Interesting video about evolution and origins.

[Subduction Zone]

I shouldn't be arguing against evolution even if it may be not 100% true.
Your faith is that it is true and I suppose 100% true.
Your faith I suppose cannot deal with the suggestion that ToE is not 100% accurate when someone say that a designer and maker was needed for at least parts of it.
But that is OK. That is just my personal belief. I cannot see why the suggestion of a designer is banned from science and science has to push on with naturalism.
I wonder if after another 70 or so years that science will still be claiming abiogenesis and coming up with no real progress (as James Tour says).
And it is origins of the universe and life that is what put's an end to the Bible God claim, and some atheists even want to say that science has shown that God is not needed for those things either.

Please, don't accuse others of your sins. There is nothing wrong with reasoned debate, but you don't do that. You use fake "experts", like James Tour, and then use irrational arguments.

Tour is an expert in his area of expertise. He is not an expert in abiogenesis. He cannot reason rationally and tends to foam at the mouth when shown to be wrong. You swallowed his lies and distortions without questioning them one bit.

One question. Did you see how when arguing against abiogenesis that he brought up how complex the cell was and mentioned mitochondria and other structures?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

25 minutes of Sy Garte saying that the ToE is probably right but not without a designer and that abiogenesis probably needed a designer also.
Another 24 minutes or so of Q and A time.

So it's 25 minutes if god of the gaps.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It sounds like you are pointing to the idea that there is no God, even though you deny it.
Science finding out how things work is one thing.
Science telling us how the universe and life came into existence is beyond science telling us how things work, and you don't know that God was not needed for those things.
But of course science is never going to say that God is needed because science cannot test for God and so cannot find God.
Science does not say that God is not needed to keep things working, that is something that comes from the mouth of atheists.
Atheists (or many atheists at least) seem to have convinced themselves that only verifiable and falsifiable evidence is evidence and so have eliminated the Bible as evidence for a start and anything else that cannot be proven one way or the other.

You still don't get it.

In order for science (or any rational person) to consider your god claims, you need to present something that indicates your god exists and is required to create everything. I.e. You need to demonstrate some reason for anyone to believe that any god is needed at all.

Until then, there's no reason to consider god claims (that includes your god, Zeus, Allah, etc.) when investigating natural phenomenon because you've given nothing that indicates that's even possible, never mind probable.

You really need to grasp this point.

I don't know what a spirit is but it is not part of the material universe.

You don't know what it is, but you know characteristics about it ... how?

I know that God is a spirit because I believe the Bible and because anything that is part of the universe and controlled by the universe is not God.



God has had an effect on the lives of billions of people and that can be seen. The only problem is that it is not proveable that God did it.

Yes, I'd say that's a huge problem.

Are you trying to tell me that belief in God is a faith and that you only believe what can be objectively shown to be true?

You've told us this yourself many times. That your belief is based on faith and that faith is unjustified belief.

OK so you reject faith that has evidence that is not verifiable.



So atheists aren't wanting to discredit theology so they come to a religious forum to do what?
You see theists already know that what they believe is not verifiable and we can tell atheists that and have, and they know. So what is the real reason atheists are on this forum?



I don't try to prove God's existence by science, but try to show that the idea that God is not needed and has been shown not to be needed is rubbish,,,,, and the idea that science can say how the universe and life came to be is rubbish,,,,,,,,, and other things also no doubt.
It's usually a case of trying to show that anti God ideas are rubbish, but is not a case of trying to prove God by science.



What he did say is something that atheists do, squeeze science into any gap in scientific knowledge, thus making a science of the gaps. And he did not need to be a Professor to see that. I have been saying it for years.
Nobody these days is into the false God of the gaps argument except atheists, who think that every time a natural mechanism is found, that eliminates the need for God even more. But that is not a rational way to look at the world really.
And it's fine that Garte's arguments aren't impressive to you or anyone else. We are all entitled to our ideas but it is good to keep science neutral and not just saying what the atheists want it to say,,,,,,,,,,, that God is being eliminated and shown to not be needed.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes scientific explanations work well without the need to add a God but that is not the case with origins science, which is imo not true science.

It's the exact same for "origins science" which of course, is also still science.
You just don't personally want it to be.

It is educated guesses of what might have happened if God did not do it, and it cannot be verified.

You're still not getting the point.

You have to show that there is a reason to insert god(s) into the equation in the first place!
And let's face facts here, you're not just talking about some obscure god concept, you are specifically talking about the very specific god you believe in.

I can do that when just discussing things person to person without any scientific need to prove everything.
It sounds like you are saying that you believe spirits are just in peoples' imaginations (even when there are many observations).
But if you are saying that it means that you are saying you believe spirits are not real.
But no you wouldn't be saying that would you?

Good grief.

What reason do we have to believe that spirits even exist in the first place? You openly admit there is no verifiable evidence. You openly admit, that your belief is faith-based. You openly admit they are undetectable. And you openly admit that you cannot even define what a spirit even is in the first place.
Yet in your mind, everyone else is supposed to consider their existence in reality, based on .... a whole lot of nothing, apparently. Sorry, but I want to believe in as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible and your "methodology" is useless in that quest.

What you should be saying is that you lack belief in spirits because you don't like the evidence for them,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or even that you think it is really not evidence because it cannot be verified or falsified.

I lack belief in spirits because there is no good evidence for them. I've asked you for it, and what response do I get? They are undetectable. Well great, that's the same evidence I'd expect to find of something that doesn't exist at all.

I believe the evidence I have for the Bible God and you for some reason want to deny that it is evidence.

Because it's not evidence. The Bible is filled with claims, not evidence.

Nobody NEEDS verifiable evidence to believe what they believe. Some people just say they refuse to believe things that have no verifiable evidence.

No they don't. Just those interested in being reasonable and rational, and believing in as many true things as possible while not believing in as many false things as possible.

 

[Brian2]

Why do you say these inquiries are beyond the purview of science? I'd bet you are unfamiliar with the evidence these hypotheses and opinions are based on.

I know the ideas are unverifiable and unfalsifiable and everyone wants to say it is acceptable as science,,,,,,,,,,,,,, including those people who reject ideas of God because God cannot be verified or falsified.

No. More because the phenomena in question can be explained with ordinary, observable, familiar, testable physics and chemistry. A special pleading based on neither evidence or need makes no sense.

I have not seen the beginnings of the universe or life explained yet, have you?

So how would you define evidence? You seem to include tradition and mythology -- but only currently popular mythology.
Why do you think it reasonable to believe completely unsupported folklore? Why is your favorite folklore more believable than that of the ancient Egyptians or the Zulus? I see no evidentiary difference.

Evidence for me is what I see as confirming what the Bible says. If evidence show the Bible to be wrong then I would need to stop believing the Bible or see if the Bible is open to different interpretation or put it in the too hard basket for now.
I see the Bible as more believable for me than other things I have heard because it is supported by fulfilled prophecies, and is about the same God for thousands of years and a God who brings about what He said He would do.

But isn't your belief in God and the Bible based on unsupported assumptions?
I believe your faith and mythology was downloaded before you developed any assessment tools or critical, analytical capacity. It's become hard-wired.

Yes I suppose the faith of some people becomes, as you say, hard wired, but I don't see my beliefs as based on unsupported assumptions any more than the beliefs of others.

What can be shown objectively is not faith. What cannot is imaginary.
No, God has not had an effect. Belief in various gods has had an effect, and, inasmuch as the beliefs are different and contradictory, they're not epistemically reliable.

OK so you believe faith is only imaginary.
Jesus has been the most influential man in history according to many,,,,,,,,,,,, and it has been through people who have believed in Him and what He has said.

Wouldn't that be reasonable? Isn't that why you reject belief in dragons, Odin, leprechauns and orcs?
Isn't there just as much evidence for Quetzalcoatl as there is for God?

There is evidence for a creator but much more evidence for the God of the Bible.
But unverified evidence is not necessarily wrong. You know that if you think that the universe and life came about naturally.

To question apologists' reasoning and epistemology.

And after doing that a 100 times with various people I suppose you know the answers, but still do it anyway.
I do that sort of stuff to when I can see that someone is wrong imo and want to show that to them.
Peoples' beliefs make them blind to reason at times of course, so questioning is a good strategy if they think about and answer the questions.

Q: If what you believe is not verifiable, why do you believe and defend it so fervently?

Atheists are here because we're interested in reality, how the world works, psychology, epistemology, religion, sociology, anthropology, politics, history, &c. We're curious people
Religious believers, it seems, are not. They prefer a comfortable, reassuring mythology that they don't have to actually think about.
Thinking is hard....

If I cannot defend it then is it true? If I cannot defend it then who else is going to fall into the trap of actually believing the stuff that atheists claim?
The answer to that might be that plenty of people seem to want to get rid of their faith and believe atheists, or just fall that way when they can't defend their faith against what atheists say any longer.
So your strategy to convert people can work even if you deny that is what you want to do.

Why? Hasn't science had an unparalleled run, expanding human knowledge and understanding beyond anything religion ever achieved?
What is the idea of God needed for? What explanatory power does it have?

If we believe God did it, that explains a lot both in how things came to be as they are and can lead to answers in the why direction also.
Scientists should set a dead line, maybe of 100 years, and say OK if we have no answers by then we will allow the God did it answer in science. Otherwise science (and scientists) would blindly go on forever looking for answers that are only educated guesses anyway.

Why? and what alternative explanations are there?

Because it will be only educated guesses. Witness answers are better than that, and God is a witness to what He did.
But God convinces people one at a time it seems and that is what He is doing.

Science doesn't to prove God, for the same reason it hasn't tried to prove orcs or the tooth færie.

Some questions are just not suitable for science.

Science is perfectly comfortable with gaps. Gaps are science's bread and butter. It generates them all the time.

Nothing like generating funding. However according to James Tour the abiogenesis people are not being completely honest to the general public about their advances.
I suppose those who were putting God in the gaps in knowledge and saying that God must have done it, were comfortable also, but that did not change the fact that those gaps had natural explanations at times.

We may be entitled to our ideas, but those ideas are not necessarily rational. Not all ideas are epistemically equal. The rationality of our ideas is determinable.
How is God being eliminated? Science basically ignores the whole concept. Religion's panic at the notion of evidenced belief and an unnecessary god is telling. It seems like they realize their house is built on sand, and needs vigorous defense to remain intact.

It is not really science that says God is being eliminated with each gain in scientific knowledge. That is the job that atheists have, and then other atheists come along and say,,,,,,,,, "Science ignores the whole concept" as if other atheists don't say that gains in knowledge of science eliminates the need for God.
However it is true that in a passive way science is eliminating God because of how things are reported in the media.

 

[Brian2]

What is this non-verifiable evidence? How is it evidence if it's only imaginary, and not demonstrable?
Are you including personal experience and emotion a evidence?

I'm including whatever reasons theists have for believing in God and/or their God.

But unless the actual witness testifies, it is hearsay, by definition!

We have actual, first-person testimony from witnesses to all sorts of things: little green men, leprechauns, chupacabras, moth-men, angels and dæmons. A common traffic accident will generate a dozen contradictory accounts.

Even first-person, eyewitness accounts are unreliable. Are you seriously saying that told and retold, thousandth-hand stories by unknown people are reliable?
There are fulfilled prophecies in every religion, and most are so vague and non-specific that they're not even recognized as prophecies till someone tries to shoehorn them into a narrative.

Bible prophecies are many and can be quite specific and shown to have been fulfilled.

 

[Brian2]

No. One doesn't even have to have made an argument. Any conclusion or statement of fact can involve bad reasoning.

The complaints are about unsupported or erroneous statements, conclusion or facts

Quite so, it just makes it unfounded or irrational; epistemically useless.

OK I don't need to have made a logical argument to have made a logical fallacy.
But really don't you think the whole idea of logical fallacies is overdone and overused and sometimes so vague that it is not even explained. It is like throwing sh*t and hoping some sticks,,,,,,,,,,,, which inevitably happens. Sigh, the unfairness of debates.
But as I said, even valid logical fallacies don't mean that something is not true.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have not seen the beginnings of the universe or life explained yet, have you?

Science has partial answers for both. Religion can't help with answering such questions. It only offers guesses that predict and explain nothing and can't be used for anything.

If evidence show the Bible to be wrong then I would need to stop believing the Bible or see if the Bible is open to different interpretation or put it in the too hard basket for now.

No need to worry about that. That can't happen to you. You also wrote this: "Evidence for me is what I see as confirming what the Bible says." It's not evidence to you unless you think it supports your faith-based beliefs. That's the definition of a confirmation bias, and it chooses what you can see for you.

Peoples' beliefs make them blind to reason

You're describing a confirmation bias again.

you believe faith is only imaginary.

With faith, imaginary objects, processes, and places can be believed to be real.

who else is going to fall into the trap of actually believing the stuff that atheists claim?

More and more people in the West are finding Abrahamic religion less than irrelevant in their lives. Right now, you've got the Christians besetting LGBTQ+ and women's reproductive freedoms in the States as the Jews and Muslims blow more of the Middle East back into the stone age. Atheists need not say a word to turn people away from religions like these.

It is not really science that says God is being eliminated with each gain in scientific knowledge. That is the job that atheists have

There are several entities like Pew that do surveys on religiosity over time and plot trends.

Also, the media is no friend to religion. The news shows us the excesses and failures of religion with virtually no offsetting successes. The Internet has given critical thinkers a platform. Prominent clergy are continually embroiled in public scandals. The Catholic Church's pedophilia cover-up scandal became a huge story. And the entertainment media also virtually never show the church or religion in a favorable light.

If we believe God did it, that explains a lot

It explains nothing more than "Norman did it." Literally.

 

[wellwisher]

Commentary continued:

Garte asserts that the systems of DNA transcription, protein assembly, proofreading, &c are tremendously complex. He states the whole complex process must be in place for anything to work -- an irreducible complexity argument, and that the last universal common ancestor had the whole, complex sequences already in place. How he'd know this I have no idea.

He then states that the argument for God isn't in evolution, but in origins, ie: abiogenesis. We haven't yet explained it. He can't explain it, hence: God! He dismisses the best evidenced and most likely mechanism of "chemical evolution," as "very, very weak,(later: "it can't happen") and fills the gap with an even weaker and entirely unevidenced proposition: God. He argues that, because of the complexity of it all, purpose and a purposive designer are necessary to account for it -- which sounds like more personal incredulity. No rational reason why chemistry couldn't account for it is proffered. He proposes that the universe we see is exactly what would be expected in a purpose-built, grand design. This strikes me as an unwarranted fine-tuning or design argument.

Sy Garte may be a competent chemist, but he's not much of a logician.
He cites a Royal Society finding that 89% of biologists idenified as atheists. It makes one wonder how they all failed to realise his arguments for God.
@Brian2. Did not notice or consider Garte's a priori God premise, his confirmation bias, or arguments from complexity or incredulity?

Evolution starts at replicators which is quite late in the developmental processes of life. That current theory of evolution does follow logically after that starting point. However, it still needs to default to dice and cards, since this is not a genuine origin, but more of a man made starting point convention, that ignores how the replicators appear, using logic. There is magic involved with that starting point. You need to place your head in a black box to set that stage. After replicators appear, you can take your head out the box and see the light of genetic logic; after the fact.

Abiogenesis, conceptually, starts life from scratch via the simplest chemistry. An argument can be made that natural selection and evolution from replicators, onward, is the second half of natural selection. There should also be a first half of natural selection, but at the nanoscale of base chemicals; abiogenesis. It is no coincidence that the peptide linkage uses HCON, which are all the light reactive atoms that form covalent bonds. It does not use metals and ions for this basic linkage. These are added later to alter secondary bonding characteristics.

If you look at natural selection at the nanoscale, water should play a key role, since it was there from the beginning and is still an essential and majority part of life. It is the one bookend of life that does not change, at the level of primary chemical bonding. Its role started small and but now is very complex, everywhere touching the complexity of life; organics, metals and ions.

A recent observation in astral physics found an enormous pool of water, trillions of time larger than the oceans, made by a quasar about 12 billion years ago. This observation tells us that water is not only made by stars, can also be made by the most powerful forces of the universe; black holes inside the quasar. This origin of water brings water closer to another origin; BB. The quasar observation, which is unique to astral physics, also seems to suggest that maybe life needs a unique quasar origin; separate the waters from the water, which would explain why life is not easily found beyond the earth. However, we can find the precursors of life connected to abiogenesis; water, methane, ammonia, CO2, CO, HCN, etc, all over the universe.

Where the intelligent design of nature comes in, needed for life, can be seen with the water and oil effect. Water and oil when mixed will not solubilize, but given time will phase separate. This is perfect for life, since life is composed of organic materials, which unlike water are very diverse. While all this diversity of organics; oils, have the same impact on water and vice versa; surface tension. We have one stable timeless bookend; water, and one stable but variable and ever changeable bookend; organics, that phase separate from each other; pockets of water and organelles; order from chaos.

Water and oil, which is an aspect of natural selection at the nanoscale, is a work around from the land of dice and cards, since there are sweets spots of minimal organic potential in the unchanging water; same today as billions of years ago. The organics, which are changeable, can and will change and have to pick up the slack to satisfy water. This can observed via the folding of protein within water into reproducible shapes, which reflect the minimal local water potential. Minimal potential for water never changes, so you get perfect matches each time. There is no dice. Water is the key to a theory that can start billions of years before the replicators and give a real natural origin closer to the origin of the universe.

The model I see for the second half of evolution is connected to the replicators, but also to the water, via the water and oil effect. This combines the current theory with a water overlay, with water giving logic to the current black box; adds a light.

Say we have a change on the DNA; mutation. This will alter the structural potential of the DNA in water at the point of change. Miss matched base pairing will expose organic moieties and add surface tension to the local water; potential for change. Any output from the DNA, such as mRNA, now impacts the water as the mRNA is transported to the ribosomes. The new protein that is made then impacts the local water, as it folded into its minimal potential shape in water. Its final placement impacts the local protein grid, that is also at its sweet spot in water. Now an adjustment needs to be made so the global water matrix is optimized; natural selection at the nanoscale. The organics are very moldable. Not all things will work and some protein go to recycle. Others improve the position of the global water and will remain and will expand from there. Irreducible complexity is about complexity at minimal potential in water. Water has a way to globally integrate this sweet spot via the organics.

Note: Water forms hydrogen bonds, with hydrogen bonds able to form both polar and covalent bonding at the level of secondary bonds. Organic materials, like oil, are more or less limited to polar secondary bonds; van Der Waals. When water and oil mix the oil does not mind polar bonding to water, but water loses out, since it can become even more stable using its unique covalent feature. Water will go its own way, and the organics will also minimize their potential with polar secondary bonding.

The polar and covalent nature of the hydrogen bonding of water allows water to separate the EM force into its electrostatic and magnetic components. Polar bonding is about electrostatic charge attraction. The magnetic aspect is about placing electrons into orbitals using magnetic attraction to overcome any charge repulsion. The oxygen of water can hold two more electrons than it has protons; O-2. This should not be stable. This is made possible because the 2p orbitals can magnetically add the 2P electrons in 3-D, via a triple additive right hand rule. This makes the magnetic components strong enough to overcome the -2 charge repulsion. The hydrogen of the hydrogen bond cause the EM force to switch back and forth. One important affect, critical to life, is what we call the pH affect.

 

[Brian2]

I don't really understand this. Two points:

Why do you think science would "draw a line in the sand" and stop searching? The whole lesson of science, ever since its birth after the Renaissance, is that it has proved able to provide answers to questions about nature that nobody could answer before. So why would it be a good idea to give up? All areas of active research in science attempt to extend our knowledge. It seems highly perverse to argue, in effect, that because we don't already know the answer we should stop trying to find one. That would be nuts, wouldn't it? So why would it be a good idea to declare the origin of life, arbitrarily, out of all the unresolved issues in science, off-limits? What is special about life that makes you think it should be exempt from scientific study?

I really don't think science would draw any lines.

Secondly, what is this about "laboratory conditions"? Science does not demand laboratory conditions. Ask any astrophysicist or earth scientist. Again, this nonsense about a need for "laboratories" is an old creationist chestnut that does not withstand a moment's examination.

When listening to James Tour he makes it sound so reasonable that it is so hard and such precision work to synthesize chemicals, that wanting nature to do it is a nonsense, considering what it would mean in practice. He says that in the articles about abiogenesis and what it claims to have found, all this stuff is waved over as if it is no problem. So he claims that what abiogenesis reveals to the world about their findings does not really align with the reality of the situation.

You are one of the more thoughtful and informed people on the forum. I don't think these arguments are up to scratch for someone like you.

Thanks but I don't think that is true.
And no, they're my standard argument. Not scientific arguments but common sense applied to science imo when it comes to scientists speaking from what they see as the truth and not just towing the party line, scientist's line about God.

 

[Brian2]

Thanks. My post 172 refers. I was disappointed to find Garte is after all no more than another God of the Gaps merchant. You see, the thing is, what real arguments can these guys make that are not just versions of the Argument from Personal Incredulity?

I had been hoping, from his Biologos article, that Garte would have a sophisticated view, more like that of Kenneth Miller, say. In other words, someone who sees God in the workings of nature but who does not feel the need to believe that God has to tinker with His creation as if it were a badly made car.

I don't think it is tinkering with creation as with a badly made car, it is making sure that those parts of creation that can't just fall into place by themselves, actually do get done.
Science has the rule that if it cannot find a God or maker or designer then the only possible answers that scientists can give are naturalistic answers (naturalistic educated guesses about this sort of stuff) and Garte and Tour have seen that problem that science has when it comes to things that God has said that He did, and have seen that answers that science have been giving are not really sensible at times and actually do point to a maker, designer and away from nature just falling into place over time.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

When listening to James Tour he makes it sound so reasonable that it is so hard and such precision work to synthesize chemicals, that wanting nature to do it is a nonsense, considering what it would mean in practice. He says that in the articles about abiogenesis and what it claims to have found, all this stuff is waved over as if it is no problem. So he claims that what abiogenesis reveals to the world about their findings does not really align with the reality of the situation.

You believe him not on the strength of his argument, which is essentially one huge incredulity fallacy - "I don't see how it could have happened therefore it didn't" - but because he's telling you what you want to hear. You've decided what you're going to believe based in faith, not "the reality of the situation," which implies an interest in empiricism, which is the means by which reality is investigated and its regular and predictable patterns identified and catalogued. It turns out that the universe is capable of organizing itself and operating daily without intelligent oversight. That's the reality of the situation.

Garte and Tour have seen that problem that science has when it comes to things that God has said that He did

"Things that God has said that He did"? That immediately disqualifies their opinions outside of religious circles. Nobody knows anything at all about gods - whether they exist, whether they know or care that we exist, what their nature might be, etc.. To claim otherwise armed with nothing more than claims of incredulity is to go off the reason reservation.

the difference between the 2.

The difference between scientific and biblical prediction doesn't justify applying different standards to their evaluation. It justifies coming to different conclusions regarding the quality and value of two sets of predictions.

And others don't see what is there because of confirmation bias against those things.

There is no confirmation bias in science, which is the result of believing by faith and then seeing what you've chosen to believe BECAUSE you believe it.

It might be rational when trying to find out how nature works, but not when it comes to finding God and wanting evidence in nature for a spirit being.

Science is in the business of determining how nature works, not investigating assorted religious claims.

God makes the days of creation resemble 24 hour days with the morning and evening, so that ceasing work on the sabbath can be seen in light of the creation days, but as I have said, the sun is not made until day 4 in a literalist reading, so 24 hour days are not meant, no sunrise or sunset, and day 7 when God ceased from His work of creation is not over yet if read literally.

You're just vamping here, trying to salvage the story by redefining its terms. Man created that story, not gods, and the days were literal days. It was later that people began tinkering with its reinterpretation to make it conform to the science that didn't exist when the ancients invented these stories.

 

[Brian2]

Prediction is prediction. It's either accurate or it's not. We use one set of standards to decide that.

No you just close your eyes to the difference between the 2.

Agreed. That's how confirmation bias works. You see what you have chosen to believe by faith. If one believes that there is such a thing as a divine origin, one then sees it in the objects and events in the world.

And others don't see what is there because of confirmation bias against those things.

Yes, my preference for empiricism over faith as a path to truth is a bias - a rational bias derived from experience.

It might be rational when trying to find out how nature works, but not when it comes to finding God and wanting evidence in nature for a spirit being.

What I said is that science has excluded the Abrahamic god. You didn't try to address that.

I thought I had.

Yes, and it's almost certainly a correct one. The Bible writers meant six literal days of work followed by one of rest. How do we know? Those days each had a morning and an evening fixing them at 24 hours. And the commandment to emulate the day of rest is to rest for 24 hours, from sunset to sunset.

God makes the days of creation resemble 24 hour days with the morning and evening, so that ceasing work on the sabbath can be seen in light of the creation days, but as I have said, the sun is not made until day 4 in a literalist reading, so 24 hour days are not meant, no sunrise or sunset, and day 7 when God ceased from His work of creation is not over yet if read literally.

 

[Brian2]

No, I know it is biased because it is a religious organization that has a preconceived, stated declaration that God is the basis for science:

“3. We believe that in creating and preserving the universe God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of scientific investigation.”
(https://network.asa3.org/page/ASAbeliefs)

So you don't believe what Newton and other scientists have said because they had the same belief about God and the universe?

Did you not read the brief description of confirmation bias I posted in post #118?:

Again, read very carefully……all the words……

Did you not follow the link in the same post in order to get a more in-depth understanding concerning conformation bias?
You sorely need it in my opinion.
Here it is again; I would highly suggest you give it a perusal…….

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And where does this link say that ASA has confirmation bias?

Here you are nearly correct……
With the caveat that science doesn’t “allow or not allow” anything;
it merely attempts to gather objective, demonstrable, repeatable, testable, falsifiable evidence and then make reliable, testable predictions based on that data in order to confirm if its relevance.
If a proposal fails to live up to these standards, it is either adjusted to integrate the confirmed data or if it cannot do so, is rejected.
Since “spirits” have never been shown to live up to these standards they are rejected until such time as they can.

It’s not a matter of “allow” or “not allow”, its a matter of living up to standards or failing to.

Can you provide any relevant evidence that does meet such qualifications?
If you can, you would be the first among a multitude of failed attempts to do so.

So God and spirits are rejected because science has not got tests for spirits and cannot confirm or deny the other evidence for God and spirits that exists.
IOWs God and spirits are not subjects for science if science cannot confirm or deny, but that does not mean that there is not evidence or that God and spirits do not exist.

Do these “spirits” and/or God have an affect on anything in the known universe?
This is a challenge I gave you in post #120, that you never bothered to respond to: (I wonder why that is?)

Yes they do.

Allow me to give you an example of how this works:
Surely you have heard the terms “dark matter” and “dark energy”….yes?
Neither of these have been directly observed or are currently known what they are; they have thus far eluded any attempts to determine their nature other than that they do not appear to react with any know light or radiation we currently have knowledge of.
We are aware of them due to the fact that they have a measurable effect on things within the universe.
In the case of “dark matter”, it effects the gravitation of galaxies and regions of space to a demonstrable degree. It cause measurable gravitational lensing which helps us determine its potential mass…. thus the term “dark matter”.
In the case of “dark energy”, it effects the expansion of the universe in a demonstrable, measurable way. It appears to be a force that is pushing the expansion of the known universe…thus the term “dark energy”.

Can you give any example of how “spirits” or God is effecting anything on Earth or within the known universe in a similar (or any) demonstrable, measurable way?

Spirits and God are not substances made from matter, which you can test. They do things according to their will.

Please show me where science is “coming up with potential answers that cross over into theology and deny it”.

I suppose that is a "no" to my question.
But you must know that science keeps trying to come up with naturalistic answers to the origins of the universe and life and that these cross over into theology and deny it.
But interestingly all science can do is make educated guesses about this stuff, and can never know if the guesses are correct and that they are what actually happened. But since the general public holds science up high and because of how the hypothesese of science are presented, the picture presented to us is that science knows or is getting close to an answer on these things.
And so the theology is being denied by answers that aren't even answers.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No you just close your eyes to the difference between the 2.

It seems you're just imagining there is a difference.

And others don't see what is there because of confirmation bias against those things.

I think others have demonstrated this not to be the case.

It might be rational when trying to find out how nature works, but not when it comes to finding God and wanting evidence in nature for a spirit being.

You don't seem to realize that you just admitted to holding irrational beliefs.

I thought I had.



God makes the days of creation resemble 24 hour days with the morning and evening, so that ceasing work on the sabbath can be seen in light of the creation days, but as I have said, the sun is not made until day 4 in a literalist reading, so 24 hour days are not meant, no sunrise or sunset, and day 7 when God ceased from His work of creation is not over yet if read literally.

Pure speculation, not in evidence. Look how you have to imagine that a day isn't a day and that god made the days special for a while or something. It's just empty unfalsifiable speculation so you can make the story make some kind of sense to you. Just like with the flood story where you have to engage in all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to believe a global flood was just a local one.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

So you don't believe what Newton and other scientists have said because they had the same belief about God and the universe?

I accept what Newton and other scientists have demonstrated, which has subsequently been objectively repeatedly tested and objectively confirmed to be valid.
Not because “Newton said” it.

I do not accept what Newton said about religion, which is not falsifiable nor objectively tested or confirmed to be valid…….
Do you?

In Newton's eyes, worshipping Christas God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin. In 1999, historian Stephen D. Snobelen wrote, "Isaac Newton was a heretic.
(Isaac Newton - Wikipedia)
Do you accept what “Newton said”?

Nor do I accept Newton’s work in alchemy which fails to be objectively demonstrated or confirmed by repeated testing to prove valid; regardless of what “Newton said”.

I do not suffer from an “appeal to authority”
as you have demonstrated with your appeal to assuming what Tour and Garte is “noteworthy” because they “say” so.

I don’t go by what somebody “says”, but rather whether what they say is falsifiable, objectively demonstrable, tested and objectively shown to be valid…… the “god of the gaps” fails all of these tests.
You must ask yourself; why do you appeal to what Tour and Garte “say” while ignoring what the consensus of scientific method and data demonstrates?

And where does this link say that ASA has confirmation bias?

Seriously?
You are asking why a description about the phenomenon of confirmation bias doesn’t specifically enumerate an exhaustive list of every example of it known to mankind?……seriously?!


When asked:

Do these “spirits” and/or God have an affect on anything in the known universe?

You finally answer…..

Yes they do.

Here and now is your opportunity to present where this has objectively been demonstrated.
Please show me.
Remember it’s not about what anyone “says” but what can be objectively demonstrated.
Please share it with us!

Spirits and God are not substances made from matter, which you can test. They do things according to their will

Yet you previously admitted.

I don't know what a spirit is but it is not part of the material universe.

You have still never explained how since you don’t know what a spirit is…..
how you know “it is not part of the material universe”,
“not substances made from matter, which you can test”,
or that they have a will, much less “do things according to their will”.
Or if there is anything other than the material universe.
Again, what somebody “says” is only valid if they can objectively demonstrate that it is.
Please show me where any of this has been objectively demonstrated.

So God and spirits are rejected because science has not got tests for spirits and cannot confirm or deny the other evidence for God and spirits that exists.
IOWs God and spirits are not subjects for science if science cannot confirm or deny

Here I’m having trouble taking you seriously.
It’s been explained to you repeatedly about the scientific method and how the position on various unsubstantiated propositions of gods or any other unsupported or dubious propositions fit into it; I’ll not waste my time further with your willful refusal to acknowledge the facts.

I suppose that is a "no" to my question.

Wow, your reading comprehension is seriously lacking……
Your question:

Do you think that science plodding on and coming up with potential answers that cross over into theology and deny it, is bias on the part of science, which is blind to the unfalsifiable evidence for God, and so has to end up suggesting wrong naturalistic answers even if a God exists?

My answer:

Please show me where science is “coming up with potential answers that cross over into theology and deny it”.

It is not a “no” to your question.
Your question is unfounded and nonsensical.
It is an invitation for you to put-up or shut-up on your continued misrepresentation of the scientific method and substantiate your claim of bias on the part of science against your preconceived notion of God.

So let’s try again…..
Put-up or shut-up.

But you must know that science keeps trying to come up with naturalistic answers to the origins of the universe and life and that these cross over into theology and deny it.

Of course science “keeps trying to come up with naturalistic answers to the origins of the universe and life”, they are the only answers which have objectively, repeatedly, and demonstrably been shown to have any validity.
Since no religious alternative has managed to do so, there is no rational reason to take them into consideration.
No serious person has ever denied this.
The denial is that science “seeks to discredit your God” or anyone else’s……it merely seeks to gain objectively demonstrable knowledge.
The fact your God is not falsifiable or objectively demonstrable is your concern, not that of science.

But interestingly all science can do is make educated guesses about this stuff, and can never know if the guesses are correct and that they are what actually happened.

Etc., etc…….
More strawmaning and mischaracterization of science as has been exhaustively explained to you which you willfully dishonestly continue to do.

But since the general public holds science up high

This is because it has proven to be a reliable and viable source of knowledge.

Interesting how you attempt to put the utterances of a select few scientists up as authoritative in an attempt to convince gullible people that your favored view of religion appears to be reasonable within their personal point of view as though their being scientists bears extra validity to their reasoning.
Almost as though you “hold science up high”.
All while trying to discredit, minimize, and mischaracterize the objectively demonstrable knowledge gained through science.

 

[Brian2]

Is this what you really meant to say?
Are you suggesting that learning how something begins (comes into existence) is not a part of how it works?
Isn’t how it is potentially formed and initiates an integral part of how it works?…..seriously?

I see origins as something different.

Can you objectively demonstrate that God, the pan-galactic pixies, and/or Xanfilel exist?

If you manage to do that, which would be a novel (of a new and unusual kind; different from anything seen or known before) accomplishment,
can you consequently objectively demonstrate that all or any of them had a objectively demonstrable effect on how any of those things formed or initiated?

I also think that you cannot objectively demonstrate that anything had an objectively demonstrable effect on how anything formed or initiated.

If you could objectively demonstrate that “God is needed”, science would have no problem saying so.
And if God were objectively, demonstrably shown to exist and had a demonstrable, measurable effect on anything it should be able to be tested for.

How can a spirit be tested by science?
Are you suggesting, as, presumably and atheist, that because spirits cannot be tested for by science , that they do not exist?
You did say that we should be able to prove a positive and seemed to point to science as the way to do that.

This is of course a silly anthromorphizing of “science”.
Nowhere within any science discipline has there ever been any indication that any god (much Yahweh) is needed or in any way a factor.
And, since as you have admitted science is conducted by a wide variety of people with a wide variety of religious affiliations and not solely atheists, it is obviously not just atheists who accept this fact, but a wide variety of scientists with a wide variety of faiths.

Not finding a God in tests does not mean that the scientists involved think that God was not needed or in any way a factor. If those scientists are atheists, it would no doubt be a different matter of course.

If you don’t know what a spirit is….how do you know it’s “not part of the material universe”?
How did you determine that there is anything other than the “material universe”?

A spirit is not detectable by science and so spirits are probably not part of the material universe. But maybe science just has not discovered a test for spirits.
Human experience seems to show that the material universe is not all there is.

So you believe that God is a spirit (although you admit to not knowing what a spirit is) because you believe the Bible.
How do you elevate your belief in God to the status of “knowledge”?

I suppose that might be a matter of how we define knowledge.
I think my faith remains a faith all through this life.
IMO we learn about something by first believing it exists and then associating certain things and experiences to that thing,,,,,,,,,,,, being.

Do you not believe that God controls the universe?
Are those things that are alive not part of the universe?
What do you mean by “controlled by the universe”?…….Do you think the universe (which according to you is not God) has a will and exercises a conscious “control” beyond the control of God?

I meant, controlled by the laws of nature, which God Himself created.

So you concede that God does not have an objective, demonstrable effect in the universe including on the lives of billions of people.

I would not call it a concession. It is just how things are.

For anything of consequence and non trivial, correct.

I can see that you have difficulty imagining something so foreign to your method of rationing.

I can see that people want good evidence before changing their whole life.
To limit that evidence to what science can test for, knowing God is not testable by science, does seem like just hiding from God however.
It is true that faith in God can mean changes to ones life now and that shows reasonableness of wanting evidence, but faith in God can also have an effect on what, if anything, happens after we die.
Some people are more amenable to faith in God as they approach death, or get older at least, but I suppose there would have to be some doubt that atheism is correct, and rationally there should be some doubt about that imo.

So, since you freely grant that “theists already know that what they believe is not verifiable”,
why do you try to smuggle in a guise of scientific authority in an attempt to “verify” that those Christian apologists (who may have a degree in a science discipline) are leaning on their scientific training when they drag out the tired old god of the gaps arguments in attempts to convince credulous laymen that their/your unverifiable beliefs are valid?……particularly to the science community.

The scientists that do that obviously think they are giving reasonable reasons in the sciences for what they say.
And yes it is god of the gaps ideas but is backed up by reasoned arguments and is not to prove that God is real, just to make it reasonable to believe in God, and that is in the face of science and especially atheists who want to say that there is no need for a God.
It is a defense of the faith and helps protect believers from the poor thinking that atheists seem to have when it comes to science and what it points to in relation to the existence of God.

Unfortunately, you fail miserably at that attempt.
You would need to prove a negative…which is not possible.

I would say that you are taking that "proving a negative" too literally and that wanting to show God is not needed is more the trying to "prove a negative".

What is it that you base this opinion on?

Nobody was there to say whether the science hypothesese are correct. So it is always educated guesses that are based on the idea that it happened naturally.
It's just one of those limitations of science and is not verifiable or falsifiable, so is it even science?

The whole persecution complex us really unbecoming.
Again, ……it’s not “anti God”, it’s simply not accepting the unverifiable evidence you freely admit to, and carrying on without taking it into account until such time as it might be objectively demonstrated to be valid.
Looking at the vast accomplishments in the very short relative history of the scientific method;
it doesn’t appear to be hampering it in anyway.

When it comes to origins, the thing that the Bible God has actually plainly said that He did, science is stepping into theology to an extent when saying that it happened naturally. But that is another limitation of science, it cannot test for spirits and God and so ignores the existence of God and plods on regardless.
And it seems the unverifiable is acceptable in the case of origins even if it can never be anything but educated guesses.

Science is neutral…. it’s that fact that you have issues with.
Again, don’t forget that wide variety of scientists that hold a wide variety of religious affiliations that make up the science community, as opposed to how you appear to conflate scientists and atheists.

I don't conflate science and atheists, I say science is neutral and just a dumb tool that humans use.
Humans are the ones who conclude things one way or the other about what science,,,,,,,,,, with it's limitations,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, discovers about the universe, and atheist humans imply that science is showing that God is not needed, and when theist humans want to imply anything from what science shows, they are not being rational and are making logical fallacies and are involved in pseudoscience etc............ according to the atheists anyway.

 

[Brian2]

No need. I am well aware of the flagellum motor and how it was shown not to be IC.

How was the flagellum motor shown not to be Irreducibly Complex?
I can imagine how it was theorised. While it is true that if we take away one part of the motor it is useless, what the ToE does is to suggest that something, anything will do, by chance appeared and sort of accidentally did the job that the flagellum motor does, but not very efficiently, but just enough to make a difference in fitness in the population that had this mutation. (1or 2 in billions initially presumably) and so they survived and passed the mutation on and eventually it turned into the flagellum motor.
IMO explanations like that just makes the ToE look less likely however.

 

[Brian2]

That is not exactly accurate. Many ideas start as guesswork. That is true. But then they are tested and people actively try to refute them, including the person that came up with them. Once an idea has been tested and confirmed multiple times it is no longer guesswork even if it started that way. And a reminder, there may be a thousand tested and failed ideas before the right idea is hit upon. Please do not forget that all scientific ideas are heavily tested before they are accepted. Calling them guesswork only shows that you do not understand how reliable that they are. It is why science is so well respected. The person that comes up with an idea is likely to try to refute it harder than anyone else. He knows that others will be testing it themselves. It is far less damaging to one's ego to reject one's own idea before publishing it than to have the whole world refute one's idea.

Well I suppose what you say is correct but it is still educated guesswork when it comes to origins, and even in trying to work out how other things in the past happened.
Even if the science is spot on in how it would have had to have happened if it happened naturally, it cannot be said that the science could have happened naturally and it cannot be said to it did not happen another way.

 

[Brian2]

Present one that has not been debunked.

I can see a general evolution argument for anything appearing by chance and making a life form more fit and so improving over time. This general argument can be made about any complex system.
So an area of the skin was sensitive to light by accident and by accident had nerves to the brain to convey this information and that set up the start of the evolution of the eye. That would be the general formula I imagine and I suppose it cannot be debunked and cannot be shown to be true.
In the case of the flaggellar motor an accidental appearance of something that a cell could use to primitively move and it would slowly evolve into a flagellar motor.
Whether it is reasonable to see this as a sytem that could have evolved naturally to assemble itself and be used by cells to move around and find food is something for an individual to decide. It is like the animation about the workings of a cell and seeing that as possible naturally or not.
Some people believe what science tells them when it cannot be verified and is educated guesses and others like me (theists) use the incredulity logical fallacy and say "WT*, they must be kidding."

flagellum motor animation - Google Search

www.google.com

animation of cells narrated by dr lydell - Google Search

www.google.com