Q about arguments for God's existence.

[Michael Schubert]

Why are they all so fucking illogical and idiotic? Moreover, why are so many people dumb enough to be "persuaded" by them?

They were all thought up in peoples' imaginations during the Dark Ages: A time when people had no other way of deciphering material reality. The human imagination, after all, can think of much more than science can test.

[rsturgess]

Thought of this evidence for the existence of God and would value your thoughts on this forum, am I missing something?

Watched the film “The Imitation Game” about the Enigma code the other day and it got me thinking about codes. Codes are an amazing invention, the whole modern world runs using codes, computers store information using codes and then use coding languages to process that information. Without codes the modern world would grind to a halt pretty quickly. Codes are a mark of an advance civilization as they allow efficient storing and passing on of information, the ancient Egyptians for example invented hieroglyphs to record information for future generations. The discovery of a code is proof of an intelligent being behind the code, this is why we spend millions listening to noise from space in the hope of discovering a coded message from another life form. Should we ever discover such a code it would be conclusive proof that intelligent life exists outside out planet. A code could not come about by chance or natural selection as the code has to be complete and whole to be any use at all, a code with a few errors would be useless as any programmer will tell you.

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA, this stores all the information for the growth, functioning and reproduction of all living things. One single strand of DNA contains all the information and instructions to create a human being starting from 2 cells, over 3 billion base-pairs worth of information! Just think how complex a task it would be to encode the instructions for an unskilled person to build a simple machine like a bicycle from raw materials. How much more infinitely complex a human is, yet every single cell in our body has within it all with instructions the cell needs to create a new life, all encoded into a microscopic strand of DNA. Whatever your view on evolution it would seem evident that the DNA code within our cells could not have come about by chance, there must have been an intelligent being to create the code. And therefore since all life on earth needs DNA to function and reproduce, life itself could not have come about by chance. Proof God exists?!

[IATIA]

I think it's probably part of life in the echo chamber.  If everybody is telling you how good you are you tend to believe them.  The same with arguments.  If all you're exposed to are the good points, and don't grapple with the criticisms, you'll have a tendency to think the arguments are strong.

Very true. But once a person is old enough to experience the world on their own, say by about the age of 17, wtf is their excuse then? Laziness?

Technically it is a form of brainwashing as children and it is difficult to overcome that under any circumstance.  Time does not necessarily heal all wounds.

[Esquilax]

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA, this stores all the information for the growth, functioning and reproduction of all living things

I knew you were going there from the moment you started talking about codes, and the short answer is that yes, you are missing something: "the genetic code" is a layman's analogy used to describe the basics of how DNA works outside of the scientific specifics. It's not a description of what DNA is, it's a comparison for ease of explanation, nothing more.

The reason that DNA is a code is because it can be read as one, it can be "decoded" and rendered in plain English so we can determine what organism might result from it, but this is merely because the chemical reactions that form DNA are predictable and consistent: X DNA structure will result in X organic structure, Y DNA will result in Y structure, and so on and so forth. We know how DNA forms, we understand the limited framework of chemical interactions that go into it, and we can use that knowledge to predict what will happen; it's only four chemicals pairing together, after all.

Simply put, "patterns that can be decoded," is not the same concept as "information intelligently encoded into a pattern." We can, for example, decode patterns in the weather to predict future weather events, but that doesn't mean that weather is a code designed to impart that information to us, just that we've gotten good at recognizing the precipitators of weather events.

Whatever your view on evolution it would seem evident that the DNA code within our cells could not have come about by chance, there must have been an intelligent being to create the code.

In an accurately understood view of evolution, DNA didn't come about by chance; in reality it formed via a lengthy chain of small steps, each one adding slightly to the complexity of the chain over time, like grains of sand added to a pile. Most importantly, none of those small steps, if they survived until now, were random; the survival of each and every one of them was predicated on the environment the resultant organism found itself in, plus the prior steps that led up to that point. In actual fact, there are a multitude of restrictions and frameworks in place around the evolution of human DNA, so calling it random would be a flat out lie; you seem to have fallen for one of creationism's greatest fraudulent claims about evolution, so I have to ask: did you read up on evolution at all before you wrote this?

Also though? The fact that you can't imagine how these things came about by chance is merely an argument from ignorance: "I don't know" does not equal "it's impossible."

And therefore since all life on earth needs DNA to function and reproduce, life itself could not have come about by chance. Proof God exists?!

Life didn't come about by chance. Therefore, your conclusions are faulty, and your proof is... not.

[IATIA]

A code could not come about by chance or natural selection as the code has to be complete and whole to be any use at all,...

DNA, which you did mention later. is code by natural selection.

... a code with a few errors would be useless as any programmer will tell you.

RNA has been created in a laboratory environment and duplication errors led to the demise of some cultures while others thrived.

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA, this stores all the information for the growth, functioning and reproduction of all living things.

Code by natural selection.

[Simon Moon]

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA, this stores all the information for the growth, functioning and reproduction of all living things. One single strand of DNA contains all the information and instructions to create a human being starting from 2 cells, over 3 billion base-pairs worth of information! Just think how complex a task it would be to encode the instructions for an unskilled person to build a simple machine like a bicycle from raw materials. How much more infinitely complex a human is, yet every single cell in our body has within it all with instructions the cell needs to create a new life, all encoded into a microscopic strand of DNA. Whatever your view on evolution it would seem evident that the DNA code within our cells could not have come about by chance, there must have been an intelligent being to create the code. And therefore since all life on earth needs DNA to function and reproduce, life itself could not have come about by chance. Proof God exists?!

DNA is not a code. It is chemistry.

It’s a bad analogy for a very simple, but often overlooked reason: is a chemical. What it does is just a function of the laws of chemistry and physics working through specific chemical interactions. If it’s a code, then so is every other chemical formula. Therefore, water (H2O) is a code.

Codes communicate a message from one intelligence to another. DNA uses chemistry to create proteins.

Just because scientists will use a term to communicate a complex subject to laypeople so as to make it more understandable. When they use the word 'code' to describe DNA, they are doing it for this purpose.  

[IATIA]

DNA ... If it’s a code, then so is every other chemical formula. Therefore, water (H2O) is a code.

I have no problem with that.  Our intelligence is a product of our DNA.

Codes communicate a message from one intelligence to another.

So computers are intelligent?  I fail to see intelligence as a necessity for codes, but rather a byproduct.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

....Proof God exists?!

No.

[Tonus]

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA,

Is it really?  It seems to me that a great deal of DNA's complexity is due to the volume of information, and not how intricately or efficiently it is assembled.  98% of human DNA is "junk" or non-coding DNA.  What, in particular, makes DNA a reason to believe in god?

[IATIA]

One of the most complex codes known to man is DNA,

Is it really?  It seems to me that a great deal of DNA's complexity is due to the volume of information, and not how intricately or efficiently it is assembled.  98% of human DNA is "junk" or non-coding DNA.  What, in particular, makes DNA a reason to believe in god?

So it would be possible to rip all this "junk" DNA from a zygote and the result would still be a normal human being? Or is it that we just yet do not know it's function? I am thinking instincts.