The Problem with Christians

[AJW333]

Christianity is not science.  At the end of the day it is a matter of faith and reason. My reason to believe is multifaceted but I regard the Scripture as being accurate because of its ability to reliably predict the future.

Concerning evolution, I don't regard it as being scientific. If you called it a faith, that would make more sense to me. One thing I would like to know is, what are the stages of the evolution of humans? Apart from neanderthals, what was the progenitor to humans? And what was the progenitor to that?

So the type of evidence that you require to accept the scripture as reliable is different than the kind of evidence you require to accept the theory of evolution as reliable?  Again...you don't see a major contradiction here?  Which type of evidence do you employ when evaluating other supernatural claims like say...ghosts, or poltergeists?  Science?  Or the other?  

Either way, as Rob mentioned somewhere, attempting (and failing) to poke holes in evolutionary science is not positive evidence for a designer.  It never will be.

When making scientific claims, they need to be verifiable. When making statements of faith, they do not because they don't fit the scientific model and are not subject to the same rigorous proofs required by science. I am quite comfortable having a scientific viewpoint on certain matters and at the same time, having faith in God. 

One of the reasons I discount evolution is the fact that DNA has a great many constraints against errors being retained and therefore limits the chances that one organism could morph into a completely new organism. I would very much appreciate an evolutionary timeline for human beings, from now, back 5 stages to whatever it is we are supposed to have evolved from. Can you give me that?

[AJW333]

 When I first believed, I did not understand science at all, so requiring "scientific evidence" to believe in a designer was not relevant at the time. If I wish to make an argument now for the existence of God, I may choose to use science but it isn't a requirement for faith. For some, it's as simple as staring at the stars and finding faith as a natural consequence.

There are other personal experiences that have led me to believe in God, none of which are scientifically provable, especially since they are past events that cannot be reproduced under laboratory conditions. These alone would be sufficient to cause me to believe, without any science being involved.

So, there it is.  You would believe in god for all of your "feely," non-scientific reasons, no matter WHAT science has to say about complex life or the universe.  So, please stop with the "I believe in a designer because of science" act, as clearly science is arbitrary to you here.   You're only latch onto it where you think it somehow enhances your biased conclusion (which it does not).

This is a misrepresentation. Science is helpful in explaining the likelihood of the existence of a creator. The complexity of life shows evidence of design and a designer. That said, it is eminently possible to come to faith with no understanding of science at all.

[LadyForCamus]

I'm just going to continue asking this until I get an answer:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'd say the claim of a creator/designer is pretty extraordinary. AAA, you admit that you require (what you consider in your mind) to be rigorous scientific evidence in order to accept such a claim yourself.

Going forward from there...further explanations of this creator's identity, disposition, attributes, motives, behaviors, and history are exponentially MORE detailed; MORE complicated, and are therefore even more extraordinary than simply the claim that he exists.

It follows that the evidence required to accept claims regarding the identity of the designer should be at LEAST as rigorous as what was used to determine he exists in the first place. Things like testimonials, and personal revelation should not meet your standards.

So can either of you (3A or Atlas) please explain to me how you psychologically justify arbitrarily downgrading your standards for evidence in regards to your creator's identity? I honestly don't understand.

[LadyForCamus]

I'm sorry AJ, I see you just responded to this.

[LadyForCamus]

So the type of evidence that you require to accept the scripture as reliable is different than the kind of evidence you require to accept the theory of evolution as reliable?  Again...you don't see a major contradiction here?  Which type of evidence do you employ when evaluating other supernatural claims like say...ghosts, or poltergeists?  Science?  Or the other?  

Either way, as Rob mentioned somewhere, attempting (and failing) to poke holes in evolutionary science is not positive evidence for a designer.  It never will be.

When making scientific claims, they need to be verifiable. When making statements of faith, they do not because they don't fit the scientific model and are not subject to the same rigorous proofs required by science. I am quite comfortable having a scientific viewpoint on certain matters and at the same time, having faith in God. 

One of the reasons I discount evolution is the fact that DNA has a great many constraints against errors being retained and therefore limits the chances that one organism could morph into a completely new organism. I would very much appreciate an evolutionary timeline for human beings, from now, back 5 stages to whatever it is we are supposed to have evolved from. Can you give me that?

So, "God exists" is a scientific claim, but his identity isn't?

Oh, no wait, that's right. You think you can conclude a non-science answer by picking on a scientific one. It doesn't work like that. Personal incredulity. How many times must we say that?

[Esquilax]

Speculation based on observation is a thing we call "probabilistic inference," and it's a cornerstone of scientific epistemology. You make an observation or series of observations, and then you base your conclusions on those, once you've tested for contaminating factors and so on... how else do you think science forms its conclusions?

I agree that speculation is important in science, but don't lump your speculation in with the empiricism that we agree should lead the way.

What else would you call the observations that you just said were the basis for the speculation, if not empirical?

[AAA]

I'm just going to continue asking this until I get an answer:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'd say the claim of a creator/designer is pretty extraordinary.  AAA, you admit that you require (what you consider in your mind) to be rigorous scientific evidence in order to accept such a claim yourself.

Going forward from there...further explanations of this creator's identity, disposition, attributes, motives, behaviors, and history are exponentially MORE detailed; MORE complicated, and are therefore even more extraordinary than simply the claim that he exists.  

It follows that the evidence required to accept claims regarding the identity of the designer should be at LEAST as rigorous as what was used to determine he exists in the first place.  Things like testimonials, and personal revelation should not meet your standards.

So can either of you (3A or Atlas) please explain to me how you psychologically justify arbitrarily downgrading your standards for evidence in regards to your creator's identity?  I honestly don't understand.

 I thought I responded to this. The reason I don't require the same amount of evidence to conclude the identity of the designer is because it is infinitely more difficult to assess the identity of the person who designed something that to just realize that it was designed. It is unreasonable to require extremely rigorous evidence for something that is so difficult to test. However, I think there is reasonable evidence that Jesus existed and really was God. Also the Bible makes a lot of predictions (not all of them are those really vague ones) that have come true. Maybe it's my inner Pascal, but after accepting that there likely was a designer, and that there does seem to be some significant foresight in the Bible, I am willing to place my bet with the Christian God.

[AAA]

I agree that speculation is important in science, but don't lump your speculation in with the empiricism that we agree should lead the way.

What else would you call the observations that you just said were the basis for the speculation, if not empirical?

We are not on the same page. Yes, the observations are the empirical side of science (although even then many times it is the result of error), but the speculations that arise from them are not empirical. They (the observations) are therefore open to interpretation (speculation) by those who have an understanding of the material and have read the primary article thoroughly. Speculation is fine, but it differs between people and is not to be taken as anything more than speculation until it is tested or examined thoroughly.

[Esquilax]

I'd rather not get into the formation of the universe itself, because it will quickly become the infinite regress in which we can get nowhere. However, if we are going to oversimplify each other's position on the formation of the universe, then you believe it created itself. 

My position is that nobody knows. There's an appreciable difference between an oversimplification and a flat out inaccuracy, even if I were to agree that what I said was simplified, instead of merely denuded of language meant to obfuscate the fundamentally magical claim you're making.

And the empirical evidence for abiogenesis is incredibly lacking. I don't think I ever said there was none, although I can't think of any. We were talking about the speculative nature with which they describe the origin of photosynthetic systems. It was not based on empiricism. And I don't think you can just assert that it is the best current hypothesis. There is another hypothesis capable of explaining the features of life, and that is intelligent design. Just because it raises more questions than answers does not mean it isn't correct (I'm not saying you're rejecting it for this reason, but I have a feeling it would have been part of the next response). When people first began to realize that electrons, protons, and neutrons were not the most fundamental particles, it raised a lot of questions, but they did not reject it on that premise. 

While I agree that intelligent design has (arguably superficial) explanatory power, this in itself isn't a testament to the truth of the claim either. What matters is the data and how it supports the claim, and in this case, as I said before, abiogenesis has some positive evidence in support of it, and intelligent design has no positive evidence supporting it. The fact that you can poke holes in the former does not, and has never, lent credence to the latter claim, which is important to note.

Both sides look at the empirical evidence. Both sides go from their to speculate about its origins. I happen to think they should be held on equal scientific grounds. I also think that the discussion should be encouraged in science. However, I think we need a word separate from science, because then it gets hard to discern speculation with empiricism.

First of all, this insistence on marking the speculation involved in science belies a lack of understanding that all of science is probabilistic and meant to change based on expanded or additional evidence. At heart, all science is speculation based on, and subordinate to, empirical evidence. Any speculation made without the empiricism isn't even science.

Lastly though, and I went into this in one of my responses to RoadRunner, but ID and abiogenesis aren't on remotely equal grounds empirically. Both sides do examine the same set of data, but what they do with it is entirely different, and that difference is what makes ID non-scientific, yet obsessed with cloaking itself in the terminology of science to leach some credibility from it. When one looks at the arguments for abiogenesis, you find positive evidence- if we perform X, Y, or Z experiment, for example, we get A, B, or C component of life, indicating that these things can arise from natural means. In fact, just recently it was discovered how a certain vital sugar compound can be made in conditions identical to space, granting greater odds to some form of panspermia event helping the process. Meanwhile, if you look at the arguments for ID, what you find is uniformly negative evidence, otherwise known as our good friend, the argument from ignorance: oh, I've got organic trait X, here, and I can't think of a way that it could have evolved, and in fact, if I try to reduce it according to what I know, it stops functioning! It must be irreducibly complex, and thus evolution without a designer can't account for it! Ha! I'm Michael Behe!

Do you see the difference? The former uses the observations to draw links for a given conclusion, whereas ID concerns itself with using the same observations to find arguments against the former. One is science, the other is just attempting to shit on the conclusion it doesn't like, in an attempt to discredit it. But even if such arguments were to discredit the abiogenesis conclusion, they would not do even one thing toward demonstrating ID, which is the thing real science, rather than theater science playing in a lab coat, actually does. When Einstein intended to establish the accuracy of general relativity, to use a popular example, he didn't just run around poking holes in every competing idea until only his was left. He made testable predictions and presented evidence for his idea.

When you want to determine what a pre-chosen random number between one and ten is, going "it's not two, and it's not seven, therefore, it's five!" will not render a rational or scientific conclusion.

[AAA]

I'd rather not get into the formation of the universe itself, because it will quickly become the infinite regress in which we can get nowhere. However, if we are going to oversimplify each other's position on the formation of the universe, then you believe it created itself. 

My position is that nobody knows. There's an appreciable difference between an oversimplification and a flat out inaccuracy, even if I were to agree that what I said was simplified, instead of merely denuded of language meant to obfuscate the fundamentally magical claim you're making.

And the empirical evidence for abiogenesis is incredibly lacking. I don't think I ever said there was none, although I can't think of any. We were talking about the speculative nature with which they describe the origin of photosynthetic systems. It was not based on empiricism. And I don't think you can just assert that it is the best current hypothesis. There is another hypothesis capable of explaining the features of life, and that is intelligent design. Just because it raises more questions than answers does not mean it isn't correct (I'm not saying you're rejecting it for this reason, but I have a feeling it would have been part of the next response). When people first began to realize that electrons, protons, and neutrons were not the most fundamental particles, it raised a lot of questions, but they did not reject it on that premise. 

While I agree that intelligent design has (arguably superficial) explanatory power, this in itself isn't a testament to the truth of the claim either. What matters is the data and how it supports the claim, and in this case, as I said before, abiogenesis has some positive evidence in support of it, and intelligent design has no positive evidence supporting it. The fact that you can poke holes in the former does not, and has never, lent credence to the latter claim, which is important to note.

Both sides look at the empirical evidence. Both sides go from their to speculate about its origins. I happen to think they should be held on equal scientific grounds. I also think that the discussion should be encouraged in science. However, I think we need a word separate from science, because then it gets hard to discern speculation with empiricism.

First of all, this insistence on marking the speculation involved in science belies a lack of understanding that all of science is probabilistic and meant to change based on expanded or additional evidence. At heart, all science is speculation based on, and subordinate to, empirical evidence. Any speculation made without the empiricism isn't even science.

Lastly though, and I went into this in one of my responses to RoadRunner, but ID and abiogenesis aren't on remotely equal grounds empirically. Both sides do examine the same set of data, but what they do with it is entirely different, and that difference is what makes ID non-scientific, yet obsessed with cloaking itself in the terminology of science to leach some credibility from it. When one looks at the arguments for abiogenesis, you find positive evidence- if we perform X, Y, or Z experiment, for example, we get A, B, or C component of life, indicating that these things can arise from natural means. In fact, just recently it was discovered how a certain vital sugar compound can be made in conditions identical to space, granting greater odds to some form of panspermia event helping the process. Meanwhile, if you look at the arguments for ID, what you find is uniformly negative evidence, otherwise known as our good friend, the argument from ignorance: oh, I've got organic trait X, here, and I can't think of a way that it could have evolved, and in fact, if I try to reduce it according to what I know, it stops functioning! It must be irreducibly complex, and thus evolution without a designer can't account for it! Ha! I'm Michael Behe!

Do you see the difference? The former uses the observations to draw links for a given conclusion, whereas ID concerns itself with using the same observations to find arguments against the former. One is science, the other is just attempting to shit on the conclusion it doesn't like, in an attempt to discredit it. But even if such arguments were to discredit the abiogenesis conclusion, they would not do even one thing toward demonstrating ID, which is the thing real science, rather than theater science playing in a lab coat, actually does. When Einstein intended to establish the accuracy of general relativity, to use a popular example, he didn't just run around poking holes in every competing idea until only his was left. He made testable predictions and presented evidence for his idea.

When you want to determine what a pre-chosen random number between one and ten is, going "it's not two, and it's not seven, therefore, it's five!" will not render a rational or scientific conclusion.

I think that there definitely is positive evidence for design based on what the ID proponents propose. You should read the book "Signature in the Cell". It is a very good book even if you want to read it for the purpose of picking out ID's shortcomings. Steven Meyer describes his search for an adequate explanation to the origin of life. The point where intelligence starts to become a possibility is when looking at the information bearing properties of the genetic code. He points out (and as most scientists agree) that chance alone is not sufficient to produce an information containing sequence of even 150 characters throughout the whole duration of the universe. He then points out how scientists recognized this problem and theorized that there were some chemical properties in DNA that led to favoring of information rich sequences. Unfortunately nucleotide bases are not directly linked to each other on DNA. They are linked to the deoxyribose by N-glycosidic bonds which all 4 nucleotides have equal preference for. He then points out that if there was chemical determination for certain sequences, the capacity for DNA to store information would be lost because the same sequence would eventually recur too frequently.

He then describes how there is only one known cause that is sufficient. That cause is intelligence. Therefore it is the best explanation out of the competing hypothesis, because it is a cause that is presently observed to produce the feature in question (information). It is not an argument from ignorance. Also, who are you to say which worldview has the gap being filled by the opposition? Why can't I say that you are just poking wholes in intelligent design when you say that God just poofed everything into existence? You are just arguing from ignorance on how it was done. Do you see why I don't like the phrase arguing from ignorance? The side accusing the other of doing it (you) must first assume that their (your) view is correct and that there is an unknown answer that fits into their (your) view for the other side (mine) to be ignorant of. I'd be impressed if you could follow my train of though their, I sort of rambled.