Looking for a debate with creationists (I am an atheist)

[Windwalker]

I do accept evolution. Evolution is true, however, I do not believe it can create changes across kinds of plants or animals.

Then you do not accept the Theory of Evolution, which is accepted and supported by the vast majority of all the sciences across multiple fields of science, not just one. The theory of evolution specifically demonstrates changes from one species, into another. You are therefore a denier of the theory of evolution. And the question still stands unanswered by you. Why?

It cannot be because you are a qualified scientist and have research of your own that disputes the data of other scientists (you'd be a major celebrity if you could). It is obvious to me, your reason you don't want to accept the science is because it conflicts with your beliefs. So please explain to me, as someone who believes in God, why those who believe in God should not accept science when it says we evolved from other species?

Please answer these previous questions in light of the fact that you are a denier of well-established scientific models which have more than adequate valid scientific support:

Why is it a problem for you to accept the established scientific theory of evolution (which demonstrates how species evolved from earlier species), when other Christians don't have any issues with it conflicting with their faith? Why do you choose to take a denier position instead of an acceptor position? What about accepting evolution (as it is revealed to work by science creating new species from earlier species), denies God for you, while not for other Christians? Why is your faith challenged, while theirs is not?

What is the difference between their faith, and yours which, without a scientific basis for doing so, rejects the science? Is your faith in God threatened by it, whereas for some reason theirs is not? What reason for that do you suppose that is true?

 

[Polymath257]

Touche. I forgot about that. Yet they have to come from and go somewhere when they pop in and out of existence. It's almost like magic.

No, actually, they don't. That is part of the point. They literally pop into and out of existence.

 

[exchemist]

There need be no conspiracy for genuine scientists to misinterpret data.

Yes, for individual scientists.

But if the development of life or other forms of order in the cosmos, contradicted thermodynamics, this would be a glaring, fundamental problem and there would be uproar about it - and Nobel prizes for those who resolved the conundrum. This is perfectly obvious.

But thank you at least for doing me the courtesy of replying to what I wrote, this time, instead of pretending to misunderstand it.

 

[We Never Know]

No, actually, they don't. That is part of the point. They literally pop into and out of existence.

IMO I can't claim they come from somewhere and then go somewhere and I don't think you can claim they don't. At this point we don't know. Their popping into and out of existence seems like magic but I don't believe in magic and I think we have much more to learn about them.

Take a god for example, some believe in a god while others don't/lack the belief in a god. Claiming there is or isn't a god is an empty claim. There is no evidence for a god but that doesn't mean a god doesn't exist. We don't know.

At one point we didn't know atoms, quarks, protons, dinosaurs, other galaxies, evolution, etc existed but they all did exist, we just didn't know about them yet.

IMO what we know is minuscule compared to what we don't know.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You are right! We CANNOT EVEN DISCUSS THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS SINCE WE CANNOT DEFINE TERMS. NOR CAN WE DARE TO SUPPOSE A GOD INCEPTED THE UNIVERSE SINCE OUR KNOWLEDGE STOPS AT PLANCK TIME.

Well, it is indeed kind of hard to have any kind of meaningfull discussions concerning topics that are badly defined, right? Seems to me that the topic of discussion needs to be quite clear within a well-defined scope, before a meaningfull discussion can take place.

Therefore, when he hear the Nazis are taking Jews, and we're not Jews, we can sit here complicity since we don't know what we don't know.

Wut?

 

[We Never Know]

So a thing that basicly came from absolute nothingness?
One would have to have access to "absolute nothingness" in order to see if things can come from it. Which by itself is nonsensical even, because to be able to study "absolute nothingness", such nothingness would have to "exist", which would immediatly invalidate it as being "nothingness".

Needless to say, it's an invalid nonsensical question.

Having said that, virtual particles seem to pop in and out of existance from seemingly "nothing" all the time.
But that's off course just "seemingly" nothing. Chances are rather enormous that it's not "absolute nothingness" that generates these particles and that instead, we just don't know yet.

Because here again, we have to "invoke" this nothingness to "generate" particles.
Once you invoke it, it becomes "something" and ceases to be "nothing".

As polymath and I have discussed, matter and antimatter particles pop into and out of existence. Magic?

 

[We Never Know]

That line isn't drawn by our imagination or by making stuff up. It's drawn by the evidence at our disposal.
Evidence that we currently not have. Not conclusive anyway.

So where is the line now? In "we don't know".
Not in "god dun it".
Not in "multiverse dun it"
Not in "strings dun it".

Although things like the multiverse at least have some scientific rational motivation behind them.

We don't know is about all we can say on many things.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Then explain how the UNIVERSE always was WITHOUT God, using the Law that teaches the universe's matter and energy cannot have been created (come into existence).

1. if you agree with the notion that energy cannot have been created, then that seems quite detrimental to your creator argument....

2. "always" is a period of time. Time is an integral part of the universe, aka the space-time continuum. So, at any point in history when there was a universe, there was time. Whenever there was time, there was a universe. Knowing that, please explain how it is wrong to say that the universe has "always" (=for all of time) existed? Seems to me that with or without god, the universe has "always" existed either way.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

As polymath and I have discussed, matter and antimatter particles pop into and out of existence. Magic?

Are you claiming that these particles are generated by "absolute nothingness"?
Is anyone?

 

[We Never Know]

I posit that you have NEVER witnessed ANYTHING "beginning to exist".
That just doesn't happen in our universe. Every object that every-day language would refer to as "beginning to exist", really only is just a reconfiguration of things that already existed.

My body didn't exist 40 years ago. But EVERYTHING that makes up my body sure did. Every single atom. Nothing about my body is "new", aside from the particular order the atoms are configured in.

When I die, not a single atom of my body will disappear. They will all be recycled. Atoms that are now part of my left hand, might in the future be part of a car engine, or the brain of a new Einstein, or part of a new rover that we will send to Mars or some moon around Jupiter or whatever.

The lesson here, is that our experience of energy and matter and the things they can do WITHIN the space-time continuum, isn't necessarily representative of the way things work absent that space-time continuum.

So whenever one starts to list "the only options" about where stuff comes from, all kinds of alarm bells are going off.

Those atoms came from somewhere.

On a different scale you came from your parents, they came from others, humans evolved from others species. A plant comes from a seed, etc. Life came from chemicals, etc. It all came from something else including you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We don't know is about all we can say on many things.

Right and in some cases it is the only appropriate thing to say.

Creationists (in the broadest term) though, have the tendency to stuff "we don't know" gaps with "god dun it".

 

[We Never Know]

Are you claiming that these particles are generated by "absolute nothingness"?
Is anyone?

Did you miss the posts that said "we don't know".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Those atoms came from somewhere.

E = mc²

On a different scale you came from your parents, they came from others, humans evolved from others species. A plant comes from a seed, etc. Life came from chemicals, etc. It all came from something else including you.

The point is that nothing was ever truelly "created". It's all recycling of pre-existing things.

 

[Polymath257]

As polymath and I have discussed, matter and antimatter particles pop into and out of existence. Magic?

No. it is just that the universe isn't deterministic. It is fundamentally probabilistic.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Did you miss the posts that said "we don't know".

Did you miss the same in my post?

"But that's off course just "seemingly" nothing. Chances are rather enormous that it's not "absolute nothingness" that generates these particles and that instead, we just don't know yet."


Why did you respond to that post? Why did you ask me if it was "magic", if you agree with what I was saying?
You confused me.

 

[Polymath257]

Those atoms came from somewhere.

Well, we understand the process back to the time in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, where a background of neutrons and photons produced the light elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium). After that, those nuclei underwent reactions inside of stars to form the other elements.

Prior to the neutron era, we have much less information. There was almost certainly a quark era prior to that from which the neutrons condensed. Prior to that, we get into aspects of particle physics that are not well understood. Among other things, the predominance of matter over anti-matter is still mostly unexplained (although a difference of one part in a billion is enough at the early stages to explain it, what form that difference takes and why it existed is still a matter of speculation).

Then we get to the aspects where a 'vacuum' with absolutely no matter in it has a higher energy than a 'vacuum' that has quantum fluctuations. This difference in energy has been used to explain where the energy came from that ultimately became matter. In this, we would literally have a 'something from nothing' scenario, although an assumption that the laws of physics are active is required.

 

[Polymath257]

E = mc²

The point is that nothing was ever truelly "created". It's all recycling of pre-existing things.

Conservation laws are limited by the existence of time. If time itself had a beginning, then no violation of such laws would be necessary and yet there would be no 'pre-existence'.

 

[Wandering Monk]

I used to be a fanatical atheist. I found out I was dead wrong and that God does exist after years of investigation. That is something we can only find out for ourself.

Hmm. If God is not material, there is no way to discover his existence.

 

[We Never Know]

No. it is just that the universe isn't deterministic. It is fundamentally probabilistic.

While I agree with your statement, until we can understand what existed and how it existed preBB, I can't rule out that everything does have a cause or completely claim that it doesn't.

 

[We Never Know]

Well, we understand the process back to the time in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, where a background of neutrons and photons produced the light elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium). After that, those nuclei underwent reactions inside of stars to form the other elements.

Prior to the neutron era, we have much less information. There was almost certainly a quark era prior to that from which the neutrons condensed. Prior to that, we get into aspects of particle physics that are not well understood. Among other things, the predominance of matter over anti-matter is still mostly unexplained (although a difference of one part in a billion is enough at the early stages to explain it, what form that difference takes and why it existed is still a matter of speculation).

Then we get to the aspects where a 'vacuum' with absolutely no matter in it has a higher energy than a 'vacuum' that has quantum fluctuations. This difference in energy has been used to explain where the energy came from that ultimately became matter. In this, we would literally have a 'something from nothing' scenario, although an assumption that the laws of physics are active is required.

Before the laws, before time, before the singularity, before etc something either existed or didn't.
If it did, we don't know what or where, but all we know came from it.
If it didn't, well then we are back to everything from nothing.