Do You Believe In God, Why? Don't You Believe In God, Why?

[Skywalker]

It is begging the question. First, you are *assuming* what is said in the Bible is the basis of a valid argument. Unless you can independently support the validity of the Bible, this is bad logic.

But, you are getting the *claim* that God creates order and the claim that order proves the existence of a God confused. The two propositions have little to do with each other. It may well be that order is *also* produced in other ways. And, it is possible it exists even if a God does not.

Your claim that every law has a lawmaker is true for *human* laws, which are prescriptive. It is NOT true of the 'laws' of nature, which are *descriptive*. This is a combination of the error of equivocation (claiming different types of things have common properties) and a false generalization (human laws have human lawmakers--that doesn't imply ALL laws have a lawmaker).

So, yes, that is hand waving. It is waving the arms so that people ignore all of the logical gaps your argument has.

No other book describes the sinful nature of humans to a T. The Bible is unique in that sense. How could order exist in other ways if there is no God, and why would it? Order cannot exist without a God. The trees need us to live and we need their oxygen to live.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Creation shows that there is a God of love. We don't need taste buds to eat food but we have them anyway.

You have to be kidding. Foods that are bad for you tend to taste bad. We don't need them as much now that we live in a civilized world where food that is rife with pathogens is common is rare does not mean that taste buds did not evolve naturally or have a purpose.

 

[Polymath257]

The order of snowflake comes from nature, which I believe had a creator. A car requires intelligence to create it because those different parts could never come together on their own.

The order of a snowflake is produced by the balance between the laws of molecular attraction and entropy. You can believe it had a creator, but there is nothing in it that requires such.

And in a snowflake they *do* come together on their own, showing that no intelligence is required.

In the real world, many things *do* come together 'on their own' and produce structure and order because of the ways that atoms and molecules interact. No intelligence is required for this to happen.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No other book describes the sinful nature of humans to a T. The Bible is unique in that sense. How could order exist in other ways if there is no God, and why would it? Order cannot exist without a God. The trees need us to live and we need their oxygen to live.

Where do you get that from? I find the Bible's description of a sinful nature to be amazingly wrong at times. And did you read all other religious books? Do you have a reliable source that supports this (by the way that rules out Christian apologist sources since they are repeatedly demonstrated to be Liars for Jesus). What well respected philosophical source supports your claim?

 

[Skywalker]

It only takes faith if one refuses to learn. You will notice that quite often atheists try to use educational sources so that creationists can understand why faith is not needed for the sciences. Very very rarely do creationists avail themselves of those sources. It seems at times that the best defense of creationism is avoiding understanding the evidence that demonstrates them to be wrong at all costs.

It does take a lot of faith to believe there is no God, because of the order that is evident in nature. Why do we have taste buds? Evolution didn't need to create them so that we could eat food. Without the oxygen of the plants we couldn't survive and without us they couldn't survive.

 

[Polymath257]

No other book describes the sinful nature of humans to a T. The Bible is unique in that sense. How could order exist in other ways if there is no God, and why would it? Order cannot exist without a God. The trees need us to live and we need their oxygen to live.

You claim that order cannot exist without a God? Why not? In fact, it seems to me that God cannot exist without order.

The Bible is far from unique in describing human frailties. It is a compilation of many texts exploring different aspects of people. but you see comparable texts in almost every culture.

 

[Polymath257]

It does take a lot of faith to believe there is no God, because of the order that is evident in nature. Why do we have taste buds? Evolution didn't need to create them so that we could eat food. Without the oxygen of the plants we couldn't survive and without us they couldn't survive.

Order does not imply the existence of a God. There is no reason order cannot simply exist on its own.

 

[Skywalker]

Really? I would bet you claim that God 'just exists'. How is that any easier to believe than that the universe 'just exists'? At least we know the universe actually does exist.

The 'laws' of music have to do with what is pleasing to humans. And they differ from culture to culture.

So they are NOT fundamental laws at all, but rather are most psychological.

The 'laws' of mathematics were created by humans to help us describe the world around us. We found patterns in the world and used those patterns to create an abstraction that mimics those patterns.

Why either of these would need a deity to create them is beyond me. They seem to be perfectly well justified by human behavior.

The universe being eternal doesn''t explain creation because the universe is the realm that we live in. It doesn't have a mind.

What is pleasing to humans doesn''t explain where the ultimate origin of that music is from.

Patterns have order, not chaos. Math is different from scribbles on a paper.

 

[Skywalker]

You have to be kidding. Foods that are bad for you tend to taste bad. We don't need them as much now that we live in a civilized world where food that is rife with pathogens is common is rare does not mean that taste buds did not evolve naturally or have a purpose.

A lot of junk food is tasty, like donuts.

 

[Polymath257]

The universe being eternal doesn''t explain creation because the universe is the realm that we live in. It doesn't have a mind.

Why would a mind be required?

What is pleasing to humans doesn''t explain where the ultimate origin of that music is from.

It seems to be a very good explanation of exactly that.

Patterns have order, not chaos. Math is different from scribbles on a paper.

And order does not imply a deity.

I have been a research mathematician for 35 years. I have a pretty good idea what math consists of.

 

[Skywalker]

The order of a snowflake is produced by the balance between the laws of molecular attraction and entropy. You can believe it had a creator, but there is nothing in it that requires such.

And in a snowflake they *do* come together on their own, showing that no intelligence is required.

In the real world, many things *do* come together 'on their own' and produce structure and order because of the ways that atoms and molecules interact. No intelligence is required for this to happen.

What keeps molecular attraction and entropy in stability? The snow that snowflakes come from doesn't come together on its own. It comes from snow and water and rain. Atoms and molecules in and of themselves have a structure and order that requires a Creator.

 

[Polymath257]

A lot of junk food is tasty, like donuts.

And a lot of junk beliefs are comforting, like, in my opinion, the belief in a deity.

 

[Polymath257]

What keeps molecular attraction and entropy in stability? The snow that snowflakes come from doesn't come together on its own. It comes from snow and water and rain. Atoms and molecules in and of themselves have a structure and order that requires a Creator.

Why would that require a creator, as opposed to simply having ordered laws of nature?

You make the jump from the existence of order to the existence of a God. That is precisely the jump that I disagree with.

And yes, the water comes together to form snow on its own. No intelligence is required to guide it.

 

[janesix]

Why do you think God created musical laws and geometry? I think they are an automatic result of God creating everything with a design and a purpose.

I think that harmony was important in God's creation. Music appears to be a gift for us, perhaps to enjoy, perhaps to understand how the universe works. Maybe both.

 

[Skywalker]

You claim that order cannot exist without a God? Why not? In fact, it seems to me that God cannot exist without order.

The Bible is far from unique in describing human frailties. It is a compilation of many texts exploring different aspects of people. but you see comparable texts in almost every culture.

Why would God need order to exist if God is self existing?

Islam describes our sinful nature, but Islam teaches that we are sinners because we sin. The Bible teaches that our hearts are sinful and we need a Savior.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It does take a lot of faith to believe there is no God, because of the order that is evident in nature. Why do we have taste buds? Evolution didn't need to create them so that we could eat food. Without the oxygen of the plants we couldn't survive and without us they couldn't survive.

You are misrepresenting the atheist position. Believing that there is no god is not required.

Once again we have taste buds to detect foods that are not healthy to eat. That is why they exist. And "plants" existed for over a billion years before actual animals came along. I would suggest that you try to learn a little bit. Oxygen producing organisms were some of the first to exist. Oxygen was a waste product. The atmosphere did not have oxygen in the molecular form because it was too reactive. It took a long long time to even get the dissolved iron in sea water from the Fe+2 state to the Fe+3 state. Fe+2 is water soluble. Fe+3 is not. When life first began kicking out massive amounts of O2 there was a result that we can still see today:

That hole is man made. They are going after the byproduct of early life. Dissolved O2 in sea water reacted with Fe+2 for over a billion years. Today's open pit iron mines are the result. Animal life was not needed by plant life. The atmosphere used to have what would be a poisonous amount of CO2 in it for animal life.

 

[Skywalker]

Order does not imply the existence of a God. There is no reason order cannot simply exist on its own.

The order of a car has a designer. The order of a house has a builder.

 

[Polymath257]

Why would God need order to exist if God is self existing?

Why would natural laws need God if they are self-existing?

Islam describes our sinful nature, but Islam teaches that we are sinners because we sin. The Bible teaches that our hearts are sinful and we need a Savior.

Sounds like two different notions. Now, how do we decide which, if either, is correct? What *tests* can be done?

By the way, what does 'sinful nature' mean?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why would God need order to exist if God is self existing?

Islam describes our sinful nature, but Islam teaches that we are sinners because we sin. The Bible teaches that our hearts are sinful and we need a Savior.

That was not his argument. Please reread it.

And why is there a need for a savior? The idea of someone else suffering for an imagined slight does not make much sense.

 

[Polymath257]

The order of a car has a designer. The order of a house has a builder.

And the order of nature does not. OK.

Both of your examples were things made by humans. It seems that only human created things have creators.