191 replies to this topic

[TheRedStranger]

 

So far I have seen only seen insults and assertions from my opponents - neither careful nor considerate explanations, sources, evidence, or any simulacrum to rational argumentation.

Erm, what about mine?

 

 

No! You've been wonderful.   I respect your kindness.

[TheRedStranger]

Sir Stranger,
I only argued with you about your bit on Absolute Truth. I applauded your way of dealing with alex, where are the insults?

Also, MAJOR SPOILERS, the Qur'an is just the bible with a few skewed words. They have the same stories (Moses's bit is EXACTLY THE SAME), same commandments but worded differently, and basically all the same bits. Only difference is, the Qur'an says christians, jews, AND muslims go to heaven, no questions asked.

 

That was applause? The internet lacks a basic tool of reading people. Aural Tone. What is genuine and what is heated can be confused for sarcasm if it is spoken in just simple sentences. If the "religous hatred bit" wasn't aimed at me, then I see your point.

 

If so take my humble apologies, and lets make sure no more needless hatches get unburied in this minefield of a thread.

 

Just lighten up on the "Christies" terminology. It's like sayin n**** or f**, it's not going to make this thread a better place. Plus, I don't want to stumble into needless trouble.

 

About the Qu'ran...I've been reading it and - yeah - it's a bit complex than that. But that is for another time. We could totally veer off course on that subject.

 

 I don't know about you...but I gotta go to bed soon - after reading two fan-fics, write a chapter, and then write review after reading some PM's . So good night. And this is my day off...

[brmsort]

Please excuse this tangent but again I want to answer a point brought up. If we want to continue comparing and contrasting religions or just discussing religion itself, we might want to make such a thread separate from this one.

Reed, there is one big point of contention between Islam and Christianity -- or the Quran and the Bible -- that I know exists without having read it: the deity of Jesus. The Godhood of Jesus is central to Christian doctrine, collapsing it should the point be removed. Islam is Unitarian. And to admit Jesus' Godhood would undermine Mohammed's supremacy as a prophet, collapsing that system. So they are not basically the same (yes I have heard the Torah is mostly or all intact), but that they are on a basic level different. It would be like saying that normal fats are basically the same as trans fats because the chemicals contain the same elements. However they are really quite different because of how the molecular bonds are. Small differences can be significant.

[furrykef]

In the end you have to have something with aseity when it comes to an ontological argument, lest you fall into infinite regression, which is a largely disproven doctrine throughout physics and cosmology, especially given the second law of thermodynamics for example, which I can simplify with an analogy:  Imagine the universe is a car and that car has a finite amount of gas (useable energy) if the car itself was eternal (timeless) the car would be out of gas already an eon ago! This is just one common sense argument against this, now for some observational evidence.

I don't think the laws of thermodynamics apply to the origin of the universe. They are rules that are derived from observation of a universe that already exists. We don't exactly have observational data about the origin of the universe, so the rules say nothing about it.
 

So far the eternality of the universe alone has been confirmed as non-credible. It is a common scientific knowledge that Edwin Hubble discovered the universe had an origin in the early 1900's by observing the expansion of the universe and discovering Hubble's Law and Constant. This verified The Catholic priest Georges-Henri Lemaitre's theories on a cosmic genesis (a.k.a  to many this is called the Big Bang). Einstein later helped verify this, though he at first disagreed with him as did many others (http://www.astronomy...cosmolgy/s2.htm). Given this general revelation there has to have been something before there was an universe and by proxy time itself. Seeing how time is the progression of events within the universe, there has to be something that has eternality (something that is above the influences of the progression of events) there in order to create the universe.

Well, I'm certainly not disputing that there was a Big Bang. I'm only disputing the implications. I mean, is it even meaningful to ask what existed "before" the Big Bang, or what exists "outside" the universe? Stephen Hawking once said it's like asking, "What lies north of the north pole?"

Anyway, you seem to be making a variation of the "first cause" argument: Every event has a cause. The creation of the universe is an event. Therefore the creation of the universe has a cause. Let us call this first cause "God". Therefore, God exists.

The problem with the above argument is that it proves nothing; it merely gives the first cause a name, which was arbitrarily decided to be "God". It might as well have been "Alex", or "Joe", or "Foobity", or "Satan", or "Xyzzy". It certainly doesn't say anything about whether this "first cause" was sentient.
 

Therefore, since the universe is proven finite, and the laws of physics and mere probability cannot create the information and order necessary for life, we must scientifically deduce it was from an intelligent source

Hold your horses there! "Scientifically"? I think that's a misuse of the word "science". I'd accept "logically", though (not that I agree with your conclusion ).

The laws of thermodynamics do not state that order cannot come from chaos. On a global scale (i.e., across the entire universe and across time), it's true: entropy can only increase. But locally it's a different matter. Consider the sun and the earth. Locally, it is currently an ordered system: the sun provides energy, and the various processes on the earth take that energy and use it to produce and sustain life. But remember that the sun is not an infinite source of energy; one day it will go out and any life remaining in the solar system will die. In the long term, the entropy only increases; there will be more entropy then than there was before the sun existed.
 

Abiogenesis remains speculatory in nature, and its impossible probabilities are more than absurd.

You seem to forget that the earth is billions of years old, and that there is an incomprehensibly large number of star systems in the universe. Improbability is no obstacle. If there is a one in a quadrillion chance (an astronomically tiny number) for life to form by random chance in a particular star system, the probability that there is at least one star system in the universe where this has happened is still virtually 100%.
 

As for your comment about The Blindwatch Maker how can one say they have not truly studied a certain series of arguments properly then claim to say they have never been refuted?  How do you know, if you don't – well - know?

Well, I didn't say they have never been refuted, only that as far as I know they haven't been. Of course, telling me that some refutation might exist somewhere is going to be far less effective than actually showing me one.
 

This is an argument from authority

I actually predicted that someone would make this argument -- but it's a misuse of "argument from authority". An argument from authority would be, "This argument is correct because Richard Dawkins made it", which is not what I'm saying. The term could also be applied more loosely to mean something like, "This argument has more weight because Richard Dawkins made it", which is sometimes valid (if a random person on the street says "a giant space monster is going to eat us all" and a renowned astronomer says "no it isn't", who are you going to believe?) -- but I'm not saying that here either. What I am saying is merely, "Here is what I consider a solid argument that happened to be presented by Richard Dawkins."

As for what those arguments actually are, here is one that I could recall off the top of my head. The "criticism" section of that article shows that, yes, some issue can be taken with the argument, but if you read it carefully you'll notice that none of the criticism actually disproves Dawkins's central point, namely that cumulative random selection is far, far more effective at producing a usable result than purely random selection. Surely the origin of life and the subsequent evolution thereof is much closer to cumulative random selection than purely random selection, yet time and again I hear cries from the creationist camp that the idea that life evolved from "random chance" is laughably "improbable" with little to back this up.

[Reed Teran]

I once heard a funny argument between a Protestant and an atheist.
Atheist: so God is all-powerful and can do anything, right?
Protestant: sure can!
Atheist: so he can make a boulder that not even he can lift?
Protestant: ummm...
Atheist: that would prove. He isn't all powerful!
Protestant:....you're going to hell.
Atheist: already got an express ticket.


I say we all convert to Unitology! Necromorphs for everyone! There's even free t-shirts!

[ZanetheWolf]

........Nah, I'm good.

 

But holy crap, do I feel out of place in this topic, mostly because I'm just a naive teen. And all this talk with all these terms and stuff makes it super confusing for me. 

 

But also by that logic Reed, God could make that bolder as light as a feather for him again. But a reason that God would do that is beyond anything I'd be able to understand.

 

Here's my thoughts overall: 

 

Science

FRIGGIN GOD IS REAL, YOU'LL ALL GO TO FRIGGIN HELL!!! Well, Science is logic, explaining why and how things are. It can give great answers to questions that we have about the world, the Universe, etc. I think that science works well in the universe that we live in. It's true, or it's an educated guess, with evidence surrounding almost every corner.

 

Religion (THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE)

I am a Christian who is open to the ideas of Science. I will respect anyone and everyone that has a different look on what I believe. I will never say you are going to hell. I believe that all people will go to heaven, even the worst of us human beings, who are closest to God. (Or even furthest from.) 

 

I believe that both are acceptable in the same spectrum of beliefs, or factual things, if you will. I have faith in the believe that God is real and all that. But the fact that is totally undeniable by anyone is Science.

 

Both Win In My Book.

[brmsort]

I once heard a funny argument between a Protestant and an atheist.
Atheist: so God is all-powerful and can do anything, right?
Protestant: sure can!
Atheist: so he can make a boulder that not even he can lift?
Protestant: ummm...
Atheist: that would prove. He isn't all powerful!
Protestant:....you're going to hell.
Atheist: already got an express ticket.


I say we all convert to Unitology! Necromorphs for everyone! There's even free t-shirts!

 

I am all for free Tees! But about the "joke" it supposes that God can do something self-contradictory. All-powerful does not mean that He can do the nonsensical. He can't make a round square or a circle with corners.

On a similar note, the Bible even admits that He cannot lie because it would violate the very definition and nature of Himself. Theologians call this the simplicity of God, that He can only act consistent with His nature. Therefore any action that would be "un-Godlike" is impossible for God. If only the poor Protestant in the joke understood that.

[furrykef]

The game Afterlife (where you run Heaven and Hell, but not Earth, SimCity-style) had a humorous take on this, with both realms populated with lots of "rocks too heavy to lift" (basically non-removable obstacles). Pretty funny until you notice how much these things make it a pain to design your cities. The game's worth a play for a while; just don't expect to have the patience to actually win.

[FinInfinite]

 just don't expect to have the patience to actually win.

Challenge Accepted.

[TheRedStranger]

The game Afterlife (where you run Heaven and Hell, but not Earth, SimCity-style) had a humorous take on this, with both realms populated with lots of "rocks too heavy to lift" (basically non-removable obstacles). Pretty funny until you notice how much these things make it a pain to design your cities. The game's worth a play for a while; just don't expect to have the patience to actually win.

 

Hey Kef, before I make a responce to your above counter-argument (and read the resources you have given me). Can you tell me if you have read my first few posts on this topic carefully? I think it already covers some of your objections. Perhaps you should entertain it first.

 

 Let me just say this is kind of like talking in the midst of a noisy crowd. I think it's too easy for both of us to misread each other (Imagine we were holding a debate in the middle of about four other people's conversations, all of them having the same voices). As you have said you kind've jumped into this discussion en media race. Please read the above posts in which I discussed gradualism and Macroevolution if you haven't already.

 

 Also might I point out that it would be best to start aknew between us when it comes to this issue. I want to hear your side of the story instead of just having you counter-quarreling with my objections to Alex. I think it would limit any confusion for the readers and get down to the heart of our own differing perceptions and objections. What do you say? If so, I am going to do this interview style, as to facilitate a better understanding between our differing terms and keep a tight hold on the topic.

[furrykef]

To be honest, I don't think I'm gonna have the energy to debate this properly right now. Maybe some other time. ^^;

[TheRedStranger]

To be honest, I don't think I'm gonna have the energy to debate this properly right now. Maybe some other time. ^^;

 

No one should be forced to get into this. I have a lot to say about what you have said thus far, but the last thing I want is to exhaust you. When we get tired, we get sloppy. I recommend in the mean time you study these sources, and I will study the one you gave me.

 

To be honest I get tired to, and I have been studying this in depth since I was 14 (that's seven years). I'm soldly grounded in my position, but being able to communicate all this to a crowd of people can be tiresome hastle (especially when a member of the crowd is grows hostile). 

 

 And if you want to discuss this privately next time without an audience, I would happily oblige. Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, seeing how objections can be real personal and there is always the risk of someone butting in and just trolling the place up.

 

Just know that Hawking is pressuming his own position with in his questions, that universe somehow came from nothing (if the source is actual and contextual accurate). We must study our origins for they give us a clue to our heading and trajectory in life, if not people would not be studying history, genology, and ontology - for they help us make since of who we are, where we are going, and what we ought to be. It is our greatest informant in the pursuit of teleological knowledge.

 

And if I hope anything is proven here it's that Science vs. Religion is an obnoxiously false dillema epistomologically speaking.