Double-blind Prayer Efficacy Test -- Really?

[Wildswanderer]

Actually you are just failing to understand that causation is a characteristic of the physical material universe, as is space time. To assign causation outside of this condition is both non-sensical and pure assumption.



Oh the unbridled irony, you are the one claiming knowledge you don't have here. The phrase I don't know holds no fear for atheists in my experience, and definitely not for science which is predicated on the fact and necessity of ignorance, that it acknowledges and seeks to change, by constantly gathering testable empirical evidence.

Then maybe they should use that phrase, instead of coming up with beliefs that aren't scientific.

 

[Wildswanderer]

What spectacularly stupid claim. Leaving aside the asinine misrepresentation of science, your argument seems to be faith is useless but you have nothing better, and only the first part is true of course.

Of course that's not what I said, but you have illustrated that you have no argument at all.

 

[PruePhillip]

But you just admitted that natural processes were involved in shaping the earth over billions of years. So why are you still claiming that it was done quickly, by magic?

Also, the description in Genesis contains some fundamental insurmountable errors. We know that it is wrong. So why do you believe it is an accurate description?

The 'magic' lay in the appearance of something from nothing. Evolution follows basic laws of physics, or more accurately, chemistry. Something from nothing is not scientific at all.

 

[Polymath257]

Anything being eternal is outside the realm of science. So what you have there is no different than religious beliefs.

Why would it be outside the realm of science? Physics regularly deals with the possibility of infinite time.

 

[Polymath257]

As quantum shows, we have zero grasp on the reality of the universe. For all we know it could just be mathematical construct.
We need to temper our hubris.
I am old enough to remember when people lost their careers, reputation or tenur for believing in 'continental drift.'

Quantum mechanics *is* our grasp on the reality of the universe.

Do you have any names of people that lost their careers (especially tenure) believing in continental drift? Yes, it was a minority opinion for a long time, but it was a viable alternative. What it needed was more evidence and a mechanism.

 

[Polymath257]

By 'grasp' I meant comprehension. Quantum is essentially defined through maths. Who said to 'understand' quantum
proves you don't? Feynam?

Feynman.

If you use classical intuition, you will not understand quantum physics. It has its own properties and you *can* gain an intuition of how things will go with it. Feynman was exceptional at such intuition, by the way.

Until the early 1960's continental drift was heresy in geology. I recall all the news from the Glomar Challenger and how
it showed the sea floor spreading and oceanic ridges. Suddenly continental drift was obvious - there was a mechanism.

Continental drift wasn't heresy. It was a minority viewpoint because the theory didn't have a mechanism.

 

[Polymath257]

The 'magic' lay in the appearance of something from nothing. Evolution follows basic laws of physics, or more accurately, chemistry. Something from nothing is not scientific at all.

Actually, not quite true given quantum mechanics. There is always a probability that particle/anti-particle pairs will spontaneously appear. They are literally something from nothing and we *know* this happens.

 

[Polymath257]

Then maybe they should use that phrase, instead of coming up with beliefs that aren't scientific.

You simply reject the scientific viewpoint when it disagrees with yours.

Scientists are pretty good at saying which views are speculative and which are not.

Early stages of the Big Bang and anything prior are pure speculation. Nucleosyhtnthesis and after is not. Evolution is not speculation. Some of the mechanisms of evolution are. Quantum mechanics is not speculation. String theory is.

 

[PruePhillip]

Actually, not quite true given quantum mechanics. There is always a probability that particle/anti-particle pairs will spontaneously appear. They are literally something from nothing and we *know* this happens.

True --- within this existing universe, using space, energy, physics etc.. These are the 'virtual pairs' which electrons bump against as they 'orbit' an atom. But the universe didn't appear by such as mechanism - there were no physical mechanisms.

 

[Polymath257]

True --- within this existing universe, using space, energy, physics etc.. These are the 'virtual pairs' which electrons bump against as they 'orbit' an atom. But the universe didn't appear by such as mechanism - there were no physical mechanisms.

Actually, there are theories based on this mechanism that do have the universe (along with space, time, matter, and energy) coming out of nothing.

 

[Sheldon]

Like to pinpoint the center of the universe?

No thanks, it has no relevance to the fact we don't live in a geocentric universe.

There's two accounts of creation in Genesis 1. The first account is less abstracted than the second, and if you take the 'days' for 'periods' then the entire story is super accurate in terms of SEQUENCE. God creates
1 - the heavens
2 - the earth

It's an unevidenced myth, that is an appeal to mystery using inexplicable magic, that has no explanatory powers whatsoever. It can't even get the most basic facts and chronology right. The 6 days as allegory doesn't change this, and has always struck me as nothing more than a pretty desperate rationalisation anyway.

and then you, the observer, are on the earth (where else could you be?)

When the earth formed? Hardly, you're out by a margin of well over 3 billion years.

An oceanic, cloud planet at that point.
and this earth is dark, oceanic and sterile
first the skies open
then the continents rise above the water line
and then life appears, first
1 - on land (fresh water)
2 - in the sea

Cool story, what does this story have to do with how the earth formed? What "point" are you talking about, that's so vague as to be pretty meaningless.

Finally, man.

Finally? Humans evolved roughly 200k years ago. We are strikingly new addition, and this fact of course belies the idea we are in any way more significant to the existence of anything than any other species.

 

[Sheldon]

Then maybe they should use that phrase, instead of coming up with beliefs that aren't scientific.

I just did use that phrase, and I have not voiced any beliefs that aren't scientific. You may have used so many straw men, that you're confusing your straw men with my posts. To be honest you use these logical fallacies so often it was bound to happen.

 

[Sheldon]

So? Science is the same as religion? Religion requires faith. No one denys that. But science isn't supposed to require faith, it's supposed to be based only on solid evidence.

What spectacularly stupid claim. Leaving aside the asinine misrepresentation of science, your argument seems to be faith is useless but you have nothing better, and only the first part is true of course.

Of course that's not what I said,

You may not have intended to say that, but that is how it reads, creationists always do this, they know at some level they're holding an empty bag, so they attack science, in the mistaken belief this lends any credence to unevidenced archaic myths.

quod grātīs asseritur, grātīs negātur, you ought really to understand what that means for your endless unevidenced claims.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No the universe created those things by chance when it accidentally created you. You are just a cog in a wheel.

That can respond to stimuli and experience thoughts.

 

[PruePhillip]

No thanks, it has no relevance to the fact we don't live in a geocentric universe.



It's an unevidenced myth, that is an appeal to mystery using inexplicable magic, that has no explanatory powers whatsoever. It can't even get the most basic facts and chronology right. The 6 days as allegory doesn't change this, and has always struck me as nothing more than a pretty desperate rationalisation anyway.



When the earth formed? Hardly, you're out by a margin of well over 3 billion years.


Cool story, what does this story have to do with how the earth formed? What "point" are you talking about, that's so vague as to be pretty meaningless.




Finally? Humans evolved roughly 200k years ago. We are strikingly new addition, and this fact of course belies the idea we are in any way more significant to the existence of anything than any other species.

In a universe with transcendence and meaning (the 'explanatory power of living, if you like) your life is significant - not microbes, not even other people, but you.
We don't live in a geocentric universe, true, each of us lives in a personally centered universe. For all you know everything could be an illusion - as physics seems to suggest.
The sequence of events in Genesis 1 is highly relevant. Over the past twenty years this narrative has become the scientific one.
In 2021 the first evidence of an earth as a dark cloud planet like Venus.
2020 a consensus that life began on land.
2005 discovery of ocean world earth.
Continental evolution ca 1960's.
1871 Darwin's 'warm pond' theory.

 

[PruePhillip]

Then maybe they should use that phrase, instead of coming up with beliefs that aren't scientific.

You know this 'big bang' - we can be sure the universe is radidly expanding in all directions - doing about a billion km per hour at the visible boundary.
But where did this big bang come from? Possible from this new M-theory about colliding membranes in hyper-space. Cool. I would enjoy that.
But.... somewhere, way back, the scientific texts will have to say, coyly --- 'it all began we don't know how, and we dont' know why.'
That's a huge admission. Don't let people fool you that we have 'worked it out' or that 'in the future we will work it out.'

 

[F1fan]

The 'magic' lay in the appearance of something from nothing.

From what I see of theists trying to make their religious beliefs seem relevant to the natural world is that the "magic" really means science ignorance. The popular "something from nothing" idea comes from Christians and Muslims who want to interpret Genesis literally. There is no rational or factual basis to assume Genesis explains anything.

Evolution follows basic laws of physics, or more accurately, chemistry.

And even some believers insist evolution is God's mechanism to diversify the life He created. Of course this inly causes more questions, like why did God allow childhood cancers to evolve. Or deadly bacteria. Or mosquitos. The response to that tends to be as retribution from the Fall. But then that means they have to interpret the Adam and Eve myth literally, and not only is there no evidence, the evidence goes against it. So there is this matrix of delusion that is being passed around believers, and much of it being driven by the fraud created and sold by Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research.

Something from nothing is not scientific at all.

The religious version is not. But for your information:

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

faith is understanding what caused an occurrence of a situation.

Faith and understanding don't overlap. Understanding (knowledge) is gained from experience, and is rooted in observation (empiricism). Faith is belief divorced from evidence. Understanding causes is science.

faith is wisdom.

You already said that, and I explained why I disagreed then. I wrote, "If intelligence relates to problem solving and the ability to get what one desires, wisdom is knowing what things will bring happiness, what things to direct one's intelligence to solve. And faith is nothing more or less than unjustified belief, which as I indicated is the same as guessing and believing one's guess to the same extent that one's justified beliefs are believed."

You didn't try to rebut my position. You just dismissed it out of hand without trying to explain why it couldn't be correct. You didn't try to explain why wisdom involves whatever you mean by "what caused an occurrence an occurrence of a situation" and how that is not already included in "knowing what things will bring happiness." I presume that you are referencing your god belief there, since I also presume that you consider that part of wisdom. If believing that a deity exists was part of finding happiness for you, that's fine, but not relevant for those who do that without such a belief and therefore not part of the definition of wisdom. Knowing more that what will bring happiness, my definition of wisdom, is not part of wisdom and doesn't contribute to attaining that happiness.

And you still haven't made an argument for faith being wisdom, just the unsupported claim. Faith is simply a guess. Whatever one believes by faith is something that he has decided to believe without sufficient supporting evidence. That's obviously a potential path to unhappiness. It didn't work well at Jonestown or Waco, where it led to death and misery in both cases. Faith was not a virtue for them, nor a path to truth, nor a path to happiness. It was a fatal error. If you want to argue that faith is wisdom, please explain how faith was wise for those people. You can't.

That's a rebuttal of your claim. It's not just disagreement, but an explicit explanation of why your position cannot be correct if mine is. The two are mutually exclusive. At most, one is correct. Right now, it's my position. If I'm correct, you cannot be. If you cannot do the same and explain why my comment that faith isn't wisdom if it leads to misery is incorrect, why that's wisdom anyway, then you have been shown to be incorrect. That's how debate proceeds. Anything else is not debate, but just people disagreeing and talking past one another and not addressing arguments made.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

science isn't supposed to require faith, it's supposed to be based only on solid evidence.

Science is firmly rooted in evidence, not faith, which is unjustified belief. What belief in science meets that criterion, unjustified? None. The entirety of the enterprise has been demonstrated by its stellar success to be on a solid foundation that requires no faith to rely on. We know that all of the science and engineering that went into the successful manned moon landings, for example, was correct by that success. It's not unlike what I just told DNB above. Wisdom is the knowledge of what brings happiness. Happiness doesn't arise by luck alone. One must know what the errors that prevent happiness are and how to avoid them. If a person finds happiness through his choices, they were wise. And if the space probe goes to the moon and returns, the science was sound. No faith needed.

There's two accounts of creation in Genesis 1. The first account is less abstracted than the second, and if you take the 'days' for 'periods' then the entire story is super accurate in terms of SEQUENCE. God creates
1 - the heavens
2 - the earth

and then you, the observer, are on the earth (where else could you be?) An oceanic, cloud planet at that point.
and this earth is dark, oceanic and sterile
first the skies open
then the continents rise above the water line
and then life appears, first
1 - on land (fresh water)
2 - in the sea

Finally, man.

This is what's called the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: "The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred." You've ignored everywhere the biblical and scientific accounts differ. For example, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" contradicts the science. The "heavens" had been in existence for many billions of years before the earth (it looks like you changed the biblical account to make the creation of the earth later than that of the sun, which is the correct sequence). Genesis has night and day existing before the sun and earth.

The genesis account leaves out much of the scientific account, such as universal expansion and early inflation, or the formation of galaxies.

And yes, the biblical day in these accounts was a literal day. That doesn't change just because we now know that that there were more than six days needed to get from the Big Bang to today and believer want to correct that error by changing the meaning of words as hoc.

Also, there is no day of rest in the scientific account. The universe has been assembling itself every day for billions of years.

You also didn't comment on the discrepancies between the two creation accounts.

 

[PruePhillip]

From what I see of theists trying to make their religious beliefs seem relevant to the natural world is that the "magic" really means science ignorance. The popular "something from nothing" idea comes from Christians and Muslims who want to interpret Genesis literally. There is no rational or factual basis to assume Genesis explains anything.


And even some believers insist evolution is God's mechanism to diversify the life He created. Of course this inly causes more questions, like why did God allow childhood cancers to evolve. Or deadly bacteria. Or mosquitos. The response to that tends to be as retribution from the Fall. But then that means they have to interpret the Adam and Eve myth literally, and not only is there no evidence, the evidence goes against it. So there is this matrix of delusion that is being passed around believers, and much of it being driven by the fraud created and sold by Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research.


The religious version is not. But for your information:

No I don't accept these theories. From time to time I read articles or listen to videos on the topic. Boils down to
1 - the universe came from an existing universe
2 - the universe has always been here

or some tricky thing where there's no time so there couldn't be a beginning.
Judeao Christian religion doesn't seek to be 'relevant to the natural world' at all. It doesn't care. It speaks about the end of the natural world with these words, no more sea, no more sun and no more time - Revelations.

Cancers, bacteria, fires, floods, wars --- the idea that God doesn't exist because these do seems specious to me. The bible warns that these things happen, so beware - you aren't here on the earth for a good time.
It isn't Genesis saying 'something from nothing' but science.