Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Many contemporary scientists believe that universe came into being about 15 billion years ago. Despite of this fact, a clear majority of scientists in today’s world agree that universe has a beginning.
At the beginning of 20th century, scientists believed that the universe has always existed and matter-energy had always been around. That was, “The Steady-State Model.” In the last hundred years, the counter evidences have blown that model away.
1. The first evidence for the beginning of universe is its expanding process. Edwin Hubble discovered this phenomenon in 1929.
2. The second is “The Cosmic Background Radiation”. This discovery had given a fatal blow on those who want to believe in an eternal universe.
3. Third is the relative abundance of light elements in the known universe.
If the universe has a beginning then it should has a cause and that cause should be immaterial and beyond space and time. There are only two things, which can fit to explain this cause.
a. Abstract objects and
b. Embodied mind.
The problem with the abstract objects is that they are causally effete, meaning, they cannot cause anything. The laws of nature (including entire mathematics) are abstract concepts and they cannot produce any event. The rules of arithmetic state the Pattern to which all transactions with money must confirm, if only you can get hold of any money. Consequently, in one sense, the laws of nature are existent only because there exist a physical universe.
To think the laws can produce, it is like thinking that you can create real money by simply doing sums. As said by Hawkins, “it is the laws of physics, not the will of God, that provide real explanation to how the universe came into being. The big bang,” he argues, “was the inevitable consequence of these laws.”
Does that lead to the concept, if the law says; gravity controls the motion of earth around the sun so is it the gravity that endeavoured the creation of sun or other celestial objects or is it other way round. Law is descriptive and predictive but not creative. It is even worse as laws of physics cannot even cause anything to happen. It is logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being into existence.
Nonsense remains nonsense even when talked by world famous scientists.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
Stephen Hawking.
One of the outdated philosophical clichés, “who created God?” is an oblivious platitude because if there is no cause which is uncaused there simply be no existence.
Laws of physics are extremely precise to enable complex life to exist. It is exceptionally unlikely that this precision could have happened by chance. If we analyse different levels of structures in the universe then we have:
Quarks at the first level that make up the atoms
Atoms build up to make molecules
Molecules build up to make a living cell
The cells make organisms, and eventually, we end up with brains and consciousness
It is rather hard to estimate what the probability is, but it is clearly very, very unlikely that those fine tunings, which allowed this Pyramid of complexities to arise, would be there as consequence of chance.
As we look at the details of nature, one thing stands out:
This is the order, the pattern, and the symmetry. Everything in the universe has a mathematically precise structure.
As one example, consider Double helix of DNA in living beings. Try to assess how likely is it that we find a protein by chance with all the amino acids in that Pre-biotic soup interacting with each other for, say, billions of years?
“Welcome Collection” in London has a unique publication. This publication is 100 volumes long each with thousands of pages and text so small that it is barely legible. Together, these books represents only a single human genome. Only four chemicals or letters made this Genome, 3.2 billion of them. A disorder of only one letter in the sequence leads to serious illness in the living being.
Question is how common or how rare are the functional sequences of amino acids among the big space of all possible amino acids there are?
Nobel laureate, organic chemist and a leader in origin of life studies, Professor deDuve writes in his excellent book, Tour of a Living Cell,
"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one...”
Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 to 100,000 proteins active in mammalian bodies. There are some 30 animal phyla on Earth by estimation. If the genomes of each animal phylum produced 100,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the phyla (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 x 100,000) 3 million proteins in all life. Now let us consider the likelihood of these 3 million viable combinations of proteins forming by chance: Proteins are complex coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 200 amino acids. The observed range is from less than 100 amino acids per protein to greater than 1000. Twenty commonly occurring amino acids join in varying combinations to produce the proteins of life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein of 200 amino acids is 20 to the power of 200 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 200 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, approximately 10 to the power of 260 (i.e. the number one, followed by 260 zeros!). Nature has the option of choosing among the 10 to power of 260 possible proteins, the 3 million proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 254 wrong choices! Randomness cannot have been the driving force behind the success of life. Our understanding of statistics and molecular biology clearly supports the notion that there must have been a direction and a “Director” behind the success of life.
No serious scientist think that life is a matter of chance.
Some modern Darwinists defend their case by asserting that about 98 percent of our DNA is similar to that of apes and that this difference is only a few spelling mistakes. Other say, more accurate figure is no more than 95 percent. However, considering that humans have three billion DNA information in each cell, even two per cent difference is actually sixty million spelling errors. Of course, this is not error, but 2,500 pages worth of new information. After all, we do share about 50 percent of our DNA with bananas, but that doesn’t mean that we are half banana.
Entire present-day science is based on the inductive reasoning. Using the same inductive reasoning, “one can compare the information stored in DNA molecule to a software program code only much more complex.”
Bill Gates.
We know information comes only from intelligent source. When we see coded information in a DNA, the most logical thing to conclude, that too, has an intelligent source.
“… If you look at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer. And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe.”
Richard Dawkins
The R. Dawkins Foundation
R. Dawkins Answers Questions
And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge.
Ar Ruum (30)
-Verse 22-
Quran
And in the earth are neighbouring tracts, and gardens of vines, and green crops (fields etc.), and date-palms, growing out two or three from a single stem root, or otherwise (one stem root for every palm ), watered with the same water, yet some of them We make more excellent than others to eat. Verily, in these things, there are Ayat (proofs, evidences, lessons, signs) for the people who understand.
Ar Ra'd (13)
-Verse 4-
Quran
And He shows you (always) His Signs: then which of the Signs of Allah will ye deny?
Al Mu'min (40)
-Verse 81-
Quran
Nay, here are Signs self-evident in the hearts of those endowed with knowledge: and none but the unjust reject Our Signs.
Al 'Ankabuut (29)
-Verse 49-
Quran
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing in the hands of an idiot.
The intelligent designer argument uses the eye as a problematic structure for evolutionists. However given the structure of the eye is arse-to-front, just how intelligent was the designer? Evolution is not intelligent but came up a working structure and each step of its evolution bestowed advantage on the organism.
Your understanding of molecular biology and DNA is abysmal. I can't be arsed about educating you except to say, it doesn't need a God - some structural proteins and other macromolecules are self assembling.
Go chant some Koranic verses and remain in blissful ignorance.
(May 10, 2014 at 5:50 pm)Harris Wrote: Many contemporary scientists believe that universe came into being about 15 billion years ago. Despite of this fact, a clear majority of scientists in today’s world agree that universe has a beginning.
At the beginning of 20th century, scientists believed that the universe has always existed and matter-energy had always been around. That was, “The Steady-State Model.” In the last hundred years, the counter evidences have blown that model away.
1. The first evidence for the beginning of universe is its expanding process. Edwin Hubble discovered this phenomenon in 1929.
2. The second is “The Cosmic Background Radiation”. This discovery had given a fatal blow on those who want to believe in an eternal universe.
3. Third is the relative abundance of light elements in the known universe.
If the universe has a beginning then it should has a cause and that cause should be immaterial and beyond space and time. There are only two things, which can fit to explain this cause.
a. Abstract objects and
b. Embodied mind.
The problem with the abstract objects is that they are causally effete, meaning, they cannot cause anything. The laws of nature (including entire mathematics) are abstract concepts and they cannot produce any event. The rules of arithmetic state the Pattern to which all transactions with money must confirm, if only you can get hold of any money. Consequently, in one sense, the laws of nature are existent only because there exist a physical universe.
To think the laws can produce, it is like thinking that you can create real money by simply doing sums. As said by Hawkins, “it is the laws of physics, not the will of God, that provide real explanation to how the universe came into being. The big bang,” he argues, “was the inevitable consequence of these laws.”
Does that lead to the concept, if the law says; gravity controls the motion of earth around the sun so is it the gravity that endeavoured the creation of sun or other celestial objects or is it other way round. Law is descriptive and predictive but not creative. It is even worse as laws of physics cannot even cause anything to happen. It is logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being into existence.
Nonsense remains nonsense even when talked by world famous scientists.
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
Stephen Hawking.
One of the outdated philosophical clichés, “who created God?” is an oblivious platitude because if there is no cause which is uncaused there simply be no existence.
Laws of physics are extremely precise to enable complex life to exist. It is exceptionally unlikely that this precision could have happened by chance. If we analyse different levels of structures in the universe then we have:
Quarks at the first level that make up the atoms
Atoms build up to make molecules
Molecules build up to make a living cell
The cells make organisms, and eventually, we end up with brains and consciousness
It is rather hard to estimate what the probability is, but it is clearly very, very unlikely that those fine tunings, which allowed this Pyramid of complexities to arise, would be there as consequence of chance.
As we look at the details of nature, one thing stands out:
This is the order, the pattern, and the symmetry. Everything in the universe has a mathematically precise structure.
As one example, consider Double helix of DNA in living beings. Try to assess how likely is it that we find a protein by chance with all the amino acids in that Pre-biotic soup interacting with each other for, say, billions of years?
“Welcome Collection” in London has a unique publication. This publication is 100 volumes long each with thousands of pages and text so small that it is barely legible. Together, these books represents only a single human genome. Only four chemicals or letters made this Genome, 3.2 billion of them. A disorder of only one letter in the sequence leads to serious illness in the living being.
Question is how common or how rare are the functional sequences of amino acids among the big space of all possible amino acids there are?
Nobel laureate, organic chemist and a leader in origin of life studies, Professor deDuve writes in his excellent book, Tour of a Living Cell,
"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one...”
Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 to 100,000 proteins active in mammalian bodies. There are some 30 animal phyla on Earth by estimation. If the genomes of each animal phylum produced 100,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the phyla (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 x 100,000) 3 million proteins in all life. Now let us consider the likelihood of these 3 million viable combinations of proteins forming by chance: Proteins are complex coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 200 amino acids. The observed range is from less than 100 amino acids per protein to greater than 1000. Twenty commonly occurring amino acids join in varying combinations to produce the proteins of life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein of 200 amino acids is 20 to the power of 200 (i.e. 20 multiplied by itself 200 times), or in the more usual 10-based system of numbers, approximately 10 to the power of 260 (i.e. the number one, followed by 260 zeros!). Nature has the option of choosing among the 10 to power of 260 possible proteins, the 3 million proteins of which all viable life is composed. In other words, for each one correct choice, there are 10 to power of 254 wrong choices! Randomness cannot have been the driving force behind the success of life. Our understanding of statistics and molecular biology clearly supports the notion that there must have been a direction and a “Director” behind the success of life.
No serious scientist think that life is a matter of chance.
Some modern Darwinists defend their case by asserting that about 98 percent of our DNA is similar to that of apes and that this difference is only a few spelling mistakes. Other say, more accurate figure is no more than 95 percent. However, considering that humans have three billion DNA information in each cell, even two per cent difference is actually sixty million spelling errors. Of course, this is not error, but 2,500 pages worth of new information. After all, we do share about 50 percent of our DNA with bananas, but that doesn’t mean that we are half banana.
Entire present-day science is based on the inductive reasoning. Using the same inductive reasoning, “one can compare the information stored in DNA molecule to a software program code only much more complex.”
Bill Gates.
We know information comes only from intelligent source. When we see coded information in a DNA, the most logical thing to conclude, that too, has an intelligent source.
“… If you look at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer. And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe.”
Richard Dawkins
The R. Dawkins Foundation
R. Dawkins Answers Questions
And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge.
Ar Ruum (30)
-Verse 22-
Quran
And in the earth are neighbouring tracts, and gardens of vines, and green crops (fields etc.), and date-palms, growing out two or three from a single stem root, or otherwise (one stem root for every palm ), watered with the same water, yet some of them We make more excellent than others to eat. Verily, in these things, there are Ayat (proofs, evidences, lessons, signs) for the people who understand.
Ar Ra'd (13)
-Verse 4-
Quran
And He shows you (always) His Signs: then which of the Signs of Allah will ye deny?
Al Mu'min (40)
-Verse 81-
Quran
Nay, here are Signs self-evident in the hearts of those endowed with knowledge: and none but the unjust reject Our Signs.
Al 'Ankabuut (29)
-Verse 49-
Quran
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing in the hands of an idiot.
The intelligent designer argument uses the eye as a problematic structure for evolutionists. However given the structure of the eye is arse-to-front, just how intelligent was the designer? Evolution is not intelligent but came up a working structure and each step of its evolution bestowed advantage on the organism.
Your understanding of molecular biology and DNA is abysmal. I can't be arsed about educating you except to say, it doesn't need a God - some structural proteins and other macromolecules are self assembling.
Go chant some Koranic verses and remain in blissful ignorance.
May 12, 2014 at 10:48 pm (This post was last modified: May 12, 2014 at 10:53 pm by bennyboy.)
(May 12, 2014 at 10:51 am)Coffee Jesus Wrote:
(May 12, 2014 at 10:38 am)bennyboy Wrote: It is random, because that sieve is not static. It involves too many unpredictable variables: weather, for example, or giant rocks falling from the sky, or the whims of powerful individuals. None of these things are predictable, and they all serve to destabilize environmental pressures.
Suppose I role a pair of dice 1000 times. The result of each roll is random, but the sum of the outcomes is non-random because of standard deviation. In the end, I will roll seven about 167 times, and snake eyes about 28 times. In fact, that exact outcome has the most potential. The set of all possible outcomes contains more variations on that outcome than any other outcome.
That's right. But now, suppose that every roll of the dice caused changes to their geometry-- or even to the number of dice you were rolling. Can you still say that there's anything predictable about the outcome over even a few rolls? No-- you'll end up with a Butterfly Effect in all cases-- you may be able to trace a line BACKWARD through each outcome, but you will never be able to predict future states.
May 12, 2014 at 11:59 pm (This post was last modified: May 13, 2014 at 12:00 am by Coffee Jesus.)
(May 12, 2014 at 10:48 pm)bennyboy Wrote: That's right. But now, suppose that every roll of the dice caused changes to their geometry-- or even to the number of dice you were rolling. Can you still say that there's anything predictable about the outcome over even a few rolls? No-- you'll end up with a Butterfly Effect in all cases-- you may be able to trace a line BACKWARD through each outcome, but you will never be able to predict future states.
The discussion was on whether the "sieve" of natural selection is random.
(May 12, 2014 at 10:38 am)bennyboy Wrote:
(May 11, 2014 at 7:23 pm)Chas Wrote: Mutation is not the only source of variation, there is also relative frequency of alleles in the population.
The environment 'selects' what survives and reproduces. The variants that make it through that sieve determine adaptation. And that is not random.
It is random, because that sieve is not static. It involves too many unpredictable variables: weather, for example, or giant rocks falling from the sky, or the whims of powerful individuals. None of these things are predictable, and they all serve to destabilize environmental pressures.
The rolling of the dice represents natural selection acting on individuals. The sum of the outcomes represents changes in allele frequency.
(May 12, 2014 at 10:51 am)Coffee Jesus Wrote: Suppose I role a pair of dice 1000 times. The result of each roll is random, but the sum of the outcomes is non-random because of standard deviation. In the end, I will roll seven about 167 times, and snake eyes about 28 times. In fact, that exact outcome has the most potential. The set of all possible outcomes contains more variations on that outcome than any other outcome.
That's right. But now, suppose that every roll of the dice caused changes to their geometry-- or even to the number of dice you were rolling. Can you still say that there's anything predictable about the outcome over even a few rolls? No-- you'll end up with a Butterfly Effect in all cases-- you may be able to trace a line BACKWARD through each outcome, but you will never be able to predict future states.
Possibly true but I am not sure you can say it is necessarily true. Some aspects of evolution may be more predictable than you imply, particularly in response to a single change in the environment.
Ivory poaching, for example, appears to be leading to an average reduction in the size of elephant tusks. Island isolation of larger mammals appears to lead to dwarfism often enough to deny true randomness and so on.
How would you distinguish between truly random and merely very complex?
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
May 13, 2014 at 1:14 am (This post was last modified: May 13, 2014 at 1:23 am by bennyboy.)
(May 13, 2014 at 12:06 am)max-greece Wrote: How would you distinguish between truly random and merely very complex?
This is becoming a question about complex determinism vs. true randomness, which is appropriate because it draws in arguments about free will, about whether the universe is "ordered" or not, etc. It's always surprising when we accidentally stay on topic.
Is there any such thing as actual randomness, by which I mean something that cannot possibly, even hypothetically, be traced backward in a linear way or predicted? Maybe with QM, but I'm not sure how you could prove there's no hidden variable or unseen mechanism that causes a "probabilistic" function to collapse at a particular point when you attempt to take a measurement.
(May 12, 2014 at 11:59 pm)Coffee Jesus Wrote: The discussion was on whether the "sieve" of natural selection is random.
The rolling of the dice represents natural selection acting on individuals. The sum of the outcomes represents changes in allele frequency.
I felt I addressed that issue with the post just before yours. You'll have to explain what randomness means to you, and why you think real-life selection shouldn't be considered random. It seems to me that the consistency of selection depends on the stability of the environment-- something which itself I'd say is intrinsically random.
(May 13, 2014 at 12:06 am)max-greece Wrote: How would you distinguish between truly random and merely very complex?
This is becoming a question about complex determinism vs. true randomness, which is appropriate because it draws in arguments about free will, about whether the universe is "ordered" or not, etc. It's always surprising when we accidentally stay on topic.
Is there any such thing as actual randomness, by which I mean something that cannot possibly, even hypothetically, be traced backward in a linear way or predicted? Maybe with QM, but I'm not sure how you could prove there's no hidden variable or unseen mechanism that causes a "probabilistic" function to collapse at a particular point when you attempt to take a measurement.
Basically agree but with the caveat that the appearance of particles and sub-particles from nothing should, in theory, be random in respect to the universe. In other words there cannot ,theoretically be a predictive model that would be able to specify the when and where for such appearances.
As you say - QM.
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
May 13, 2014 at 1:50 pm (This post was last modified: May 13, 2014 at 2:28 pm by Harris.)
(May 10, 2014 at 6:23 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: TL : DR, but fixed your quote mine.
Ben Stein Wrote:What do think is the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics, or in evolution?
Richard Dawkins Wrote:Well, it could come about in the following way: it could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. Now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of our chemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer, and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe. But that higher intelligence would itself have had to come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable, process. It couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point.
The phrase “Well, it could come about … And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that,” is an utter guesstimate. It is just an epigram, which has no scientific value.
The phrase in bold, “if you look at the details of our chemistry … elsewhere in the universe,” is a scientific fact based on knowledge that comes through scientific discoveries.
The phrase “But that higher intelligence … it couldn’t have just jumped into existence spontaneously,” is begging the question who created God?
A scientist who is atheist, talks about Deity without using the word GOD this way. Scientific facts force every scientist to ponder over the marvels in nature. Whether to expose those thoughts with sincerity or disguise them behind unjust reasoning is the choice of that scientist.
(May 10, 2014 at 6:25 pm)Faith No More Wrote: ... failure to understand the implications of time not existing on the principle of cause and effect.
Did I miss anything?
So how time exist?
(May 10, 2014 at 8:13 pm)Beccs Wrote: So many fallacies, so little time.
"You shall not pass!" - Gandalf, Lord of the Rings.
See I can quote books of fantasy, too.
And, seriously, if you're going to start referring to Ben Stein you demonstrate the desperation of your argument.
I am not representing Ben Stein. Please point to the clause that you refer to as fantasy.
(May 10, 2014 at 8:46 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: This post lends further support to Esquilax' contention that people who don't accept evolution do so because they don't understand what evolution is. This Q'rannic dimwit has equated 'evolution' with 'chance' at least a dozen times in his dishonest, misleading, and wronger-than-wrong post.
For the 12th skajillionth time: Evolution is NOT a random process.
Boru
The development of the genetic science at the beginning of 20th century proved that only genes transmit to subsequent generations and not acquired physical traits. The discovery made it clear that it is implausible that acquired traits accumulated from generation to generation and generated different living species. In other words, in Darwin’s proposed mechanism of natural selection, there is no room for inheritable variations.
All the efforts made by evolutionists of 20th century only confirmed that natural selection has no evolutionary power. At this failure, evolutionists endeavoured a rescue challenge by making an introduction of phenomenon called mutation to the fundamental structure of this theory. However, the problem with mutation is that no beneficial results has yet been observed either in nature or in laboratories. Mutation do not generate new genetic information. It is impossible for living beings to acquire new organs through mutation. To support this idea of evolutionary mutation, evolutionists should come up with a mechanism that generates new never-before-existing information that can produce bigger and better structure which supposedly never existed before. This mechanism should work on a single cell that gives rise to all the diversity of life through a process of genetic mutation or an evolutionary process.
Any evolutionist (including Dawkins), cannot give a single example of any process in nature that increases genetic information by mutation.
(May 10, 2014 at 10:21 pm)Chas Wrote: "We know information comes only from intelligent source. When we see coded information in a DNA, the most logical thing to conclude, that too, has an intelligent source."
No, we don't know that. You do not know what information is and you misquote others to support your nonsense.
Dr. Werner Gritt, who is an information specialist wrote in his book, “In The Beginning Was Information,”
“A code system is always a result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor). It should be emphasised that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, to produce a code. There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information by itself in matter.”
Pages (64, 67, 79, and 107)
(May 11, 2014 at 12:56 am)paulpablo Wrote:
(May 10, 2014 at 5:50 pm)Harris Wrote: What do you mean despite of this fact? Surely the fact that the universe has a beginning and it came into being 15 billion years ago agree with each other.
Few scientists are persistent in arguing for an eternal universe. They use multiverse model to support their case.
Quote:If the universe has a beginning then it should has a cause and that cause should be immaterial and beyond space and time.
How could anything do something while being immaterial and not within space and time.
I'm confused how you could be a Muslim and say this since your god is definitely within time.
He created everything in periods of time
7:54.
Life runs our material bodies, what do you think is life material or immaterial?
Quote:Surely your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods of time,
Here is another verse where Allah is creating within time and establishing himself on a throne above water, seems to be saying Allah has a domain and is established within space.
And it is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days - and His Throne had been upon water
Your confusion is correct, because you have not captured the idea of time the way it is revealed in Quran.
First, Allah is the creator of everything (including space). Only non-created being is Allah Himself.
Second, everything in existence has to face death. Life and death is by the Will of Allah. Only Allah (The Creator) has no beginning and no end.
This process of life and death gives us the sense of aging. Therefore, the aging process and all relative motions in the universe, give us the sense of time. Time is crucial especially when we valuate spatial events, which are closely relevant to our survival and to our focus of interests. Based on our dependency on time, our mind simply rejects any idea that evokes timelessness in any sense. Our sense of time works because we are encountering with the physical universe at every moment of our conscious life.
In other words, when Allah has created everything, He is the one Who is controlling all processes in the universe, and He has no beginning and no end so He is the originator of Time, He is Time Himself.
When you see a mention of time in Quran, it is there for our convenience only; our mind is not capable of thinking without having a measure of time related to any event which is in our interest.
Prophet Mohammad said,
(Allah the Exalted says, "The Son of Adam annoys Me when he curses Ad-Dahr (time), while I am Ad-Dahr. In My Hand are all matters; I cause the alternation of his days and nights.'')
(May 11, 2014 at 1:55 am)max-greece Wrote:
Quote:The problem with the abstract objects is that they are causally effete, meaning, they cannot cause anything.
I don't know what you mean by an abstract object. If you mean one without intelligence then you are certainly wrong - unless you believe that Uranium 235 (for example) is intelligent.
Take a lump of U235 (stay under about 65 kilos) and leave it on the shelf.
Come back in 4 billion years.
There should be about half the U235 you started with, some thorium, some radon gas and various other elements culminating in lead.
So U235 "causes" a whole host of different elements.
Thanks for playing.
“Concrete objects are those which are, in principle, capable of being picked out ostensive, while abstract objects are those to which we can refer only by means of some functional expression”
(Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett).
Abstract ideas such as numbers and all physical and mathematical laws can be neither seen nor heard, nor can they be tasted, felt or smelled. If the range of sense-perception is taken as including only what can be discerned with the naked organ, as it were, the condition for being concrete is clearly too restrictive. It seems clear that being extended in space and time is at least a necessary - but probably not a sufficient condition for its application.
ooohhhh, so he does reply... and he brings his buddy Allah with him... ooohhhhh Now we're done for!! -.-'
So, blah blah blah, "time"
How does time exist?
- For the umpteenth time: We. don't. know.
We don't even know "What Is Time?" It seems to be that which always points in the direction of increasing entropy of the Universe...
blah blah, blah, "evolution"
There's no observed mechanism through which an new organ is generated?
Have you ever looked at how evolutionary biologists describe the evolution of the eye?
Here's a rather thorough journey through that process:
Or a simpler version:
After having educated yourself, can you tell me: How long did an organ like an eye take to evolve?
blah blah blah abstract concepts have no measurable property, so the unmeasurable entity called Allah can exist.... so can the Pegasus, Zeus, Thor, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, pixies, the tooth fairy or leprechauns.... does that make any of them real?
blah blah blah, go educate yourself, before you show your ignorance of the world around you.