Life From Dirt?

[Valjean]

When it comes to the existence of God, how does this go?

There is no reasonable or objective evidence to critically analyse.

Which variety are you?
Why do you think people assert that there is no god?

I am a basic atheist, deferring belief pending evidence.
People assert there is no God for the same reason you probably assert there is no Easter Bunny or Flying Spaghetti Monster.

It could be used as evidence for the general public.
I don't know about philosophical discourse.

A general public that accepts mere assertion and folklore as evidence is not thinking critically or logically. It's not thinking at all.
If the suspect and his supporters in a New York murder claimed he was in Los Angeles at the time, would any reasonable juror believe this with no objective corroborating evidence?

 

[Valjean]

There is no reasonable or objective evidence to critically analyse.

I am a basic atheist, deferring belief pending evidence.
People assert there is no God for the same reason you probably assert there is no Easter Bunny or Flying Spaghetti Monster.

A general public that accepts mere assertion and folklore as evidence is not thinking critically or logically. It's not thinking at all.
If the suspect and his supporters in a New York murder claimed he was in Los Angeles at the time, would any reasonable juror believe this with no objective corroborating evidence?

Ontological claims require even more evidence that a murder trial.

 

[Valjean]

Are there other parts of the Bible which show that the Bible God does not exist?

The Bible has nothing to do with it. It's just a book.
God's existence is a question of evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The Bible has nothing to do with it. It's just a book.
God's existence is a question of evidence.

The Bible's own endless self contradictions show that his version of God does not exist. But he will never admit to that.

 

[Valjean]

Insufficient objective evidence does not show my God does not exist except for the purposes of scientific analysis. The naturalistic methodology is used in science, but that does not mean that God does not exist.

That's true, and it's true for Apollo, Santa Clause and the FSM, as well. Do you believe in them? There is equal supporting evidence....
You don't accept everything as reality till it's disproven, you accept what objective evidence points to and defer belief in the mythological till actual evidence appears. That's Reason.

https://lucidphilosophy.com/7-argument-from-ignorance/

And if you can't do that with God we either delay belief or say that the lack of objective evidence shows there is no God or we believe anyway on the grounds that God is possible and has subjective evidence for us that we believe.

We delay belief till evidence appears. No logical conclusion is possible, either for or against. Again, see argument from ignorance, above.

It's just annoying and indicates a lack of sincerity in what the person says.

It may annoy you, but it's the only reasonable position.

But my evidence supports my conclusions for me and why should my beliefs worry you. You don't care if your neighbor wants to dance around a tree in his back yard at midnight baying at the full moon while shaking a stick with a bloody chicken claw nailed to it in order to center himself and to give his like meaning, that's fine as long as he isn't violently insane or sacrificing animals if he keeps the noise down. So me having what I consider good reason to believe in my God does not bother you also I presume even if you don't like my evidence or how I came to the conclusions I did.

But your evidence is not objective evidence. People of a thousand different religions have the same evidence. Kids believing in Santa Clause have equal evidence. Mere opinion, assertion or tradition is insufficient evidence.
Your "evidence" may be persuasive for you, but it's not reasonable, logically sound, or persuasive for other, reasonable persons.

I don't think Bible believers say that evolution does not happen.

Some do, some don't. The Book implies that creatures popped into existence fully formed, from nothing, by magic. Question this, and the whole Biblical narrative is open to question.

From what little I know, there are gaps in the tree of life and science just presumes evolution fills all the gaps. Science of the gaps.

There are gaps in all knowledge and evidence. But the footprints of evolution form a clear trail, even if some are missing, more are found weekly.
*The mechanisms are commonsense, and easily and extensively tested.
*People have been successfully employing them for thousands of years.
*The sources of evidence are consilient. Evidence from unrelated disciplines all supports the same conclusions.
*There are no alternative explanations except a completely unevidenced appeal to magic.

I don't see the Bible creation story as denying evolution altogether however.
So I don't think that discrediting the Bible creation story is the way to show that the Biblical God does not exist.

The Bible creation story doesn't deny trans-dimensional constructor mice, either. It proposes no mechanism. Action without mechanism is magic. The Biblical account is magic.

Discrediting the Aztec creation story doesn't show Quetzalcoatl doesn't exist, either.

The universe had a beginning in the Bible before the BB theory. The evidence and theory of the BB just confirmed that the Bible was correct.
Faith in the truth and existence of things that we aren't 100% certain about is just part of what humans do, including those who believe the complete science story of evolution.

"In the beginning" Is not evidence of the BB, or anything, but the common experience of beginnings. The concept of relativistic time didn't exist. The quantum concept of a beginning of time itself was inconceivable.
The genesis stories are not just 'less than 100% certain', they're pure folklore.

It's not that easy for chemicals to come together and form the things that need to be formed for life and evolution to begin and continue. It is not proven, it is presumed to have happened the way science might envisage because it had to have happened that way without a creator, with a naturalistic methodology.

On the contrary. It's easy. It's such simple chemistry you could do it on your kitchen table. Amino acids, nucleotides, proteins, membranes, self-replication -- all easily demonstrable. No magic is required; no creator, just simple chemistry.
And evolution -- even more easily explained and demonstrated.

 

[Valjean]

You cannot say where I went wrong if indeed what I post is subjective evidence for God to me.
You can say that it is not good evidence for you.

We can say it's evidence only for you, and not evidence in any other context.

I could say that chemistry is not that forgiving and chance is not that forgiving and that chemicals assembling themselves into life forms without falling into a heap is something that needs precise conditions and chance to be on their side over and over again.

No. It's been found that precise conditions are not necessary. The components of life appear to be pretty easily formed, in a variety of conditions.
Once formed, proto-life no longer needs rely on chance. Selection obtains.

iows it needs a designer, creator to dish it up, and the only reason people might say it did happen that way is because there is no alternative with the naturalistic methodology of science.
You probably disagree but that is opinion.

Why does it need a designer? What chemical mechanism did this designer employ? Why can't simple chemistry or physics account for life and the universe?
Your appeal to magic and a magician is unevidenced, unneeded, and unsupported. It's opinion. The BB and evolution are facts, explainable mechanically, with demonstrable mehanisms. Not opinion.

 

[Valjean]

Belief can follow intuition.

And often does, and is often otherwise unevidenced and easily demonstrated wrong.
People have believed all sorts of contradictory things intuitively over the years.
Intuition is unreliable.

Does that mean that you do say that there is no God? Or is that just a reason that other people might use if that was their claim?

It means that the evidence for Santa Clause is equal to the evidence for your God. To be consistent you'd have to believe in both or neither, not one or the other.

I gave an example in post 714 but that is plainly a logical fallacy, incredulity. It does not matter though, it's still true imo.

Your standards for truth are very low, then; unreasonable, in fact.

 

[Valjean]

The probability of chemicals joining into cellular structures is imo infinitessimally small.

Yet it's so easily demonstrable in any lab, even on your kitchen table. It's not complicated chemistry.

It does not happen these days even with biological material laying around.

Yet it does.

So I have a subjective opinion about it and it seems reasonable to me and to indicate a creator.
That is subjective evidence and we can all see that it is reasonable to call it evidence, but I'm not sure how it can be tested by science except maybe in a probability way.

It is persuasive to you. That is to say, it conforms to your preconceived ideas; to a familiar, comfortable mythology. It does not rise to the level of actual, evidence that might be used in argument or discussion.

 

[Valjean]

It can be rational. It certainly is not irrational, just not a belief determined purely as a reasoned thing...

But purely as a reasoned thing is the very definition of rational.

and considering all the evidence on some sort of rationality scales that we have inside us. Maybe it is a leap of faith after considering the evidence, just as a leap of faith would be to say that the evidence is not enough to show there is a god.

No, assuming non-existence in the face of poor evidence is not a leap of faith. It's simple reason. It's the logical default.

It is just obvious that the chemistry does not fall together and hold together or that the conditions would be very rare indeed. It sounds obvious that any science that says chemicals can combine into life forms without precise conditions and incredible luck etc is not telling the whole story.

The chemistry falls together all the time. Amino acids and all five bases of nucleic acids have been found in meteorites, for heaven's sake. The components of life self form all the time, many even self-replicate.

But that sort of inane argument from ignorance is what you have to deal with when it comes to theists. Can you deal with it without just waving your hand and dismissing it?
How about an inane question like--- how does the genetic system of evolution evolve without the genetic system of evolution first being there?

Just google.

 

[Valjean]

I thought there might be medical evidence for tiredness. Not the best analogy.



Are you saying that this is fanciful or impossible? If so, why? If not then you're going to have to be more specific.
I might say that something shows to me that there is a God.
That something is subjective evidence because it is not objective evidence that there is a God even if it is evidence for some people, or even maybe for all people who believe in a God.

If you hadn't grown up with the idea of an invisible, magical, man in the clouds manipulating the whole universe and popping things into existence with just a word, you'd consider the idea laughable. It's a fantastical claim.

And the discussion is sort of about subjective evidence for God and how that can be fine for those who use it.
And that really, in what I said, it is subjective (opinion) and not reasonable to say that chemicals could easily just come together and form structures that might later come to life.
The better choice imo is to say a creator set it all up so that these structures were formed. But this is not even a possible choice in the naturalistic methodology of science.

You're claiming magic is more likely than known chemistry, and you wonder why we're skeptical?

 

[YoursTrue]

Yeah, we have faith in different Gods.

Not only does it come down to the fact that we can make choices, but since there is a true God, He can reach those He wants to.

 

[Audie]

Not only does it come down to the fact that we can make choices, but since there is a true God, He can reach those He wants to.

You have this habit of just saying things

 

[Aupmanyav]

By scripture, I am pretty certain that Buddha meant any scripture. ? Not just the Bible. Right? I can tell you more about what the Bible says about this, there are plenty of biblical scriptures pertaining to the fact that when a person (or animal) dies, the soul (Hebrew 'nephesh') dies, because while alive we ARE living souls. When dead, we are dead souls. Life is integrated with soul.

For me, BS. Buddha's check extends to all scriptures, even the Hindu ones.

 

[Jimmy]

If you hadn't grown up with the idea of an invisible, magical, man in the clouds manipulating the whole universe and popping things into existence with just a word, you'd consider the idea laughable. It's a fantastical claim.

You're claiming magic is more likely than known chemistry, and you wonder why we're skeptical?

You like that word magic, don’t you?

 

[Jimmy]

That's true, and it's true for Apollo, Santa Clause and the FSM, as well. Do you believe in them? There is equal supporting evidence....
You don't accept everything as reality till it's disproven, you accept what objective evidence points to and defer belief in the mythological till actual evidence appears. That's Reason.

https://lucidphilosophy.com/7-argument-from-ignorance/

We delay belief till evidence appears. No logical conclusion is possible, either for or against. Again, see argument from ignorance, above.

It may annoy you, but it's the only reasonable position.

But your evidence is not objective evidence. People of a thousand different religions have the same evidence. Kids believing in Santa Clause have equal evidence. Mere opinion, assertion or tradition is insufficient evidence.
Your "evidence" may be persuasive for you, but it's not reasonable, logically sound, or persuasive for other, reasonable persons.

Some do, some don't. The Book implies that creatures popped into existence fully formed, from nothing, by magic. Question this, and the whole Biblical narrative is open to question.

There are gaps in all knowledge and evidence. But the footprints of evolution form a clear trail, even if some are missing, more are found weekly.
*The mechanisms are commonsense, and easily and extensively tested.
*People have been successfully employing them for thousands of years.
*The sources of evidence are consilient. Evidence from unrelated disciplines all supports the same conclusions.
*There are no alternative explanations except a completely unevidenced appeal to magic.

The Bible creation story doesn't deny trans-dimensional constructor mice, either. It proposes no mechanism. Action without mechanism is magic. The Biblical account is magic.

Discrediting the Aztec creation story doesn't show Quetzalcoatl doesn't exist, either.

"In the beginning" Is not evidence of the BB, or anything, but the common experience of beginnings. The concept of relativistic time didn't exist. The quantum concept of a beginning of time itself was inconceivable.
The genesis stories are not just 'less than 100% certain', they're pure folklore.

On the contrary. It's easy. It's such simple chemistry you could do it on your kitchen table. Amino acids, nucleotides, proteins, membranes, self-replication -- all easily demonstrable. No magic is required; no creator, just simple chemistry.
And evolution -- even more easily explained and demonstrated.

You like Santa, don’t you?

 

[Jimmy]

This website should be called EVIDENCE. Hahahahahaha

 

[Subduction Zone]

This website should be called EVIDENCE. Hahahahahaha

It is a forum. That implies debate going in. And there are clear debating areas of the forum. For a debate one must have evidence.

 

[Brian2]

I was generalizing about your posts.

Your " doesn't happen now" is just
an opinion.
Abiogenesis could happen millions of
times every hour. Who would know.

Your opinion on probability and stats is
not based on knowledge.

OK so you are giving your opinion on how common abiogenesis is. The trouble is that abiogenesis is not just the forming of one or 2 chemicals or even 100 chemicals, it is the whole process of new life forming.
We don't see that happening and from what science tells us it needs special conditions and environment. And even in the environment that science suggests it happened, it still does not happen today.
That sounds fairly uncommon to me and suggests low probability.

 

[Subduction Zone]

OK so you are giving your opinion on how common abiogenesis is. The trouble is that abiogenesis is not just the forming of one or 2 chemicals or even 100 chemicals, it is the whole process of new life forming.
We don't see that happening and from what science tells us it needs special conditions and environment. And even in the environment that science suggests it happened, it still does not happen today.
That sounds fairly uncommon to me and suggests low probability.

Where do we have hose special environments today? I am unaware of anywhere on the Earth that has the needed conditions.

 

[Valjean]

You like that word magic, don’t you?

Is it not apt?

You like Santa, don’t you?

Never believed in him -- much to the chagrin of my parents.