Reason and faith are two proofs that God exists

[AndyHolland]

**Common ascent - you must admit for example, that a human eye is far more sophisticated mechanistically than the eye of a worm. **

Thats not what common decent means.

You’d probably greatly enjoy Bronowski’s en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Man

Descent (proper spelling) means family lineage and was used by Darwin to mean origin of species. However, the term was very poorly chosen because with regard to creatures, ascent is actually what is observed - improvement at each step - which even a firm atheist like Dawkins believes. Each step has to be an improvement.

**Intelligence simple and compound (Ancient Greek description of God) raised Adam from the dust of the ground. **

Gensis says God raised Adam (man) from the dust of the ground. St. Gregory of Nyssa stated that Holy Scripture clearly shows this occurs as an orderly process in steps (call them evolutionary steps) in which the higher forms are derived from the lower.

It is not descent, but ascent and the commonality of ascent is Intelligence Simple and Compound that must be intrinsic to the universe for it to happen.

This is more proper - what we observe is an ascent of species, an ascent of more and more complex mechanism - bio-electric, mechanical, logical - with greater and greater sophistication at each step. That is reality.

**It you pose a material theory to explain things, you must be consistent with material facts and reality. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction etc… **

Newtons thrid law, nothing to do with evolution.

If the laws are real, and they are, and your posing a scientific explanation for origin of species, how do you reconcile the reality of them with your theory?

Its up to you to show how, mechanistically, they can be overcome.

The only models that show how one can come up with more complex forms from simpler ones in computer modeling require *A Priori *

organization (logos), information flow and energy.

Conservation of information is very real - if your theory cannot explain it, it is missing something very large and obvious (about as big as the Sun, see Psalm 19 again).

**
Mathematics, probability, chemistry, mechanics, electrodynamics all have to be consistent within a scientific framework. Organizational, informational and energetic entropy are very real and must be accounted for. **

You have to show how or why at each step there is an improvement in the evolutionary process that leads to more complex forms.

e.g. Why didn’t evolution stop with lichen? They survive just fine. Or cochroaches?

Yet the genetic machinery adapts to more and more complex and refined mechanistic forms with each step. And those are often far less capable in terms of survivability. Why? How?

If the observation of what we see is inconsistent with other areas we know, we have to conclude we are missing some really huge piece of the puzzle.

The problem for the strict Darwinian biologist is that we see more and more beauty and structure in living things and realize the improbability of that occuring without Intelligence simple and compound as causal. Statistics works against randomness as causal very quickly.

I take it you don’t have a good undertstanding of evolution then, for it explains complexity perfectly.
Model it on a computer. If you do, you immediately have to put information and pattern together - intelligence and pattern.

**For example, Einstein expressed belief in the Supreme being (e.g. Intelligence, simple and compound) for a reason. He crunched the numbers, and realized the beauty of life does not happen unless there is a great and eternal order to the universe. That does not say he believed in a personal God, he had the more ancient Greek form in mind, but it was when the Greeks saw all their forms in the Christian Triune God that they began to seek the personal God. **

Don’t see what this has to do with evolution.
At his time, Darwinian evolution was purely statistical and population based - and he understood how weak and undirected such processes were and how complex and unlikely a creation such as man was in any statistically based system.

The laws of statistics are very real - you don’t get around them by claiming ignorance or saying they are totally separate from biology. You can’t use them one moment, and discard them the next.

It follows, if the universe has attained to intelligence then it has an intelligent cause.

So if we need intelligence for intelligence, if that follows, if that is a must, then where did god come from.
God is eternal. He is the Beginning, He is the Ending, without beginning and without ending. God has revealed Himself to us.

When mankind decided to judge for himself right and wrong, he removed himself for a time (cursed the ground for our sake - for our salvation to become like Him - eternal). He then revealed Himself in orderly steps, and then became one of us - so that we might see Him face to face - Jesus Christ.

If the universe has attained to person, it has a personal God. Entropy (death) is real and is trampled down by Jesus Christ who has trampled down death by death.

Becoming man, the eternal Word - God - revealed Himself and ended our fear of death by dieing Himself and raising Himself on the third day - as foretold in OT Scriptures written well before these things occurred historically (further proof - consistency).

Its the duty of a true scientist to investigate this with dispassion and facts.

It is the duty to look at the evidence, not to start with conclusions based in dogma.
True! - So read the Bible with a bit of dispassion, and see if it is true. Read it with ancient Church Fathers to get the Greek and Hebrew word understanding.

=================================
**As to Sagan - consider that movie and book about encountering other beings more sophisticated. How much more elegant, simple and beautiful for God to become one of us so that we might encounter him face to face. **

imdb.com/title/tt0118884/

I don’t prefer delusion either. Conceit is delusion and pride is delusion. Facts are with the Christians if anyone would care to delve into them with dispassion.

What facts?
Fact is humanity is really screwed up. We make horrible judgments, pollute our planet, kill our neighbor and act worse than beasts. God became one of us to redeem/restore the hash we have made of things. He came to fix us, inside out and that is the truth if you wish to look for it without dogmatic preconcieved notions.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Descent (proper spelling) means family lineage and was used by Darwin to mean origin of species. However, the term was very poorly chosen because with regard to creatures, ascent is actually what is observed - improvement at each step - which even a firm atheist like Dawkins believes. Each step has to be an improvement.

I know exactly what descent means an each generation does not HAVE to be an improvement.
**
It is not descent, but ascent and the commonality of ascent is Intelligence Simple and Compound that must be intrinsic to the universe for it to happen.**

Have no idea what you are talking about.

This is more proper - what we observe is an ascent of species, an ascent of more and more complex mechanism - bio-electric, mechanical, logical - with greater and greater sophistication at each step. That is reality.

So you are arguing semantics, you are not happy they it is called descent.
**
If the laws are real, and they are, and your posing a scientific explanation for origin of species, how do you reconcile the reality of them with your theory?
Its up to you to show how, mechanistically, they can be overcome.**

? Newtons law is about motion it has nothing to do with evolution??

**The only models that show how one can come up with more complex forms from simpler ones in computer modeling require *A Priori * organization (logos), information flow and energy.
**
Define complex? It a large compound more complex than an element?

**You have to show how or why at each step there is an improvement in the evolutionary process that leads to more complex forms. **

Random mutaions, natural selection. If you don’t think evoluton explains complexity i suggest you go research the theory.
**
e.g. Why didn’t evolution stop with lichen? They survive just fine. Or cochroaches?**

I’m starting to understand now. You don’t understand evolution, so you don’t think it happened.

Yet the genetic machinery adapts to more and more complex and refined mechanistic forms with each step. And those are often far less capable in terms of survivability. Why? How?

Survivablity has nothing to do with it, this is a bad misconception. Evolution is driven by reproduction, not survivablity.

If the observation of what we see is inconsistent with other areas we know, we have to conclude we are missing some really huge piece of the puzzle.

What observation?

**Model it on a computer. If you do, you immediately have to put information and pattern together - intelligence and pattern. **

Yes because computer code does not initially reporduce with varitaion. RNA does.

The laws of statistics are very real - you don’t get around them by claiming ignorance or saying they are totally separate from biology. You can’t use them one moment, and discard them the next.

Stat don’t work that way.

**God is eternal. He is the Beginning, He is the Ending, without beginning and without ending. God has revealed Himself to us.
**

Empirical evidence please?

Ok this is pointless to many unrealted points. Pick a specific point and we will discuss it. Your choice.

 

[AndyHolland]

Descent (proper spelling) means family lineage and was used by Darwin to mean origin of species. However, the term was very poorly chosen because with regard to creatures, ascent is actually what is observed - improvement at each step - which even a firm atheist like Dawkins believes. Each step has to be an improvement.

I know exactly what descent means an each generation does not HAVE to be an improvement.

e.g. I think even Richard Dawkins would disagree with that - I have read quotes of his to the contrary but “improvement” is in the eyes of the beholder so I agree it was stated rathre too strongly. However, over time…

**
It is not descent, but ascent and the commonality of ascent is Intelligence Simple and Compound that must be intrinsic to the universe for it to happen.**

Have no idea what you are talking about.

We can roughly model a worm’s eye - hence automatic flushing toilets.

We cannot come close to even modeling a human eye - seeing 3D in real time, with depth and processing that information for computer applications. Our modeling is very, very crude.

On top of it, the living machine associated with a person’s eye is built on a level of sophistication and complexity that is incredible. Self replicating, correcting, lubricating, manufacturing, adjusting - integrated with a neural network.

The eye is a real mechanism and for it to see, allot of very delicate and intrincate things have to happen…

Those sorts of things cannot happen from random walks!!!

This is more proper - what we observe is an ascent of species, an ascent of more and more complex mechanism - bio-electric, mechanical, logical - with greater and greater sophistication at each step. That is reality.

So you are arguing semantics, you are not happy they it is called descent.

Its inaccurate - it implies entropy is being followed and it is not. Entropy is challenged by life hence ascent is better.

**
If the laws are real, and they are, and your posing a scientific explanation for origin of species, how do you reconcile the reality of them with your theory?
Its up to you to show how, mechanistically, they can be overcome.**

? Newtons law is about motion it has nothing to do with evolution??

I am a cellist - and body kinematics to obtain sub-millimeter precision while bowing and hitting notes is essential. Physics applies everywhere.

**The only models that show how one can come up with more complex forms from simpler ones in computer modeling require *A Priori *** organization (logos), information flow and energy.

Define complex? It a large compound more complex than an element?

A 2009 Cadillac compared to a '64 VW Beatle…?

A Saturn V compared to a bottle rocket?

A human being compared to a single celled creature?

A moth is infinitely more complex mechnistically than any machine ever built by mankind.

**You have to show how or why at each step there is an improvement in the evolutionary process that leads to more complex forms. **

Random mutaions, natural selection. If you don’t think evoluton explains complexity i suggest you go research the theory.

I have - it doesn’t at all.

**
e.g. Why didn’t evolution stop with lichen? They survive just fine. Or cochroaches?**

I’m starting to understand now. You don’t understand evolution, so you don’t think it happened.

Yet the genetic machinery adapts to more and more complex and refined mechanistic forms with each step. And those are often far less capable in terms of survivability. Why? How?

Survivablity has nothing to do with it, this is a bad misconception. Evolution is driven by reproduction, not survivablity.

Genetic expression changes intra-generationally - within generations - so ascent is driven by information flow from the environment and genetic machinery responds very rapidly. In fact, your gene expression is changing even as you read this.

If the observation of what we see is inconsistent with other areas we know, we have to conclude we are missing some really huge piece of the puzzle.

What observation?

**Model it on a computer. If you do, you immediately have to put information and pattern together - intelligence and pattern. **

Yes because computer code does not initially reporduce with varitaion. RNA does.

The laws of statistics are very real - you don’t get around them by claiming ignorance or saying they are totally separate from biology. You can’t use them one moment, and discard them the next.

Stat don’t work that way.

**God is eternal. He is the Beginning, He is the Ending, without beginning and without ending. God has revealed Himself to us.
**

Empirical evidence please?

Ok this is pointless to many unrealted points. Pick a specific point and we will discuss it. Your choice.

Go to Glastonbury England, find a cutting of the Holy Thorn on midnight and listen to the haws pop at midnight, Old Christmas.

Go to the Shepherd’s field monastery (Orthodox) in the Middle East from advent through Epiphany, and the abbot there will show you something marvelous.

Or pick up a Bible, say a prayer, and read the Gospels with an open mind.

Or go to your local Roman Catholic Church or Orthodox Church, and listen in.

If you want evidence, look for it. Obviously you are looking for it - but here is not a good enough place.