Dr. Craig is a liar.

[Edwardo Piet]

None of this was actually said, but it feels kinda like it was:

One possibility is that life started elsewhere in the solar system and come here on an asteroid. But that's just one possibility and I don't think it's at all likely.

WHAT?! You believe that aliens definitely started life on earth?! Because that's what I'm hearing because I'm a disingenuous cunt.

Suck my Dawkinsian balls!

Hammy

[Angrboda]

It wasn't drawn from any particular source.  I tried to list them clearly in my reply, but philosophy of science is a favorite topic with me and the information is drawn from my experience as much as from online sources.

Then please elaborate on Relevance, Explanatory Power (before and after comparison), and Predictiveness and why God fails in these marks while another cause might score higher on such a thing as the creation of the universe. I have to think that applying principles in lab might be a little different when applying them to the creation of physical reality from nothing.

---

Consider the usual elementary textbook “scientific explanation” of the motion of the balls in the above example following their collision. This explanation proceeds by deriving that motion from information about their masses and velocity before the collision, the assumption that the collision is perfectly elastic, and the law of the conservation of linear momentum. We usually think of the information conveyed by this derivation as showing that it is the mass and velocity of the balls, rather than, say, their color or the presence of the blue chalk mark, that is explanatorily relevant to their subsequent motion.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scient...planation/

It's easy to see why natural preconditions are relevant to any naturalistic explanation of the creation of the universe. It's less clear why the pre-existence of a supernatural being leads to that creation without plenty of ad hoc assumptions.

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Explanatory power is a measure of how well we understand the phenomena from the explanation. Saying that a car "burns gas" to make it go does not have as much explanatory power as a detailed examination of the workings of a typical internal combustion engine.

The sense of explanatory power that this paper seeks to analyze has to do with a hypothesis’s ability to decrease the degree to which we find the explanandum surprising (i.e., its ability to increase the degree to which we expect the explanandum). More specifically, a hypothesis offers a powerful explanation of a proposition, in this sense, to the extent that it makes that proposition less surprising. This sense of explanatory power dominates statistical reasoning where scientists are “explaining away” surprise in the data by means of assuming a specific statistical model...This notion finds precedence in many classic discussions of explanation. Perhaps its clearest historical expression occurs when Peirce (1935, 5.189) identifies the explanatoriness of a hypothesis with its ability to render an otherwise “surprising fact” as “a matter of course.”

http://fitelson.org/few/few_10/schupbach_sprenger.pdf

Deutsch takes examples from Greek mythology. He describes how very specific, and even somewhat falsifiable theories were provided to explain how the gods' sadness caused the seasons. Alternatively, Deutsch points out, one could have just as easily explained the seasons as resulting from the gods' happiness - making it a bad explanation, because it is so easy to arbitrarily change details.[1] Without Deutsch's criterion, the 'Greek gods explanation' could have just kept adding justifications. This same criterion, of being "hard to vary", may be what makes the modern explanation for the seasons a good one: none of the details - about the earth rotating around the sun at a certain angle in a certain orbit - can be easily modified without changing the theory's coherence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_power

The notion of "goddidit" doesn't provide any real detail on the how of it. The process remains as much of a mystery after the explanation as before it.

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Predictiveness is the ability of a hypothesis to generate novel predictions about the phenomena. Einstein's relativity has generated numerous predictions which can be tested against the natural world. The hypothesis of "Goddidit" doesn't really generate any predictions about what we should observe about either the material or non-material world.

[Pat Mustard]

A) your theological arguments are neither natural nor evidence. At best, they are special pleading. At worst they are lies.
B) The bible isn't evidence. If it were we'd have to accept that a Scottish giant destroyed a land bridge between Ulster and Galloway, because he was feared of Cuchulainn. This is, of course theGiant's Causeway myth, and it has the exact same evidential basis as the bible. On miracles name me one single one that has been shown to have happened and demonstrated to have no possible natural cause. Only then will I accept miracles as evidence.
C) Consciousness is an emergent property of human (and possibly other large brained species) brain functions. There is no wvidence to show that life neither needs nor has a supernatural explanation. As with miracles, bring evidence to the table and we'll talk. Until then I'll continue on the basis that you haven't the first iota of a clue about what you speak on.

DELETED. Changed my mind. I don't want to debate you.

Clever boy, we both know I own the fuck out of you so far.

[LadyForCamus]

Are you trying to make my head blow up?

Lol, I know right?! Jor makes me feel like such a dunce. Not on purpose of course; she's just so damn smart! [emoji13]

[robvalue]

Right! She's way too smart for me. I just hide under the table when she starts spinning those logic swords, so maybe I can steal some loot from the dead arguments

[LadyForCamus]

Right! She's way too smart for me. I just hide under the table when she starts spinning those logic swords, so maybe I can steal some loot from the dead arguments

That's basically what I do here daily with ALL of you smarty pants people! [emoji14][HEAVY BLACK HEART]️

[LadyForCamus]

Steve: just because you can conceive of a concept using your imagination (like God existing timelessly while simultaneously causing the universe to begin to exist), that doesn't mean you have a supported argument IN FAVOR of that idea. You still have no foundation of evidence to demonstrate that what you have imagined is possible at all, let alone the mostly likely possibility to be true.

There are many existential concepts I can conceive of (especially at 3am after a long night of alcohol consumption) but without evidential support, they're just musings of the mind.

[robvalue]

People need not worry, we couldn't take their imaginary friends away even if we wanted to.

They'd have to decide they are ready to leave them behind for themselves, if/when they are ready. To shed the security of fantasy and embrace the here and now in reality. Make the most of what time we have, instead of worrying about hypothetical magical futures.

[Simon Moon]

All you have to do is provide me with: demonstrable, falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic to support your claim that a god exists.

How does one go about falsifying the proposition that a justified belief must be falsifiable?

So Chad, besides your god beliefs, what other existential claim do you, or would you, accept without meeting the criteria I stated?

[Jehanne]

It wasn't drawn from any particular source.  I tried to list them clearly in my reply, but philosophy of science is a favorite topic with me and the information is drawn from my experience as much as from online sources.

Then please elaborate on Relevance, Explanatory Power (before and after comparison), and Predictiveness and why God fails in these marks while another cause might score higher on such a thing as the creation of the universe. I have to think that applying principles in lab might be a little different when applying them to the creation of physical reality from nothing.

"God" is not a "good explanation" because, 1)  No evidence exists for "god"; 2) "God" is infinitely complex, at least in some respects, and "infinite complexity" does not arise ex nihilo; 3) The "Argument from (Natural) evil" disproves a perfectly benevolent "god" but not necessarily an "evil" one; 4) The Universe is its own explanation and cause; the no-boundary theorem of Hawking and Hartle prove this; 5) The "god" hypothesis does not lead to any testable, scientific predictions; 6) The idea of a "timeless, spaceless" being of infinite age that does not change states at all, but then, "all of suddenly", changing states without a cause is absurd; and 7) That a "cause" could be simultaneous with an "effect" is contrary to all known physical laws.