So what if you're right. ...He could have created matter with different universal constants (see previous parenthetical comment). How does that prove that he didn't in fact use carbon as the basis of life? ...
Hello Dunemeister,
the reversal of burdon of proof doesnt really work with me i must say.
When we are talking about what is we should examine the evidence FOR something and present a case and not start debating about the possibilities of disprooving something that wasn't prooven in the first anyway.
For me God doesn't exist. I do not need to disproove him. You claim he exists, so you should proove him.
Now your argument reminds me of the endless "basically god can do anything regardless of what we see" argument. Thats the same kind of argument that i get when i ask a young earth creationist how it comes that we have light rays commin from galaxies millions of lightyears away while the universe supposedly is less than 10000 years old. He will very often state "God created the light rays in transit". Of course thats not disproovable. But then again it is absurd in my view to believe such nonsense. If you believe THAT then you can believe ANYTHING.
As the saying goes: Satans best trick was to make people believe he didnt exist. If this were true then God (if he existed) would qualify as in my view (take the young earth example) he has given us all kinds of evidence that shows he didnt do anything.
Your argument with the DNA is not really a bad one. Its based on a different view. I think one CAN use it with a certain amount of reasoning.
However i think differently and let me tell you why.
IF evolution is true then we would expect exactly what we see. We would expect a limited vocabulary for our dna, we would expect successive additions and changes throughout time in our dna, we would expect a genetic as well as a physiological path that leads from the earliest lifeforms to the life forms present.
In short we would expect the tree of life that evolution claims to exist to show up.
We would also expect the problem in different amount of chromosomes between apes and humans to be solvable through a merge.
It does !
We would also expect many redundant DNA, rests of our ancestorial brethren, stuff that is NOT needed in order to form us.
We do see this. For most of the things we see we also have explanations through the theory of evolution.
Now OF COURSE God could have created it all in that way. He could of course used a small vocabulary, made it all look like as if evolution had taken place, given us mostly similar if not even the same reproductive organs while at the same time claiming that he created only us in the image of him.
All that could be.
But basically i argue that
a) this is not neither the most probable case in between the two
b) nor is it a case that fits into the idea of a God yet alone one that created us specifically and the universe around us to worship him
c) nor does it explain anything.
As for c)
What you do is to present a showstopper. "God did it". End of discussion.
What is your evidence, how did he do it, when did he do it etc.?
Well THESE are the questions that you would have to answer now.
So the difference between us is that i see the universe and compare it to what would be expected using the explanations given by any theory choosing the one that fits best while (i presume) you take God and creation for granted and speculate why he created it in the way you can see it.
Now to your post in short.
Looks to me like a stroke of genius.
Looks to me what you would expect if evolution were true.
Of course a genius COULD do that but he wouldnt have to, nor would it be the best solution given all the deficiencies we see in that DNA.
And of course, God could have designed umpteen different ways to reproduce heterosexually.
Of course he COULD. But would you if mankind for example was created in your image while animals were not? Would you not distinguish animals from humans? Would you create animals in the very way that every scientist on earth would come to the conclusion that they were not created but evolved?
It could be that God created each type of creature as a seperate act; it's also possible that God used evolution -- or what we are interpreting as evolution -- to generate the diversity of life we see.
Well many things could be. It also could be that God doesn't exist couldn't it?
The emergence of different kinds of sexuality is not a difficult question for evolution? Give me a break!
I didn't say that! I said that an explanation on why apes and humans have penises is no problem for evolution to explain. Please do not misstate what i said!
Anyway. You are right that the initial emergence of sexuality (gender) is not yet fully cleared. Correct. What you perhaps should however also say is that Creationism doesn't have an explanation either. Actually it has NO explanation at all. It all rests on an unseen, not understandable creator that did all the things we see "somehow" at "some point in time" in "some way".
I DO prefer more concrete ideas.
Or we might admire God's genius. Again, it's not clear to me that designing such a flexible, replicable tool as DNA is a mark of stupidity.
Let me ask you differently.
Do you think the purpose of creation was to create "something with as little effort as possible" or do you think the purpose was to create a species in the image of god, adhering to him and living in unity with him.
It it was the first then one might follow your argument. If it was the second then either he failed or DNA was the thing that was created in his image perhaps but certainly not us.
...What they can't/won't do is insist on a naturalistic metaphysics. Thus the variety of life will ultimately be attributed to the Creator. It's still an open question what methods the Creator used to generate that variety, and scientific methods can reveal that. Thus a Christian might regard the laws of physics as God's typical way of dealing with his creation.
I think (i dont want to insult you) that you are not honest to yourself.
You decree an entity that is in no way reasoned for or prooven and you subdue all information and knowledge under that entity and link everything to it.
So you kind of try to accept the scientific method for all kinds of things but then claim it to be Gods doing. And if science contradicts your interpretation of God or his doings then science is wrong. This is a grave inconsistency. Either you trust the scientific method or you don't.
According to your own argument here you would have to say that evolution is right since science says exactly that and that it was Gods method (which of course many christians do). But i get it that you do not believe in evolution. So right from the beginning (in my view) you fail to fullfill the statement you made here.
Lots of scientific theories have been accepted without evidence.
First of all i said "basic" evidence. There is a difference.
Secondly your comparison fails because your example is wrong and your definition of theory seems wrong. A theory RESTS on evidence. And of course Einsteins theory was not immediatly accepted by all scientists without confirmation. In 1905 Kaufmann for example evaluated Lorentz and Einsteins theories and found them to be confirmed by observations. He did prefer Einsteins theory. Later however he made experiments and interpreted those as refuting Einstein (as well as Lorentz). That refutation stood there for years untill shown errorneous.
Now i am NOT going to argue that scientists are all the ideal implementation of the scientific method. Just look at some folks out there and you know its not true.
In every aspect of life ideology or wishes might interfere including of course the works of scientists.
What i do find astonishing however is that in science theories are abandoned or changed when evidence comes in. But as you yourself have stated.... The idea that God did it is not open to discussion. Only the how or when supposedly is.
Another way to look at it is that creationists view the world through different assumptions (duh!), and those assumptions might affect what the creationist finds puzzling or interesting or worthy of a scientist's attention.
Of course. The creationists assumption is allways: God is there and in the end God caused it.
The scientists assumption is: I don't know what is there or what did it, i try to find out using the least needed factors and entities that are explainable.
A creationist might shrug her shoulders upon discovering that many animals reproduce in a way similar to human beings, noting simply that the method seems to get the job done.
Of course. I you believe that they all were created independently then there is no need to investigate any by doctrine impossible relationship.
Do we not (rightly) marvel at the invention of the binary computer, whose basic workings have been manipulated and modified to do so many crazily different things? Or is it insulting to those inventors to note that their invention has more applications than they could have ever imagined? I can't see how.
Well.... I dont marvel. But if i did then i would marvel at the fact that limited human beings by accident created something that in the end has prooven itself to be far more versatile than they themselves have imagined.... just as you stated. Those men were not geniuses!
Now the problem is that GOD supposedly is not in the possition to "accidentially" create something that fullfills more than he anticipated himself.
He is capable of doing the best. And even me poor human with all my limited knowledge could tell you several aspects of this "creation" that i find badly designed.
