Conclusive evidence for Design!

[wanstronian]

Prodigal - I’m on my smartphone so not ideal to be contributing to our ever-increasing post count! I’m enjoying our exchange though - far more intellectually satisfying than engaging with certain people here - so will do my best to respond this evening.

Cheers
W

 

[prodigalson2011]

Prodigal - I’m on my smartphone so not ideal to be contributing to our ever-increasing post count! I’m enjoying our exchange though - far more intellectually satisfying than engaging with certain people here - so will do my best to respond this evening.

Cheers
W

Likewise. I didn’t respond to the second half of your post yet, and I’ll be busy with family for the better part of the day, but I’ll try to get around to it tomorrow if not late this evening. For the sake of not derailing this thread further, perhaps we should move it to a new thread? Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[tonyrey]

If you cannot produce an example of one occasion when you have “demonstrated” an argument of mine is fallacious it remains a worthless excuse to which no one will pay attention…

It is easy to make false assertions but to justify them is rather more difficult. The expression “all your arguments” really gives the game away!
Not really - it really is ALL your arguments. They all boil down to the Argument from Ignorance.

An unsubstantiated generalisation. Provide one example; otherwise your assertion is worthless.

You have no evidence for your beliefs, so you spend your entire time asserting, baselessly, that “rationality can’t come from irrational particles” and so on.

“your entire time” is another false and gross generalisation. Can you explain by what mechanism rationality can come from irrational particles? If not your argument is once again worthless.

Your god is the god of the gaps, you insert it as a default answer wherever you consider science to be incomplete… and then you accuse ME of being irrational!

With equal facility and far more cogency it can be said your “science of the gaps” is your default answer whenever you consider a non-scientific explanation to be incomplete and your assertion reveals your ignorance of the fact that science is based on metascientific principles.

If I link to one of the posts I’m talking about, will you accept it? I predict not.

An unnecessary question followed by yet another false assertion.

Incidentally, your phrase “no one will pay attention” reveals that you are more interested in playing to an audience, than in rational debate.

It reveals the fact that your posts are irrational because there is abundant evidence from your previous posts that you prefer to make false generalisations about the persons with whom you are supposed to be having a rational discussion rather than answer simple questions such as:

**What is the rational basis for rejecting Christian principles as “ethically baseless mandates”?

It could be simplified still further:

What is the rational basis of morality?
**

 

[tonyrey]

In an undesigned universe moral principles have no rational foundation. Good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust are no more than human conventions. Man alone decides what is permissible and categorical imperatives no longer exist. Nothing in an amoral universe is a rational basis for objective moral values. Everything becomes a matter of utility and convenience.

The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity become mere slogans ignored by anyone who recognises the futility of attempting to impose arbitrary rules on mammals which just happen to exist. Life becomes a game in which the unscrupulous players take all. Moral scruples become a handicap in the quest for pleasure and power. The vaunted value of empathy is worthless in the light of the bloodstained history of the human race. An appeal to reason and conscience is illogical when reason and conscience are undermined by the claim that a person is merely an advanced ape.

“Do your own thing” sums up perfectly the mentality of the secular society in which the number of abortions, suicides and cases of child abuse has escalated dramatically. The philosophy of “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” is the inexorable outcome of materialism in which there is no rational basis for intangible values. There is no logical stopping-place on the descent from the value of everything to the value of nothing: absolutism>humanism>racism>nationalism-tribalism>nepotism>egoism>nihilism. When persons are regarded as things everything is permissible - but worthless…

It is highly significant that not one of the above statements has been refuted…

 

[tonyrey]

An amusing question is:

What is the rational basis of rationality if existence is non-rational?

I would hate to be in the unenviable position of having to find a solution to this formidable problem. To put it in simpler terms:

How do inanimate objects which lack insight and understanding acquire insight and understanding?

As far as I can see there are only three possible pseudo-explanations:

1. Insight and understanding don’t exist! We only imagine we have insight and understanding. But in that case we’re not entitled to draw any conclusions about anything! How would we understand the meaning of the statement that “Insight and understanding don’t exist”?
2. Everything - including inanimate objects - has insight and understanding! This is obviously sheer nonsense.
3. Insight and understanding exist but we cannot understand what they are! This solution has some merit because we cannot fully understand them any more than we can fully understand the nature of existence. Yet to think we have no insight into - or understanding of - insight or understanding is going to the other extreme.

One thing is certain. We are not justified in dismissing insight and understanding as illusions or products of inanimate objects. They are the basis of the success of science and all human achievements. That is why it is reasonable to believe they are fundamental facts which presuppose Design.

 

[tonyrey]

This really demonstrates an incredible historical naivete. Just look at the caste system in India to see an example of a living artifact of pre-Christian social structures. Any reputable historian would agree that it is specifically Judeo-Christian values that have shaped modern civilization. And “if that’s the case”, the obvious answer to your question is one that you cannot accept: they were led by God.

Actually, condoms cut the risk of HIV infection by only 80% and are much less effective against many other STDs. And comparing condoms to guns is a faulty analogy. People intentionally misuse guns by shooting people; the misuse of contraceptives is a matter of practical mistakes. Further, people are not inclined to murder nearly as much as they are to have sex. The obvious effect of promoting contraception is a virtual invitation to sexual promiscuity, ergo more sex partners, ergo more sexual encounters, ergo more infections, pregnancies, etc. The statistics bear this out. Did you read that article? Literally everywhere where contraception is widely available, these problems increase. They don’t help the problem. Simple as that. There’s nothing to argue.

When’s the last time you saw Catholic priests roaming the country side looking for fornicators and masturbators? The Catholic Church is not obsessed with sex, it’s obsessed with saving souls and spreading the teaching of Jesus Christ, of which sexual issues account for a very small part. It is the world that is obsessed with sex, and thus obsessed with the relatively simple (simple in theory, difficult in practice) teachings of the Catholic Church. It’s not the Church that’s neurotically fixated on this: it’s the world.

And, again, the social effects of deviating from these teachings have been demonstrably bad for society. Again and again and again.

Come on. No one is that stupid. Sexual desire is as old as life itself. But, as rational creatures, we can control it. So it’s a good thing that the world is so relaxed and open about it, because people feel good? Let’s move away from that emotional argument (people feel good when they take drugs, too. So I guess heroin’s a great thing, right?) and look at the real world effects of this sexual liberation: broken homes, rampaging rates of divorceand infidelity–and children with more psychological, social and emotional problems as a result–insane rates of STD infection and unwanted pregnancies, a complete loss of respect for the inherent dignity of human life, civilizations waning and in decline. History, as always, bears witness: civilization is built upon the nuclear family (monogamous couples with children) and any civilization that abandons that model inevitably fails.

No, it’s not. Sex is what builds and sustains any human institution. What a society believes and practices sexually has ramifications on all of its members. Sex is not simply a “personal matter.”

Powerful reasons to which there can be no adequate objections…

Reading such a post makes me even more appreciative of being a Catholic!

 

[Sair]

An amusing question is:

What is the rational basis of rationality if existence is non-rational?

I would hate to be in the unenviable position of having to find a solution to this formidable problem. To put it in simpler terms:

How do inanimate objects which lack insight and understanding acquire insight and understanding?

As far as I can see there are only three possible pseudo-explanations:

1. Insight and understanding don’t exist! We only imagine we have insight and understanding. But in that case we’re not entitled to draw any conclusions about anything! How would we understand the meaning of the statement that “Insight and understanding don’t exist”?
2. Everything - including inanimate objects - has insight and understanding! This is obviously sheer nonsense.
3. Insight and understanding exist but we cannot understand what they are! This solution has some merit because we cannot fully understand them any more than we can fully understand the nature of existence. Yet to think we have no insight into - or understanding of - insight or understanding is going to the other extreme.

One thing is certain. We are not justified in dismissing insight and understanding as illusions or products of inanimate objects. They are the basis of the success of science and all human achievements. That is why it is reasonable to believe they are fundamental facts which presuppose Design.

One possibility you haven’t considered here - insight and understanding are not ‘things’ or ‘qualities’ to be possessed or not by inanimate objects, but properties that emerge from the interaction of these ‘inanimate’ objects when they produce ‘animate’ objects, like complex organisms. But I suppose that makes them not ‘real’ in your estimation anyway! The concept you appear to have of what insight and understanding are supposed to be also confines you to the limited possibilities you’ve outlined above.

 

[tonyrey]

One possibility you haven’t considered here - insight and understanding are not ‘things’ or ‘qualities’ to be possessed or not by inanimate objects, but properties that emerge from the interaction of these ‘inanimate’ objects when they produce ‘animate’ objects, like complex organisms. But I suppose that makes them not ‘real’ in your estimation anyway!

What is the precise meaning of “properties” in this context? Insight and understanding are usually regarded as activities rather than adjectives.

The concept you appear to have of what insight and understanding are supposed to be also confines you to the limited possibilities you’ve outlined above.

If you can offer a superior explanation there is nothing to prevent you.

 

[Sair]

What is the precise meaning of “properties” in this context? Insight and understanding are usually regarded as activities rather than adjectives.
If you can offer a superior explanation there is nothing to prevent you.

A property, in the sense I have used it above, is an ability or activity manifested and exercised by a given entity - and dependent upon the said entity for its existence.

You offered what you claimed to be ‘pseudo-explanations’ of insight and understanding, and these all seemed to require conceptualisation of these properties as things in themselves, which might exist independently of the entities which somehow ‘possess’ them.

In the light of such a conceptualisation of insight and understanding, any explanation that would satisfy seems to require rationality, as such, to be an independent entity in itself, a quality that somehow doesn’t need a physical (or even any) substrate in order to be made manifest. In short, it would need to predate the kinds of entities that, so far as we can observe, allow it to exist. As much as you appear to be demanding this kind of explanation, you have not demonstrated why such an explanation is necessary - why rationality, essentially - and the exercise of insight and understanding - must be independent of rational beings. Since you apparently believe it to be so, it’s obvious why you support intelligent design as an explanation for the universe and life and so on (even though this just moves the parameters of the question without actually answering it); but it’s far from obvious why you insist upon such a conceptualisation of rationality in the first place.

 

[tonyrey]

A property, in the sense I have used it above, is an ability or activity manifested and exercised by a given entity - and dependent upon the said entity for its existence.

In your opinion what is the entity with insight and understanding?

You offered what you claimed to be ‘pseudo-explanations’ of insight and understanding, and these all seemed to require conceptualisation of these properties as things in themselves, which might exist independently of the entities which somehow ‘possess’ them.

The mind has always been regarded as an independent entity. No further entity is required or postulated.

In the light of such a conceptualisation of insight and understanding, any explanation that would satisfy seems to require rationality, as such, to be an independent entity in itself, a quality that somehow doesn’t need a physical (or even any) substrate in order to be made manifest.

An erroneous deduction. Rationality is not an independent entity but a description of a person.

In short, it would need to predate the kinds of entities that, so far as we can observe, allow it to exist.

Since it is a description of a person it cannot predate personal existence.

As much as you appear to be demanding this kind of explanation, you have not demonstrated why such an explanation is necessary - why rationality, essentially - and the exercise of insight and understanding - must be independent of rational beings.

That is an erroneous deduction on your part.

Since you apparently believe it to be so, it’s obvious why you support intelligent design as an explanation for the universe and life and so on (even though this just moves the parameters of the question without actually answering it); but it’s far from obvious why you insist upon such a conceptualisation of rationality in the first place.

I am not insisting on “a conceptualisation of rationality” but on **the objective reality of persons **- which you seem to imply are non-existent as autonomous entities.

 

[Sair]

I am not insisting on “a conceptualisation of rationality” but on **the objective reality of persons **- which you seem to imply are non-existent as autonomous entities.

If by ‘autonomous’ you mean ‘independent of our component parts’, then ‘persons’, as such, are indeed nonexistent.

 

[tonyrey]

If by ‘autonomous’ you mean ‘independent of our component parts’, then ‘persons’, as such, are indeed nonexistent.

1. If we don’t exist as indivisible entities what are we?
2. What distinguishes persons from animals?
3. Which of our “component parts” is responsible for our choices, decisions and conclusions?

 

[zro_x]

My friend you, do you depend on others doing your work for you all the time? Buffalo has taken the time and a great deal of trouble to answer your questions.

My appologies to you, Buffalo, if I inconveinienced you at all. I was merely wondering if you knew the answer to my question from past research. I wasn’t actually asking you to take the trouble of looking up the answers.

 

[onenow1]

The ability to ask the above question, seems pretty conclusive !

God Bless

 

[sowinskija]

Will this stupid topic never die out? Without a proper epistemological method to decide if something is **natural **or designed, the whole question is nonsensical. As a matter of fact, here is one question to the proponenets of “design”: “Is there anything natural (undesinged)?” If you say “yes”, then comes the second one: “how do you know?”. If you say “no”, then your whole proposition is ridiculous.

Really? Why would me whole proposition be ridiculous.

 

[Sair]

Really? Why would me whole proposition be ridiculous.

Because if there is nothing that is natural, then ‘designed’ is the default, and there’s no point in arguing over the difference - there’s nothing that could be different. By the same token, if there’s no reliable way to distinguish between natural and designed phenomena, no signatures or fingerprints or anything demonstrating that someone designed particular entities and phenomena, something that makes those entities/phenomena distinctive from entities/phenomena that simply arose from undirected occurrences, then there’s also nothing worthwhile in the argument that some entities and phenomena are ‘designed’ because…well, just because some people feel like they must be and can’t accept that they occurred naturally. Either way, the whole argument of this thread and its predecessor essentially boils down to: “Some things are designed because we haven’t yet discovered how they occurred naturally, and probably never will, so let’s give up trying.”

 

[tonyrey]

The ability to ask the above question, seems pretty conclusive ! God bless.

Superbly succinct success! God bless.

 

[tonyrey]

Because if there is nothing that is natural, then ‘designed’ is the default, and there’s no point in arguing over the difference - there’s nothing that could be different.

Non sequitur. Design does not imply that everything had to be designed as it is. There are many other possible successful modes of existence.

By the same token, if there’s no reliable way to distinguish between natural and designed phenomena, no signatures or fingerprints or anything demonstrating that someone designed particular entities and phenomena, something that makes those entities/phenomena distinctive from entities/phenomena that simply arose from undirected occurrences, then there’s also nothing worthwhile in the argument that some entities and phenomena are ‘designed’ because…well, just because some people feel like they must be and can’t accept that they occurred naturally.

There are reliable ways of distinguishing **designed **and **undesigned **phenomena. The distinction “designed-natural” is based on the false assumption that natural phenomena are necessarily undesigned - which begs the question.

Either way, the whole argument of this thread and its predecessor essentially boils down to: “Some things are designed because we haven’t yet discovered how they occurred naturally, and probably never will, so let’s give up trying.”

With equal facility it could be asserted that your whole argument boils down to: “Everything is natural because we have discovered that many things have occurred naturally and everything will be explained naturally so let’s give up trying to find any other explanation”.

If everything has a natural explanation **your argument must have a natural explanation. **Your beliefs, values, goals and conclusions must be based on physical desires rather than rational considerations!

 

[Sair]

I’m pointing out the obvious fact that a religious worldview or lack thereof does not determine the moral character of a person. Those who have done evil in the name of Christianity were acting in direct, blatant contradiction of the faith they professed. The problem is not Christianity, it is the corrupting influence of power on human nature.

This isn’t entirely true - there are plenty of passages in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, that allow people to disregard the needs of humans and focus upon dogmatic adherence to the supposed wishes of a God who might well be imaginary.

As Sam Harris has pointed out, fundamentalism in religion isn’t necessarily the problem - it’s the content of the religious texts and teachings upon which the fundamentalists draw that allow for atrocities. At the end of the day, and as far as the victims are concerned, it doesn’t really matter whether the perpetrators were ‘abusing’ or ‘contradicting’ their faith or not. The point is that their faith actually contains permission for them to act as they do. If, for example, as Harris suggests, the fundamentalists are Jainists, there is no way they can abuse any living creature - they can only severely limit their own freedoms by assiduously avoiding harm to other living beings. There’s really no way to interpret Jainism that leads to deliberate harm to others. Christianity and Islam, on the other hand, provide ample opportunities for such interpretations.

So, in a sense, it is correct to say that corrupting influences are at work - but the fact of the matter is, some of those corrupting influences are inherent in the dogmas of particular religions.

 

[Sair]

If everything has a natural explanation **your argument must have a natural explanation. **Your beliefs, values, goals and conclusions must be based on physical desires rather than rational considerations!

You seem to be implying a contradiction here. I’m not sure where you’re finding it, though.