Belief... or lack thereof

[ericc]

The same goes for biological tissue…
Ever tried to breed bacteria without water? Or without proteins?
How would your gametes do without the machinery in your body?
Things replicate under particular conditions.

Remove those conditions and they stop replicating. One part of the evolution theory in a nutshell. The extinction part.

Do crystals know how to self-replicate?
Are non-living carbon-based self-replicators that far-fetched?

Let stick with crystals. When you use words like “replicate”, are you referring to an increase in the mass or just a change in the structure? So when chemicals such as salt or sugar crystalises, would you consider them a living thing? You don’t! Because you know they are lifeless elements. They change shape not because they are alive.

Bacteria is a different animal together. They live and die. They multiply.

Start at number 1?
“Lack of a viable mechanism for producing high levels of complex and specified information. Related to this are problems with the Darwinian mechanism producing irreducibly complex features, and the problems of non-functional or deleterious intermediate stages.”.

I’m sorry , you haven’t proved that this line is bogus.

This book (The blind watchmaker, by R. Dawkins) addresses the problem… it may even address a few others in that page made for creationists… referencing “articles” from the “discovery institute”…

I really hope you don’t take what he wrote in the book seriously. For example:

“how long would we have to wait before random chemical events on the planet, random thermal jostling of atoms and molecules, resulted in a self-replicating molecule?”
“This is that, once life (i.e. replicators and cumulative selection) originates at all, it always advances to the point where its creatures evolve enough intelligence to speculate about their origins.”
“Given our ration of luck, we can then ‘spend’ it as a limited commodity over the course of our explanation of our own existence. If we use up almost all our ration of luck in our theory of how life gets started on a planet in the first place, then we are allowed to postulate very little more luck in subsequent parts of our theory, in, say, the cumulative evolution of brains and intelligence.”
“… once cumulative selection has got itself properly started, we need to postulate only a relatively small amount of luck in the subsequent evolution of life and intelligence.”
“Suppose we want to suggest, for instance, that life began when both DNA and its protein-based replication machinery spontaneously chanced to come into existence.”

He tells you that all you need is luck and plenty of time and voila DNA and its protein-based replication machinery spontaneously chanced to come into existence. He doesn’t address the starting point. He jumps straight to living matter. Or straight to matter containing DNA and stuff. That sound scientific to you? Not much different from my Ferrari example. May be I was too optimistic, change that to a bicycle instead.

Have you seen the “fossils” of those early bacteria?
I have… they’re not what you’d expect. Go look them up.

And your point being? I wasn’t expecting anything.

And, from that very feeble kind of fossils, we then “leap” to fossils of animals with a shell… something that is hard enough to withstand the process of fossilization.

Not unsurprising, if you ask me.

You sound like Dawkins. Things leaping from nowhere for no reason. That doesn’t sound like the scientific method. Back to the same old question: where did the information to “leap” comes from? Bacteria doesn’t need a shell to be fossilised. Bacteria doesn’t contain information on how to “leap”. Or how to change itself to some other species. Or how to change body plans.

What do you expect to find that isn’t there?
Soft bodied slug-like aquatic creatures that were buried by some dirt and got fossilized?
oh… news.discovery.com/animals/earliest-known-animals-120628.htm

Darwin say we should find gradual changes in evolution. We didn’t.

In early organisms, mostly microbial, that is an eternity!

We are talking from paleontology viewpoint.

Tell me, how long did it take for microbes to pick up the trait of nylon eating?
MRSA?

It doesn’t matter. We are not very concern about microevolution. It is a given. Microbes after millions of cycles are still microbes. They do not mutate to become a bird, or a fish or a worm or an insect. The difficult part is macroevolution. That is where the fossil problems lie. That is where Darwin Tree of Life comes falling down.

 

[pocaracas]

Let stick with crystals. When you use words like “replicate”, are you referring to an increase in the mass or just a change in the structure? So when chemicals such as salt or sugar crystalises, would you consider them a living thing? You don’t! Because you know they are lifeless elements. They change shape not because they are alive.

Bacteria is a different animal together. They live and die. They multiply.

That’s right… but the point was to show that self-replication is not solely a biological feature.

I’m sorry , you haven’t proved that this line is bogus.

I haven’t shown how there’s no such lack?
Indeed, I merely pointed you to a book which explains many of the details.
A viable mechanism for producing complex body parts, huh?
Here’s an image of how one such body part seems to have evolved, complete with examples of currently living animals still using the so-called “non-functional or deleterious intermediate stages”: i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Wizzard30/Misc/evolutionoftheeye.jpg

For each “complex” body part, we may find similar examples. Each step being just the required to survive and pass on the genes.

I really hope you don’t take what he wrote in the book seriously. For example:

…]

He tells you that all you need is luck and plenty of time and voila DNA and its protein-based replication machinery spontaneously chanced to come into existence. He doesn’t address the starting point. He jumps straight to living matter. Or straight to matter containing DNA and stuff. That sound scientific to you? Not much different from my Ferrari example. May be I was too optimistic, change that to a bicycle instead.

Usually, scientists tackle one problem at a time.
Biologists, like Dawkins don’t concern themselves too much with that original passage from carbohydrate soup to biological self-replicators. The hint, is in the name: bio = life.

And your point being? I wasn’t expecting anything.
You sound like Dawkins. Things leaping from nowhere for no reason. That doesn’t sound like the scientific method. Back to the same old question: where did the information to “leap” comes from? Bacteria doesn’t need a shell to be fossilised. Bacteria doesn’t contain information on how to “leap”. Or how to change itself to some other species. Or how to change body plans.

The leap is in the fossil record. Not in the life forms.
The fossil record in incomplete. It will probably always be incomplete. That is what we have and we must work with it.

Provided bacteria already managed to assemble a protective layer of hydrophobic material around its self-replicating contents, could they not, at some point acquire a second layer of carbonate material? This material, in enough quantities would then give rise to a shell.

Darwin say we should find gradual changes in evolution. We didn’t.

Well, most, if not all, evolutionary biologists disagree with you.
They did find gradual changes.

We are talking from paleontology viewpoint.
It doesn’t matter. We are not very concern about microevolution. It is a given. Microbes after millions of cycles are still microbes. They do not mutate to become a bird, or a fish or a worm or an insect. The difficult part is macroevolution. That is where the fossil problems lie. That is where Darwin Tree of Life comes falling down.

At some point in the fossil record, all animals we have are fish… all plants are algae.
Then we get land plants… these help change the atmosphere and pave the way for land animals.

So, you can accept that, in some 50 years, microbes can evolve new behaviors and abilities… new traits. But you can’t understand how such successive new traits, over millions of years can account for them just building up into multi-cellular organisms… and more new traits over more millions of years to account for the differing specialization for different habitats?
Are you saying that all life on Earth can only remain in its present state, acquiring a few new traits here and there, but then shedding them, just before becoming something noticeably different from the present-day life forms?
Can you provide a viable mechanism for this shedding of traits?

 

[ericc]

Hi again, you are up early.

So… we haven’t found any evidence for evolution, huh?
Fossils of animals developing adaptations to their environments in successive layers of rock are what?
Evolutionary theory posited that something should carry the “information” from one generation to the next… a few decades later, DNA was found.
The theory expected there to be some animal that bridges purely sea creatures from purely land creature… Tiktaalik eventually surfaced to cover that gap.

 

[ericc]

Well, scientists look for things they have good reason to think they are true. Many scientific endeavors have been an utter failure - perhaps we can consider Alchemy one of the first big failures?

Nonsense. Sometimes, they just throw something at another and see what is the response. The don’t know whether life exist outside of earth. So why explore other planets? Why send probes to Mars and elsewhere?

Columbus… do you know the story of Columbus? He was going for India, a place he knew existed. But stumbled on a huge patch land blocking his path. When they first came ashore, they saw people, since some thought they were in India, they called the locals indians… or so the legend goes…
Aristotle had a Eureka moment.
Newton claims an apple fell on his head.
Einstein was just calculating relative motion for electromagnetic waves.

There are institutions that do exploratory research. They may be trying to see if something exist but they may not have prior knowledge that it is true.

But I understand why some wouldn’t want to explore whether God exist. Fear of the unknown is always there and pleading ignorance is no longer a defense available to them. You have heard of God, God is not something that you haven’t heard of. Columbus heard of India. He explored. How about you?

All events are single events… but you were proposing that people inflict upon themselves something very similar to self-deception. That is a very worrying thought, if a few centuries ago, people would follow through for they had no notion of that self-deception was a thing.

Who is deceiving who? Is it not true that success comes after many many rounds of failures? Billions have seek and found him. There is nothing fake about that. How many rounds have you tried seeking God? Genuinely? With sincerity?

 

[CompSciGuy]

I guess there are different kinds of atheism, but the kind that I am most familiar with and see on a regular basis is a materialistic one, where it is believed that natural things are all that exist. When I meet atheists of this persuasioin I often find they are willing to discredit or dismiss things that are very central to the human experience, such as free will and consciousness, and say that these are illusions and that we are actually automatons programmed by our environment, etc. It blows my mind that anyone would believe this. Aside from the fact that it is totally speculative, it also is completely contrary to what every human being experiences on a daily basis. This philosophy also doesn’t sufficiently explain acts of heroism or counter-cultural activism. These sorts of things fly in the face of a philosophy that teaches that we are merely products of culture, society and our own base instincts.

I’ve heard good arguments for and against God. I’ve heard good responses from Christians to the arguments against God. I have heard no equally good responses from atheists to the arguments for God. In fact the only responses I have ever heard to theistic arguments are either 1. derision or 2. dismissal. This is not satisfactory.

As far as atheism as a world view to be promoted among peoples… I think you will have a hard time of it; you see, in the end atheism has nothing to offer. I think this is one of the reasons why Islam is growing so quickly in Europe, it offers people something amidst nothingness. Atheism works best for you when 1. you are young, 2. you are healthy, 3. you are relatively wealthy, and 4. you live in a free country during a time of peace. When any of these are taken away, you are pretty much left with nothing. And even with those four things it isn’t sufficient for a lot of people, that is, for those who are unable to distract themselves from how short their lives are and the fact that they will soon die. Those who are able to distract themselves eventually find it harder when they approach the end of life, or when life doesn’t go the way they planned. Many of these people will then either find/rediscover faith or become bitter and angry.

For many, even the hope of another life is better than believing in nothing. And in many countries around the world, where food is less abundant, or there is war or sickness and poverty, faith is all people have to turn to. And a lot of times these people end up happier than those in rich countries like Europe or the United States.

 

[pocaracas]

Hi again, you are up early.

Presently in the UK, it dawns at 6am and I’m not used to having no blinds on the windows…

Microevolution , yes. Michael Behe “Edge of Evolution” mentioned studies of malaria and HIV on the organisms development of immunity to medical treatment. How they evolved and mutated to defeat newer medicines, cocktails of medicines. Interesting reading.

Aye… that’s what can be followed in a human lifespan…
And even so only with creatures that multiply rapidly.

Macro evolution, no. One species do not mutate to another species. Even with unbelievable amount of time. Most mutation end up in devolution, not evolution. Google for evidence for Darwinism on macroevolution and you will find very little research on this. Even though this is a serious defect of this theory and you think more focus on this would be apt, I think most have given up on this lost cause. But many are just not brave enough to face this fact.

It would just take one example to undo your reasoning, no?

From one species to another. One of the most studied animals on the planet, the fruit flies:
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910_1.html

Love.

Is that different from the one people feel for one another?
Is the love people feel for one another something that’s generated within the person, or is it something that comes from the outside? (is there a Cupid throwing arrows?)

You are the one who started the afterlife thingy! Not me!

yeah, I did mention it…
So, if no one has experience of the afterlife, why should I be concerned about believing in the existence of God?

I think we have spent sufficient time on Darwin. How about we give it a rest? It is time to let him go. The few books I suggested should give you a good background of the problems he faced. Once you read more, you’d realise it is not the lack of evidence disproving his theory. It is the science community refusing to let go. Because they don’t have a credible theory yet to take its place that does not have come with a divine touch.

Very well… let’s put Darwin to rest. I’ve heard it said that the mods aren’t very keen on discussions about evolution… can’t fathom why…

 

[ericc]

That’s right… but the point was to show that self-replication is not solely a biological feature.

You didn’t answer whether a crystal of salt or sugar is alive or not. If it is not alive, it is not biological. If it is not alive, crystalization is not self-replicating. it is just transforming its look and feel.The same amount of substance remains the same.

I haven’t shown how there’s no such lack?
Indeed, I merely pointed you to a book which explains many of the details.
A viable mechanism for producing complex body parts, huh?
Here’s an image of how one such body part seems to have evolved, complete with examples of currently living animals still using the so-called “non-functional or deleterious intermediate stages”: i42.photobucket.com/albums/e341/Wizzard30/Misc/evolutionoftheeye.jpg

For each “complex” body part, we may find similar examples. Each step being just the required to survive and pass on the genes.

I’m sorry, which page of that book actually disprove that line? “Lack of a viable mechanism for producing high levels of complex and specified information. Related to this are problems with the Darwinian mechanism producing irreducibly complex features, and the problems of non-functional or deleterious intermediate stages.”. A proven mechanism for producing body parts. I’d like to see the proof.

Usually, scientists tackle one problem at a time.
Biologists, like Dawkins don’t concern themselves too much with that original passage from carbohydrate soup to biological self-replicators. The hint, is in the name: bio = life.

Hint. Gloss over. No proof required.

The leap is in the fossil record. Not in the life forms.
The fossil record in incomplete. It will probably always be incomplete. That is what we have and we must work with it.

Tough. No evidence to back up your theory. It is not a ham sandwich.

Provided bacteria already managed to assemble a protective layer of hydrophobic material around its self-replicating contents, could they not, at some point acquire a second layer of carbonate material? This material, in enough quantities would then give rise to a shell.

That is science or conjecture?

Well, most, if not all, evolutionary biologists disagree with you.
They did find gradual changes.

Well, then show the evidence of macroevolution of complex body parts. The gradual change from one species to another for instance. So many evolutionary biologists, but no evidence for Darwin’s Tree of Life.

At some point in the fossil record, all animals we have are fish… all plants are algae.
Then we get land plants… these help change the atmosphere and pave the way for land animals.

Drawing pictures that purport that they evolve from A to B is not evidence. Don’t fall for that line. They get professional artists to imagine what the intermediary stages look like and give you beautiful pictures.

So, you can accept that, in some 50 years, microbes can evolve new behaviors and abilities… new traits. But you can’t understand how such successive new traits, over millions of years can account for them just building up into multi-cellular organisms… and more new traits over more millions of years to account for the differing specialization for different habitats?
Are you saying that all life on Earth can only remain in its present state, acquiring a few new traits here and there, but then shedding them, just before becoming something noticeably different from the present-day life forms?
Can you provide a viable mechanism for this shedding of traits?

There is no mechanism to allow a microbe to add on additional cells to its structure and evolving into another species, say a fish. Let me share this with you:

Eric H. Davidson, a colleague of mine(Douglas Erwin) at CalTech, has dissected the network of interactions between the genes that build the gut of sea urchins and starfish during development. When he compares these gene networks, there is a core of about five genes whose interactions are essential to forming the gut, and which have been preserved for some 500 million years.
One advantage developmental biologists have over paleontologists is that they can experiment on the development of these animals. Most of the genes in this network can be removed, and the developing embryo finds a way to compensate. But these five core genes, which form what Davidson calls a kernel, cannot be modified: change any one of them and no embryo forms at all. There is no reason to think that there was anything unusual about how this kernel first evolved some 500 million years ago (before sea urchins and starfish split into different groups), but once the kernel formed it locked development onto a certain path. These events, small and large, limit the range of possibilities on which natural selection can act.

Lynn Margulis is Distinguished University Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts. At one of her many public talks she asks the molecular biologists in the audience to name a single, unambiguous example of the formation of a new species by the accumulation of mutations. Her challenge goes unmet.

You will find Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution useful in explaining why it is so difficult to overcome irreducible complexity. There are some stats involve.

 

[pocaracas]

Nonsense. Sometimes, they just throw something at another and see what is the response. The don’t know whether life exist outside of earth. So why explore other planets? Why send probes to Mars and elsewhere?

Because the same building blocks that are part of every living organism on Earth are also present on Mars and have been detected on extra-solar planets.
Why look for such elements in the first place, then? Because those elements are theorized to have been generated in first generation stars… so they’re expected to be in many places, not just in this Solar System… wherever a star has gone nova, the building blocks for life will be there.

There are institutions that do exploratory research. They may be trying to see if something exist but they may not have prior knowledge that it is true.

Yes, but are they just trying out anything?
Or do they go for things that are hypothesized and only when the hypothesis is based on sound principles?
Do they try to look for chronitons?

But I understand why some wouldn’t want to explore whether God exist. Fear of the unknown is always there and pleading ignorance is no longer a defense available to them. You have heard of God, God is not something that you haven’t heard of. Columbus heard of India. He explored. How about you?

I’m not afraid of any God.
I’m afraid of fooling myself. So, if I am to acknowledge that such an amazing entity exists, then I expect it to give me some good reason for it… not just something that can be mistaken for self-delusion.

Who is deceiving who? Is it not true that success comes after many many rounds of failures? Billions have seek and found him. There is nothing fake about that. How many rounds have you tried seeking God? Genuinely? With sincerity?

Success comes when you get it right. Sometimes, you get beginner’s luck, sometimes you don’t.

I’m always seeking God (or any other god from any other pantheon, you never know…)… thus far, nothing, just people.

 

[ericc]

How genes produce bodies is dealt with in biology. The way it works is pure chemistry.
MS deals with the evolutionary part of genes which are then expressed in terms of physiology and in behavior… if you can believe it, parasite genes can even influence the behavior of their hosts - it’s what Dawkins called the extended phenotype. Another example is how beavers build dams to change how their environment behaves. Yet another example, obviously, is man and his ability to build their environment to suit themselves, instead of relying on the slow slow evolution to adapt to the environment.

New body parts are usually adaptations of previously existing body parts.
Limbs can be seen as extensions of the bacterial flagella… extensions which happen wayyy down the line.

And like Dawkins you assume the DNA is already pre-existing. The first life was microbes. No body parts. So if there was no previously existing body parts, how did it arise? Again the basic question remains unanswered. Where did the information in the genes come from? Don’t skip this very important question. Where did the information to build body parts come from? Imagine you are a microbe. How are you going to evolve eyes, lungs, bones, blood circulation, etc. Even getting a microbe from lifeless elements already present a hurdle not to say getting additional information for the genes. I mentioned this information hurdle many times and I have yet to get an answer. And you keep on introducing new things which presupposes things are already in place. That is not the primary problem, but distraction and avoidance of the root problem.

Limbs as extensions of the bacteria flagella? Says who? How was that proven? Source please.

 

[pocaracas]

Hi CompSciGuy.

I guess there are different kinds of atheism, but the kind that I am most familiar with and see on a regular basis is a materialistic one, where it is believed that natural things are all that exist. When I meet atheists of this persuasioin I often find they are willing to discredit or dismiss things that are very central to the human experience, such as free will and consciousness, and say that these are illusions and that we are actually automatons programmed by our environment, etc. It blows my mind that anyone would believe this. Aside from the fact that it is totally speculative, it also is completely contrary to what every human being experiences on a daily basis. This philosophy also doesn’t sufficiently explain acts of heroism or counter-cultural activism. These sorts of things fly in the face of a philosophy that teaches that we are merely products of culture, society and our own base instincts.

There is some evidence to support the notion that our minds are determined by our brains… actually, a while back ago, someone won a Nobel prize for his work in removing a piece of the brain to make people more… compliant… the procedure is called Lobotomy.
It seems that the removal of a particular piece of the brain messes with your ability to exercise free will… funny that, huh?
A few decades earlier, a guy had an accident where a pipe went through his face at high speed and took out a piece of his brain. The guy was previously married, a kind husband and father and had a steady job… after that, he became unstable to the point of his wife wanting a divorce, he couldn’t hold a job… his previous personality was replaced by another, it seems… Or was it his free will that changed?

Yes, it is contrary to what people experience, that’s why people tend to say it’s an illusory experience.
What evolutionary advantage would we have in being intuitively aware of how all our brains’ connections work and then produce a decision? Mind you, this would have to be valid for all animals with brains, from the simplest, to the most complex.

I’ve heard good arguments for and against God. I’ve heard good responses from Christians to the arguments against God. I have heard no equally good responses from atheists to the arguments for God. In fact the only responses I have ever heard to theistic arguments are either 1. derision or 2. dismissal. This is not satisfactory.

Ah…so under which would you put the one I told Randy: human Psychology?

As far as atheism as a world view to be promoted among peoples… I think you will have a hard time of it; you see, in the end atheism has nothing to offer. I think this is one of the reasons why Islam is growing so quickly in Europe, it offers people something amidst nothingness. Atheism works best for you when 1. you are young, 2. you are healthy, 3. you are relatively wealthy, and 4. you live in a free country during a time of peace. When any of these are taken away, you are pretty much left with nothing. And even with those four things it isn’t sufficient for a lot of people, that is, for those who are unable to distract themselves from how short their lives are and the fact that they will soon die. Those who are able to distract themselves eventually find it harder when they approach the end of life, or when life doesn’t go the way they planned. Many of these people will then either find/rediscover faith or become bitter and angry.

For many, even the hope of another life is better than believing in nothing. And in many countries around the world, where food is less abundant, or there is war or sickness and poverty, faith is all people have to turn to. And a lot of times these people end up happier than those in rich countries like Europe or the United States.

You’re right… the world isn’t ready to be without belief in gods.
Ignorance is rampant in many places of the world and it will probably remain that way, side by side with poverty, for a long time. I hope for a better world in the future. One where people don’t need to have that faith just to keep them happy and looking forward to that afterlife.

I find your prediction a bit derogatory… become bitter and angry? I think you’re stereotyping a bit there…

 

[pocaracas]

I thought we were going to put Darwin down…

You didn’t answer whether a crystal of salt or sugar is alive or not. If it is not alive, it is not biological. If it is not alive, crystalization is not self-replicating. it is just transforming its look and feel.The same amount of substance remains the same.

Crystals do self-replicate, under particular conditions.
They are not carbon-based life forms, that is a fact and they tend to mineralize when the conditions are no longer favorable to self-replication… thus becoming mere minerals.
What does it mean for a non-carbon-based system to be alive?

I’m sorry, which page of that book actually disprove that line? “Lack of a viable mechanism for producing high levels of complex and specified information. Related to this are problems with the Darwinian mechanism producing irreducibly complex features, and the problems of non-functional or deleterious intermediate stages.”. A proven mechanism for producing body parts. I’d like to see the proof.

I gave you an overview of it… you didn’t care, apparently.
I don’t on which page it is… the book explains things from the simple to the complex… you have to read it all.

Hint. Gloss over. No proof required.

Hint, chemists don’t concern themselves with strong nuclear forces.
Biologists don’t concern themselves with basic chemical reactions.

That is science or conjecture?

Conjecture based on the fact that the first hard bodies in the fossil record show shells. And present-day shells are build from carbonates.

Well, then show the evidence of macroevolution of complex body parts. The gradual change from one species to another for instance. So many evolutionary biologists, but no evidence for Darwin’s Tree of Life.

Drawing pictures that purport that they evolve from A to B is not evidence. Don’t fall for that line. They get professional artists to imagine what the intermediary stages look like and give you beautiful pictures.

Right… earthhistory.org.uk/wp-content/KvD_Padian_s040.jpg
earthhistory.org.uk/wp-content/KvD_Padian_s042.jpg

eweb.furman.edu/~wworthen/bio111/10sp23.jpg

Do not how many millions of years those small changes required…

There is no mechanism to allow a microbe to add on additional cells to its structure and evolving into another species, say a fish. Let me share this with you:

Of course… the mechanism is evolution. From bacteria to fish, seriously?

 

[pocaracas]

And like Dawkins you assume the DNA is already pre-existing. The first life was microbes. No body parts. So if there was no previously existing body parts, how did it arise?

No one was there to record it, so we don’t know is the only honest answer I can give you.
What we know is that, looking at the fossil record, at a given time, there is life with a certain set of features and, at a later time, there are animals with different features. Most, if not all, seem to be teaks over the features of the previous life forms. and then it happens again for a new time… and again, and again, and again.
This tweaking is called evolution.
Body parts don’t appear out of thin air. They appear as tweaks of other previously existing parts.

Again the basic question remains unanswered. Where did the information in the genes come from? Don’t skip this very important question. Where did the information to build body parts come from?

Trial and error, most likely.
Where the errors got eaten and the successful trials made it to see another day.
Genes being rather resilient to change, only did so very slowly, after many generations.
Again, no one was there to record it, so… we don’t know exactly.

Imagine you are a microbe. How are you going to evolve eyes, lungs, bones, blood circulation, etc.

Imagine you’re a microbe… you want to remain a microbe. It’s worked well enough for your ancestors, it should work well enough for you, too.

Imagine you’re a microbe with a slight defect that turns out to be slightly advantageous in a particular place of the pond you’re in… you’re going to get more nutrients than the others and, as a result, have more offspring. These offspring will carry that slight advantage, but now there will be many of them with the same advantage. Doesn’t make it an advantage now… until down the generational line, another one crops up with a new slight advantage.

The slight advantage of light sensing cells evolved to eyes.
The slight advantage of living on land, evolved lungs (this was way way after fish showed up)
The slight advantage of an internal hard piece evolved into a skeleton.

The advantage of multi-cellularity required some way of delivering nutrients to all cells, so animals with cells dedicated to that delivery service were advantageous.

Of course, this skips a bunch of stuff that must have happened in between, but it seems you’re only interested in quick answers to things that require millions of generations…

Even getting a microbe from lifeless elements already present a hurdle not to say getting additional information for the genes. I mentioned this information hurdle many times and I have yet to get an answer. And you keep on introducing new things which presupposes things are already in place. That is not the primary problem, but distraction and avoidance of the root problem.

I told you already, a number of times: the root problem is unsolved.
It is a gap in the scientific knowledge. People are working on it. Until then, we wait and simply say: we don’t know.
If you want the quick answer to be satisfied, then, by all means, god-of-the-gaps to table 4.
Enjoy it.

Limbs as extensions of the bacteria flagella? Says who? How was that proven? Source please.

Says I and no, it’s not proven.
But there is something to it… upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Jelly_cc11.jpg

 

[PRmerger]

Very funny, but you’re still not telling me how you make the leap from an entity which creates a Universe to whatever this God of the Philosophers is.
I ask once again, please share your reasoning… or the philosophers’ reasoning.

I will.

But I want you to acknowledge how it is a very logical conclusion, given the fact that you don’t know what the God of the Philosophers is, that you haven’t really even looked at the arguments for God’s existence.

If anything, you’ve looked at caricatures for the arguments.

But you’ve never really examined the proofs for God’s existence.

Yes?

Parallel:

“I reject the Catholic Church’s teaching on birth control!”

“Have you even examined what the Church teaches on birth control, and why she teaches what she does?”

“Why, yes, I absolutely have! It’s illogical. And it’s ridiculous! It makes no sense! It’s neanderthal thinking!”

“I think Humane Vitae is very logical, well reasoned and quite progressive.”

“What’s Humane Vitae?”

face palm

 

[PRmerger]

Very funny, but you’re still not telling me how you make the leap from an entity which creates a Universe to whatever this God of the Philosophers is.
I ask once again, please share your reasoning… or the philosophers’ reasoning.

Ok.

So if there’s an Entity that created the universe, logic tells us that this Entity is…

Necessary–because without Him, there is no universe.
Eternal–because He existed before the material universe existed
Immaterial–because He created the material universe
Omnipotent–because He created the material universe
Omniscient–because He created the knowledge in this universe.

Now, can you tell me how you could reason your way into an Entity that created the universe that*** isn’t*** necessary,eternal, immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient?

 

[MPat]

I made this thread have a broad scope on purpose…
I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve hit that post length limit a few times… I just take the last bit and post it below… Shouldn’t disturb the reading too much.

OK, as you wish.

It is because the premise “everything that begins to exist must have a cause” should be a valid premise to the argument… it is stated as valid for everything we experience daily, chairs, trees, houses, cars, the planet Earth, the Sun, everything… in everything we see a causal sequence of events that leads to those structures… but ultimately, they’re just the rearranging of pre-existent material…
Cosmological arguments tends to extrapolate from these rearrangings (which we typically call creations) to the original cause that started the Big Bang and, possibly, generated the materials we know of from… nothing?
It doesn’t follow. The premise and conclusion stand on two different concepts of “create”, or “begin to exist”.
This mixing of concepts is, I admit, not obvious. When I first saw this kind of argument, I was a bit puzzled… but then I noticed this detail.

First, there are several cosmological arguments. Not all of them need the premise as stated.

Second, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.” is a special case of principle of causality, saying that each change needs a cause (or, in other words, that anything that is potential has to be actualised by something actual). It is covered in the first step of Feser’s outline. Looks like you shouldn’t have moved from it to the second step…

So, I guess there we should start with pairs of act-potency, substance-accident, form-matter and essence-existence… Do you find their meanings in Thomistic philosophy clear?

Oh, and if you’d like to skip ahead just a little, there are some blog posts concerning the principle of causality, like edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2012/05/oerter-on-universals-and-causality.html or edwardfeser.blogspot.lt/2014/12/causality-and-radioactive-decay.html.

It would matter for sound waves can be recorded… sound waves would signal an actual interaction between the divine and physical reality, no brain in the way.
In her head… we have all the problems of having a brain there.

Yes, and if the neurons in the brain are affected directly, we can take an EEG - if, by a lucky coincidence, we have all electrodes in place at the right time…

Anyway, it was an answer to your complaint that Moses got a physical change and now such changes do not happen (since you probably do not really agree that anything happened to Moses, you probably mean that they are not claimed). And such counterexample should work in either case - unless, of course, you are going to claim that a change in the brain can be non-physical…

Yeah… but you want a soul to exist immaterially and the brain to be the receiver of that soul.
I think it makes absolute sense that the brain is more like an emitter and everything in the mind is a product of that emitter. Under this scenario, a soul seems like a part of the mind, at best.

I don’t “want” anything like that at the moment. I am pointing out that the specific argument you gave doesn’t work as well, as you thought it did. And that you need another one.

 

[MPat]

Such were the hurdles that Quantum Mechanics had to overtake…

Well, it could have been so, if “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” was a principle that was actually used, instead of a rationalisation used to reject claims one doesn’t like.

Are you telling me that this wager assumes that there’s a 50/50 chance that God exists?
And the remaining 50% is split between no god whatsoever existing, Norse gods existing, Egyptian gods, Greek gods, etc, etc, etc?

The options in the original Pascal’s Wager are the ones most seriously taken by most Frenchmen of that time - Catholicism and atheism.

So, if I accept an extraordinary claim as true, how likely am I to be accepting a false claim as true?

Well, I’m not sure anyone has conducted such a study, but it seems intuitively obvious.
Just as a ridiculous example, if I am accepting to extraordinary claims, then, in an extreme case of acceptance, I could end up accepting all the claims from all the religions that exist, plus all the claims of alien abduction and all the claims of innocence from convicted criminals. How would my mind handle all that cognitive dissonance? But for our thought experiment, the important question is: how many of those claims are false, compared to the true ones?

I’d guess many more are false than true.
And that’s why the rule of thumb exists. Doubt any claim that seems to contradict common sense.
The existence of God contradicts my common sense.

OK, let me try to restate your argument more formally.

First of all, let’s define (or remember - Wikipedia has the definitions, in case you do not find them obvious) true positives (TP), true negatives (TN), false positives (FP) and false negatives (FN). Then let’s define accuracy (TP+TN) / (TP+TN+FP+FN), sensitivity TP / (TP+FN) and specificity TN / (TN + FP).

Second, you are working with “extraordinary claims” only, as you rules of thumb say nothing about anything else.

Third, you are saying that, among “extraordinary claims”, false claims are more numerous. Thus your rules of thumb, ruling out practically all of them, achieve high accuracy and specificity.

So, does it correspond to what you said?

And if it does, what about sensitivity and false negatives? You know, classifier “Everyone is healthy.” would achieve similar results for medical screenings, yet it is not the one that is used…

Also, what about the specific false negative? If Catholicism was completely true, would you be able to detect that?

Do cats live under the working assumption that God doesn’t exist?
Do they believe that God doesn’t exist?

I know we can’t really talk to cats to find out what goes on in their heads, but you can make an educated guess.

I can?

Anyway, I am pretty sure that in “Belief-Desire-Intention” model (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief%E2%80%93desire%E2%80%93intention_software_model) the “working assumption” would be covered by “Belief” part.

Hmm… indeed I didn’t… must have slipped my mind as I was replying to the other part of that paragraph…
Yes, I lack belief that God does not exist… whatever that may be.
I also lack a belief that fairies don’t exist… it would be so cool, if they did exist!

OK, good.

It would be awesome if God did exist and if he really wanted us humans… all of us… to acknowledge that He exists and want us to be his friends and all… but it doesn’t seem to be that way. More than half the population of the planet is permitted to worship concepts of Him that are not real, nor close enough… and, worse, because of that difference in worship, people fight and kill each other. It would be so easy to put an end to such senseless killing… or rather, to never have let it start… however, it did start and it has been going on for ages.
Hardly impressive… hardly God-like.

It does show that God’s only goal cannot be making everyone aware of His existence ASAP. But then, it is not something we assert.

Many alternatives are possible. Many many many.

Sure - if you fail to organise the investigation properly.

You know, if murder investigations had to start with every human as a suspect and all possible murder weapons - and each pair of suspect and murder weapon had to be checked separately, murders wouldn’t be investigated that successfully.

So, we have to “divide and conquer” - split the big problem into smaller ones.

Thus murder investigations work with questions “What was the murder weapon?”, "Does Mr. X have an alibi?’ etc.

Likewise, in our case the question “What religion is right?” should be split to “Does God exist?”, “Is God one, are are there many?” etc. Each of them has only a very finite amount of possible answers.

 

[pocaracas]

Finally!

Ok.

So if there’s an Entity that created the universe, logic tells us that this Entity is…

Necessary–because without Him, there is no universe.

Makes sense, yes…

Eternal–because He existed before the material universe existed

Well… only if you go by the theory that both time and space were somehow created at the big bang.
It may not have been so.
So, I think this feature cannot be a given.

Certainly, at least, older than the Universe.

Immaterial–because He created the material universe

I see… there’s a flaw in here… Could there be material out of this Universe that is incorporated into Him? A material that He may have used to create the material in this Universe?

Omnipotent–because He created the material universe

huh?.. that’s the same reason as above… are you sure you didn’t mess up a copy/paste?
If not, then… I’d tone down the Omni. Only powerful enough to create a material Universe. Who knows if that includes the ability to interact with this Universe?

Omniscient–because He created the knowledge in this universe.

This one is the hardest to reason…created the knowledge?
But knowledge is just information storage and cataloging… with adequate retrieval capability.
Why is that a thing? create knowledge…

I don’t get it… How do you get there?

He created all information in the Universe?.. well… yes… sort of… But that doesn’t mean he knows it all. There’s tons of information that is generated by us… created by us. Unless you posit that all reality is deterministic and all He did at the start already contained all information of the infinite future… But that’s not the standard view that believers take, is it?

I’d be fine with a deterministic Universe, but then… if it’s deterministic, why care about the creator of this Universe? We’d just be like a snowglobe, a curiosity to check every once in a while and see that it is indeed unfurling as planned.

Now, can you tell me how you could reason your way into an Entity that created the universe that*** isn’t*** necessary,eternal, immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient?

I think your philosophers didn’t think enough out of the box… but I’m only going by what you gave me… maybe all my objections are childish and have been properly addressed by far more competent thinkers that maintained those features for their God… Can you check, please?

 

[PRmerger]

Well… only if you go by the theory that both time and space were somehow created at the big bang.

Reason tells you that time and space could not have always existed.

Time is a measure of change. And since there was no matter before this Entity created matter, then cannot be a change in that matter, therefore there cannot be time.

Pretty simple logic.

 

[Bradski]

Ok.

So if there’s an Entity that created the universe, logic tells us that this Entity is…

Necessary–because without Him, there is no universe.
Eternal–because He existed before the material universe existed
Immaterial–because He created the material universe
Omnipotent–because He created the material universe
Omniscient–because He created the knowledge in this universe.

Now, can you tell me how you could reason your way into an Entity that created the universe that*** isn’t*** necessary,eternal, immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient?

We hit a problem in immediately assuming that something created the universe. But we’ll let that slide. We also have a problem in that you have already decided what the answer is, so you are not looking for an answer (you already have it), you are looking for confirmation that a decision you have already made is correct. It’s not like you’re going to tick all these off and then realise - wow, I was right after all! But anyway…

Calling E(ntity)necessary is a tautology (I can’t say ‘calling God necessary’ etc because we’re not supposed to know what it is we’re looking for yet). E created the universe, therefore E is necessary to…well…create the universe. Doesn’t really get us anywhere, does it. It doesn’t even tell us if E is singular or plural. A mother and a father have created a child and one is not required to be ‘greater’ then the other, so it could be two. Or maybe three. A trinity perhaps. Or E could be an infinite number.

Eternal? Why? I can easily imagine E creating the universe and then simply ceasing to exist. It may actually be a requirement. Maybe E ‘became’ the universe and does not exist in it’s previous form.

Immaterial? I don’t see that it matters. E might be (might have been) an energy force. Is that immaterial? Not sure and I’m really not bothered.

Omnipotent? Well, just because E created the universe doesn’t not mean that it is omnipotent. Maybe once it was created E was then powerless to change how it evolved. Maybe all it could do was light the blue touch paper and then watch it unfold, curious to see how it all turns out.

And omniscient? Who said he created all the knowledge? Maybe knowledge is a naturally occurring facet of the universe. One that E didn’t plan. Maybe E is pleasantly surprised it turned out that way. And who can say that E knows everything? Did he know I was having eggs for breakfast this morning? You’d say yes because you already have decided what E is and that He is omniscient. But starting from first principles it’s a claim you cannot make.

You are saying: God created the universe…God is omniscient…therefore we can say that whatever created the universe is omniscient. Well, you can if you start with an answer even before the question is asked.

There you go. And all while my eggs were cooking…

 

[PRmerger]

I see… there’s a flaw in here… Could there be material out of this Universe that is incorporated into Him? A material that He may have used to create the material in this Universe?

Well, then you just take the train one car back.

You still need to explain where that material came from.

Unless you believe in magic? Something just appears from nothing?