'Seeking' God

[Faith No More]

The issue isn't a particular group of people. Satan has deceived the whole world, and there are many in the church today who follow false doctrines. The church is becoming utterly apostate. So, I am not excluding anyone from this equation.

Except yourself, of course. You clearly know the truth, but everyone else is being deceived. Do you truly not see your arrogance, or do you just enjoy believing you're better than everyone else?

[The Grand Nudger]

So, in essence, each one of you is a "prove me wrong" believer? Not really how that works, but that's okay.

[lucent]

Offering odds of 50/50 you should not go into running betting rings. You have just plucked that right out of thin air haven’t you.

When you remove all other considerations, there are only two possible answers to the question, "was the universe deliberately created?". That's 50/50.

Wheras the mathematical models of the wave function of the universe suggest there is over 95% chance of the universe coming into existence in its current state uncaused from nothing. So you have something which is not even a conjecture which you assert is a better explanation than a genuine conjecture with mathematical proof.

It's a logical proof, perhaps you're familiar with logic? 95 percent chance is a number pulled out of hat, there is no basis for that figure, and the illogic of being arising from non being shouldn't even have to be mentioned. Math has demonstrated all sorts of theories that weren't actually true, and this particular one is contridictory to reason.

Not saying either are right, because no one knows. But the arguments you present aren’t good they are terrible…I admit they seem to convince you. By the way who mentioned an infinite regress?, there is no natural explanation that explores this possibility.

Either you have an eternal first cause, or an infinite regress of causes. Since time space matter and energy had an absolute beginning, the cause must be timeless, immaterial and transcendent.

Hint…gravity

The model doesn't work. The expansion pressure outweighs the gravity, making it physically impossible to form a star.

Stick to the point. Don’t speak about probabilities if you don’t understand them

Without any other consideration, everything is equally unlikely.

Define information before you take one step further. You boys really like to harp on about it, but I can name you at least 5 recent (as in the last few hundred years) mutations on the human genome that have taken hold in their populations and have led to improved human characteristics for certain environments and features. These have encoded new ’information’ into that DNA. You will deny this of course opting for the line “well that isn’t new information”, but refusing to define what you mean by information.

The question isn't what is information, because we already know what information is, and where it comes from. The question is, does DNA fit into any known categories of things that contains information? The answer is yes. DNA is a highly sophisticated code; more sophisticated than any code we have developed. It contains digital information and is an information storage and retrieval system. It is highly optimized and contains redundancy and error correction. The amount of information in DNA could fill 12 sets of the encyclopedia brittanica. It is also a language. It has an alphabet, a coding system, correct spelling, grammar, meaning, and intended purpose.

Since DNA qualifies as both a code and a language, and we know that codes and languages only come from minds, it is reasonable to conclude that DNA also came from a mind. There is no naturalistic process which can account for DNA. I recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Was-Info...e/dp/08905 14615

Thank you for the clarification, I’ll answer.

Oh but I could. I can point to 3 atheistic arguments just to start with:

1) The god concept and supernaturalism are meaningless. I have given you that argument already (maybe in another thread?). But you cannot invoke a god concept if it is meaningless and has no explanatory power. Supernaturalism can never be true. If we validated supernaturalism (eg ghosts etc), then they would just be a hitherto unknown extension of the natural world. A new branch of physics if you prefer. Supernaturalism is just a fairy tale for adults I’m afraid.

This is an argument? This is you stating your personal beliefs as fact and offering conclusions based on those beliefs which are not supported by a logically coherent argument. Please give me something to work with.

2) The necessity of naturalism. Human knowledge is limited. The necessity of a transcendent knowledge base is a Category 1 presupposition. And we need a transcendent knowledge base precisely because our knowledge is limited to begin with. And since supernatural effects can only be deduced if one has no limits of knowledge, then naturalism is absolute. We can express both lines of evidence in this way:
1. Supernaturalism is only meaningful in that it is a negation of material causes.
2. Negation of material causes would only be possible if humans had no limit of knowledge.
3. A transcendent knowledge base is necessary because we have limits of knowledge.
4. Supernaturalism is impossible. (from 1, 2 and 3)
5. Naturalism is an absolute. (from 4)

Your premise that supernatural effects can only be deduced by humans without unlimited knowledge is false. Limited beings can deduce such effects by information given to them by the Creator.

The impossibility of divine creation.

1. Divine creation implies an ex ante facto empty state of the universe.
2. Empty states are atemporal and without potentiality.
3. As an action, divine creation requires time and potentiality. (from 1)
4. Divine creation is impossible. (from 2 and 3)

Premise one is false, Divine Creation does not assume any such thing. Divine Creation is instantaneous and timeless.

[Cyberman]

Lucent, please could you wipe your feet before coming into the forum? You're treading bullshit all over the place. And it stinks.

[lucent]

I can whittle down gods that are plainly false by referencing what we do know about ourselves and the cosmos Lucent. That leaves yours out of the party. The origins story is myth, the histories are myth, and the very notion of prophecy or any narrative built upon the other two as a part of the prophetic cycle are myth as well. Perhaps some god, definitively not the god you describe. How about that for whittling down gods with a little reason? (see, that's how that's done. simple explanations for your stance on an issue that can stand up to scrutiny)

That's your interpretation of the available data, I see something entirely different. The creation story in Genesis is the only one the line up with the basic facts, such as that time had an absolute beginning.

You have stated that one can whittle down the list of gods if one uses a little reason, why are you unable to provide that reason when asked? Why must we whittle the list down to creator gods only (a subset of god contained within every pantheon btw, you eliminate no competing faith by eliminating the non creator god subset). Perhaps god simply stumbled upon this show already in motion. How can you know that this is not the case? More claims to knowledge made from a position of ignorance. Your claims become yet more complicated. I notice you believe that wodan is mythical, but why is your own argument fed back to you insufficient when dealing with wodan, but right on the mark for your own god? Special rules for your pet fairy right?

We're looking for ultimate causes and gods which make no claims to creation can be ruled out for ultimate causes.

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Unlike language, you cannot substitute the 'letters' of DNA with other molecules and get the same result. In language, the symbols are arbitrary, not so in chemistry. You can analogize DNA to a language, but it isn't actually a language. There is no alternate way to specify the same organism by 'translating' DNA onto a disk: the information will never give you a living organism unless you 'translate' the disk back into DNA. And

There are multiple overlapping codes in DNA. These codes can translate DNA into many different types of critical functions and instructions using the same series of letters. So these letters have different meanings according to the rules used to translate them I would say this sufficiently qualifies for a level of abstraction to the overall code, not that this is actually a requirement to identify DNA as a langauge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki31gtup92U

The point about the transfer of DNA is, it can be copied and copied back with no loss of information. It doesn't matter if I can get an organism from the DNA code on a computer disk. If this post was found by a civilization that had no record of the english language, would it cease to be english because no one could translate it?

'Information simply only comes from minds' is affirming the consequent, and therefore fallacious. It's like saying 'design simply only comes from humans'. It assumes what you're trying to prove. Someone saying that 'information only comes from minds', observing information that can't be traced back to a mind, and concluding that it must be produced by a mind anyway, is doing neither science nor logic.

I'll say it this way. There isn't a natural process to create that information, and all the information we have ever observed comes only from minds. Further, the information in DNA fits into categories of things which contain information, such as codes and languages. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude the information in DNA came from a mind.

Darwin didn't even know cells, or genes, existed. He knew there must be a mechanism of heredity with the properties of high (but not perfect) fidelity for his theory to be correct, and it turned out to be so. As for the complexity of cells, that explains why it took longer for cells to appear after the earth cooled than it took for all life since to evolve. In regards to your explanation, why did God wait so long to 'poof' the first cell into existence?

I don't believe in theistic evolution. I take a literal view on Genesis.

Excellent evidence of common descent.

Also excellent evidence for a common designer.

It is true that single-celled organisms never stopped evolving (why should they?), so current single-celled organisms are not 'primitive' in any sense. After sixty or seventy years of studying abiogenesis with purpose we are able to synthesize an entire bacterial genome, insert it into a denucleated cell, and have it live and reproduce. Nature ran the same experiment without purpose in 'labs' around the planet over half-a-billion years. Early cells would have a tough time in today's environment, but, to be fair, most modern life would perish in the world they arose in.

It's easy to say that because we can toy around with the design and make things happen, but that's quite a bit different from getting to the design in the first place. It would be like expecting C++ to emerge from a calculus. Spontaneous generation of life has never once been observed happening anywhere, and the sophistication of the cell, and the DNA molecule cannot be accounted for by darwinian processes.

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I thought I was clear on the fact that you can't use your personal experience, because somebody else could provide the same. Once again, you show how incapable you are of grasping even the simplest logical process.

Is there anything I could tell you which you wouldn't instantaneously and contemptously dismiss?

Then you claim to have researched ALL religions. Goodness me lucent, you are a fucking liar. Why would you even tell such a stupid, stupid lie?

Obviously not all religions ever, but all of the modern ones, the important and unimportant historical ones, and the even very esoteric ones. I researched belief systems in every culture, spiritual systems, philosophies, etc..from the logical to the abstract to the totally bizarre. Everything from hinduism, to jainism, to the sumerians, to kundalini yoga to marxism, confucism, taoism, etc etc etc.

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Except yourself, of course. You clearly know the truth, but everyone else is being deceived. Do you truly not see your arrogance, or do you just enjoy believing you're better than everyone else?

The primary factor in the equation is sin. If you can keep sin out of your life, and obey the will of God, you can avoid many of the pitfalls that people fall into because they loved their sin more than the truth.

[tackattack]

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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?

Hey Tacky, long time no speak; hope you are well etc

If you are going to invoke that to validate the 'is' designed hypothesis. I will respectfully concede that it is logically possible. However I would also respectfully point out that the hypothesis should be that god designed the universe for black holes, not us. The universe is the best possible deisgn for black holes and black holes are where the vast majority of mass and energy resides that god painstainkingly created. Obviously it must be designed right! And because all but out poky corner is cut out for human life it definately proves it was designed and an omnisceint god would know that it would convince all of us, wouldn't he?

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I am, ty. Respectfully, no the hypothesis should be that God designed the universe. I never claimed it was all just for little old me. I'm sure when we find another race of aliens, if ever, that they'll have their version of a universe creator. If black holes were sentient, then they'd probably claim it was created for them. I just claim that it appears designed. Something from nothing and order from chaos, etc. are difficult concepts to reason especially with the selectivity and lack of livable area. Not that it's impossible, I know there are a few examples out there. As a human, it's a natural inclination that things are viewed from a spacially independant self perspective. If it was created the next logical question would be why
which is why a lot of people believe in a personal God, I think.

[Shell B]

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.

Allow me to explain the conversation we just had to you. You told me that I must not be familiar with the Bible because I do not believe in demons. I went on to say that I didn't have to believe the shit in it to have read it. Then, you countered with believing being part of being a Christian. In case you haven't noticed, I am not a Christian. It is implied that I do not believe in the Bible. So, going back to my original point, believing in demons is slightly nuts. Believing you have seen one is totally nuts.

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

You think you're in contact with an invisible deity, oh demon speaker.

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.

You do know the definition of meme right? So, you do not think that Satan is behind the Bible because the Bible told you that only the word of god can control demons and the Bible words can control demons? That is idiotic. How do you know that is not what the demons want you to believe?

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.

Given that Halloween is over, you can put away the strawman. I'll tell you what, if you can find one place where I said other Christians do not believe in demons, I will pray tonight. You're actually so obtuse that you didn't realize that I was pointing how crazy you are for thinking you have seen demons and that billions of other people talk to them. I did not say that you are an aberration. Could you discuss my actual arguments instead of the ones you just make up to draw attention away from the parts of the conversation you can't hack?

[Minimalist]

I went on to say that I didn't have to believe the shit in it to have read it.

I think I understand now what is wrong with our jesus fucktards. They think that anything that is written down is true. ( As long as it you put it between the covers of their fucking bible!)

Sick, sorry, sons-of-bitches, Shel!

[Shell B]

There is no flaw in your logic there. I have not found a single bible thumper who isn't completely convinced of every word in the bible. I tend to have more respect for the wishy washy Christians who agree the bible is crap.

[Minimalist]

There is no flaw in your logic there.

And what about the alliteration!