'Seeking' God

[ElDinero]

You fucking idiot, lucent. Get this through your thick head. A Muslim could say the exact same thing about your 'experience'. They could quote scripture just as easily, they could find as much anecdotal evidence, as many quotes supporting their belief as you could yours. From whichever angle you care to come at it, they would KNOW just as much as you that they have the truth, and that you are being deceived, and have just as much evidence to support that assertion as you do. It is spectacular arrogance on YOUR part to say 'Well, I'm right'. It's actually hilarious that you don't understand this point. What a stupid bastard you are.

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i'll have to think about the 1st law..there is also the question about pre fall conditions vs post fall conditions..ill get back to you :p

"We're working on it" is not an answer.

MUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[lucent]

[Duly submitted to FSTDT.net. It's too good not to share.

Spread the word.

So now you've established a condition which makes supernatural creation possible, or at the very least plausible, in your model. Fine. Now please explain why this condition could not also apply to the Big Bang model. In other words, this god took advantage of the physical condition you stated to work his magic. Why then could the Big Bang scenario not do likewise?

There was no physical condition. I could find a plausible explanation but we're talking apples and oranges. God is the agency of all the mechanisms. He isn't bound by the laws of the Universe. He created them, and could create new ones if He wanted.

The problem with the BBT is that the Universe went from a state of high entropy into a more highly ordered and complex state, which violates the 2nd rule. Of course the 1st rule is already violated by the singularity. Gods creation starts out with no entropy, or very little.

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For anyone who is genuinely interested in the Big Bang model, the story of how it came to be and the great scientists throughout history who paved the way for it, I can recommend no greater work than Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About It by Simon Singh. It manages to walk the reader through the fascinating evolution of all the various theories of cosmology and physics, without being either turgid or condescending.
[/quote]

Here's a good lecture on the subject

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esqGaLSWgNc

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Oh my fucking god. You are literally batshit nuts, aren't you? You think that people who believe other than you talk to demons? You have "seen" demonic possession? I ask you this, have you ever seen photos of an abused, tortured and dead child who died at the hands of an exorcist? Have you ever actually seen a demon kill someone? Have you heard of it outside of unverifiable claims? I have heard of more people being killed by exorcists than demons. Your blanket judgment of all those people reveals who you are. Your bullshit claims to have borne witness to demonic possession make me hope that you do not have children, especially any with mental illness.

Oh, and I don't give a fuck what you think about people's attitude problems. We're not here to hold your hand. You are free to discuss within the confines of the rules. If you don't like it, go circle jerk on a Christian forum. I happen to like many Christians. There are very few that I outright dislike and none of them do I dislike because they are Christian. In every case, it is because they are judgmental, hypocritical, holier-than-thou pricks.

Do you always leap straight to emotionalism? Yes, I do believe that, and my experience confirms it. Apparently you're not as familiar with the bible if this is a shock to you. Perhaps your Christian friends are liberal and don't believe in Satan, but most Christians do.

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You fucking idiot, lucent. Get this through your thick head. A Muslim could say the exact same thing about your 'experience'. They could quote scripture just as easily, they could find as much anecdotal evidence, as many quotes supporting their belief as you could yours. From whichever angle you care to come at it, they would KNOW just as much as you that they have the truth, and that you are being deceived, and have just as much evidence to support that assertion as you do. It is spectacular arrogance on YOUR part to say 'Well, I'm right'. It's actually hilarious that you don't understand this point. What a stupid bastard you are.

---

i'll have to think about the 1st law..there is also the question about pre fall conditions vs post fall conditions..ill get back to you :p

"We're working on it" is not an answer.

MUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I do understand the point, but if any religion is true, it's obviously only one of them. Your problem is your relativism, so to you its just a hall of mirrors in every direction. There is a truth and you can know what it is. The truth is tangible and can be grasped. That is why Jesus said to build your foundation on rock, instead of the shifting sands of the world system and pagan religions.

[Shell B]

Do you always leap straight to emotionalism? Yes, I do believe that, and my experience confirms it.

Haha. Emotionalism. Anything to write off someone who disagrees with you, eh? As for your experience confirming it, I sincerely doubt it. It may confirm it to someone who wants to think demons are real, but I assure you, nothing you think you saw cannot be explained rationally. Every single case of exorcism and possession that I have come across was debunked quite thoroughly.

Apparently you're not as familiar with the bible if this is a shock to you.

You seem to think that reading the Bible is believing the bullshit contained within. That is not the case. I am shocked that you really believe that everyone who believes differently than you do speaks to demons, yes. It speaks volumes about how you rationalize your beliefs. How do you know that you are not the one being deceived? How do you know that other religions are wrong? How do you know that the devil himself is not behind the Bible? You don't. In fact, I doubt you ever considered it because you came to the conclusion before you started rationalizing it.

Perhaps your Christian friends are liberal and don't believe in Satan, but most Christians do.

What the fuck does their belief have to do with your claims to have seen demons and your proclamation that billions of people talk to demons? Besides, what other people believe does not color what I believe. I am not the sheep of ancient shepherds.

I'm ten seconds away from declaring this a pony thread.

[ElDinero]

I do understand the point, but if any religion is true, it's obviously only one of them. Your problem is your relativism, so to you its just a hall of mirrors in every direction. There is a truth and you can know what it is. The truth is tangible and can be grasped. That is why Jesus said to build your foundation on rock, instead of the shifting sands of the world system and pagan religions.

IF any religion is true, yes. It's a fucking big 'if'.

So, bearing in mind that you can't use anecdotal evidence or testimony, or scripture, or any of the things we've listed, because we've established that any religion could come up with just as much of it, how do we know yours is the correct one? Try and do it without that arrogance you hate so much. Your problem is you're completely thick and borderline mentally ill.

[Captain Scarlet]

That's the entire point. Human beings never would emerge except from a highly precise Universe fine-tuned for life and living on a planet with extremely priviledged circumstances. There is a conspiracy in the laws of physics for life.

Therefore the universe isn't designed. An omnipotent designer would not be as foolish as to make it so improbable that life could emerge or sustain itself, unless they were incompetent or lucked out. Who designs anything without resiliency built into it?

You have not made the argument from fine tuning. When you do and get into probabilities, please make sure you understand the difference between conditional and unconditional probability, the probability that the universe would emerge at all, the probability that it could emerge in a different way. You would need to answer these basic questions before you could even begin to make the argument. At the moment fine tuning is like saying "gee whizz look how improbable the universe is, and it was all done with me/us in mind, therefore goddidit". Yet given the size of the universe improbable things happen all the time. 2 examples:

1st the sun. It would not throw out any heat were it not for the vastly improbable event of 2 hydrogen atoms fusing. No one thinks god is fusing those atoms (or maybe you do and if so it will land you in a world of pain), so why does it occur? It is becuase there are so many hydrogen atoms at such great pressure and heat that it is inevitable that it will happen millions of times per second.

2nd you! Your existence is vastly more improbable than the universe, think of all the Billionne chances of the right sperm meeting the right egg for hundreds of generations. Yet here you are! Again no-one is suggesting that you are anything other than the products of normal sexual reproduction without divine intervention.

Speaking of disorder, the big bang violates the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. I know quite a bit about science, and the evidence isn't there. No evidence for cosmic origin. No evidence for life from non-life. No evidence for soup to DNA. No mechanism in natural selection for DNA. The big bang theory is basically unworkable; why do you think they're looking for dark energy and dark matter? Hint, they don't exist.

Really, sighs. You are that literate! Well if you know these things, you should publish because you would be heralding a breakthrough in our knowledge (oh no wait its a big conspiracy isnt it scientists wouldn't publish your work because it proves god). The alternative explanation is that you might not understand it at all! Wonder which one is true?

[

Unprovable, untestable metaphysics.

Unrpovable no; it’s a mathematical model which offers just that. Untestable yes, at least currently. But you are missing the point that it is a natural explanation with superior explanatory scope and power to that of goddidit. It should therefore be preferred, else you need to invoke a magic man to explain natural phenomena.

Try abiogenesis for DNA. Again, unproven, untestable metaphysics. There isn't even a shred of evidence it is true.

Yep and the same response from me. We have replicated the base chemicals used in synthesizing life. We have seen the evidence but cannot currently bridge the gap between organic chemistry and life. Science is honest enough to call that out. But what gives you the right to posit a creator totally untestable, unprovable and meaningless. Yes we have seen lots of hard evidence emerge from abiogenesis, but not nearly enough to satisfy the rigours needed to meet the standard we set ourselves, but one thing we definatley have not seen is a giant hand descending and zapping life into existence.

You don't get to waltz in, fail to explain *any* of the fundemental questions and then claim God can't be involved.

I don’t have to, you have to show why god is a superior explanation…and you haven’t. Your arguments and ignorant and incredulous and are all summed up by “I just don’t see how….such and such could happen naturally”. Its not an argument.

Even if you explored the entire material universe and could monitor all of it simultaneously you still wouldn't be able to disprove it.

Disprove what exactly? I’m not following your train of thought.

Nature doesn't account for it, and there isn't an explanation for it. The gaps are grand caynons which science has no hope of filling in. I'm saying the Universe has the appearance of design, and if you look up the post list, you'll see a number of high profile scientists admitting it. So, either the Universe was designed or it designed itself. You have hawkings proposing the Universe spontaneously generated itself from nothing and people smile and nod knowingly. It's incredible.

I’ve already addressed your arguments from incredulity. “I cant possibly think of a reason how such and such can be the case naturally therefore goddidit”. What is incredible on the other hand is that you prefer to appeal to magic and mysticism in order to answer questions.

As for the universe having the ‘appearance’ of design, that is hugely different thing from saying it ‘is’ designed. Scientists don’t generally say that the universe ‘is’ designed, mostly because they know it isn’t.

It isn't that hard to be sincere. Admit that you could be wrong, and humble yourself and ask God for the answer. If you can do that God will honor it. And Mother Teresa did hear from Jesus, many times when she was younger, and once or twice when she was older. The door is open.

Please do not proselytise or preach to me. It is patronising and frankly beneath intellectual debate. This amounts to an appeal to belief. But I noticed you didn’t respond to the challenge and you have not left your own door open to the fact the you might be wrong. So why don’t you try first.

[thesummerqueen]

15 pages down and the only thing I'm convinced I'll be seeking (and find) is the coffee pot, and the john.

Seems like lucent needs to seek something other than kool-aid to drink.

[Captain Scarlet]

That's the entire point. Human beings never would emerge except from a highly precise Universe fine-tuned for life and living on a planet with extremely priviledged circumstances. There is a conspiracy in the laws of physics for life.

Therefore the universe isn't designed. An omnipotent designer would not be as foolish as to make it so improbable that life could emerge or sustain itself, unless they were incompetent or lucked out. Who designs anything without resiliency built into it?

You have not made the argument from fine tuning. When you do and get into probabilities, please make sure you understand the difference between conditional and unconditional probability, the probability that the universe would emerge at all, the probability that it could emerge in a different way. You would need to answer these basic questions before you could even begin to make the argument. At the moment fine tuning is like saying "gee whizz look how improbable the universe is, and it was all done with me/us in mind, therefore goddidit". Yet given the size of the universe improbable things happen all the time. 2 examples:

1st the sun. It would not throw out any heat were it not for the vastly improbable event of 2 hydrogen atoms fusing. No one thinks god is fusing those atoms (or maybe you do and if so it will land you in a world of pain), so why does it occur? It is becuase there are so many hydrogen atoms at such great pressure and heat that it is inevitable that it will happen millions of times per second.

2nd you! Your existence is vastly more improbable than the universe, think of all the Billionne chances of the right sperm meeting the right egg for hundreds of generations. Yet here you are! Again no-one is suggesting that you are anything other than the products of normal sexual reproduction without divine intervention.

Speaking of disorder, the big bang violates the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. I know quite a bit about science, and the evidence isn't there. No evidence for cosmic origin. No evidence for life from non-life. No evidence for soup to DNA. No mechanism in natural selection for DNA. The big bang theory is basically unworkable; why do you think they're looking for dark energy and dark matter? Hint, they don't exist.

Really, sighs. You are that literate! Well if you know these things, you should publish because you would be heralding a breakthrough in our knowledge (oh no wait its a big conspiracy isnt it scientists wouldn't publish your work because it proves god). The alternative explanation is that you might not understand it at all! Wonder which one is true?

Unprovable, untestable metaphysics.

Unrpovable no; it’s a mathematical model which offers just that. Untestable yes, at least currently. But you are missing the point that it is a natural explanation with superior explanatory scope and power to that of goddidit. It should therefore be preferred, else you need to invoke a magic man to explain natural phenomena.

Try abiogenesis for DNA. Again, unproven, untestable metaphysics. There isn't even a shred of evidence it is true.

Yep and the same response from me. We have replicated the base chemicals used in synthesizing life. We have seen the evidence but cannot currently bridge the gap between organic chemistry and life. Science is honest enough to call that out. But what gives you the right to posit a creator totally untestable, unprovable and meaningless. Yes we have seen lots of hard evidence emerge from abiogenesis, but not nearly enough to satisfy the rigours needed to meet the standard we set ourselves, but one thing we definatley have not seen is a giant hand descending and zapping life into existence.

You don't get to waltz in, fail to explain *any* of the fundemental questions and then claim God can't be involved.

I don’t have to, you have to show why god is a superior explanation…and you haven’t. Your arguments are all summed up by “I just don’t see how….such and such could happen naturally”. Its not an argument.

Even if you explored the entire material universe and could monitor all of it simultaneously you still wouldn't be able to disprove it.

Disprove what exactly? I’m not following your train of thought.

Nature doesn't account for it, and there isn't an explanation for it. The gaps are grand caynons which science has no hope of filling in. I'm saying the Universe has the appearance of design, and if you look up the post list, you'll see a number of high profile scientists admitting it. So, either the Universe was designed or it designed itself. You have hawkings proposing the Universe spontaneously generated itself from nothing and people smile and nod knowingly. It's incredible.

I’ve already addressed your arguments from incredulity. “I cant possibly think of a reason how such and such can be the case naturally therefore goddidit”. What is incredible on the other hand is that you prefer to appeal to magic and mysticism in order to answer questions.

As for the universe having the ‘appearance’ of design, that is hugely different thing from saying it ‘is’ designed. Scientists don’t generally say that the universe ‘is’ designed, mostly because they know it isn’t.

It isn't that hard to be sincere. Admit that you could be wrong, and humble yourself and ask God for the answer. If you can do that God will honor it. And Mother Teresa did hear from Jesus, many times when she was younger, and once or twice when she was older. The door is open.

Firstly, its a silly ad hominem. I am sincere in my disbelief. I don't pretend to believe but secretly don't (as some do). I really do not believe and am honest to the extent of preferring to be a strong rather than weak atheism (and attracting some burden of proof as some see it). So why wouldn't a god respect my honesty? Am I worse than the preacher who doesn't really believe or the agnostic?

Secondly, please do not proselytise or preach to me. It is patronising and frankly beneath intellectual debate. This amounts to an appeal to belief. But I noticed you didn’t respond to the challenge and you have not left your own door open to the fact the you might be wrong. So why don’t you try first.

[tackattack]

Who designs anything without resiliency built into it? Well someone who knows the outcome of course!

You walked into that CS.
Anyways I can't even keep track of the OP in all this.

I would also go so far to say as for the universe has the ‘appearance’ of design; scientists don’t generally say that the universe ‘is’ designed, mostly because it would be unprovable as it would exist prior to the creation of the Universe. The religious are far more openminded about the unexplainable and can postulate that God could have indeed done it. Do you have any subjective personal evidence for anything that is commonly accepted as a potential candidate for something that could have created the Universe or is it just dismissed out of lack of empirical testability?

[thesummerqueen]

Been missing you Tack.

Appearance of design is subjective. The human body doesn't not "appear" to be "designed" to me. Also it's unfair to say that the religious are more openminded simply because they're willing to put their god in the gaps.

[lucent]

Haha. Emotionalism. Anything to write off someone who disagrees with you, eh? As for your experience confirming it, I sincerely doubt it. It may confirm it to someone who wants to think demons are real, but I assure you, nothing you think you saw cannot be explained rationally.

I think jumping right into dead children qualifies as emotionalism.

Every single case of exorcism and possession that I have come across was debunked quite thoroughly.

You're the expert, right?

You seem to think that reading the Bible is believing the bullshit contained within. That is not the case.

I seem to think that part of being a Christian is believing the word of God.

I am shocked that you really believe that everyone who believes differently than you do speaks to demons, yes. It speaks volumes about how you rationalize your beliefs.

Not everyone, but anyone in contact with spiritual entities is speaking to demons.

How do you know that you are not the one being deceived? How do you know that other religions are wrong? How do you know that the devil himself is not behind the Bible? You don't. In fact, I doubt you ever considered it because you came to the conclusion before you started rationalizing it.

You don't think I've heard every atheist meme to come down the pike? This is not an original thought of yours. I don't think Satan is behind the bible because only the word of God has power over demons.

What the fuck does their belief have to do with your claims to have seen demons and your proclamation that billions of people talk to demons?

Almost every Christian knows that every false idol has a demon behind it. You're acting like I am abnormal amoungst Christians, and that isn't the true. It's a mainstream belief.

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IF any religion is true, yes. It's a fucking big 'if'.

So, bearing in mind that you can't use anecdotal evidence or testimony, or scripture, or any of the things we've listed, because we've established that any religion could come up with just as much of it, how do we know yours is the correct one? Try and do it without that arrogance you hate so much. Your problem is you're completely thick and borderline mentally ill.

I know because I've researched them all and the bible is the only one to match reality, and my personal experience of God.

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You have not made the argument from fine tuning. When you do and get into probabilities, please make sure you understand the difference between conditional and unconditional probability, the probability that the universe would emerge at all, the probability that it could emerge in a different way. You would need to answer these basic questions before you could even begin to make the argument. At the moment fine tuning is like saying "gee whizz look how improbable the universe is, and it was all done with me/us in mind, therefore goddidit". Yet given the size of the universe improbable things happen all the time. 2 examples:

When you shave away all other considerations, the question remains: was the universe deliberately created? The probability of yes is at least 50/50. When you consider that anything other than an eternal first cause brings you to an infinite regress, that percentage climbs higher. when you take into account the appearance of design it climbs higher. and so on..there are many good arguments to go to from here.

1st the sun. It would not throw out any heat were it not for the vastly improbable event of 2 hydrogen atoms fusing. No one thinks god is fusing those atoms (or maybe you do and if so it will land you in a world of pain), so why does it occur? It is becuase there are so many hydrogen atoms at such great pressure and heat that it is inevitable that it will happen millions of times per second.

Mechanisms are fine, I don't need to invoke God with mechanisms. I invoke God for Agency. A better question is how do you get a star in the first place..hint Star formation is a notorious weakness of big bang cosmology.

2nd you! Your existence is vastly more improbable than the universe, think of all the Billionne chances of the right sperm meeting the right egg for hundreds of generations. Yet here you are! Again no-one is suggesting that you are anything other than the products of normal sexual reproduction without divine intervention.

Everything is equally unlikely when you shave away all other considerations. How do you know that the Universe didn't start five seconds ago with an appearance of age? The Universe, with its 30 or so values which seem tuned for life, is virtually mathematically impossible to arise by itself. You have to call in multiple universes to make it even remotely plausible, and then you have to explain multiple universes, which is even more implausible.

Really, sighs. You are that literate! Well if you know these things, you should publish because you would be heralding a breakthrough in our knowledge (oh no wait its a big conspiracy isnt it scientists wouldn't publish your work because it proves god). The alternative explanation is that you might not understand it at all! Wonder which one is true?

I understand enough to know the evidence isn't there. I started out believing in evolution and was shocked to find out that the entire thing was a shell game. It is also a true fact that anyone who even breathes intelligent design would be ostracized from the scientific community.

Unrpovable no; it’s a mathematical model which offers just that. Untestable yes, at least currently. But you are missing the point that it is a natural explanation with superior explanatory scope and power to that of goddidit. It should therefore be preferred, else you need to invoke a magic man to explain natural phenomena.

If you had any idea of how deficient big bang cosmology really is, you wouldn't say that. Again, why do you think they're looking for dark matter and dark energy? You can make numbers dance, but does it match reality? Not in the slightest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im30a2qt1TQ

Yep and the same response from me. We have replicated the base chemicals used in synthesizing life. We have seen the evidence but cannot currently bridge the gap between organic chemistry and life. Science is honest enough to call that out. But what gives you the right to posit a creator totally untestable, unprovable and meaningless. Yes we have seen lots of hard evidence emerge from abiogenesis, but not nearly enough to satisfy the rigours needed to meet the standard we set ourselves, but one thing we definatley have not seen is a giant hand descending and zapping life into existence.

Glad you can admit it. Evolution doesn't meet that rigor either. There is plenty of reason to suspect a higher intelligence, especially in regards to DNA. First, there is no naturalistic process for the information in DNA. Second, information only comes from minds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XexHxgxTbWY

I don’t have to, you have to show why god is a superior explanation…and you haven’t. Your arguments and ignorant and incredulous and are all summed up by “I just don’t see how….such and such could happen naturally”. Its not an argument.

My argument is, the theories that science proposes don't work and don't answer any fundemental question about life, there is an appearance of design in the Universe, the Universe is finely tuned for life, and logic suggests a creator. I am saying a mind is the only plausible explanation for DNA and has more explanatory power.

Disprove what exactly? I’m not following your train of thought.

Even if you could know all there was to know in material reality, you still couldn't rule out a Creator.