The Problem with Christians

[AAA]

[athrock]

You are right, Jorm. But does this muffin analogy actually damage the overall argument? Or is it generally useful? 

If you were walking alone in the woods and you came upon black metal box with hinges and a padlock in the middle of the trail, would your first thought be like that of Bertrand Russell, "Well, locked black boxes like this just are, and that's all there is to it"? Or would you assume implicitly that someone made the box, locked it, and placed it in the path?

And if the box can be presumed to have a maker, why not something larger...like a house, for instance? Or an aircraft carrier? Or a planet or even the universe itself? Does the size of the thing in question really change our willingness to conceive of its maker?

So, there's two basic problems with your argument here: one is an issue of false equivalence, and the other is a factual error.

To begin with the false equivalence, your discovery in the woods doesn't really match up with what you're seeking to make a comparison with, does it? I don't know whether you did this intentionally or not, but you selected an item that we already have evidence for its design, which we do not have for the universe. If you were to find a locked black box in the woods, you're already equipped with a vast swathe of data about how locks and boxes come to exist, and for what reason that is, but when you're talking about the universe, none of that is true and, in fact, we only have a single universe to examine, and it had already been around for a long ass time before we ever showed up to do so. You don't have the requisite information necessary to make the same assumption with the universe that you might with the locked box.

Now, there is a valid form of your analogy, we just need to tweak a variable: if you were walking alone in the woods and you came across an object, previously unknown to you, of which you only know of this single example in front of you, that you are only able to examine the smallest fraction of it, and are unable to ascertain what purpose it might have, or even if it does have a purpose... would you assume design? There's a conversation to be had there about how we even recognize design, but the fact is, that conversation needs to be had, because we're on far, far shakier ground talking about the universe than we are about locked boxes.

The factual error is simpler to explain, which is that you're unjustified in the assumption that universes even need a cause in the temporal sense we understand. Time and space are properties of the universe, and what data we have been able to ascertain about the big bang and points beyond seem to suggest that the physical constants within our universe stop applying as we understand them at the point of the big bang: causation stops mattering, for example, because you've reached the point at which our notion of time began, and "before time" is nonsensical as a concept. Cause and effect necessarily require linear time in which to occur, which did not exist prior to the Planck time, so when you say the universe requires a cause, the simple fact is that you've got no reason for saying that at all.

You have a good point. I seriously considered using something like "a shiny sphere made of an unknown substance" instead of a locked box. Shoulda gone with my instincts.

As for your final papagraph, my question would simply be: What changed? There was no universe and then there was. What changed?

The second domino to fall does so because of the first. But what caused the first to fall?

[athrock]

Is that true, Lady? 

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics...and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." 

- Fred Hoyle, Astrophysicist and Cosmologist, Cambridge

"There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all...it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming."

- Paul Davies, Physicist, Recipient of the Templeton Prize, the Kelvin Medal from the UK Institute of Physics, and the Michael Faraday Prize

"Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine tuning."

- Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, Fellow of Trinity College, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Cambridge

"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."

- Stephen Hawking 

So, you can mock Atlas and AAA if you like, but apparently, they are in good company when they promote the Intelligent Design theory.

In light of this, perhaps you should take a look at how ridiculously convoluted your own thinking is. 

Lol, congratulations on your MASSIVE appeal to authority!   So because there exist scientists out there who believe in God, therefor God?  You're going to have to do better than that.

LOL.

You wrote: "Do you not understand how ridiculously convoluted your thinking is?"

Now, in light of those quotes from some VERY smart people who see evidence for ID, I think YOU are the one who is going to have to do better than merely asserting that accepting the theory is "convoluted" thinking.

Somewhere, a fat lady is warming up. 

[AAA]

Is that true, Lady? 

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics...and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." 

- Fred Hoyle, Astrophysicist and Cosmologist, Cambridge

"There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all...it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming."

- Paul Davies, Physicist, Recipient of the Templeton Prize, the Kelvin Medal from the UK Institute of Physics, and the Michael Faraday Prize

"Wherever physicists look, they see examples of fine tuning."

- Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, Fellow of Trinity College, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Cambridge

"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."

- Stephen Hawking 

So, you can mock Atlas and AAA if you like, but apparently, they are in good company when they promote the Intelligent Design theory.

In light of this, perhaps you should take a look at how ridiculously convoluted your own thinking is. 

Lol, congratulations on your MASSIVE appeal to authority!   So because there exist scientists out there who believe in God, therefor God?  You're going to have to do better than that.

I agree, let's not appeal to authority. Although some of the other people seem to want me to list scientists who support ID. Lets appeal to the evidence:

Glycolysis is thought to be the most primitive metabolic pathway in existence. Glycolysis (in most organisms, there are variations) requires 10 different enzymes to effectively catalyze the breakdown of glucose to pyruvate. All of them are necessary with the possible exception of triose phosphate isomerase. If you are missing one enzyme, the reaction no longer proceeds. Then you are unable to make pyruvate. How do you think these 10 (or 9) enzymes managed to gradually arise independently of one another when the absence of one prevents the formation of pyruvate. In addition to this, the cell needs to have pathways in place to further catabolize pyruvate to form high energy potential molecules. Which option is better from a scientific point of view: 1) All the enzymes formed at the same time (because they are all necessary to do the job), or 2) they gradually formed independent of each other in a way that allowed them to work together while the job that they had to complete was somehow accomplished by some other unknown/unobservable mechanism.

One of those options is highly speculative while the other is consistent with observations.

[LadyForCamus]

[abaris]

Here are just a few of the top google searches. I don't really think that finding scientists on your side of a debate is significant though. You could find scientists who believe almost anything. I would rather focus on the specifics of cellular biology.

Did you actually look at the names you've given and what they stand of stood for? Or is Michelle Bachmann enough of an authority to make your case?

Here's just one of them. Wonder how he manages to square his circle, but it's the only one mentioned in a relevant field of science. It's also pointed out that he's one of the very few believing in intelligent design.

Unlike William A. Dembski and others in the intelligent design movement, Behe accepts the common descent of species, including that humans descended from other primates, although he states that common descent does not by itself explain the differences between species. He also accepts the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth and the age of the Universe.

So he doesn't dispute scientific facts but still insists on intelligen design. He just inserts an assertiuon to make ends meet from his point of view. Doesn't explain simply means, we don't know, so it's the classic god of the gaps. Curious.

I also looked up Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, who isn't accepted by the scientific community at all. In fact he's pretty much standing alone without anyone in his field offering support.

[AAA]

Here are just a few of the top google searches. I don't really think that finding scientists on your side of a debate is significant though. You could find scientists who believe almost anything. I would rather focus on the specifics of cellular biology.

Did you actually look at the names you've given and what they stand of stood for? Or is Michelle Bachmann enough of an authority to make your case?

Here's just one of them. Wonder how he manages to square his circle, but it's the only one mentioned in a relevant field of science. It's also pointed out that he's one of the very few believing in intelligent design.

Unlike William A. Dembski and others in the intelligent design movement, Behe accepts the common descent of species, including that humans descended from other primates, although he states that common descent does not by itself explain the differences between species. He also accepts the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth and the age of the Universe.

So he doesn't dispute scientific facts but still insists on intelligen design. Curious.

Behe is a biochemist correct? That's in the relevant feild. There were physicists in there too.There were also microbiologists, geneticists, and astrobiologists. But again you can find scientists on any side of a debate. There are scientists who deny global warming. You have to look at the evidence yourself and not take what someone else tells you as truth.

[abaris]

Behe is a biochemist correct? That's in the relevant feild. There were physicists in there too.There were also microbiologists, geneticists, and astrobiologists. But again you can find scientists on any side of a debate. There are scientists who deny global warming. You have to look at the evidence yourself and not take what someone else tells you as truth.

The difference being, you can always find one, two or even a hand full in favor of creationism. You find hundreds of thousands not being creationists. That's why we don't name names, since they would fill volumes, as opposed to creationists.

And thank you very much. I look at the relevant evidence since I was little. Starting out with visits to the museum of natural history with my father. But one of the reasons why I'm an atheist.

[robvalue]

Still waiting to hear what non-designed life would be like, and how they would know this.

Has anyone ever answered this question, among all the world's ID supporters?

If they can't give a single theoretical example for comparison, then they're just flat assuming that life is designed because it's life. Everything is evidence for their non-falsifiable assumptions.

[Wyrd of Gawd]