Religion and Science!

[tonyrey]

Personally, I don’t think anybody that’s in Hell wants to be there; if they did, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment, would it?

That is a simplistic view of reality. There is always a price to pay for everything we are and possess. The enjoyment of absolute independence is poisoned by a sense of isolation and inadequacy. To worship oneself is a form of insanity because no one except God is perfect. The Greek concept of Nemesis is still valid: our vices incur their own punishment. Self-love ultimately leads to self-loathing but it is like drug addiction: a fatal flaw in spite of the immense pleasure and satisfaction it gives - for a while…

 

[Charlemagne_II]

SGW

**It would be an interesting exercise to look up everything the devil says in scripture and see how many of them are lies and how many are true. I’ll bet it would surprise you. **

I stand by my previous remarks. In those passages you cited the devils are not in the business of tempting men with their lies, which was the point of Jesus’ remarks in John.

That they have no acquaintance at all with truth is absurd. They must at least know one truth … that they are in hell, and that God put them there because they could rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

By the way, if this is your way of refuting Christianity, by turning a religion and science forum into an excuse for attacking the veracity of Christ and the devil, off with your head!

 

[tonyrey]

SGW

**It would be an interesting exercise to look up everything the devil says in scripture and see how many of them are lies and how many are true. I’ll bet it would surprise you. **

I stand by my previous remarks. In those passages you cited the devils are not in the business of tempting men with their lies, which was the point of Jesus’ remarks in John.

That they have no acquaintance at all with truth is absurd. They must at least know one truth … that they are in hell, and that God put them there because they could rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

By the way, if this is your way of refuting Christianity, by turning a religion and science forum into an excuse for attacking the veracity of Christ and the devil, off with your head!

We have the exciting novelty of the Devil’s Advocate in our midst! Now we can really have lots of fun…

 

[cornbread_r2]

I haven’t succeeded in accessing the talk. In the meantime can you explain how it is demonstrated that purely chemical processes acquire the urge to survive and the flexibility to do so in different environments?

That’s a shame as it’s a nice presentation.

The presentation shows that very simple chemical processes – some involving a set of only five chemicals – can self-assemble into a “proto-cell” which has a body, a metabolism and replicable information, all basic constituents of “life”. These proto-cells seem to bridge part of the the gap between complicated life and non-life, as do viruses, apparently.

I don’t know if it would be correct to characterize the following as an “urge to survive”, but when these proto-cells are produced, they utilize their environment right up until the time they use up all of the available resources; they do what they do until they can’t do it any more. Regarding environmental flexibility: when they’re in a area of the petri dish which has no resources they move to areas which do and different types of proto-cells sometimes hybridized which, I think, implies that the new proto-cell might be able to use an environment different from the original one.

If you do get access try watching it the first time without the sound and start slightly less than half way through the presentation. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that many people who view it that way would think they’re looking at some form of microscopic life.

 

[grannymh]

There are 104! possible arrangements of the cards in a double pack. That is 1.03e166 possible arrangements. Taking that as a log probability, gives -166. The Dembski/Borel UPB is -150. The two pack shuffle exceeds that UPB by 16. Since those are base ten logarithms, that corresponds to sixteen orders of magnitude over the UPB.

Reference please. I need to see if the calculations include the effects of natural selection. A calculation that omits natural selection is not useful in the study of evolution, since evolution does include natural selection.

rossum

 

[inocente]

No, he didn’t say those words. And you have failed to cite them, more proof that you are talking through a conical hat. Why do you never supply direct quotes, as I do?

Do you have a problem with your memory? Or perhaps need new spectacles?

…] For future reference I don’t make stuff up . Lemaître quoted on a Catholic website:

We may speak of this event as of a beginning. I do not say a creation. Physically it is a beginning in the sense that if something happened before, it has no observable influence on the behavior of our universe, as any feature of matter before this beginning has been completely lost by the extreme contraction at the theoretical zero. Any preexistence of the universe has a metaphysical character. Physically, everything happens as if the theoretical zero was really a beginning. The question if it was really a beginning or rather a creation, something started from nothing, is a philosophical question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations - catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8847

The article is quite interesting, here’s another quote from Lemaître:

The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less — some more than others — on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors in historic and scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if the errors related to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them . . . The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects, is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.

Yes, he said it could be either, those are his words. Lemaître was a good scientist, and a good scientist has an open mind. And from his writing he had a mature and deep understanding of Catholicism, with little time for the superficial:

The writers of the Bible were illuminated more or less — some more than others — on the question of salvation. On other questions they were as wise or ignorant as their generation. Hence it is utterly unimportant that errors in historic and scientific fact should be found in the Bible, especially if the errors related to events that were not directly observed by those who wrote about them . . . The idea that because they were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects, is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all. - catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8847

I’ve had enough of these games and think we’ll both be happier if I put you on my ignore list. Luck in all your future endeavors.

 

[inocente]

Certainly Hoyle had more brains than to suppose that panspermia was an alternative to atheism. Where do you find this nonsense? I notice you never supply your sources. Do you just make all this up as you go along?

This is silly. Type “fred hoyle panspermia” into google. Here are the first eight hits:

panspermia.org/hoylintv.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
perceptions.couk.com/panspermia.html
home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho46.htm
iscid.org/encyclopedia/Panspermia
springerlink.com/content/m15h11v8q4664675/
books.google.com/books/about/Astronomical_origins_of_life.html?id=uZc1eBDB0-IC
pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist11.htm

I’ve had more than enough of your petty insults and think we’ll both be happier if I put you on my ignore list. Luck in all your future endeavors.

 

[inocente]

I thought you all might be interested in this recent TED talk.

The presenter demonstrates how some purely chemical processes seem to blur the line between life and non-life.

You were spot on, really interesting.

Quite a few more nails in the coffin of biological Intelligent Design.

 

[StAnastasia]

Quite a few more nails in the coffin of biological Intelligent Design.

Inocente, since when did a coffin prevent a zombie from coming back? Have you seen “Night of the Living Dead IDers”? In the scene following the Dover 2005 trial, the Behe zombie breaks the lid of the coffin and wobbles over to Kentucky, where he gets into a big fight with Ken Ham’s YEC zombie at the Answers-in-Genesis’ “Creation Museum.” It’s an entertaining film, worth renting.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

Actually, the quote from LeMaitre reinforces that other quote I gave you. He does not in that quote refer to any time that existed before the Big Bang. So I think you forgot your own original remark, which was that there could be time before the Big Bang and that LeMaitre had allowed as much. He never did. All he allowed was: “Any preexistence of the universe has a metaphysical character.” A metaphysical character means beyond the physical, or outside the physical universe, in case you are not familiar with metaphysics.

**I’ve had enough of these games and think we’ll both be happier if I put you on my ignore list. Luck in all your future endeavors. **

I agree. So long and good luck for you too!

 

[StAnastasia]

A metaphysical character means beyond the physical, or outside the physical universe, in case you are not familiar with metaphysics.

You do not seem to be familiar with metaphysics yourself. Our universe has a metaphysical character, as does a preceding state of affairs, or anything else that exists.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Metaphysics is variously defined. However, I find a lot of insight into several of the essential impasses in this thread and its older cousin (Science and Religion) on this page from pbs.org:

Metaphysical
Derived from the Greek meta ta physika (“after the things of nature”); referring to an idea, doctrine, or posited reality outside of human sense perception. In modern philosophical terminology, metaphysics refers to the studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality. Areas of metaphysical studies include ontology, cosmology, and often, epistemology.

Metaphysical - Longer definition: Metaphysics is a type of philosophy or study that uses broad concepts to help define reality and our understanding of it. Metaphysical studies generally seek to explain inherent or universal elements of reality which are not easily discovered or experienced in our everyday life. As such, it is concerned with explaining the features of reality that exist beyond the physical world and our immediate senses. Metaphysics, therefore, uses logic based on the meaning of human terms, rather than on a logic tied to human sense perception of the objective world. Metaphysics might include the study of the nature of the human mind, the definition and meaning of existence, or the nature of space, time, and/or causality.

The origin of philosophy, beginning with the Pre-Socratics, was metaphysical in nature. For example, the philosopher Plotinus held that the reason in the world and in the rational human mind is only a reflection of a more universal and perfect reality beyond our limited human reason. He termed this ordering power in the universe “God.”

Metaphysical ideas, because they are not based on direct experience with material reality, are often in conflict with the modern sciences. Beginning with the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, experiments with, and observations of, the world became the yardsticks for measuring truth and reality. Therefore, our contemporary valuation of scientific knowledge over other forms of knowledge helps explain the controversy and skepticism concerning metaphysical claims, which are considered unverifiable by modern science.

In matters of religion, the problem of validating metaphysical claims is most readily seen in all of the “proofs” for the existence of God. Like trying to prove the existence of a “soul” or “spirit” in the human, attempts to scientifically prove the existence of God and other nonobjective, nonhuman realities is seemingly impossible. The difficulty arises out of the attempt to scientifically study and objectify something which, by its very nature, cannot become an object of our scientific studies. This reigning belief that everything can be explained scientifically in terms of natural causes - referred to as naturalism - compels many to think that only what is seen or sensed, only what can be hypothesized and tested can be true, and therefore, meaningful to us as humans.

Recently, however, even as metaphysics has come under attack for its apparent lack of access to real knowledge, so has science begun to have its own difficulties in claiming absolute knowledge. Continual developments in our understanding of the human thought process reveals that science cannot solely be relied upon to explain reality, for the human mind cannot be seen as simply a mirror of the natural world. For example, since the act of scientific observation itself tends to produce the reality it hopes to explain, the so-called “truths” of science cannot be considered as final or objective. This fact manifests itself over and over again, as scientific truths and laws continue to break down or yield to new and better explanations of reality. What becomes apparent, therefore, is that the process of human interpretation in the sciences, as elsewhere, is both variable and relative to the observer’s viewpoint.

Under the skeptical analyses of the philosophical movements known as postmodernism and deconstructionism, all of these facts have resulted in a modern repudiation of both metaphysics and science. Their criticisms are based on the cultural and historical relativity of all knowledge. These two philosophical “schools” deny any existence at all of an objective or universal knowledge. Thus, metaphysical claims stand today between the absolutist claims of science (scientism) and the complete relativism of postmodernism and deconstructionism.

pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/metaph-body.html

With regard to one of the sections I bolded, the problem with many of the ‘absolutist’ claims of those who consciously or unconsciously adhere to scientism, is that “the observer’s viewpoint” is subject to error and subject to prejudice. Whatever is being “objectively” (supposedly neutrally) stated can be modified by the very subjectivity of the speaker, and certainly of the observer.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

StAnastasia

**You do not seem to be familiar with metaphysics yourself. Our universe has a metaphysical character, as does a preceding state of affairs, or anything else that exists. **

So? Would you like to define the metaphysical character of the universe?

 

[StAnastasia]

So? Would you like to define the metaphysical character of the universe?

In general I prefer to describe things rather than “defining” them.

The first obvious thing to note metaphysically about the universe is that it exists. The second thing of note is that it is not self-subsistent, but depends ontologically for its existence upon a source outside itself.

Further, one might discuss the nature of the universe’s being. “Where” is the universe located? If space and time as we know them are intrinsic to the fabric of the universe, in what non-spatio-temporal matrix does the universe itself “sit” or exist? I myself favor a panentheist model, in which the whole universe exists within the divine reality, the reality within which – as Saint Paul says – “we live and move and have our being.”

Another metaphysical question about the character of the universe is its relation (1) to that matrix in which it is situated, and (2) to another universe that forms the context of t"the life of the world to come." Is that other universe already existent, also in the divine reality? Does it exist alongside our universe, or will it only be instantiated after this universe has run its course in a few trillion years?

I could go on, but I must get ready for my theology class.

StAnastasia

 

[buffalo]

I myself favor a panentheist model, in which the whole universe exists within the divine reality, the reality within which – as Saint Paul says – “we live and move and have our being.”

Are you New Age?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

StAnastasia

I myself favor a panentheist model, in which the whole universe exists within the divine reality, the reality within which – as Saint Paul says – "we live and move and have our being."

So now you are a pantheist.

Just as I thought. Anything but orthodox Catholic.

So, if the whole universe exists in God, and evil exists in the universe, then evil exists in God? How do you escape this syllogism. Or do you buy into it? Do you believe that evil is present in God?

 

[grannymh]

Tonyrey, not scientific evidence. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. That’s barking up the wrong tree!

So, what should ordinary folk do when they sense the presence of a Supernatural Being?

 

[StAnastasia]

So now you are a pantheist.

If you think I’m a pantheist, that makes you an illiterate.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

StAnastasia

Tonyrey, not scientific evidence. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. That’s barking up the wrong tree!

But if science is in the universe, and the universe is in God, why can’t science sense the existence of God?

 

[StAnastasia]

Are you New Age?

I’m not sure what you mean by “New Age.” (I did have a birthday recently.) Do you think Saint Paul was “New Age”?