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RE: Nature's Laws
May 21, 2015 at 10:24 pm
Does it? It removes the unstated assumption that no evidence is ever presented and replaces the burden of proof onto the claimant to provide compelling evidence. If you think that's an unfair standard, consider that it's how we approach all situations we are faced with every day. After all, you wouldn't go about swallowing pills from a stranger in the street without first asking for evidence that they are what they're claimed to be, would you?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 9:40 am
-and yet it still doesn't matter, or need any "rescuing". No one actually has to justify anything to you, and no amount of criticizing the position, whether real or imagined...known or unknown, of another, will lend any credence to your own.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 10:06 am
^ There you go. ^
So if you feel the need to prop up, defend or rationalize your position the best thing to do is support your claims. Yeah, yeah other people make unsupported claims too. Whatever. But anyone who is as invested in their claims as you seem to be ought to at least try to do it right.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 11:22 am
(May 21, 2015 at 5:06 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I do understand that the pre-biotic earth must have been extremely different than anything that I can imagine. But I still think that open system or closed, prebiotic or post, whatever the second law says, it is basically saying that even if I run my baseball glove up a flag pole and keep it there for millions of years ...so nature (lightning?) can act on it, the baseball glove will completely disintegrate LONG before the unpredictable forces of nature ever get a chance to change it into something vastly more ordered. Where am I wrong? And thanks for being so patient with me!
Here's the thing: there's not a lot to respond to here. You think it's not possible... so what? Where's the actual thing I need to address, in "I don't think this is possible."?
We have people who have created the building blocks of life from chemicals, without any intervention from them, just by putting them in conditions that are closer to the prebiotic Earth, and running an electrical current through them; that's why I suggested you do a search for the Miller-Urey or Joan Oros experiments. The fact that you think your baseball glove will disintegrate is meaningless, firstly because you can't extrapolate what might happen to your mitt to every other form of matter in the universe, for reasons that should be obvious, but also because, well, people have already proven that this stuff is possible. You're arguing against something for which we have literally seen the framework of the process.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 12:17 pm
(May 22, 2015 at 11:22 am)Esquilax Wrote: (May 21, 2015 at 5:06 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I do understand that the pre-biotic earth must have been extremely different than anything that I can imagine. But I still think that open system or closed, prebiotic or post, whatever the second law says, it is basically saying that even if I run my baseball glove up a flag pole and keep it there for millions of years ...so nature (lightning?) can act on it, the baseball glove will completely disintegrate LONG before the unpredictable forces of nature ever get a chance to change it into something vastly more ordered. Where am I wrong? And thanks for being so patient with me!
Here's the thing: there's not a lot to respond to here. You think it's not possible... so what? Where's the actual thing I need to address, in "I don't think this is possible."?
We have people who have created the building blocks of life from chemicals, without any intervention from them, just by putting them in conditions that are closer to the prebiotic Earth, and running an electrical current through them; that's why I suggested you do a search for the Miller-Urey or Joan Oros experiments. The fact that you think your baseball glove will disintegrate is meaningless, firstly because you can't extrapolate what might happen to your mitt to every other form of matter in the universe, for reasons that should be obvious, but also because, well, people have already proven that this stuff is possible. You're arguing against something for which we have literally seen the framework of the process.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 12:18 pm
(May 21, 2015 at 10:24 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Does it? It removes the unstated assumption that no evidence is ever presented and replaces the burden of proof onto the claimant to provide compelling evidence. If you think that's an unfair standard, consider that it's how we approach all situations we are faced with every day. After all, you wouldn't go about swallowing pills from a stranger in the street without first asking for evidence that they are what they're claimed to be, would you?
I imagine people swallow unknown pills from strangers all the time. People are quite stupid sometimes.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 12:32 pm
(May 22, 2015 at 11:22 am)Esquilax Wrote: (May 21, 2015 at 5:06 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I do understand that the pre-biotic earth must have been extremely different than anything that I can imagine. But I still think that open system or closed, prebiotic or post, whatever the second law says, it is basically saying that even if I run my baseball glove up a flag pole and keep it there for millions of years ...so nature (lightning?) can act on it, the baseball glove will completely disintegrate LONG before the unpredictable forces of nature ever get a chance to change it into something vastly more ordered. Where am I wrong? And thanks for being so patient with me!
Here's the thing: there's not a lot to respond to here. You think it's not possible... so what? Where's the actual thing I need to address, in "I don't think this is possible."?
We have people who have created the building blocks of life from chemicals, without any intervention from them, just by putting them in conditions that are closer to the prebiotic Earth, and running an electrical current through them; that's why I suggested you do a search for the Miller-Urey or Joan Oros experiments. The fact that you think your baseball glove will disintegrate is meaningless, firstly because you can't extrapolate what might happen to your mitt to every other form of matter in the universe, for reasons that should be obvious, but also because, well, people have already proven that this stuff is possible. You're arguing against something for which we have literally seen the framework of the process.
True, and I've read about the Miller-Urey experiment, and other similar experiments. But the all-important question is, does "nature" display a plan, a purpose, and the know-how by which to build machines? For example, every living cell requires some energy in order to carry out the various tasks that are necessary for the cell to feed itself, get rid of waste, etc. But that energy has to be made available in just the right form, at the right time, and it needs to be routed to just the right place within the cell. Every living cell is like car. All of the parts form various machines, and these machines do specific things for a specific purpose. Without teleonomy (plan with a purpose) you don't get machines in nature or anywhere else.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 12:43 pm
(May 21, 2015 at 8:57 pm)Freedom4me Wrote:
This might seem like a minor point but in your example of the jar of sweets, if the number is quite large (let's say over 300) then it is probably safe to assume that you are justified in assuming that he couldn't have counted all of them, therefore there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd. But the unstated assumption you are making about atheism vs theism is that there simply isn't any evidence around us that would rationally support theism, and thus atheism is the default position. But that claim is itself, just another assertion. Oh I didn't say there isn't any rational reason to believe in god. The problem is, no matter how rational you are, you can still be wrong. No matter how rational your reasoning is. Very smart people are just better at rationalising their theism. But if you truly believe that there is evidence for god, and that i'm just making an assumption that there isn't any evidence, please provide me with this evidence and I will be happy to refute it.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 12:59 pm
(May 22, 2015 at 12:32 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: (May 22, 2015 at 11:22 am)Esquilax Wrote: Here's the thing: there's not a lot to respond to here. You think it's not possible... so what? Where's the actual thing I need to address, in "I don't think this is possible."?
We have people who have created the building blocks of life from chemicals, without any intervention from them, just by putting them in conditions that are closer to the prebiotic Earth, and running an electrical current through them; that's why I suggested you do a search for the Miller-Urey or Joan Oros experiments. The fact that you think your baseball glove will disintegrate is meaningless, firstly because you can't extrapolate what might happen to your mitt to every other form of matter in the universe, for reasons that should be obvious, but also because, well, people have already proven that this stuff is possible. You're arguing against something for which we have literally seen the framework of the process.
True, and I've read about the Miller-Urey experiment, and other similar experiments. But the all-important question is, does "nature" display a plan, a purpose, and the know-how by which to build machines? For example, every living cell requires some energy in order to carry out the various tasks that are necessary for the cell to feed itself, get rid of waste, etc. But that energy has to be made available in just the right form, at the right time, and it needs to be routed to just the right place within the cell. Every living cell is like car. All of the parts form various machines, and these machines do specific things for a specific purpose. Without teleonomy (plan with a purpose) you don't get machines in nature or anywhere else.
It's interesting how you start with what appears to be an open-ended question (does nature display a plan, a purpose, and the know-how by which to build machines?) only to conclude four sentences later that there is a plan/purpose without bothering to actually demonstrate the point.
How would you distinguish a planned, purposeful result in nature from a result that developed over time without foresight or intent? What criteria would you use to determine which is which? Unless I'm mistaken, you're about to go down the argument from design/irreducible complexity pathway. Be careful with those arguments though; the argument from personal incredulity (which is what they both boil down to) isn't going to get you far. It certainly won't get you one step closer to demonstrating the need for a creator/god.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 22, 2015 at 1:12 pm
(May 22, 2015 at 12:43 pm)Bad Wolf Wrote: (May 21, 2015 at 8:57 pm)Freedom4me Wrote:
This might seem like a minor point but in your example of the jar of sweets, if the number is quite large (let's say over 300) then it is probably safe to assume that you are justified in assuming that he couldn't have counted all of them, therefore there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd. But the unstated assumption you are making about atheism vs theism is that there simply isn't any evidence around us that would rationally support theism, and thus atheism is the default position. But that claim is itself, just another assertion. Oh I didn't say there isn't any rational reason to believe in god. The problem is, no matter how rational you are, you can still be wrong. No matter how rational your reasoning is. Very smart people are just better at rationalising their theism. But if you truly believe that there is evidence for god, and that i'm just making an assumption that there isn't any evidence, please provide me with this evidence and I will be happy to refute it.
I agree with you that some people are clever enough to rationalize (rather persuasively) their position on something even when they know they are actually wrong. People are biased when confronted with a issue that involves one's self-interest. But this bias works both ways. The notion that the default position is or ought to be atheism is an assertion. I could be wrong but I don't see any way to re-phrase that assertion that makes it any more than just an assertion.
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