Nature's Laws

[Cyberman]

No, you keep missing it. The default position on anything is scepticism, of which atheism is a specialised subset dealing with one subject. Scepticism is the position of responding, "ok - convince me" to claims. It's the reason a law court is geared to the prosecution having to provide the evidence for the charges, not the defense to disprove them; with the jury or magistrates playing the rôle of sceptic waiting to be convinced.

[The Grand Nudger]

How do you know that a living cell is so complex?  Does it say so in the bible...or are you borrowing from what you will, at a convenient moment, entirely deny the credibility of?  Would it matter if life -were- super complicated?  Or, put another way....if life were simple and the tolerances wide.....would that - to you- imply that there were no god? To use a favorite example...is the operation of a telephone simple or complex to you...and regardless, are you capable of constructing one? Just what -is- any of this supposed to lead to, in your estimation?

Right off the bat, "if things were different" -then they would be different. If life didn't get the energy it needed, if cells didn't function..then there would be no life, no cells, no function...and you wouldn't be here erecting an effigy to your ignorance (because, plainly, you would not exist). But it doesn't matter, because what we both agree on is that life does get that energy, those cells do function,life exists.......and here you are......

Now, assume we know nothing about it - how have you come to the conclusion that your god explanation is correct? The explanations of others, or any gaps you feel there may be in those explanations...are -not- an argument for your own explanations. Do you understand?

[Bad Wolf]

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.

No, that isn't what I said. People rationalize their beliefs and actually believe them, they don't know they are wrong, it would be impossible and contradictory to believe something and to also know that that belief is 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.      

Do you believe in bigfoot? No? Well that's just an assertion.
Do you believe in the lockness monster? No? Well that's just an assertion
Do you believe that all the world leaders are lizard people? No, well that's just an assertion.

[Esquilax]

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. 

No, you're wrong: you totally can get machines in nature without a purpose.

What? You're not convinced by that? But I'm done. I provided exactly as much evidence for my position as you did. Why aren't you convinced?

So... wait: just asserting something without any real evidence isn't a sufficient rebuttal? Huh...

Do you know what an argument from incredulity is? It's when you mistake your own inability to properly understand something, as an argument against it. All you've done here is state that you're incredulous over how complicated you feel the living cell is, and then concluded that because you can't imagine it evolving, it therefore didn't. But as I've said multiple times now, your opinions aren't worth much here; you're not a scientist, you certainly aren't giving us any evidence, just your own opinions, which are clearly biased, since you're a theist. Without the evidence to support what you're saying, why should I care?

Conversely, I've not only explained my position in detail, I've also pointed you to laboratory experiments that support that position, and what's really baffling is that you're still going on about how the cell needs planning to function, when the first sentence of your post acknowledges that you've seen the experimental results of biological matter beginning to form without a plan. You say you're familiar, but then go on to ignore the findings you say you know just a few sentences later. What's going on there?

[Freedom4me]

No, you keep missing it. The default position on anything is scepticism, of which atheism is a specialised subset dealing with one subject. Scepticism is the position of responding, "ok - convince me" to claims. It's the reason a law court is geared to the prosecution having to provide the evidence for the charges, not the defense to disprove them; with the jury or magistrates playing the rôle of sceptic waiting to be convinced.

True, but skepticism is nothing but a starting point in the quest for knowledge; not the goal.  The unstated assumption of the assertion "atheism is (or ought to be) the default position" certainly sounds like skepticism on its face, but in practice it gets turned (by some atheists) into dogma.  This particular assertion doesn't become more than an assertion simply by adding to it the assertion that the theist hasn't yet supplied any evidence for his theism. 

[The Inquisition]

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. 

So which part of the Krebs cycle requires a tiny little angel coming in with a silver platter filled with delicious carbohydrates for the cell, because that's the only way it could happen, right?

[Cyberman]

True, but skepticism is nothing but a starting point in the quest for knowledge; not the goal.  The unstated assumption of the assertion "atheism is (or ought to be) the default position" certainly sounds like skepticism on its face, but in practice it gets turned (by some atheists) into dogma.  This particular assertion doesn't become more than an assertion simply by adding to it the assertion that the theist hasn't yet supplied any evidence for his theism. 

That's why it's the default position. In your own apparent motivation to turn acting the contrarian into dogma, I don't think you realise that you agree with me on this.

So taking that point, it also doesn't become an assertion merely because you keep asserting it must be an assertion.

[Freedom4me]

True, but skepticism is nothing but a starting point in the quest for knowledge; not the goal.  The unstated assumption of the assertion "atheism is (or ought to be) the default position" certainly sounds like skepticism on its face, but in practice it gets turned (by some atheists) into dogma.  This particular assertion doesn't become more than an assertion simply by adding to it the assertion that the theist hasn't yet supplied any evidence for his theism. 

That's why it's the default position. In your own apparent motivation to turn acting the contrarian into dogma, I don't think you realise that you agree with me on this.

So taking that point, it also doesn't become an assertion merely because you keep asserting it must be an assertion.

I must respectfully disagree.  The atheist can't have it both ways.  Skepticism most definitely isn't dogmatism.  If you're an atheist, then by definition you aren't a skeptic.  Both theism and atheism are about as far away from skepticism as one can get.

[Cyberman]

Bullshit. You're going to need to cite something if you're going to tell us what we believe and how we think - especially after having it explained to you numerous times.

[Freedom4me]

How do you know that a living cell is so complex?  Does it say so in the bible...or are you borrowing from what you will, at a convenient moment, entirely deny the credibility of?  Would it matter if life -were- super complicated?  Or, put another way....if life were simple and the tolerances wide.....would that - to you- imply that there were no god?  To use a favorite example...is the operation of a telephone simple or complex to you...and regardless, are you capable of constructing one?  Just what -is- any of this supposed to lead to, in your estimation?

Right off the bat, "if things were different" -then they would be different.  If life didn't get the energy it needed, if cells didn't function..then there would be no life, no cells, no function...and you wouldn't be here erecting an effigy to your ignorance (because, plainly, you would not exist).  But it doesn't matter, because what we both agree on is that life does get that energy, those cells do function,life exists.......and here you are......

Now, assume we know nothing about it - how have you come to the conclusion that your god explanation is correct?  The explanations of others, or any gaps you feel there may be in those explanations...are -not- an argument for your own explanations.  Do you understand?

I don't claim to have the ability to comprehend what it might be like to "know nothing about it."  I can, therefore, only respond to the "knows something" state of affairs.  If nature builds machines, my ability to (slightly) understand the concept of teleonomy tends to make me ask, where does this plan, purpose, and know-how come from?  I'm just taking note of the well observed fact that machines always seem to require a planner who has a purpose.