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C
Charlemagne_III
Guest
God does want to be found. The Hound of Heaven is chasing after you even as we speak.
Probably harder to find God if you don’t want to find Him.
Do you suggest something can come from nothing?
B
Bradski
Guest
I was hoping for an answer, not a question about a different matter.
Forums are for discussion. A discussion entails making a point and then answering questions that are posed in relation to the point made so the situation is made clearer for all. So maybe I should try again:
You have described some things as occurring naturally. I would like to know how you differentiate between something which has occurred naturally and something which hasn’t.
B
Bradski
Guest
Then I’ll ask you the same question I asked vz: How do you tell the difference between a naturally occurring number and one which your software ‘designs’?
It’s no good claiming a designer and then claiming that things must be designed. You need to be able to explain the difference between the two so we can look for a designed object and then ponder on a designer.
In your example, even you, who wrote the programme, would not be able to point to a number and say if it was naturally occurring or ‘designed’ by your software. There would be literally no difference.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
The fundamental requisite for your revised and novel definition of “atheism” hinges on there being a very observable boundary separating “belief” and “knowledge”.
There isn’t one.
You no more know quarks and black holes are real any more than you know that there is/isn’t a god.
This is why your revised classifications/definitions of “atheism” that have popped up since around the 90s haven’t gained a whole lot of traction with people other than atheists who emotionally need to deny that they also have a burden of proof.
The classic, etymological definition still stands. An “atheist” is a person who thinks there is no god. And that is a claim. If you wish to honestly avoid that claim, send a “pm” to Agnosticboy on these forums. I’ve found him to be informed and philosophically consistent with his agnosticism.
As an aside, your imagined boundary between “belief” and “knowledge” is something that’s always intrigued me about skeptics. They’re happy to be skeptical about things written in holy texts that they haven’t verified. However, they’re also happy to swallow most things from a “scientific source” that they also have not verified.
It seems they’re very arbitrary about when and where they apply their skepticism or trust.
O
o_mlly
Guest
I don’t follow. Do you have an example of an unnatural thing? What are the parameters that make a thing unnatural?
In the context of the existence of God, I am uncertain it is pertinent.
Unless you mean to suggest creation just occurred ‘naturally.’
Thus my question.
Do you suggest something can come from nothing?
It seems you wish to argue about the properties of something instead of address existence.
Not unexpected given this is a very weak point in the atheist viewpoint.
B
Bradski
Guest
I’m not asking about the difference between natural and unnatural. It appears that you and vz want to argue that some things are designed by God - that is, could not have occurred naturally.
I want to know how you differentiate between what is designed by God and what has occurred naturally. That is, according to the laws of nature.
If it is all designed then Paley and Behe were (and are) wasting their time. If not, then how do we know which is which?
No.
I actually only attributed the existence of creation itself to God.
You are the one that wishes to argue everything but.
Hence my question again, do you propose something came from nothing?
B
Bradski
Guest
Indeed. But you have conceded that some things occur naturally.
So we have a situation where we cannot tell the difference between what is designed (that which could not occur naturally) and what does occur naturally.
When Paley said that some things were obviously designed, he used the example of a watch. And yes, it’s pretty obvious that something as inorganic as a watch did not occur naturally (and note that I specifically did not say ‘something as complicated as a watch’ because there is a universe full of things that are vastly more intricate and complex than a simple clockwork watch).
And Behe and his chums at the Design Institute spend a not inconsiderable amount of time searching for aspects of reality that carry the imprint of design. ‘Look,’ they say. ‘This cannot have happened naturally’. In obvious contrast to things that DO occur naturally. Otherwise, there is no contrast to point out. There is no anomaly.
The point I am making is that Behe and his ilk can only talk about design where it seems to them that something has come into existence for which they do not know the cause. It appears to them to be unnatural. It appears to them to have been designed. This constant refrain is no more than saying: ‘I can see no way possible that this could have come about by natural means, therefore…God’.
It was inconceivable to some people at one time that we were living on a planet. That matter was made up of mostly empty space. That particles can be in two places at the same time. That you will age more slowly than your wife if you travel faster than she does. That the pretty lights in the sky are collections of billions of stars and that some of them don’t exist anymore.
Was all this proof of design? I guess there must have been a Behe equivalent for each example, pulling out his soap box whenever he thought he could get a crowd and stating what surely must be obvious to everyone: ‘We have no idea how this could possibly be natural, so it must be God’.
But what is natural and what is not, cannot, it seems, be determined. And it appears that you want your cake and to eat it in any case. You want to back both horses in a two horse race: ‘Of course there are things that occur naturally (but just between you and me, it’s all designed anyway)’.
You should pick a position and then we might be able to discuss it.
B
Bradski
Guest
I’m not proposing anything at all. I’m trying to work out if you can differentiate between something that is designed, that is, something that is not natural, and something which is entirely natural.
It appears that you believe that existence itself is unatural in the strict sense of the word.
I understand that some people consider that God set everything in motion - lit the blue touch paper as it were, and allowed everything to unfold naturally. That is, according to natural laws (that those people believe were set in place by God).
In which case, there is zero justification for suggesting that anything at all is designed because the system itself is, as God has decreed, entirely natural.
If someone does insist that something is designed, then it is obviously, again by definition, unnatural. But how do we tell what this something is likely to be?
If you pick a particular aspect of existence and we can see it emerges by virtue of natural laws, then whether God set these laws in place or not, we cannot declare it to be designed. The only basis that people use for this claim is: ‘We don’t know now it could have ocurred naturally…therefore God’.
Which is what you do with existence itself. Which propmpts the very obvious question (well, obvious to me): ‘Why don’t you do with this with everything about which you don’t have a natural explanation?’
O
o_mlly
Guest
That’s correct, I’m the one asking because your argument requires that you define your terms if you want a rational response.
“Member of the Rational Animal Pack”
S
STT
Guest
How do you know that things come to existence from nothing? Things might have been existing since the beginning (Big Bang). In simple word, no nothing.
R
Russell_SA
Guest
Ok so you don’t seem to like the words I use, but don’t seem to care what I am trying to say is the honest experience that I have with the claims of religion. If you can’t hear what my true experience is on this issue, then sorry, but that’s not my problem. I am honestly telling you that the supernatural comes across as no different than what I have described. If you can’t accept that, then again, not my problem. If your deity gets upset about this, again, not my problem because it should know how to change that for me and has yet to do so.The fundamental requisite for your revised and novel definition of “atheism” hinges on there being a very observable boundary separating “belief” and “knowledge”.
There isn’t one.
You no more know quarks and black holes are real any more than you know that there is/isn’t a god.
This is why your revised classifications/definitions of “atheism” that have popped up since around the 90s haven’t gained a whole lot of traction with people other than atheists who emotionally need to deny that they also have a burden of proof.
The classic, etymological definition still stands. An “atheist” is a person who thinks there is no god. And that is a claim. If you wish to honestly avoid that claim, send a “pm” to Agnosticboy on these forums. I’ve found him to be informed and philosophically consistent with his agnosticism.
As an aside, your imagined boundary between “belief” and “knowledge” is something that’s always intrigued me about skeptics. They’re happy to be skeptical about things written in holy texts that they haven’t verified. However, they’re also happy to swallow most things from a “scientific source” that they also have not verified.
It seems they’re very arbitrary about when and where they apply their skepticism or trust.
S
STT
Guest
Big bang is the initial point. There is no point before Big Bang since there is no time that we could have causal chain for the act of creation. Think of existence which starts from time zero (Big Bang) and stretches to infinity. The act of creation, bring something from nothing, is incoherent. I have a thread on this in here.
V
Vonsalza
Guest
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