Hittite empire, I expect it's going to take a lot longer to find traces of the Exodus.
You are placing your beliefs on negatives, not positives.
Let's say there is 10 points of evidence for one thing and 0 points for another. Let's say you want to prove your theory. You think the best way is to disprove the other theory, so you go out and discredit the evidence, find the holes, look for anything to help you tear it down. After years and years, you believe there are only 6 points of evidence left. You feel a great sense of accomplishment after years of work. That other theory is getting some discredit in the minds of people and people are looking at your theory.
say you set foot on another planet and you were walking along the surface of this planet. Then one day you come across a complex alien machine. Well your immediate conclusion would be that this alien machine must have been created by an alien mind. But let's say you stare at this machine long enough until eventually you figure out a way that this machine could have gotten here without the need for an alien mind. You call this theory evolution, and let's represent it by a net. After years of research you have crafted this net so that it fits perfectly over this machine. It is a near perfect fit. The net may have holes in it, but the basic shape of the net fits near perfectly over the machine. You have explained the machine.
Now imagine you continue your journey across this planet until a few miles down the road you come across another totally different machine called "DNA" and then another called "The fine tuning of the universe". You run back to get your net from the first machine to see if it'll fit over these new machines but they're way too big and the shape is totally different. You can not explain these new machines in the same way as the first, so you sit there and stare and try to figure out a way that these machines could have come about without the need for an alien mind. You may stitch together a few small nets that cover handles and prongs but basically these two new machines are totally unexplained. Well this is the picture we've got today. Looking at this picture what do you think the best explanation would be for the existence of these machines? It would seem far more obvious that an alien mind created these alien machines, and the scientist is just trying to cover the obvious with his nets.
Saying "I can'timagine how this theory accounts for this" isn't positive evidence.
not knowing how something could have occurred naturalistically and being able to discern the best explanation from it are two very different things. Think of an example of evidence that you would consider proof of God's existence. Imagine, maybe, that you pray in your mind for God to give you a very specific sign of a burning bush in your garden at exactly 11.53am. Now let's say, 11.53am comes around, you look out of your window and right on time, your bush spontaneously alights in giant flames. Would you know how that event could be explained naturalistically? No, probably not. But would the event be positive evidence of the supernatural? Yes of course. I don't know for sure how the universe could've defied odds of 10^(10^123) to produce a life-permitting planet such as ours, but I do know that the supernatural is by far the most obvious explanation.
All of these scenarios are far more plausible than a burning bush.
If such a dimension did exist, or the multiverse idea is correct, it is infininetly more plausible that matter came to be through some natural event-Occam's razor and all that.
Like I said before I really think this is the crux. I believe you have presupposed God doesn't exist, therefore any evidence for God
must be false. If you presuppose that aliens could not possibly exist then even if SETI were to receive an intelligent message from outer space you would have to conclude that it can't possibly be aliens, cause they don't exist, so it
must be something else. There
must be some other explanation. ANY explanation would be more likely than aliens because aliens do not exist. But if you were asked, why do you presuppose that aliens could not possibly exist, you'll say because there is no evidence. It's a circular reasoning fallacy. It's like you're saying, this evidence for the existence of aliens can't possibly be true because there is no evidence for the existence of aliens.
