Those blind and stubborn scientists!

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Spock said:
Really? So you don’t think that the sustaining cause makes the concept of laws of nature superfluous? What is the relevance of having independent laws of nature, if God MUST sustain everything in existence? Or conversely, why does God need to pay attention to all the existing atoms, if the laws of nature are sufficient to “maintain” them? One of them is not necessary. According to you, which one? And if both are “needed”, how do you explain that? Get down to the details.
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I suggest you study some metaphysics, e.g. read the book Aquinas by Edward Feser (cheap and relatively short, available for example at Amazon). Then everything should be clear. It has to do with act and potency, with “esse” (Being itself) and “actus essendi” (act of being) – for details, see there. You don’t have to agree with what you read, but it will make clear some of the philosophical thinking that underlies Church teaching.
 
The entire physical universe represents a pattern. Given the laws of thermodynamics we understand that given the starting state of a system we can accurately predict the state of that system at any point along the trajectory of it’s existence. Therefore the pattern of the universe at this instant, and every instant is entailed in the starting state of the universe. The pattern of the universe at any given instant entails an uncountable number of other patterns which appear to us as the various physical phenomenon, reasoning, our own interactions, etc. It seems ludicrous to consider the idea that it is random. Further, such a random event would preclude reason as rational since even thoughts would be random and therefore one cannot use reason to argue that it is random. It’s either design or nothing. One cannot even argue the case of randomness without contradicting their own argument.
 
Spock said:
They just can’t get over their ridiculous obsession to find natural explanations for natural phenomena. They simply disregard the best, most economical and simplest “explanation” of all: “An unknowable being, using inexplicable means made everything somehow happen”. And how could anything be “natural”, if everything was created? We have a perfectly valid word: “artifical”, which is the one we should use for created things. “Natural” things would “simply” exist. But they are just a figment of our imagination.

Even those scientists who are otherwise deeply religious suffer from this misguided approach just like their atheistic peers. They shamelessly conduct their research as if there were no God, as if they would gain anything by closing their eyes and pretending that there is a nature, and there are laws of nature. Of course we know that they are just fooling themselves. As it is stated in the infallible dogmas: 69: God keeps all created things in existence. (De fide.) If God’s attention would wander for a split second, the whole Universe would crumble into nonexistence. There is no “gravity”, of course. If God would not meticulously keep the planets on their orbit, they would just wander off into some random direction. Those beautiful snowflakes! What an intricate design they exhibit. How could some random, blind, purposeless process come up with such perfect symmetry? And not two of them are the same!

Poor, blind scientists. 🙂 Oops… wait. Does not the word “explanation” imply understanding? Imply an insight into “how” something happens? Obviously not according to those (quite numerous posters) who scorn “physicalism” and “materialism”, who repeatedly say that scientists are intentionally stubborn to even contemplate the idea of God.
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Really???
 
buffalo said:
So your contention is the photo I provided is a wind-wave configuration? You might as well believe in the FSM.
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I said it could have been. Or a kid could have played in the sand without any purpose in mind, and it was just something he made randomly.
buffalo said:
We were discussing the odds of something being designed or the result of chance or necessity. You never did answer the recognized chance/design threshold value.

What value do you place on this threshold?
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That is the point! There is no such threshold. You look at something and if you find it “familiar” you think that is was designed. But that does not guarantee that it was designed. On the other hand something could have been designed but it is so far out from our familiar environment, that you cannot recognize it as “designed”.

This is what it boils down to: You think that looking at ONE sample you can make inferences about its “probability”. What you exposed with this assumption is your total ignorance about probabilities. You need to learn about probabilities before you can engage in a conversation about it.
 
Al_Moritz said:
I suggest you study some metaphysics, e.g. read the book Aquinas by Edward Feser (cheap and relatively short, available for example at Amazon). Then everything should be clear. It has to do with act and potency, with “esse” (Being itself) and “actus essendi” (act of being) – for details, see there. You don’t have to agree with what you read, but it will make clear some of the philosophical thinking that underlies Church teaching.
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Sorry. Been there, done it. I was hoping to hear something from you. Just because some old guy (Aquinas or Aristotele) came up with some nonsensical terminology it is not a good reason to stick to it.
 
danserr said:
In my first lottery example. If out of a billion, billion, billion, white ping pong balls with only 36 black balls mixed in, I reached in 12 times and 12 times drew out 12 black balls, would you think that was the result of chance or that something was up?
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Ths is the point which shows that you have no idea what probabilities are. There is ONLY one draw of those ping-pong balls, and you have NO idea how many white or black balls are there. Still you attempt to make inferences about the probability (odds or chance) of the outcome.
danserr said:
  • John Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford, 1986)
  • John Leslie, :The Pr-requisites of Life in out Universe," Newton and the New Direction in Science (1998)
  • Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers (New York, 2000).
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I started to look at some. They admit that it is all assumptions piled upon conjectures and nothing more. The number of those constants is disputed, there is no global, over-all theory. And of course, no one can know if those values would be different, then what kind of an alternative universe would “pop up”.

It is just another example that people hop on some new conjecture and start to wave the flag: “You see, science proves God!”. Pitiful, really.
 
Douglas Adams came up with this wonderful analogy for (against? ;)) the “design argument”:

“…imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be all right, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
 
Spock said:
Ths is the point which shows that you have no idea what probabilities are. There is ONLY one draw of those ping-pong balls, and you have NO idea how many white or black balls are there. Still you attempt to make inferences about the probability (odds or chance) of the outcome.

…
Pitiful, really.
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The only pitiful thing here is your dogmatic materialism closed to all the evidence (even the scientific evidence), and your repeated refusal to engage my posts.

I told you in the above example that there are a billion, billion, billion white balls and a few dozen black. And you ignored my other examples. I gave the names of predominant (the biggest names in the field) physicists and cosmologists who admit to the fine-tuning and show that the fine-tuning really is incredibly improbable. You may (blindly and desperately) accuse me of ignorance on probability (and others reading must draw their own conclusions), but you cannot accuse Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose (neither of them theists) of not knowing it. And I and they have shown how one draw alone still allows us to discuss the improbability of the outcome. Like much of my post, you have ignored it.
I started to look at some. They admit that it is all assumptions piled upon conjectures and nothing more.
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If this is what you got out of those things, then I doubt you seriously did much looking at them. Even if one or two qualities or constants are under disupute, (name 1 and why) the fine-tuning is widely admitted, hence the reason so many atheists feel the need to invent a mythical multiverse to try to explain the fine-tuning away. Such is their desperation to reconcile the fine-tuning with a God-less universe.

You remind me of an atheist of whom Chesterton spoke around 1933, “Dean Inge, who has been lecturing the orthodox for years on their stern duty of accepting all scientific discoveries, positively wailed aloud over the new and tactless scientific discovery (the end of the universe) and; practically implored the scientific discoverers to go away and discover something different.”
 
danserr said:
You remind me of an atheist of whom Chesterton spoke around 1933, “Dean Inge, who has been lecturing the orthodox for years on their stern duty of accepting all scientific discoveries, positively wailed aloud over the new and tactless scientific discovery (the end of the universe) and; practically implored the scientific discoverers to go away and discover something different.”
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Yes, atheists are firmly on the side of science – until science is not on their side. How convenient – and intellectually dishonest.
 
Spock said:
Douglas Adams came up with this wonderful analogy for (against? ;)) the “design argument”:

“…imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be all right, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
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Just because we could not distinguish between a randomly formed universe that just happened to result in this state of affairs, from a designed universe that resulted in this state of affairs, is no basis for accepting the ludicrous. After all, the reasonable man doesn’t find an ornate sandcastle and think it more likely the result of the waves than an artists design. He only does so if he really want’s to deny the artist exists. It’s an irrational position to hold.:rolleyes:
 
Spock said:
I said it could have been. Or a kid could have played in the sand without any purpose in mind, and it was just something he made randomly.

That is the point! There is no such threshold. You look at something and if you find it “familiar” you think that is was designed. But that does not guarantee that it was designed. On the other hand something could have been designed but it is so far out from our familiar environment, that you cannot recognize it as “designed”.

This is what it boils down to: You think that looking at ONE sample you can make inferences about its “probability”. What you exposed with this assumption is your total ignorance about probabilities. You need to learn about probabilities before you can engage in a conversation about it.
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The recognized threshold is 10 to the 150th.
 
warpspeedpetey said:
Just because we could not distinguish between a randomly formed universe that just happened to result in this state of affairs, from a designed universe that resulted in this state of affairs, is no basis for accepting the ludicrous. After all, the reasonable man doesn’t find an ornate sandcastle and think it more likely the result of the waves than an artists design. He only does so if he really want’s to deny the artist exists. It’s an irrational position to hold.:rolleyes:
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One day I bought a deck of cards and when I emptied them on the table they…
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ4WNKktUPEjEAplyXS0yCLJ4_f-TuwDtbPCLjw48XCjRj1aOf9aw
formed a house of cards! You believe me right? 😃
 
Spock said:
Sorry. Been there, done it. I was hoping to hear something from you. Just because some old guy (Aquinas or Aristotele) came up with some nonsensical terminology it is not a good reason to stick to it.
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Nonsensical terminology? that gives away that you have never “been there, (or) done it.”

you might want to take on Morowit’z offer of reading Feser’s book or you can visit the informative web site by the author himself:edwardfeser.blogspot.com/
 
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