Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[brewer]

Where's the pediatric dementia specialist when you need it?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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In neither case is a supreme designer required, or present.  However, you not understanding this isn't the main problem.  The main problem is that you cant seem to understand what evidence is.  There's nothing about a fish that makes a god evident in the same way that there's nothing about a fish that makes no-god evident.  We know why color patterns on animals exist, and those facts remain regardless of whether or not some fairy is dispensing advice from on high.  I think this is a failure of islam in the present.  Rather than seek to explain what we know about the world - as it did when it was building, the cult insists that what we know is wrong.  That's a losers bet.

I already mentioned the problem with this. The fact that you understand patterns is only a small part of the explanation. The appearance of design warrants a designer, period. Understanding patterns and formulating theories only means we understood some of the designer's work. You can't pretend that scientific explanations are full explanations.

Dude, ya can't just point at a pretty fish and declare it evidence of God. You have to demonstrate why God is the most likely explanation for that pretty fish. And since mundane explanations are the preferred explanation for mundane phenomena, the God explanation automatically loses the position of 'most likely'.

But you keep trying (it's very entertaining, how you squirm). If you get tired of pointing at pretty fish, you can move on to try demonstrating why bone cancer in children is evidence for God. But that's gonna have the same problems.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Where's the pediatric dementia specialist when you need it?

Stop that right now! If you mention him three times, he re-appears.

Boru

[R00tKiT]

Instead of starting with a beginning-less past until the present, start with the present and go back into the past (which astronomers do with telescopes); you'll simply go on forever and ever.

Start with the present and go back into the past...........Um, seriously ? 

Discussing the past and the present is not like discussing a set of numbers. Again, you're simply equivocating between an actual infinity and a potential infinity. An eternal past is an actual infinity, we can't just jump to the present, we really did go through an eternal past to get here. And because one can't go through an infinite period of time, an eternal past is impossible.

[brewer]

Where's the pediatric dementia specialist when you need it?

Stop that right now! If you mention him three times, he re-appears.

Boru

But I want to be ringside when Ghetto and Klor swap spit.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Stop that right now! If you mention him three times, he re-appears.

Boru

But I want to be ringside when Ghetto and Klor swap spit.

Oh. I hadn’t considered that. Do carry on.

Boru

[brewer]

But I want to be ringside when Ghetto and Klor swap spit.

Oh. I hadn’t considered that. Do carry on.

Boru

Ghetto, Ghetto, Ghetto.................

.......Klor desperately needs your skills!

[R00tKiT]

Dude, ya can't just point at a pretty fish and declare it evidence of God. 

Actually, I can. The appearance of design is why the vast majority of people believe in God. If you think evolution is a valid defeater to design, you still have to rule out theistic evolution/guided evolution.

 you can move on to try demonstrating why bone cancer in children is evidence for God.

Is bone cancer an exception, or the state of the majority of children in the world? I want a clear answer. 

Do you think it makes sense to make inference from exceptions, and not from the health status of the majority who don't have bone cancer?

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 And since mundane explanations are the preferred explanation for mundane phenomena, the God explanation automatically loses the position of 'most likely'.

It's really ironic that you mention the word mundane -which originates from the French word mondain=worldly. Something that is worldly belongs to the world. A mundane(worldly) explanation is an explanation inside the world.... How does that make you dispense with the creator of the world... outside the world ????

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Dude, ya can't just point at a pretty fish and declare it evidence of God. 

Actually, I can. The appearance of design is why the vast majority of people believe in God. If you think evolution is a valid defeater to design, you still have to rule out theistic evolution/guided evolution.

 you can move on to try demonstrating why bone cancer in children is evidence for God.

Is bone cancer an exception, or the state of the majority of children in the world? I want a clear answer. 

Do you think it makes sense to make inference from exceptions, and not from the health status of the majority who don't have bone cancer?

Appearance of design is not the same as evidence for design.

The prevalence of pediatric bone cancer is irrelevant. If your pretty fish is evidence that the the universe was designed by God, then there is nothing that is not evidence of God.

Ooo’s a squirmy boy? Kloro’s a squirmy boy, yezzum is. Good boy!!

Your edit: ‘Mundane’ also carries the meaning of ‘prosaic’, ‘temporal’, ‘secular’, etc. A mundane explanation dispenses with God by making it superfluous and unnecessary.

Boru

[polymath257]

Instead of starting with a beginning-less past until the present, start with the present and go back into the past (which astronomers do with telescopes); you'll simply go on forever and ever.

Start with the present and go back into the past...........Um, seriously ? 

Discussing the past and the present is not like discussing a set of numbers. Again, you're simply equivocating between an actual infinity and a potential infinity. An eternal past is an actual infinity, we can't just jump to the present, we really did go through an eternal past to get here. And because one can't go through an infinite period of time, an eternal past is impossible.

But if there was no beginning, then the time interval between any two *actually existing* times is always finite.

The mistake you seem to be making is thinking that there is a start and *then* an infinite amount of time leading to now. That is NOT what is proposed.

Yes, I am talking about an *actually infinite* past. In other words, that there i no beginning. In other words, that there is an infinite regress of causes.

Why would *that* imply we 'could never get here'?

Give a detailed argument why there could not be an infinite past that doesn't simply claim that we could not 'get here' without an argument *why* we couldn't.

In particular, when you say we couldn't 'get here', exactly *from where* are you saying it is impossible?