cause-and-effect: "cause" require evidence too

[leroy]

Why didn’t God do it? It took humans and actual intelligence to do it.

Hell even the alloys had to be understood and created by humans. The highly strong steel alloys don’t exist in nature. So God didn’t make them.

All I am saying is that clock gears (or things like look like them) could have not been created by nature, so if we ever find something gears in Mars, in Antarctica, or in the fossil record say in the Jurassic period, this would represent evanescence for design even if you don’t have prior evidence that any intelligent designer has ever lived in that place/time

So please ether grant or refute this specific point

 

[leroy]

Sure. And once again, *anything* going back past the period of inflation is pure .speculation.

I am not committed to any answer. But I am committed to the process to obtain an answer: the scientific method.

You made the claim that “a causeless universe is better than God, because we know that the universe excist” (and we don’t know if any God exists, we have no evidence for God).

(I am responding to that specific claim, please let me know if I am making a straw man or if I am confusing you with someone else)

My objection is that a causeless universe would imply the existence of something from which we don’t have any evidence ether (like a previous universe causing the big bang)

My point is that you have to invoke a hypothetical thing (that may or may not exist) in ether case, regardless if you are a theist or an atheist

 

[leroy]

So you agree that knowing what the natural processes can do is the basis for determining design or not?

yes it woudl be a good basis

I would say that “knowing” is a very strong Word, I would change it for “knowing with high degree of certainty “ or something like that

 

[leroy]

If that's the standard, then God is also on par with the big bang being the result of undetectable extra-dimensional unicorns farting.

That, along with an INFINITY of other unfalsifiable claims.

All I am saying that god (or unicorns) are better that something known to be impossible

If someone knocks your door, a “unicorn” would be a better explanation than that a married bachelor

Do agree with this specific point? Yes or no?....... just joking I know you will not answer to this question, directly you would rather change the topic and make a completely different point

 

[leroy]

Not as written. You missed crucial information.
Like "signs of manufacturing", which we recognize through our own experience with manufacturing.

That, and our knowledge of natural processes, is how we distinguish between artificially manufactured things and natural occurrences.

So, to repeat: we can recognize design in certain things because:
1. we have a rather good idea of what nature can and can not do (yet there are still unknowns)
2. we understand the process of manufacturing and are able to use that experience and knowledge to recognize signs of manufacturing in certain objects.


It's, for example, how we can distinguish an artificially carved rock from a naturally eroded rock.
Because we understand and know how the results of erosion look like
And we understand and know how the results of carving look like.

So even if we deal with a seemingly randomly shaped rock with no particular function... then still we would be able to tell if it got its shape from carving or not. And we'ld recgonize it simply because it would have traces of carving.

Each manufacturing technique leaves its marks. Then there's also the used materials and the way they are put together (glue, bolts, nails, screws, etc).

, which we recognize through our own experience with manufacturing.

I would argue that one can tell if something is design even if he has no prior knowledge of manufacturing .

Do you affirm the opposite? Or is this another case where you don’t affirm nor deny anything ?

So even if we deal with a seemingly randomly shaped rock with no particular function... then still we would be able to tell if it got its shape from carving or not. And we'ld recgonize it simply because it would have traces of carving.

How did the first archeologist of the world who discovered the first carved rock, knew that it was designed? (if he had no prior knowledge on how carved rocks are supposed to look like?


If an Alien ever finds the Roseta Stone, would he be capable of concluding that the carvings where design?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The fundamental position held by humanists is that prophecy does not happen.

The position critical thinkers hold is that biblical prophecy is not evidence of a deity or of foreknowledge of the future. To be convincing, a prophecy must meet a few criteria. Two of them are that the prophecy needs to be specific and not be of something ordinary. To be specific means that it specifies an event or occurrence unambiguously. And if the prediction is of something mundane like earthquakes and wars or people rejecting the teachings of a religious leader, then they do not indicate divine prescience.

There was a movie called "Frequency" in which Dennis Quaid's son living in the future tells his father living in the past the outcome of game five of what is for him the as yet unfinished 1969 World Series from 1998 using a ham radio in order to convince his father that he really knows his father's future. Here's what the son said to the father:

"Well, game five was the big one. It turned in the bottom of the 6th. We were down 3-0. Cleon Jones gets hit on the foot - left a scuffmark on the ball. Clendenon comes up. The count goes to 2 and 2. High fastball. He nailed it. Weis slammed a solo shot in the 7th to tie. Jones and Swoboda scored in the 8th. We won, Pop."

Then the father sees it all play out live on a TV in a bar. Is that convincing? Once one rules out a taped delay broadcast of the game, yes, it is. Why? Because it is very specific and predicted something very unlikely.

I could not have written any of it because one prophet's writing has to fit with all the other prophet's writings.

I could have written the entire Bible and so could millions or billions of other people. It contains nothing that isn't human appearing, including the prophecies.

There is no comparison here to horoscopes or Chinese cookies because God is not that small. We are talking here about the existence of a God who created the heaven and earth.

If God is larger than the authors of Chinese fortune cookies and horoscopes, His words ought to seem larger, too. He ought to say things mere humans couldn't. Otherwise, there is no way to identify that the words aren't anthropogenic.

So, having failed to find God in the physical universe, the humanist has given up hope of knowing the truth.

You must have a different definition of truth than I do. For me, truth is determined empirically and only empirically, since nothing can be called true if it is not demonstrably true, that is, manifest in reality as evidence to the senses. What the critical thinker has given up is unjustified belief, which is belief by faith. But you are correct that I do not expect to find and do not expect science to find evidence for a god. The universe assembled itself materially and runs itself without intelligent oversight. Over and again, jobs thought to be performed by gods have been shown to occur naturally. The universe is exactly as one would expect a godless universe capable of generating intelligent life to be, as it would need to be were there no god.

Theists tell us God gave us free will. Unlikely. That wouldn't serve a god that want humanity to obey assorted commandments. But it does serve the animal kingdom in the naturalistic world in which they evolved. What would a deity need with laws of physics? A godless, naturalistic universe needs them if the universe is to be stable enough to generate life and mind, but not one run by a tri-omni god. Maybe you're familiar with Newton's Principia, in which Newton describes the celestial mechanics of our solar system mathematically. Unfortunately, Newton's math predicted that larger planets would toss planets like earth into the sun or out of the solar system, and so, he added his god as hoc right there where he ran out of knowledge, which nudged the planets back into position. No laws needed when a god is doing it. Then, a century later, LaPlace supplied the mathematics Newton lacked, restoring the solar system to a clockwork needing no intelligent supervision.

Cumulatively, these various observations make a powerful argument against an interventionalist god. You've got a variety of situations that might have been otherwise had there been such a god, but turn out always to be the way we would expect were there none. Flipping a coin to see if it is a fair coin or a weighted (loaded) coin illustrates this. A fair coin can come up heads or tails. A coin perfectly loaded to come up tails will come up tails every time. How many times does one need to flip the coin and have it come up tails before he realizes that it is loaded? No single flip suggests that, but considered cumulatively, 1000 consecutive tails without a single heads is pretty good evidence that heads was never a possibility. This is what we see in our universe. Every time we look, we find the universe behaving as a godless one must, just like the coin.

Relative truth and relative values now rest with the individual humanist, making selfishness, rather than service, the driving force or impulse.

I guess you don't know many humanists, nor what humanism's philosophy is. It's all about selfless service. You also are assuming that theists can come up with better moral sets than humanists. I disagree. The evidence is to the contrary. But yes, values are relative (truth is not as I have defined it above) and evolve, and one's moral choices have always been and will always be his own, even if he chooses to adopt a prefabricated moral code from a church or holy book.

it's up to you to explain how it is that Jesus fulfilled all these prophecies.

Jesus didn't fulfill messianic prophecy. I realize that you believe otherwise, but a dispassionate look at the evidence was sufficient for me to see that Jesus isn't the Jew's messiah. It has been for the Jews, too. Suffering savior comments aren't specific enough, and overlook the other prophecies that Jesus doesn't fulfill.

Even on the cross, whilst dying, Jesus referred the crowd to Psalm 22. Have you ever read this Psalm?

Sure, I have. I'm a former Christian. Are you offering that psalm as evidence that Jesus was the savior foretold in the Old Testament? It doesn't say that to me.

 

[Polymath257]

You made the claim that “a causeless universe is better than God, because we know that the universe excist” (and we don’t know if any God exists, we have no evidence for God).

(I am responding to that specific claim, please let me know if I am making a straw man or if I am confusing you with someone else)

My objection is that a causeless universe would imply the existence of something from which we don’t have any evidence ether (like a previous universe causing the big bang)

No, it only requires the existence of the universe. To have a caused universe would require something we don't have evidence for (the cause).

My point is that you have to invoke a hypothetical thing (that may or may not exist) in ether case, regardless if you are a theist or an atheist

No, I do not have to invoke a hypothetical thing: I know the universe exists. That is the only existence I have to invoke.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

the first cause and effect could happen at the same time if necessary, if the circumstances of going from a no time environment to a time environment demanded it.

That's incoherent two ways. Cause precedes effect, else there is no reason to call it a cause. And going from out of time into time is incoherent, as it implies a prior state not in time becoming something else. Becoming implies a prior and latter state just like cause and effect.

If a A exists before a certain point and A and B exist after that point in time then A is the cause.

That's an affirming the consequent fallacy. "Affirming the consequent ... is a formal fallacy of taking a true conditional statement (e.g., "If the lamp were broken, then the room would be dark"), and invalidly inferring its converse ("The room is dark, so the lamp is broken"), even though that statement may not be true. This arises when a consequent ("the room would be dark") has other possible antecedents seen as less likely (for example, "the lamp is not plugged in" or "the lamp is in working order, but is switched off")."

But that's not important. The fallacy merely notes that A need not be the cause of B if other causes are also possible, but we can stipulate here that A caused B. What is important is that you have introduced a temporal sequence with the words before and after.

If religious beliefs have become less relevant partly because of speculation and flawed thinking by science which some people like to say is scientific truth then maybe those who say science has it all right are not being rational.

How could speculation and flawed thinking from science displace religion if religion were not also flawed thinking? Evolutionary theory is displacing creationism because the former unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, has been used to improve the human condition in agriculture and medicine (for example), and accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity. Creationism can do none of those things. That's why the former can displace the latter, but not vice versa.

Religion is becoming less relevant in the West because of a variety of factors, science being only one and not the most important one. Science has made atheism tenable, and the recent best sellers by atheist authors and a host of atheist media figures (Tyson, Carlin, Maher, Sagan) have made it respectable, but it is religion that is driving people away from itself.

It's not like the Abrahamic religions to look at themselves critically to identify the source of its problems. The blame will always be found elsewhere - bad science that people faithlessly believe in this case. Or the loss of school prayer. Or some moral failure on the part of people unwilling to submit to a religion. Or God's withdrawal of affection due to disgust with humanity. But it's the homophobia and the theocratic tendencies (abortion), and the hell theology, and the countless religious scandals parading through the media, and the flagrant hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness of Christians in the spotlight like this "pro-life" senatorial candidate from Georgia with his abortion hypocrisy.

These are the things making religion off-putting for an increasing number of people, not science and not their moral failings, nor the lack of exposure to school prayer.

Occam's Razor has led to more question and problems than it has fixed.

Occam's Razor raises no questions and creates no problems. It's a means for ordering hypotheses by likeliness and usefulness, the least parsimonious being less likely and less useful than the most. It's why gods don't appear in scientific theories. That would add gratuitous complexity with no additional predictive or explanatory power.

the interesting thing is that God has evidence for His existence.

But man doesn't, at least not sufficient to believe that gods exist according to the rules for evaluating evidence.

there is evidence for a God but not scientific evidence

There is no such thing as scientific evidence or nonscientific evidence - just evidence. Evidence is the noun form of the adjective evident, which is short for evident to the senses. What can be experienced is evidence. There is nothing evident to the senses that makes gods more likely to exist than not. One can only believe in them by faith, that is, without sufficient evidence to believe according to the rules for evaluating evidence.

those beliefs are religious beliefs that some atheist have. "We don't know how but we know that God did not do it".

Most atheists do not make that claim. Will the theists ever address the majority, or will the arguments always be directed toward the strong atheist, who asserts that gods do not exist. Critical thinkers agree with the theists here that that is faith and not valid thought.

 

[Polymath257]

yes it woudl be a good basis

I would say that “knowing” is a very strong Word, I would change it for “knowing with high degree of certainty “ or something like that

Fair enough. So, if we don't know what nature alone can do, the deduction that there was a design is premature, right?

 

[Polymath257]

I would argue that one can tell if something is design even if he has no prior knowledge of manufacturing .

Do you affirm the opposite? Or is this another case where you don’t affirm nor deny anything ?

I would say that it is only possible in very restricted circumstances where the natural possibilities are fairly well known.

So, if the complexities arise from a natural feedback loop that tends to increase complexity, then what initially looks designed may well not be.

How did the first archeologist of the world who discovered the first carved rock, knew that it was designed? (if he had no prior knowledge on how carved rocks are supposed to look like?

Um, the first archeologists DID know of the existence of carved rocks: they had building around them made of rock that was carved.

If an Alien ever finds the Roseta Stone, would he be capable of concluding that the carvings where design?

Not sure. I don't know the alien's level of understanding of rocks in the environment of the Earth.

 

[F1fan]

You are using your dualistic mind, reality is beyond it.

I'm not convinced.

What I am convinced of is that you are using a typical religious debate tactic that accuses critical thinkers of "just not getting it". Yet the claimants, you in this case, can't offer any valid, factual argument, just more claims. The odd thing is how the religious claims are often arrogant, and this attitude or superiority reflects on the character of the claimant. And this shallow and immature status doesn't suggest to me that the person is tapped into some higher understanding.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

"I have had psychedelic experiences....", right there, no need to go any further, this is the problem, you do not understand what has been explained, this is the dualistic mind, when the mind is in a state of non-duality, there is no I present to have an experience! Again "Why should I think that that way of seeing myself....", dualistic mind! You do not understand what is being explained.

Isn't this what I predicted? I wrote, "Let me explain: I think most of what I read of this nature, whether it be from people calling themselves searchers or spiritual pilgrims is people trying to add magic to their lives with phrases that facilitate that. It gives them satisfaction to believe that there is arcane knowledge and a higher plane of existence accessible to a chosen few, and that they are or might be among them. So, I routinely ask them what they have discovered, and it's always poetry - words with no definite meaning that inspire rather than inform. There's never any there there. What need that others but not I seem to have is being fulfilled? Is life too mundane for some, not magical enough? If I have this all wrong, then perhaps you can show me the value of this kind of thinking to somebody who doesn't see it. More vague, flowery text won't do that. It needs to be concrete and specific. Are you now free from grief or anxiety? Has your reading comprehension increased? What would be lost to you if you reverted to your old dualistic state and lived life as a subject experiencing an object again?"

And look at your response - a dismissive, substance-free comment that ignored all of that content except to dismiss a very small part of it out of hand. Did I offend you with my opinions? Maybe you should have spent a moment explaining what it is you actually advocate and how it differs from the experiences I named if you could. Maybe you should have indicated the benefits of this thinking to you as requested if you could. Or maybe I'm correct - this is all fluff. You haven't given me a reason to think otherwise even after being explicitly asked to give me one if you had one.

Your answer, predictably, explains nothing. You don't even to attempt to describe what you mean or relate it to the examples I gave of altered ways of viewing reality except to just dismiss one and claim that the comment invalidates me and shows my incompetence at understanding you. Understand what? You've offered nothing but empty words with no specific meaning and nothing that you can point to.

Your mind is in a state of duality, you believe or disbelieve in things.

He says as he enumerates another of his beliefs. As I said, you've got nothing there but a claim that you have some hidden insight or arcane knowledge, but it's all hat, no cattle. You can't describe or demonstrate any of it. But don't feel picked on. Nobody who makes the kinds of claims you made ever can. Ask people who tell you that they have discovered spiritual truth what they discovered, and it's the same crickets. I guess that playing that role satisfies some need in those playing it, but I really don't know what it is, as I have no such need - maybe because I've learned critical thinking and need no more mental power than that. That's power enough for me - to be able to generate an accurate mental map of reality with which to traverse it relatively successfully.

 

[F1fan]

All I am saying is that clock gears (or things like look like them) could have not been created by nature, so if we ever find something gears in Mars, in Antarctica, or in the fossil record say in the Jurassic period, this would represent evanescence for design even if you don’t have prior evidence that any intelligent designer has ever lived in that place/time

And since your God is what caused and sustains nature, then it designed and made everything. Why no special alloy metals, just basic ores? Why no gears? Why just chemicals and proteins? And when your God created animals, which includes humans, why did it create flesh eating bacterias and genetic flaws that cause cancers?

So please ether grant or refute this specific point

We don't find modern things from the Jurassic, do we? We find fossils of large animals that were killed by a meteor strikes, just as God designed, right? And then some 65 million years later God designs his favored species, humans. But of course he kills some of them with cancers and other genetic flaws. Explain why your God does all this?

 

[leroy]

No, it only requires the existence of the universe. To have a caused universe would require something we don't have evidence for (the cause).



No, I do not have to invoke a hypothetical thing: I know the universe exists. That is the only existence I have to invoke.

well you are assuming without evidence that something before the big bang existed

 

[leroy]

Fair enough. So, if we don't know what nature alone can do, the deduction that there was a design is premature, right?

Yes, If we can’t know with high degree of certainty what nature can or can’t do // we shouldn’t invoke design

 

[leroy]

Um, the first archeologists DID know of the existence of carved rocks: they had building around them made of rock that was carved.

ok how about the first person to ever saw a building made out of carved rocks? how did he knew that it was designed?

my point is that at some point there was a fisrt person who infered design without prior knowledge

Not sure. I don't know the alien's level of understanding of rocks in the environment of the Earth.

He knows as much as any educated human (say a scientists) about all the natural phenomena (wind water erosion etc.) that might influence the shape of the rock and it´s carvings.

But he is not aware of the existence of any humans,

 

[leroy]

And since your God is what caused and sustains nature, then it designed and made everything. Why no special alloy metals, just basic ores? Why no gears? Why just chemicals and proteins? And when your God created animals, which includes humans, why did it create flesh eating bacterias and genetic flaws that cause cancers?


We don't find modern things from the Jurassic, do we? We find fossils of large animals that were killed by a meteor strikes, just as God designed, right? And then some 65 million years later God designs his favored species, humans. But of course he kills some of them with cancers and other genetic flaws. Explain why your God does all this?

Will you ever adress my point?

“metal gears” in Mars Antarctica or the Jurassic period would indicate design even if there is no prior evidence for designers ever living in those places/eras?

 

[PruePhillip]

The beginning of the (expanding) universe = the beginning of time.
Space-time includes time. They are essentially the same thing.

Consider a simplistic analogy of a coin.
The universe is the coin.
Space is one side. Time is the other side.
You can't have a coin with just one side.
If the coin exists, the sides exist.

Same with space/time - the universe.



Big bang cosmology isn't "new" today. Try updating your knowledge.

So you believe a universe sprang into existance without any mechanism whatsoever, including time?
We have little idea of what time really is - it's perhaps the ultimate mystery of physics (forget dark matter, dark energy)
Yes, the big bang as Hoyle mockingly called it - is a fairly new concept, springing from the work of Hubble.

 

[PruePhillip]

Dude..................................................

If there is no cause, then the universe is not an effect.

This is extremely silly. You are just labeling the universe an "effect" just to then say "therefor, there is a cause".
This is ridiculous. First identify and establish that a cause actually exists/existed and THEN you can say it's an effect.

You are trying to paint the bullseye around the arrow.

The effect of the Big Bang is the universe itself, no? Never heard that expression 'painting the bullseye around an arrow.'

 

[F1fan]

Will you ever adress my point?

“metal gears” in Mars Antarctica or the Jurassic period would indicate design even if there is no prior evidence for designers ever living in those places/eras?

You have no point. The scenario you offer has never happened, it’s not likely to happen, and frankly just implausible and ridiculous. If you find a gear in Antarctica that is many hundreds of millions of years well that’s gonna be a question for scientists. But as it is this hasn’t happened, it’s unlikely to happen, so it’s not really relevant to anything.