Creation vs. Evolution

[DFT_Dave]

Doesn't seem to relate to my comments. :nono:

Different atoms, arranged differently. Similar gross structures, but differences nonetheless.

How do I know if the atoms in my head are right or wrong?

How do you know if the atoms in your head are right or wrong?

--Dave

 

[gcthomas]

How do I know if the atoms in my head are right or wrong?

How do you know if the atoms in your head are right or wrong?

--Dave

We have to make a judgement on that. The most reliable way to do that which has ever been developed is the set of techniques and methods for avoiding self deception known as the scientific method. It is the method used in criminal courts. It is what we all use day to day if were sensible.

 

[alwight]

Communication is information from someone to someone else. Communication is not just letters, visible symbols but also recognizable sounds that are highly organized and the basis for logic.

Communication is rather more than a deliberate person to person transfer of information Dave, most things can give off signals that can be information communicated just by their mere existence.

In atheism everything is nature, I am nature. There is no distinction between what is and what is not "temporal", what is moral and what is not, everything is temporal, everything is changing. Everything is made up of particles that come and go, universes come and go, we come and go, ultimately from no where to no where. There is no way to truly understand how the universe or life began. Causes logically can't come from no where, hence the impossibility of trying to understand how the universe or life began.

No, atheism is only about not believing in any gods, not a claim that gods don't exist nor that the material is all there is, nor that some things will never be explained, even if such is presumed to be that way until it is shown to be otherwise.

In basic theism there is is God and what is not. There are important distinctions between what is eternal and what is temporal, what is moral and what is immoral, what is infinite and what is finite, what is rational and what is irrational. In theism we have a beginning point to the universe and ourselves that has a relationship with what is eternal without contradiction, the second basic rule of logic and communication. In theism we are not just impersonal matter or the projection of an impersonal singular world soul. I am a "personal finite", intelligent/rational, moral/volitional/free being created in the image of a "personal infinite" intelligent/rational, moral/volitional/free being. God has his own eternal personal identity, we have our own temporal personal identity.

--Dave

Does believing that actually explain anything or is it just something nicer to believe than a possibly harsher reality?

See my post #2032

How is it then that the atoms in your head don't agree with the atoms in my head?

Why should they, I'm me not you?

Is there a failure in nature to communicate the same accurate information into all heads that nature is all there is and ever has been?

--Dave

We don't normally deal in absolutes, we perceive things in our own way. Because I believe something is true doesn't make it an absolute truth, and neither does your belief in a God make a God any more true.
Truth however can be reasonably established from factual evidence, not just a personal belief. If we both can see and feel an elephant in the room then an elephant being in the room is true as far as we are concerned. Someone outside might not believe either of us of course.
But if you tell me that there is an elephant in the room that I can see no evidence of, should I just believe you regardless of my own senses?

 

[DFT_Dave]

We have to make a judgement on that. The most reliable way to do that that has ever been developed is the set of techniques and methods to avoid self deception known as the scientific method. It is the method used in criminal courts. It is what we all use day to day if were sensible.

Seems all you know is science.

If all we know is through the movement of atoms in our head that have been programed by the environment we have personally experienced then we have no reason to believe that what we know is anymore true then anyone else's view of what they think is true.

As an atheist you can't legitimately say that anything you believe to be true is actually, in fact, for everyone to know, absolutely true.

You certainly can't say, what is in fact, not true.

I can understand why you don't believe in God or creation, and why you avoid my post #2032, it's not in the atoms in your head to understand such things.

--Dave

 

[DFT_Dave]

Communication is rather more than a deliberate person to person transfer of information Dave, most things can give off signals that can be information communicated just by their mere existence.

No, atheism is only about not believing in any gods, not a claim that gods don't exist nor that the material is all there is, nor that some things will never be explained, even if such is presumed to be that way until it is shown to be otherwise.

Does believing that actually explain anything or is it just something nicer to believe than a possibly harsher reality?

Why should they, I'm me not you?

We don't normally deal in absolutes, we perceive things in our own way. Because I believe something is true doesn't make it an absolute truth, and neither does your belief in a God make a God any more true.

Truth however can be reasonably established from factual evidence, not just a personal belief. If we both can see and feel an elephant in the room then an elephant being in the room is true as far as we are concerned. Someone outside might not believe either of us of course.

But if you tell me that there is an elephant in the room that I can see no evidence of, should I just believe you regardless of my own senses?

For you to say that atheism is only about not believing in gods is absolutely not true. Not believing in gods is the same thing as saying that in your own thinking, there is no God.

Saying so is merely an attempt to avoid the logical conclusion of a falsifiable world view.

That's why the Bible says, "the fool has said in his heart there is no God." A fool is one who refuses to use reason and has become irrational in what he believes to be, or not be, true.

--Dave

 

[alwight]

For you to say that atheism is only about not believing in gods is absolutely not true. Not believing in gods is the same thing as saying that in your own thinking, there is no God.

No it isn't, and I don't know for sure that gods don't exist, but atheism is simply to be without belief in gods, it's not a declaration of knowledge that none exist. I am agnostic and atheistic.

Saying so is merely an attempt to avoid the logical conclusion of a falsifiable world view.

No, it's simply the truth. I think that anyone who either claims to have knowledge that a God or gods do or don't exist is probably deluding themselves.
If otoh I were to see reasonable evidence of a god then I would happily adjust my thinking accordingly, but currently I don't believe in any, which makes me a non-believer in gods, an atheist.

That's why the Bible says, "the fool has said in his heart there is no God." A fool is one who refuses to use reason and has become irrational in what he believes to be, or not be, true.

--Dave

Sorry but if that makes it harder for some guy called Paul and those who adhere to his every word to call me "fool" then so be it. If your God exists and wants to discretely allow me to know of His existence then He would know how to do it, I'm not about to deny it. What I won't do is believe because somebody else thinks that a particular god exists therefore I should believe in his god too.

 

[DFT_Dave]

No it isn't, and I don't know for sure that gods don't exist, but atheism is simply to be without belief in gods, it's not a declaration of knowledge that none exist. I am agnostic and atheistic.

No, it's simply the truth. I think that anyone who either claims to have knowledge that a God or gods do or don't exist is probably deluding themselves.

If otoh I were to see reasonable evidence of a god then I would happily adjust my thinking accordingly, but currently I don't believe in any, which makes me a non-believer in gods, an atheist.

Sorry but if that makes it harder for some guy called Paul and those who adhere to his every word to call me "fool" then so be it. If your God exists and wants to discretely allow me to know of His existence then He would know how to do it, I'm not about to deny it. What I won't do is believe because somebody else thinks that a particular god exists therefore I should believe in his god too.

I grew up a young atheist, on basics. I did not believe in the existence of God, the world had evolved and all Bible stories were myths, including the story of Christ.

When I was about 15 my Dad and Mom became born again Christians and we started going to church. I began to think that if there was a God who helped ordinary people like my parents then I could believe in that. A church full of hypocrites was not convincing but I could not deny that my Dad was a very changed man.

I decided to put this to the test so one night I prayed my first prayer. I said out loud, God, if you exist show me. God answered my prayer. My personal experience is not proof of God's existence for anyone else, but I have no doubt that if anyone wants to know on a personal level if God exists that God will prove himself in a personal way.

You said "If your God exists and wants to discretely allow me to know of His existence then He would know how to do it, I'm not about to deny it." I am making that our prayer together that God might show you that he exists.

--Dave

 

[alwight]

You said "If your God exists and wants to discretely allow me to know of His existence then He would know how to do it, I'm not about to deny it." I am making that our prayer together that God might show you that he exists.

--Dave

Thanks Dave.
However, It would rather surprise me if God would be inclined to help me to understand through prayer but for some reason didn't want to before now. Nor would it be particularly discrete if prayer were ever to be given the credit for anyone's subsequent conversion, not that that would be likely to happen here I suspect.
Call me a cynic but I'm sure that unlikely things have happened on occasion after prayer that were thought of and remembered as attributable, while all the others are forgotten, when really only chance was at work.

 

[6days]

How do I know if the atoms in my head are right or wrong?

How do you know if the atoms in your head are right or wrong?
--Dave

And why do those atoms have thoughts?

 

[JosephR]

And why do those atoms have thoughts?

Indeed they would have had to make their own observer to react and act differently too, very odd indeed.


Posted from the TOL App!

 

[DFT_Dave]

Thanks Dave.
However, It would rather surprise me if God would be inclined to help me to understand through prayer but for some reason didn't want to before now. Nor would it be particularly discrete if prayer were ever to be given the credit for anyone's subsequent conversion, not that that would be likely to happen here I suspect.
Call me a cynic but I'm sure that unlikely things have happened on occasion after prayer that were thought of and remembered as attributable, while all the others are forgotten, when really only chance was at work.

Biochemist Jacques Monod said, “Man is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity out of which he emerged only by chance”. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre concluded, “Man is absurd”. Novelist Samuel Beckett wrote in understandable despaired, “How am I, as a temporal being imprisoned in time and space to escape from my imprisonment, when I know that outside space and time lies nothing, and that I, in the ultimate depths of my reality am nothing also”.

In games of chance the house always wins. The odds of this impersonal mindless uncaring universe maintaining a personal thinking caring being are zero.

Sartre had it backwards, man is not absurd, the idea that the an impersonal mindless uncaring universe created us, or organized anything, "by chance" is what is absurd.

You're not really open to the existence of God. Calling yourself an agnostic and saying "I don't know for sure that gods don't exists" is obviously disingenuous. You would simply regard God speaking to anyone and yourself a "delusion" and any answer to pray "chance". You have no test by which to find an answer to the question of God's existence, do you?

Those atoms that are moving around in your head, what moves them? Chance?

--Dave

 

[MichaelCadry]

Dear DFT_Dave,

Thanks, all of you here for your fun and input. I'm sorry I wasn't here to help. I''ll chime in sometime when I can add to the site. Dave, you really have it together to master and contain a thread like this. It's like you, against the world. The negative world. I almost croaked a few days ago. Woke up out of my sleep. Count not breathe any air into my lungs. Just a small tad to barely keep me going. I sure don't want to go that way. Too slow. Well, I'll be back. Again Dave, thanks for keeping this alive while I was gone. I didn't have a laptop or time for one at the hospital. Those nurses and resp. techs keep you up day and night. Plus I caught a day old virus from a Forbes breach so that set me back another day.

Yes, there should be many atoms per thought, but different combos and some concentrations. Heck, we made carbon dioxide just by breathing. Quite a feat.

I'll pop in again soon. I have to go tend to some other threads too.

God Bless Your Heart, Dave,

Michael

 

[DFT_Dave]

Dear DFT_Dave,

Thanks, all of you here for your fun and input. I'm sorry I wasn't here to help. I''ll chime in sometime when I can add to the site. Dave, you really have it together to master and contain a thread like this. It's like you, against the world. The negative world. I almost croaked a few days ago. Woke up out of my sleep. Count not breathe any air into my lungs. Just a small tad to barely keep me going. I sure don't want to go that way. Too slow. Well, I'll be back. Again Dave, thanks for keeping this alive while I was gone. I didn't have a laptop or time for one at the hospital. Those nurses and resp. techs keep you up day and night. Plus I caught a day old virus from a Forbes breach so that set me back another day.

Yes, there should be many atoms per thought, but different combos and some concentrations. Heck, we made carbon dioxide just by breathing. Quite a feat.

I'll pop in again soon. I have to go tend to some other threads too.

God Bless Your Heart, Dave,

Michael

Thanks Michael,

Get well fast.

--Dave

 

[alwight]

You're not really open to the existence of God. Calling yourself an agnostic and saying "I don't know for sure that gods don't exists" is obviously disingenuous. You would simply regard God speaking to anyone and yourself a "delusion" and any answer to pray "chance". You have no test by which to find an answer to the question of God's existence, do you?

No I'm not particularly open to the existence of any gods while you imo are just the same apart from one specific God. All the more reason for any extant god to come through loud and clear afaic.
No I am not being dishonest to claim I don't know, far more dishonest would be to pretend I do.

Those atoms that are moving around in your head, what moves them? Chance?

--Dave

Ultimately I honestly don't know, but you otoh pretend you do, it seems?

 

[Ben Masada]

It is the age of the known universe, as far as the question of "was there a 'before' the big bang" we don't know. I think most astrophysicists lean to no (in the sense there is no north of the north pole) but there are also hypotheses that allow for in some sense a 'before'.

Could the universe cause itself? Maybe, why not? Could it be uncaused? Maybe, why not? Limits we put on causality in time do not necessarily apply to the beginning of time itself. Quantum mechanics certainly implies that our previous understanding of these issues is not necessarily as clear cut outside the world/conditions we experience.

No, and I'll be glad to explain to you why the universe could not have caused itself to exist. For the simple reason that to cause itself to exist it had to exist to do so and if it already existed, it did not need to cause itself to exist because it already existed. This is simple a logical statement.

Now, the universe could not be uncaused because since it is composed of matter and matter is already a proven fact to have had a beginning with the big bang, it is only obvious that some thing that preceded it caused it to exist. And to end with another logical statement, there is no created thing without a creator. That calls for the Primal Cause that enjoys no beginning and no end.

 

[Ben Masada]

You are mixing up events within the universe with hypothetical events without. Yes, events within the universe had a beginning, since there was an earliest event. But that is not the same as saying the space-time arrangement of the universe had a beginning as measured from some perspective outside the universe. Time is a property of the internal workings of matter in the universe itself, so I am not clear what you mean by the universe itself having a primal cause: the space-time of the universe exists and has events progressing within it, but time in that sense does not make sense outside.

What can having a cause before the universe mean except for before time? Before time, naturally, is a nonsense, and so the lack of a concept of time outside the universe plays merry hell with naïve ideas of causation.

SO, without a rational idea of causation without the universe existing, what need is there for a primal cause?

Space and time had their beginning with the beginning of the universe as they came to exist as accidents of matter which is the composition of the universe. They did not exist outside the universe because to the Primal Cause is not subject to time or space. What I mean by Prime Cause is what caused the beginning of the universe as the universe could not have existed forever or caused itself to exist.

I agree with your saying that time and space do not make sense as existing outside the universe because there is nothing to think about to be outside the universe apart from the Primal Cause that is not subject to time or space as It is not composed of matter which is what causes time and space to exist.

The Primal Cause outside the universe is needed to protect Logic from collapsing about the existence of matter that could not have caused itself to exist.

 

[Ben Masada]

I wouldn't call God "Primal", but the universe that we live in requires a cause, just not a "timeless" one.

--Dave

Oh no Dave, "Primal" is a reference to the beginning of what It has caused. The first thing created. For instance when God created man, He blessed him saying "Be fertile and multiply fill the earth and subdue it." (Gen. 1:28) The Primal Cause gave origin to man and from then on man evolved to what we are today. The same with regards to the universe. The Primal Cause gave origin to the universe and consequently, expansion took care of the enlargement of the universe as it has been demonstrated that it expands at quite a fast rate. Interesting to notice that expansion in these terms became in the mind of Einstein of all people as "God at His work of Creation." He had been working on the expansion of the universe when he was asked if he believed in God and his answer was that all his life was trying to catch God at His work of creation.

 

[alwight]

Now, the universe could not be uncaused because since it is composed of matter and matter is already a proven fact to have had a beginning with the big bang, it is only obvious that some thing that preceded it caused it to exist.

It's not true to claim it is known that a singularity wasn't simply the state of an always existing (bouncing) universe at the time or that another sequence of events (e.g. brane theory) hadn't somehow by chance resulted in a big bang. We just can't know that our particular universe was ever meant to be or indeed was intended to be created.
Perhaps an unknown or a divine uncaused cause of some kind did kick everything off, perhaps billions of universes ago. But our existence, here in this universe at this time, could well be just as un-designed, un-supervised and un-created as if no such distant original unknown or even divine uncaused cause ever did exist, whatever it was.
The absolute ultimate origin of everything is simply a paradox and an unknown, supposing a god doesn't help to supply rational answers or change anything.

 

[DFT_Dave]

No, and I'll be glad to explain to you why the universe could not have caused itself to exist. For the simple reason that to cause itself to exist it had to exist to do so and if it already existed, it did not need to cause itself to exist because it already existed. This is simple a logical statement.

Now, the universe could not be uncaused because since it is composed of matter and matter is already a proven fact to have had a beginning with the big bang, it is only obvious that some thing that preceded it caused it to exist. And to end with another logical statement, there is no created thing without a creator. That calls for the Primal Cause that enjoys no beginning and no end.

Well said Ben. :up:

--Dave

 

[6days]

. We just can't know that our particular universe was ever meant to be or indeed was intended to be created.

We can know.....
The One who created our universe, created it in a way that He can be known, by those who seek Him. Astronomy, physics biology etc all become forms of worship.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vg5qDljEw7Q


Carl Sagan called science informed worship. Sadly, it seems he died worshipping the creation rather than the Creator.
Biblical creationists... even theistic evolutionists such as some at Biologos say science is ultimately worship of God.