If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?

[Crossless2.0]

By any logical standard if there was any evidence for the existence of god, that would make faith irrelevant.

That faith is needed in the religious community reasonably means that zero evidence is in existence to prove god is real.

It's a good statement but I've trouble appraising its textual qualities and integrity - if you could make it more cohesive with some elegant variation, it should do to appeal to intellectuals alike.

Finally, be imaginative!

I hope that this inspires you and your argumentative endeavours.

Unearthing the truth
I gaze at the mirror and
Find a thesaurus

[Harry Nevis]

It's a good statement but I've trouble appraising its textual qualities and integrity - if you could make it more cohesive with some elegant variation, it should do to appeal to intellectuals alike.

Finally, be imaginative!

I hope that this inspires you and your argumentative endeavours.

Unearthing the truth
I gaze at the mirror and
Find a thesaurus

There once was a man
From Nantucket who had-
I never got Haiku

[speedyj1992]

Ok, so it seems like discussion is not something that's particularly intriguing to you - do you mind if I ask you why not? If I made it seem as if this is all obvious, I admit that to be my mistake, and I apologize, because it isn't, and if any believer makes it seem like it is, they're wrong, and I'm sorry that you have to deal with that. But I'd love to hear more about how you got to your perspective on this topic.

---

What kind of discussion is possible when you claim knowledge that you don't have?  There is no objective, verifiable evidence for your or any god.  Until you can prove otherwise, you're just asserting and I'm just asking for evidence.

Hmm, ok, what would count as "evidence" to you? A historical prophecy that was fulfilled? Miracles unexplainable by science? Something else?

[Cyberman]

You want Harry to make your case for you?

[speedyj1992]

Cheers and come again soon!
Best of luck with all your endeavors!



I appreciate your chipper attitude in this - I deleted the quotes as I replied to make scrolling less painful in this (something I need to work on as I post here). Ok, I'll respond in order: 

It's unfortunate that the other believers on this forum aren't representing Christ well, so I'm going to try and be better. 

Regarding your point on God creating time and all - first, I think because your comment about not caring about what people said in the Bible might make it harder to have a discussion, because that's where I'm drawing my points from. With that said, the link you posted (and I cannot WAIT to have enough posts under my belt to post links!) is a pretty good link for verses on God being omniscient according to the Bible. To actually answer your questions: the first verse there is probably the best verse in the OT regarding God's sovereignty. Feel free to look up verses on this, as well. So we can conclude that, Biblically, God created EVERYTHING, which means not only did God create time, but God created the rules of our universe, aka cause-and-effect. If God exists out of time, and is sovereign over everything, it would make sense God can do what He wants, when He wants, meaning He can be a part of time even though He transcends time. 

I never said "magic" was what God used to create, and I don't use terminology like that on purpose. I actually did peek into Hoyle and even a pretty good (but still not entirely convincing) argument against him, and to make a long story really short, I agree, the man did not do a completely thorough calculation. The experiments that have been done have shown that it is within the realm of possibility for amino acids to form themselves, and even for a base pair gene to be formed from that - but highly unlikely. And that's just 1, and the simplest organisms that exist, the archea (which evolutionists believe we came from) are composed of HUNDREDS of base pair proteins. The odds of 1 forming on its own is 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000 - 1 in 10^20. The odds of something happening is 1/10^50, as established by Lecomte duNuoy (I THINK that's how you spell his name), which is actually very liberal (it's 1 trillion times 1 trillion times 1 trillion times 1 hundred trillion), and the number of electrons in the known universe is estimated to be 1/10^80. If it's 1/10^20 times EACH base pair in an archea to form, and they're composed of HUNDREDS of base pairs, even in an ideal situation, even if we're talking about every planet and every moon and every asteroid and interactions that increase the odds of something happening just by happening more (which is not how probability works, you flip a coin, you're just as likely to get heads or tails each time you flip it), there's no way we can get down to that 1/10^50 that would still be possible, albeit barely. So, TLDR, I have done the math, and from what I can tell, based on what we know, it's not possible based on probability science that an award-winning scientist came up with. Even when you take into account the many combinations of base pairs you can get from an organism with hundreds of base pairs, that still gets you hundreds of zeroes. 

Hoyle never accepted the God of the Bible, even if he did say that we couldn't have formed from nothing, which indicates he wasn't entirely biased because otherwise he would've advocated for the God of the Bible. I say that because people who DO accept Jesus are forever changed, and act like it, which is frustrating because there are people who claim to have accepted Him and their actions clearly don't reflect that. I wouldn't consider them true believers - if you really believed the world was going to end tomorrow, you wouldn't make plans for a week from now. You might still instinctively notice yourself acting like the world is going to go on beyond tomorrow, but as soon as you notice it or someone points it out to you, you'll modify your behavior.

---

When you calculated the odds, did you take into account the number of opportunities? If I enter a lottery with the odds of 1 in a million, on average I'll win once for every million tickets I buy. If I buy a million tickets, I'm almost certain to win...if the people running the lottery are smart, the ticket price will be over a dollar if the prize is a million dollars.

After it became possible for life as we know it to exist on Earth towards the end of the Hadean eon. Oceans formed about 4.4 billion years ago, the earliest known life forms detected (there are contenders for earlier) existed about 3.48 billion years ago. So several hundred million years after the oceans formed, we get life. Assuming the odds you give are calculated correctly, how many opportunities do you suppose there were, around the world, over several hundred million years, for it to occur. It could easily have been a billion per day; or a trillion per day, or more. Those 50 zeroes don't mean anything if you don't know the number of opportunities there were for it to happen.

As far as experiments go, spontaneous generation of RNA chains of up to 120 nucleotides has been observed in water without enzymes or inorganic catalysts. What are the odds if you start from the knowledge that RNA chains up to 120 nucleotides long are already present?

My response
*Yes, I did actually - the math I did was actually throughout ALL of time, in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE, as opposed to just earth, which are more liberal than the numbers you gave me by a longshot. Regarding probability, yes, if the lottery is POSSIBLE to win (and it's always possible to win the lottery), with enough tries, yes, the lottery could be won. But we're talking about an event that is statistically impossible based on what I've read. With that said ...

If we need to form an organism that's composed of 100 base pairs (the smallest number of base pairs in any known organism is 500), and we are talking about the experiments where the odds are that 1 base pair will form at 1/10^20, then the odds of 1 of these organisms forming all on its own would be 1/10^2,000. If we can get 1950, multiplying that times 1/10^2000 would get the realm of possibility. Now let's say there are 100 QUATRILLION tries at this happening per SECOND on every PLANETARY BODY in the entire known universe - there are roughly 10^25 planets. You multiply that times 1 million and you get the number of moons, asteroids, and such that are not planets, and you get 10^31. Multiply that times 100 quatrillion (10^17) times 3600 (number of seconds per hour) and multiply that times 24 (let's round way up for simplicity's sake) and you get 10,000, aka 10^4, and let's multiply that by 1000 as opposed to 365 to keep the numbers simple, and you get 10^7 for the number of seconds per year (rounded way up). With a universe that's roughly 21.4 BILLION years old, rounded up to 100 billion, aka 10^11, and you multiply that times the original 10^17 tries and then again times 10^31 for EACH PLANETARY BODY IN THE UNIVERSE and you get 10^59. Which are extra liberal numbers, and yet we're still nearly 1900 ZEROES shy of the realm of possibility so far. Even with 10^46 combinations possible for this organism, you still get 10^105, 1845 zeroes too short, and even if you take into the equation (literally, for once) that leftover enzymes can interact and make things 1 quatrillion times more likely, then you STILL only get 10^200, times 1/10^2000 and you get 1/10^1800. 

So, you said that "a requirement of an abiogenesis hypothesis is that it be POSSIBLE". This is the only one I know of in terms of a hypothesis that has actually been experimented on (and presenting a theory without an experiment is just a theory, it doesn't really hold much value beyond being an idea), so if you have another that has an experiment involved, please let me know. I'd love to take a look. 

And I don't see gravity as anything other than an impersonal force. But your claim is that we live in a chaos-driven universe, and right now, we have no current explanation with scientific backing behind it as to how organic matter could've come about within that aforementioned realm of possibility (which is highly liberal) - if, as you put it, organic material hasn't been around since the beginning of time, it must've formed somewhere. Where do you believe that happened, and how, since our current attempts at recreating it aren't working and would require something that isn't within the realm of possibility based on current research?

Repeating the same assertion over and over doesn't make it truer. There is no shortage of natural explanations for abiogenesis, just a shortage of a way to determine which particular explanation is most likely given that the evidence is nearly 4 billion years old, and therefor scarce. We may never know with certainty which abiogenesis scenario is correct, or if it's one we haven't yet thought of. But a requirement of an abiogenesis hypothesis is that it be possible.

I certainly did not 'put it' that organic matter has been around since the beginning of time. Where did you get that idea? Search 'timeline of the universe' on Wikipedia if you want to know when and where various types of matter came into being. The short version is that carbon is formed by the collision of three helium nuclei in the cores of large stars, distributed when they explode. Star formation started occurring about 560 million years after the Initial Expansion, and organic matter (molecules containing carbon) would have existed thereafter.

[Succubus]

...Star formation started occurring about 560 million years after the Initial Expansion, and organic matter (molecules containing carbon) would have existed thereafter...

First generation stars did not produce carbon.

Administrator Notice
Fixed quote attribution - Cyberman

[The Grand Nudger]

How many times are we going to have to hear this probability business?  A royal flush is rare as well, and yet they happen.  They happen even quicker the more hands are simultaneously dealt.  

You're not representing christ well, you're representing him poorly in the same manner that others have represented him.

[pocaracas]

Cheers and come again soon!
Best of luck with all your endeavors!



I appreciate your chipper attitude in this - I deleted the quotes as I replied to make scrolling less painful in this (something I need to work on as I post here). Ok, I'll respond in order: 

It took me a while to realize you were replying to me!

If you're having trouble with all the quotes, maybe you're not using the "source mode" when replying. For basic forum participation the normal mode is fine, but, for a proper discussion addressing multiple points, it's always better to use the source mode.
There are two ways to access this mode:
1) Each time you reply, just above the text box you use to type your stuff, you'll find a series of buttons. The one furthest on the right says "View Source". Click it!
1.a) If you use the quick reply box at the end of each thread, it uses the source mode... but the other person's quote won't be there, so that's not very feasible.

2) Go into your User Control Panel. At the top, next to the Alerts, you'll find a link to the "User CP", or use this link: https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php.
Scroll down until you find, on the left hand side, the "Edit Options" link.... or you can go straight in with this link: https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php?action=options.
On the right hand side, you'll then find a box with Other Options and one of the last items is "Put the editor in source mode by default". Activate it, and it will always be there for you. Enjoy using BBcode tags!

It's unfortunate that the other believers on this forum aren't representing Christ well, so I'm going to try and be better. 

How would you know if you're accurately representing Christ?
Just so you keep it fresh, flipping tables would not be beyond him!

Regarding your point on God creating time and all - first, I think because your comment about not caring about what people said in the Bible might make it harder to have a discussion, because that's where I'm drawing my points from.

So I've noticed.
However, I'm more interested in what makes you, a person living in 2017, assume that the bible is a trustworthy record.
See.... I don't care what that book says. I once tried to read it, but got hung up at the end of creation, with all those "god saw it was good"... I couldn't stop laughing at that expression. Anyway, I don't care about it, because it was written by people with the intent to be read by people.
And the people who wrote it poured into it whatever they knew. Some knew a bit about how people's minds work, even if they attributed it to something else; some were just compiling floating folk tales; some were listing the kings of the land and their stories... etc etc etc.

With that said, the link you posted (and I cannot WAIT to have enough posts under my belt to post links!) is a pretty good link for verses on God being omniscient according to the Bible. To actually answer your questions: the first verse there is probably the best verse in the OT regarding God's sovereignty.

This one?
""
“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:9-10).
""

Do the words dictator and tyrannical mean anything to you?

I do wonder how this God used to talk to people so clearly, but now, and for the last 2000 years.... and for the hundreds of thousands of years before... nothing...

Feel free to look up verses on this, as well. So we can conclude that, Biblically, God created EVERYTHING, which means not only did God create time, but God created the rules of our universe, aka cause-and-effect. If God exists out of time, and is sovereign over everything, it would make sense God can do what He wants, when He wants, meaning He can be a part of time even though He transcends time. 

There's a contradiction and you don't see it.
To create is an action that, in itself, like all actions, requires time.
You are proposing an entity that can perform actions in the absence of a thing that's required for actions to occur: time.

But also, you are proposing that an entity exists "outside of time".
Not even going to the trouble of asking how that can be, but more to what I care about... How would someone come to possess that information about such an entity?

Oh, the bible says it.... "Biblically, God created everything"... well, I don't think the bible is a trustworthy record, so I don't accept it's account of how things happened, so... why do you?
What makes you accept the accounts on the Bible?
What makes you think it is a trustworthy source of information?
What happened in your lifetime, to you, that made you unable(?) to see it as the series mythological tales, with a bend into the propaganda, that it is?

I never said "magic" was what God used to create, and I don't use terminology like that on purpose.

Fair enough.
Then he's some high-tech alien from out of this Universe.

I actually did peek into Hoyle and even a pretty good (but still not entirely convincing) argument against him, and to make a long story really short, I agree, the man did not do a completely thorough calculation. The experiments that have been done have shown that it is within the realm of possibility for amino acids to form themselves, and even for a base pair gene to be formed from that - but highly unlikely. And that's just 1, and the simplest organisms that exist, the archea (which evolutionists believe we came from) are composed of HUNDREDS of base pair proteins. The odds of 1 forming on its own is 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000 - 1 in 10^20. The odds of something happening is 1/10^50, as established by Lecomte duNuoy (I THINK that's how you spell his name), which is actually very liberal (it's 1 trillion times 1 trillion times 1 trillion times 1 hundred trillion), and the number of electrons in the known universe is estimated to be 1/10^80. If it's 1/10^20 times EACH base pair in an archea to form, and they're composed of HUNDREDS of base pairs, even in an ideal situation, even if we're talking about every planet and every moon and every asteroid and interactions that increase the odds of something happening just by happening more (which is not how probability works, you flip a coin, you're just as likely to get heads or tails each time you flip it), there's no way we can get down to that 1/10^50 that would still be possible, albeit barely. So, TLDR, I have done the math, and from what I can tell, based on what we know, it's not possible based on probability science that an award-winning scientist came up with. Even when you take into account the many combinations of base pairs you can get from an organism with hundreds of base pairs, that still gets you hundreds of zeroes. 

You did the math?...
I'm sure you also threw in a bunch of assumptions.
Care to share them?

I'm going to bet you that the first few assumptions are way off base.

Oh, and do keep in mind Avogadro's number: 6x10^23. A very important and handy number.
This number is the number of molecules of a perfect gas that you can find in a 1 Litre volume of that gas.
A liquid, such as water, is denser than a perfect gas, so we get more molecules per Litre.... roughly 55 times more. With that, you're already on 3x10^25 water molecules per litre or water. Give me the number of Litres of water on Earth and you will see that your numbers aren't that great.

Big numbers are impressive... but they do need to be put in proper context to be meaningful. And your comparison with the number of electrons in the Universe is far from proper context. A jump of 10^30, when the current estimate of 10^10 galaxies, each with 10^10 stars, gives you a 10^10 wiggle room for your "unlikely event" to happen within any particular star system.
By your math, any star system with a planet in the habitable zone (liquid water) must almost certainly produce life.

Hoyle never accepted the God of the Bible, even if he did say that we couldn't have formed from nothing, which indicates he wasn't entirely biased because otherwise he would've advocated for the God of the Bible.

Yes, some people end up being simply Deists, because they are honest enough to understand that "the god of the bible" seems too much manufactured.

I say that because people who DO accept Jesus are forever changed, and act like it, which is frustrating because there are people who claim to have accepted Him and their actions clearly don't reflect that. I wouldn't consider them true believers - if you really believed the world was going to end tomorrow, you wouldn't make plans for a week from now. You might still instinctively notice yourself acting like the world is going to go on beyond tomorrow, but as soon as you notice it or someone points it out to you, you'll modify your behavior.

People who accept Jesus, or any religious calling, do show some different brain activity.
That doesn't mean that whatever they're accepting is actually real.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, people on acid do show some different brain activity too. In fact, so do people who are wanking, catatonic or epileptic. Careful what you wish for.

[Cyberman]

People who accept Jesus, or any religious calling, do show some different brain activity.
That doesn't mean that whatever they're accepting is actually real.

I dont know how true it is, but I seem to remember a study which showed that, under MRI, the parts of the brain that lit up when believers were asked to think about "God" were the same parts that activated when they thought about themselves. Very revealing, if indeed true.