Religion and Science!

[Charlemagne_II]

rossum

In this case the “scaffolding” was the rock that has been eroded away to leave the arch. It is possible for natural processes to mimic designed processes. That is where Behe’s Irreducible Complexity came to grief.

Since God is the architect behind nature, how do you know things like that arch were not specifically designed by Him to remind us that He knew about arches before we did?

“Could be” even primitive arches of this sort designed by God became the inspiration for the arches designed by men.

 

[grannymh]

By the way, expressions like “could be” or “possible” are relatively useless in science without any supporting evidence. On a far-away planet there could be purple people-eaters. You know, aliens who abduct humans and bring them home for a wiener roast.

But that hardly constitutes science.

May I challenge you on the idea that “expressions like “could be” or “possible” are relatively useless in science without any supporting evidence.” from post 251?

“Could be” or “possible” are the foundation for scientific exploration of the natural world. These expressions are the foundation for Darwinism. When one understands how “possible” is used in science, it would be logically possible to say that the possibility of Adam and Eve exists. This would be based on the Induction Method of science. The meaning of Induction is “the act or process of deriving general principles from particular facts or instances.” (Second College Edition, The American Heritage Dictionary,)

 

[SGWessells]

The notion that a living organism could have suddenly appeared from a non-living organism with the powers of gestation and reproduction by pure accident is absurd on the face of it. Just as absurd as the notion that a nonliving organism like a mousetrap could reproduce itself without being designed to do so.

Depends on how similar they are. We aren’t talking about complex animals like walruses or tomcats suddenly sloshing out of the primeval ooze; it’s more like a single celled creature beginning to divide and reproduce. That’s not so much of a stretch. Certainly more believable than talking snakes and magic trees and a woman made from a man’s rib, or a 13 billion year old universe being created in six days.

Show me the scientific evidence that it obviously was not designed. There isn’t any.

Remember your purple people eater remark a few posts ago? Perhaps they designed it

There is no way for science to “prove” a negative unless other processes which have been proved make it impossible. But just because science can’t prove something was not designed doesn’t constitute evidence that it was. You’re building a Babel of suppositions founded on nothing. First you say, well, science can’t prove X was not designed, so I’m justified in assuming that it is. Then you say, the designer must be supernatural; what natural force could do it? All the natural forces science proposes are nonsense, so I’m entitled to believe there is a supernatural one (though I’ve never seen or heard it). But what supernatural force? It must be God, because there is only one God, and that’s the God the Catholic Church teaches. So you have the assumption of design, the assumption of a supernatural designer, and the assumption that the designer is the Christian God, and not one of these assumptions is based on any actual knowledge or verifiable fact. So don’t talk to me about lack of evidence, okay?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

SGW

Good grief! Science is supposed to prove things, not blow hot air!

If there is no evidence of design, you have to prove there is no evidence of design. You can’t just say we have to prove design but you don’t have to prove no design.

The Miller-Urey experiment failed to produce life by happenstance as opposed to by design. That was nearly seventy years ago. They still haven’t proved it and are nowhere near proving it. And if any experiment produced life from non-life, how could that be viewed as anything but an intelligently designed experiment?

It is eminently more reasonable and sane to believe the universe was designed for life than that there was no design at all.

Or as the great astrophysicist Fred Hoyle put it long ago:

“The chances that life just occurred are about as unlikely as a typhoon blowing through a junkyard and constructing a Boeing-747.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

granny

**“Could be” or “possible” are the foundation for scientific exploration of the natural world. **

Yes, they are. But they are not proof!

 

[SGWessells]

1. Why is the teaching of Christ is vastly significant?

Because it is one of the two major historical sources of Western civilization, the other being Greco-Roman civilization. Needless to say, that significance is not proof of its truth, only proof of its being widely believed.

1. Why is the teaching of Christ historically inaccurate?

Matt. 24: 29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will give no light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in Heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call…34** Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”**

We’re still waiting.
No interpretation of “generation” in this passage makes sense except “people living when these words were spoken,” which is the meaning of the same Greek word in all other occurrences in the NT.

John 3:13: “No man has ascended to Heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven.”

Compare 2 Kings 2:11, which says Elijah was taken up to Heaven by a whirlwind, and Gen. 5:24, with Heb. 11:5, which says Enoch was also taken to Heaven.

John 8:44, Jesus says the Devil is a liar, and there is no truth in him. Yet in Mat. 8:29, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41, demons Jesus casts out all proclaim that he is the Son of God. Is this not the truth?

There are many more examples of Jesus contradicting himself, and of the Cospels contradicting each other.

 

[buffalo]

Depends on how similar they are. We aren’t talking about complex animals like walruses or tomcats suddenly sloshing out of the primeval ooze; it’s more like a single celled creature beginning to divide and reproduce. That’s not so much of a stretch. Certainly more believable than talking snakes and magic trees and a woman made from a man’s rib, or a 13 billion year old universe being created in six days.

Remember your purple people eater remark a few posts ago? Perhaps they designed it

There is no way for science to “prove” a negative unless other processes which have been proved make it impossible. But just because science can’t prove something was not designed doesn’t constitute evidence that it was. You’re building a Babel of suppositions founded on nothing. First you say, well, science can’t prove X was not designed, so I’m justified in assuming that it is. Then you say, the designer must be supernatural; what natural force could do it? All the natural forces science proposes are nonsense, so I’m entitled to believe there is a supernatural one (though I’ve never seen or heard it). But what supernatural force? It must be God, because there is only one God, and that’s the God the Catholic Church teaches. So you have the assumption of design, the assumption of a supernatural designer, and the assumption that the designer is the Christian God, and not one of these assumptions is based on any actual knowledge or verifiable fact. So don’t talk to me about lack of evidence, okay?

C’mon, here is the latest

Life began with a planetary mega-organism

ONCE upon a time, 3 billion years ago, there lived a single organism called LUCA. It was enormous: a mega-organism like none seen since, it filled the planet’s oceans before splitting into three and giving birth to the ancestors of all living things on Earth today.
This strange picture is emerging from efforts to pin down the last universal common ancestor - not the first life that emerged on Earth but the life form that gave rise to all others.
The latest results suggest LUCA was the result of early life’s fight to survive, attempts at which turned the ocean into a global genetic swap shop for hundreds of millions of years. Cells struggling to survive on their own exchanged useful parts with each other without competition - effectively creating a global mega-organism.

more…

 

[buffalo]

Depends on how similar they are. We aren’t talking about complex animals like walruses or tomcats suddenly sloshing out of the primeval ooze; it’s more like a single celled creature beginning to divide and reproduce. That’s not so much of a stretch. Certainly more believable than talking snakes and magic trees and a woman made from a man’s rib, or a 13 billion year old universe being created in six days.

Remember your purple people eater remark a few posts ago? Perhaps they designed it

There is no way for science to “prove” a negative unless other processes which have been proved make it impossible. But just because science can’t prove something was not designed doesn’t constitute evidence that it was. You’re building a Babel of suppositions founded on nothing. First you say, well, science can’t prove X was not designed, so I’m justified in assuming that it is. Then you say, the designer must be supernatural; what natural force could do it? All the natural forces science proposes are nonsense, so I’m entitled to believe there is a supernatural one (though I’ve never seen or heard it). But what supernatural force? It must be God, because there is only one God, and that’s the God the Catholic Church teaches. So you have the assumption of design, the assumption of a supernatural designer, and the assumption that the designer is the Christian God, and not one of these assumptions is based on any actual knowledge or verifiable fact. So don’t talk to me about lack of evidence, okay?

This is the God the Catholic Church teaches:

34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10

III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH
36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”.12
37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone:

Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.13
38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God’s revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also “about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error”. 14

 

[buffalo]

Matt. 24: 29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will give no light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in Heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call…34** Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”**

We’re still waiting.
No interpretation of “generation” in this passage makes sense except “people living when these words were spoken,” which is the meaning of the same Greek word in all other occurrences in the NT.

John 3:13: “No man has ascended to Heaven but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man who is in heaven.”

Compare 2 Kings 2:11, which says Elijah was taken up to Heaven by a whirlwind, and Gen. 5:24, with Heb. 11:5, which says Enoch was also taken to Heaven.

John 8:44, Jesus says the Devil is a liar, and there is no truth in him. Yet in Mat. 8:29, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41, demons Jesus casts out all proclaim that he is the Son of God. Is this not the truth?

There are many more examples of Jesus contradicting himself, and of the Cospels contradicting each other.

Read some good commentaries. It will help.

 

[buffalo]

Depends on how similar they are. We aren’t talking about complex animals like walruses or tomcats suddenly sloshing out of the primeval ooze; it’s more like a single celled creature beginning to divide and reproduce. That’s not so much of a stretch. Certainly more believable than talking snakes and magic trees and a woman made from a man’s rib, or a 13 billion year old universe being created in six days.

Remember your purple people eater remark a few posts ago? Perhaps they designed it

There is no way for science to “prove” a negative unless other processes which have been proved make it impossible. But just because science can’t prove something was not designed doesn’t constitute evidence that it was. You’re building a Babel of suppositions founded on nothing. First you say, well, science can’t prove X was not designed, so I’m justified in assuming that it is. Then you say, the designer must be supernatural; what natural force could do it? All the natural forces science proposes are nonsense, so I’m entitled to believe there is a supernatural one (though I’ve never seen or heard it). But what supernatural force? It must be God, because there is only one God, and that’s the God the Catholic Church teaches. So you have the assumption of design, the assumption of a supernatural designer, and the assumption that the designer is the Christian God, and not one of these assumptions is based on any actual knowledge or verifiable fact. So don’t talk to me about lack of evidence, okay?

Do you accept the Universal Probabality Bound? Why or why not?

 

[buffalo]

Intelligent Design: Atheists to the Rescue

 

[SGWessells]

If there is no evidence of design, you have to prove there is no evidence of design. You can’t just say we have to prove design but you don’t have to prove no design.

Not so. The burden of proof is on the one making the assertion. Scientists explain the development of species by processes that, as far as we can observe, are not designed or imposed, but occur naturally. Therefore, as Laplace told Napoleon when the Emperor asked why he had not mentioned God in his chemistry text, “we have no need for that hypothesis.” We can explain the process without having recourse to design or pre-imposed purpose or goal. If you want to add such design, you have to provide evidence for it. We don’t need it, so we don’t have to prove it’s not there, since we don’t have to assert that it’s not there; we just explain the process without it.

if any experiment produced life from non-life, how could that be viewed as anything but an intelligently designed experiment?

It would show that the proximity of whatever elements were in the experiment could produce life without the help of a supernatural entity. In order for the experiment to relate to reality, it would have to reproduce, as far as possible, the conditions that already existed when life was thought to form, so the experiment would reproduce conditions which, as far as science is able to say, existed without being put there by an intelligent agency.

It is eminently more reasonable and sane to believe the universe was designed for life than that there was no design at all.

That’s only if you assume that the universe was intended to produce life from the beginning, which assumes your conclusion as a premise, and is therefore invalid. Life exists in teh universe because it happens to have the conditions necessary for life to occur. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be here having this discussion.
As Astronomer royal Martin Rees put it, if you have a shop with thousands of suits, all of varying sizes, anda man came in and found a suit that was a perfect fit, it wouldn’t be because the suit was specially tailored to fit his measurements. It would be because there were so many sizes that the chances were good that one would fit. The universe came first; we evolved in it because we could. Not the reverse. Only by assuming from the beginning that the purpose of the universe was the creation of human life can you conclude that because so many factors make human life possible, the purpose of the universe was to create human life.

“The chances that life just occurred are about as unlikely as a typhoon blowing through a junkyard and constructing a Boeing-747.”

I don’t know why this silly analogy keeps popping up. The analogy is false because the 747 is not an organic process, therefore cannot evolve; therefore it is not comparable to the evolutionary process. You don’t see a Wright flyer mutating ailerons, then adding a fuselage and losing a wing to become a Bleriot monoplane, then adding two wings to become a Fokker triplane, then changing fabric and wood into metal, then adding another engine, then mutating from propellers to jet propulsion, and so on. But we can trace the lineage of horses and whales and other animals through the fossil record and show how modifications led to the versions we see today. We can trace similar histories through morphology and genetics. Nature is not an airplane hangar full of non-sentient parts.

 

[SGWessells]

Do you accept the Universal Probabality Bound? Why or why not?

Sorry, I don’t know what that is. Can you summarize, please? Thanks.

 

[tonyrey]

Your analogy is a delightful example of a designed process!
Belief in an unintelligent information system suggests a misinformed and unintelligent source of belief…

The insurmountable difficulty for your argument is that it is self-destructive. If natural processes have mimicked designed processes they have also **replaced **intelligent activity. What you regard as your intelligence working out an intelligent conclusion is merely an illusion: it is the **unintelligent product **of natural processes! By disposing so neatly of Design you have unwittingly disposed of your claim to be rational. “unwittingly” in your scheme of things is not a temporary aberration but a permanent fixture. If brains are not designed then they necessarily function without any insight into what they are doing - which is hardly a recommendation for the reliability of their results. Your Irreducible Simplicity turns out to be a simple mechanism for turning out extremely simple simpletons, i.e. complete nitwits (without any wits whatsoever! )

 

[Charlemagne_II]

SGW

John 8:44, Jesus says the Devil is a liar, and there is no truth in him. Yet in Mat. 8:29, Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41, demons Jesus casts out all proclaim that he is the Son of God. Is this not the truth?

In all three passages the demons are addressing Jesus, not the men whom they could corrupt with their lies.

What Jesus was talking about in the passage from John is how demons talk to men. They tell nothing but lies to men because it is their mission to deceive men and fill hell with their lost and murdered souls.

There must be some truth in the demons’ recognition that they are in hell. After all, isn’t that where they want to be?

 

[grannymh]

granny

**“Could be” or “possible” are the foundation for scientific exploration of the natural world. **

Yes, they are. But they are not proof!

Science seeks out possibilities; then examines and tests them. Results from examination and testing become the evidence. Evidence is evaluated in order to determine if it supports the hypothesis. The evaluation serves as the basis for the conclusion.

When looking for conclusions about events in the pre-history era, the most important factor concerns the specific tools used for seeking possibilities which could eventually become conclusions.

The universal mistake which Catholics make in discussions about Adam and Eve is that they become fixated on the presented evidence as proof. They make the fatal assumption that tools dealing with millions of years going backwards are adequate because our technology is so advanced. That is a non sequitur.

Catholics need to use common sense and examine the tools which are used to seek the possibilities in the past. Questions have to be asked such as what are the assumption tools and estimate tools being used? What do the samples represent? Were the mathematic and computer tools appropriate? What areas of the globe are being investigated for possibilities? Is anthropomorphism influencing the conclusion?

It is when science investigates pre-history that possibilities multiply. In the anthropology field, there have been different possibilities regarding human origin. This is because human origin is a mystery since it does not follow the same route as other species.

The key question when it comes to conclusions about human origin is – have all possibilities been sought, examined, tested, and evaluated? The related question is-- Are the tools being used to seek possibilities unlimited? If the answer is that the tools are limited, which they naturally would be, then not all possibilities have been sought.

Therefore, there is a possibility out there which accounts for two, sole founders of the human species.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

SGW
**
As Astronomer royal Martin Rees put it, if you have a shop with thousands of suits, all of varying sizes, anda man came in and found a suit that was a perfect fit, it wouldn’t be because the suit was specially tailored to fit his measurements. It would be because there were so many sizes that the chances were good that one would fit. The universe came first; we evolved in it because we could. Not the reverse.**

You’ve just made our case for a designer God.

The man who goes into a shop finds a suit that is a perfect fit. That is because all the suits in that shop were intelligently designed to fit anyone who came into the shop. The same with the arrival of life on our planet. The suit fit us because from the time of the Big Bang the universe was so designed that man would find a suit that would fit him; or conversely, the suit that would fit him found man.

**I don’t know why this silly analogy keeps popping up. The analogy is false because the 747 is not an organic process, therefore cannot evolve; therefore it is not comparable to the evolutionary process. **

Neither was the matter organic that became life until after it became life. That matter could not evolve into life becasue there is no principle in the theory of evolution that allows life to evolve from non-life. Evolvution treats only of life evolving from **other **life.

Not so. The burden of proof is on the one making the assertion.

You are asserting that life appeared without being designed. Prove it!!!

 

[John21652]

SGW
**
As Astronomer royal Martin Rees put it, if you have a shop with thousands of suits, all of varying sizes, anda man came in and found a suit that was a perfect fit, it wouldn’t be because the suit was specially tailored to fit his measurements. It would be because there were so many sizes that the chances were good that one would fit. The universe came first; we evolved in it because we could. Not the reverse.**

You’ve just made our case for a designer God.

The man who goes into a shop finds a suit that is a perfect fit. That is because all the suits in that shop were intelligently designed to fit anyone who came into the shop. The same with the arrival of life on our planet. The suit fit us because from the time of the Big Bang the universe was so designed that man would find a suit that would fit him; or conversely, the suit that would fit him found man. start here.

**I don’t know why this silly analogy keeps popping up. The analogy is false because the 747 is not an organic process, therefore cannot evolve; therefore it is not comparable to the evolutionary process. **

Neither was the matter organic that became life until after it became life. That matter could not evolve into life becasue there is no principle in the theory of evolution that allows life to evolve from non-life. Evolvution treats only of life evolving from **other **life.

Not so. The burden of proof is on the one making the assertion.

You are asserting that life appeared without being designed. Prove it!!!

Charlemagne II, may I suggest someone study up on the existence of Fibonacci Numbers in nature (or in music, in architecture, or in what we humans call ‘beauty’ ) and then attempt to prove that there was no designer. Fibonacci numbers, and the Golden Ratio are mind bogglingly amazing in how they show up even in sun flowers, as an example.
Anyone interested can

 

[Charlemagne_II]

John,

Your point is well taken.

As Paul A.M. Dirac … (Quantum Physicist, Matter-Anti-Matter)… put it:

“God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The great Catholic apologist Ronald Knox saw the ability of Adam and Eve to be formed from the biblical “slime of the earth” (evolution). But he saw even farther and in the simplest terms.

“It may be pointed out that the infusion of a soul into a creature which was merely animal by ancestry would itself be no more surprising than the infusion of a soul into a human fetus.”