The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Sapiens]

Err ... the main problem with your analysis is that mass objectively exists.

 

[AlphaAlex115]

What do u mean paul?

 

[viole]

There is a world of assumption in that statement. It appears you equate minds with brains which is problematic and not how modern science is trending.

Nope. It is an empirical observation. We never observed brains which do not originate from a code and we never observed minds without a supporting brain.

I think you make assumptions that are not supported by any evidence. And what modern science are you talking about? Can you be more specific?

It is a problem either way. As usual Christianity gets you out of the paradox without any inconsistency. Codes require intent, intent requires minds. That is consistent with every observation and principle known. You add that minds require brains, and brains require codes which leaves you with the desire to get very drunk in response to unless you have a bible. It posits a mind that does not require a brain or codes by which intent is present and so natural codes can originate in it to construct brains which may or may not be minds. You have a paradox, I have a theory that resolves it. Don't make it true but when it solves a thousand paradoxes it starts to look necessary and true.

Yes, and when I lose my mind because I am drunk, I infer, after the hangover, that chemicals can affect minds and intents.

And as I said, even though we do not know a lot about the first living beings and what kind of code they were carrying, we have enough evidence of new codes being added without the necessity of intent. That is basically what evolution by natural selection entails. So, when you say "consistent with every observation and principle known", you should add "by creationists".

Right. on evolution alone, even evolution has no explanation. This is why even evolutions consider evolution a miracle and a result not an explanation. I can't get into the rest of what you said above without opening up a biological discussion which is too dang boring to risk.

Evolutions consider evolution a miracle? If you mean "evolutionary biologists" then I don't see how they can consider that a miracle. It is a very simple principle, probably one of the simplest in all of science. Maybe you confuse it with abyogenesis about which we have no clue.

Not really because information is use specific. For example me reading shake spear in English would not be information unless I had an English audience. Information is tuned for purpose through a decoder. If you digitize and then convert that to alpha symbols the radio intensity from stars you may have billions of letters but no information, that is why those letters are called noise but letters tuned to a decoder or with useful patterns is not noise. NTW zip files are not natural entities they require intelligence at every level. Sonets only have meaning because they have purpose, they only have purpose because an intentional agent has tuned them for it. Zip files are short hand not naturally generated information. Bill gates took one look at a DNA code and said it was exactly like a computer code only much more sophisticated and if he does not know the difference none of us do.

Maybe you should review your knowledge of information. Shannon work is seminal and pretty easy to follow. You seem to mix the two things: information and intent.

BTW, I could posit that intent is also a product of information or patterns, namely the one contained in our skull, unless you believe that brains are a bunch of unstructured grey matter.

And patterns are exactly what reduce information. For instance, the string "10101010101..." has a clear pattern but not a lot of information.

A random code has no significant members unless randomness it's self was the goal in which case and data would do. Randomness is an illusion anyway, nothing is random, you can't even build a truly random generator of anything. But we are talking about specificity anyway.

Oh no. Now quantum mechanics (and the inherent fundamental randomness it entails) are also speculations of some crazy scientist.

You can convert measurement into information or interpret it that way but it is not inherent to it. Temperature for example means nothing without a thermometer and thermometers mean nothing without minds to interpret and standardize them. IOW 2 digress means nothing unless put to a use within a format. The sun never produced a legible sentence in any language. It is all noise without a tuned filter to turn it into useful information.

Well, the sun produces low entropy energy which can be turned into something sort of useful, complex life for instance.

But, again, you seem to ignore what information really is. We have very clear cut and unambiguous definition of it. And they do not include intent or depend on the presence of (information carrying) agents, last time I checked.

So, in order to debate something, I think it helps to actually know what this something is. Polluting a fundamentally simple concept with intent, agents and other foreign things will not take you anywhere and exposes you to circularity.

Imagine the first cell. Since 99.9999999 plus % of random mutations are fatal how would you even get another unique cell or the trillions of advances. Information in nature breaks down at vastly higher rates that it produces useful combinations. For example take the chemical arrangements just to get a protein. The probability that correct arrangements come apart are almost infinite to them staying together until all he pieces are together. The best example I have heard o is puzzle pieces in a bag. Shake it up, you might occasionally get two or three that fit together that will go together but you will never get a hundred or a billion because the chances the fall apart are vastly greater than they stay together and keep forming.

Do you really believe that the first form of life was a cell with all its machinery already in place?

Your cheating for evolution. First you need a universe from nothing (chances = zero), then you need a very specific structured universe for evolution of any kind to even have a chance (chances = 1 in billions of trillions), then you need even more specificity to allow stars and galaxies, then chemical evolution, ten life, etc..... Keep in mind his only applies to Godless evolution. Given God you can easily get all these necessities which is why it is virtually a miracle to begin with. Its like claiming machines are natural because you started with an assembly line. I am trying to stay out of biology but it just keeps getting worse even if included.

Universe from nothing? That is a strawman. As a supporter of the block universe, I do not need to be concerned about Universes "coming" from anything.

And again, everything that happens has several trillions odds against its happening, the conditional probability of your own birth in the already available universe included. A-posteriori probability calculations would make it almost impossible to have any result of basically everything.

Unless, we are ready to beg the question that the Universe exists because it "wanted" to generate you or things that duplicate and transmit their duplication procedure to their offsprings so that it can be improved by opportunistic selection of random noise.


Ciao

- viole

 

[ArtieE]

And again, everything that happens has several trillions odds against its happening, the conditional probability of your own birth in the already available universe included.

Just take a look at the calculations in this link. The chances of you existing The chances of our exact DNA coming into existence is practically zero. I suppose this shows that the DNA of every organism living today and in the past, including the first one, must have been designed and created by a god right 1robin?

 

[idav]

Just take a look at the calculations in this link. The chances of you existing The chances of our exact DNA coming into existence is practically zero. I suppose this shows that the DNA of every organism living today and in the past, including the first one, must have been designed and created by a god right 1robin?

Pretty much every I organism can be seen as a miracle, but doesnt mean much for miraclesn if its just nature doing what it does.

 

[Thief]

Pretty much every I organism can be seen as a miracle, but doesnt mean much for miraclesn if its just nature doing what it does.

And maybe we could say life has a design that it can change ...
and that ability is part of the design.

It would be disappointing to form a life of complexity only to have it fail within a few hours....as it's complexity plays against the likelihood of longevity.

So...reproduction had to be part of the scheme.
AND.....adaptation to the environment....
AND....immune responses as many as could be generated
AND....a sense of curiosity.

The spirit won't develop without a drive to explore.

 

[viole]

Visa-vise, concordantly I have no apologists Neo. I do believe that genetic codes can change. It is not an all or nothing proposition unless you have granted the theory more status than what it is supposed to represent. I actually have no Christian scholar favorites who get into evolution because they do not see any threat in it. I will caution you again that guesses at things you have no access so like who I like or my motivation is an unnecessary risk to credibility. What preacher from Mississippi? There is more than one you know?

Well, you mentioned a pracher from Missisippi with a 3rd grade education, or something of the sort. I am sure he believes also that things change according to their kind, whatever that means. That is a far cry from accepting evolution.

I accept evolution happens. How on he Earth is that not evidence that I believe evolution. Have you assigned a theory with omniscience so to question any part is to be unworthy of the whole? What are you talking about? I did not say dogs coming from dogs was a miraculous deduction. Though knowing a rat terrier and a pit bull are related is not obvious. I said it is consistent with what we can observe. Macroevolution is not, it is evidenced based faith the same as Christianity only less evidence.

I don't think you do. There is not a thing like microevolution or macroevolution, except in creationists circles. And I think you know that when I invoke evolution, I mean evolution according to Darwin, and his successors.

So, do you think we need divine inspiration to deduce that rat terriers and pit buls are related? I would be more impressed if some goat hearders deduced that spiders and themselves are related, as they are.

What are you talking about? I never claimed any miracle here. I said that what the authors of the bible predicted is exactly and only what we see occur. We can guess beyond that and may be right but I doubt if we can ever know. BTW it just might inspired for a bronze age man to know that a wolf and a cocker spaniel are the same kind, I did not claim that but it might be so. I would certainly not look at a wiener dog and a great Dane and think brothers instantly.

Yes, but why do you mention it, then? You made it sound like they anticipated Darwin, which is frankly funny. As I said, then they anticipated Eisntein and Newton too by observing the obvious.

Yep, though it is not so obvious and it gets more complicated. I asked you to tell me another place thermodynamics does not work in observable reality, You like the guy I mentioned must not be able to. It would take volumes to hash out the details of thermodynamics and youth.

Well, let's try this: do you think you decayed between your conception and the day you were born?

And what do you mean with another place where thermodynamics does not work? it appears it always works. I am not aware of any scientist who singles out life as a violation of thermodynamics principles, are you? It is just your interpretation of the second principle that does not work, I am afraid.

You can actually pack the whole (darwinian) evolutionary history on earth in a few decades and still have no violation of the second principle. It is relatively easy to compute.

If your an automaton then you had no choice but to think you are without any capacity to weigh the truth of the claim, so I reject it. Determinism besides being wrong is the most untrustworthy conclusion possible. Survival instincts are not automated. They are codes (again requiring minds) which can be implemented or not. In fact if evolution is true they are rewritten constantly. I notice not even an attempt at evidence accompanied your declarations. Unless I know the person I will let my Genes be annihilated without a thought. Your a science oriented person, why do you not recognize that determinism is in the coffin scientifically. I think it has actually been proven wrong.

I might have missed the note. Are you referring to the purely random effects of quantum mechanics? Or to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM?

All scientific theory we know of are unitary, or can be interpreted as unitary. And unitarity entails determinism or, better, complete reversibility of a certain state to a previous one.

In the most Christina country on earth and possibly in history it is practiced quite a bit. However it is irrelevant what Christians do in the face of what the bible declares. God himself executes the death penalty. In fact we are all under it and will succumb. Hopefully some will rise to overcome it as Christ did but not one person will escape it. Non-Christians are the major support of the death penalty for the most innocent life possible. How is that consistent.

What Christian countries? You mean Uganda? Well, they give life sentences to gays just for being gay, which is morally suboptimal. In a place "molded" by Christianity, like Europe, the death penalty exists only in Belarus, which is a communist dictatorship.

C'mon. Killing people in front of an audience? In case of doubt, and there isa lot of doubt, I would choose life and delegate God for compensating justice. You don't seem to trust him a lot.

He does not acknowledge al my motions. Since he has already both given us a moral conscience and codified the principle for morality I would not expect him to be willing to exhaustively repeat himself. Regardless correct morality as humans almost universally agree to it is among the tiniest of fractions of the total range of moral possibility so we have little need for a committee. As Chesterton said we mostly agree about what is wrong, but we disagree about what wrongs to excuse. Chalk up unstoppable epistemological response number 50 billion to an ontological issue.

Repeating Himself? Lol. I think He needs to, with all these covenants confusion.

I did he said yes. Test concluded. You happy?

Test concuded, indeed. My episcopalian friend asked Him the same question. He said nope, apparently. So, the conclusion is obvious.

Why must I? Why must we? Who doesn't anyone else have to in order to have a proposition with merit?

Why not? You don't have to, but you can. If you showed me an agreement you could support your position. Unless God accepts only personal relationships that are restricted to discussing the weather or the interview for your next job.

So, is disagreement proof against the source or concept. Why you demand of faith what you do not for science? God is a God of justice. If at least some acts did not merit death he would not be.

If the source is the moral giver, then yes, disagreements are against the source of the concept. Even if the source is wrong, we should observe agreements. We don't. How do you explain that, apart from the obvious explanation that you guys just talk to yourselves or choose your denomination according to taste?

Is theology or should theology be a mathematical truth? Your winging it pretty heavily. Faiths only burden is the lack of a defeater, I raise the bar but do not have to, to best explanation, you throw all the bars away or apply them inconsistently.

The existence of many imaginary things lack a defeater. I could make a case for blue fairies if I really try hard. And yes, I expect agreements if a thing is declared objective. Disagreements have the bad habit of being subjective.

True. Why is my moral apprehension less objective than my optic apprehension?

Because your optic apprehensions tend to be shared by all people seeing the same things. Unless you, or the others, are hallucinating.

Not everywhere, and not for an average person which is why it took so long to finally do. I did not say anything about it's ease anyway. I said you take it on faith.

Yes, not everywhere. But I thought that the homogeneity of space and time are an argument you are using. Do you think that what what we observe here, might not be true 1000 light years away?

Having access through moral intuition to a sometimes clouded view of moral truth does not make us in any way capable of judging God. That is not even coherent. Are you saying that using your God given morality you have concluded God is immoral? Where did your standard originate again?

Yes, it is called proof by absurd. You postulate a premise and prove it false by coming to an absurd conclusion. So that its negation is true.

I never said that, I said natural infinities have never been found and good reasons exist to think that can't ever be.

I would like to hear those reasons. And I mean reasons which lead to a logical inconsistency and not reasons which fight with our adaptive fallible belief creating systems, i.e. Intuitions.

How many toothaches justify the absence of rampant aids, abortion, missiles aimed at each other, WW2, WW1? Was the doomsday clock closer to midnight or further away in 1014?

If I were a consistent (Christian) theist, I would not care. God has sufficient, albeit inscrutable, reasons to allow all that. For final justice will settle everything. Or not?

This reminds me of something. Nietzsche said because poets killed God in the 19th century, the 20th would be the bloodiest in history and a general madness would prevail. Not only did madness prevail on Nietzsche, the 20th century was bloodier than all the rest combined. Thanks progress.

Yes, thanks technology. Not necessarily a worsening or improving human kind. Evolution goes much slower than that. So, I even postulate that the almost certain guarantee of mutual annihilation (including annihilation of the trigger pullers) has been a major motivator to have peace in Europe after millenia. The cohincidence is there.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Err ... the main problem with your analysis is that mass objectively exists.

Actually according to the latest science it does not. I do not pretend to understand it, nor do I personally find it persuasive but if you look at the very recent edition of philosophy now (the one with Nietzsche dressed as Neo on the cover), under "what we now know is wrong" is a paper on just that. Some of the biggest names in science argue that mind is primary and matter derivative and that external realities are projections of thought. This kind of speculative junk makes my head hurt but it is modern science and just as valid (probably much more so) than Hawking and especially Dawkins.

I can agree with you that we can discuss matter as if it is a true external objective reality but modern science would in many cases not agree with us.

 

[Sapiens]

"Philosophy Now" the "Psychology Today" of the pop-philosophy set, not a primary source as far as I know. Let's just say "objective" in Newtonian terms.

 

[Thief]

And Newton's law applies to the topic...how?

To help firm the notion that 'Someone' had to be there to start the motion of the universe?

Ok!

 

[Bunyip]

And Newton's law applies to the topic...how?

To help firm the notion that 'Someone' had to be there to start the motion of the universe?

Ok!

At best Newtonian physics would suggest a force, not a being. A something, not a someone.

 

[fantome profane]

And Newton's law applies to the topic...how?

To help firm the notion that 'Someone' had to be there to start the motion of the universe?

Ok!

This just displays a lack of understanding of Newtonian physics. According to Aristotelian physics something had to start things in motion. But according to Newtonian physics something in motion may have been in motion forever and can continue in motion forever and ever.

 

[1robin]

"Philosophy Now" the "Psychology Today" of the pop-philosophy set, not a primary source as far as I know. Let's just say "objective" in Newtonian terms.

I have no idea how prestigious that source is but does have some credibility and their sources even more. I would be happy to have a single standard (regardless of what it was) and apply it across the board. I usually find non-theists use scientific standards for faith and faith standards for science. You pick a standard for objectivity and we will just use it for everything.

 

[1robin]

Nope. It is an empirical observation. We never observed brains which do not originate from a code and we never observed minds without a supporting brain.

That was not the assumption. Concluding what that means was. This chicken and egg deal is a huge problem for science but as usual bronze age famers and fisherman had a perfectly consistent theological answer for them all.

I think you make assumptions that are not supported by any evidence. And what modern science are you talking about? Can you be more specific?

Even though it supports my position, I do not like the science, I think it part of that unreliable theoretical band of academia, and offer it only for informational purposes. As I have said search for an article called things we KNOW are wrong in philosophy now. You will find Planck, Leibnitz, etc.... giving evidence that matter is derivative and mind primary. They and many others consider minds the ultimate objective reality and material a result of perception. I have no idea how they conclude this but they emphatically insist on it. Plus you can find al kinds of mainstream research that shows medically that minds show many signs of being independent of brains. It is also almost universally intuitive as most cultures posit a soul as separate from matter.

Yes, and when I lose my mind because I am drunk, I infer, after the hangover, that chemicals can affect minds and intents.

I never suggested otherwise.

And as I said, even though we do not know a lot about the first living beings and what kind of code they were carrying, we have enough evidence of new codes being added without the necessity of intent. That is basically what evolution by natural selection entails. So, when you say "consistent with every observation and principle known", you should add "by creationists".

If you go to any civil war round table you will find vast differences in every facet of the most studied attacks in our most studied war. This in spite of eyewitnesses, battle reports, very recent evidence, and tons of studies. That is about a huge event less than 200 years ago. Yet you want me to believe we have a goo understanding about the first cell that magically coalesced out of the ether over a billions years ago. Not hardly.

A theories constancy has nothing to do with it's source.

Evolutions consider evolution a miracle? If you mean "evolutionary biologists" then I don't see how they can consider that a miracle. It is a very simple principle, probably one of the simplest in all of science. Maybe you confuse it with abiogenesis about which we have no clue.

They mean astronomically improbable. Evolution itself has countless parameters balanced on a knife edge. They use miraculous to imply the improbability not God, though it does so in spite of whatever they intend. I am forced to repeat this constantly. The only relevance evolution has in a theological debate is a counter explanation for life without a need for God. Evolution in a godless universe must first get a universe, then the right type, then produce life from non-life. I do not care what arbitrary boundary has been coughed up for the theory. I care about what must take place for evolution to be relevant. Non-theists have a horrible habit of giving the theory precedence over the reality it is supposed to represent.

Maybe you should review your knowledge of information. Shannon work is seminal and pretty easy to follow. You seem to mix the two things: information and intent.

I am not mixing them, information comes from intent. Every computer code, every military code, every language, every informational sequence we have ever found either has a mind that produced it or no natural explanation. Look up Lennox on semiotic systems. He is a professor of pure mathematics at Princeton. He is also one of the most charismatic and lovable debaters out there. Or look up A.E Wilder on type in/out biology. I only read military history or philosophy but if you give me a debate link I will look into Shannon.

BTW, I could posit that intent is also a product of information or patterns, namely the one contained in our skull, unless you believe that brains are a bunch of unstructured grey matter.

That is true. And once again you have the chicken egg paradox, I do not.

And patterns are exactly what reduce information. For instance, the string "10101010101..." has a clear pattern but not a lot of information.

Yes nature can make patterns like crystals or sequences in pulsar emanations. What it can't do is arrange moon dust to spell eat at Joe's. The defunct SETI project was using this very principle. They were looking for information in noise and natural sequences to distinguish intelligence.

Oh no. Now quantum mechanics (and the inherent fundamental randomness it entails) are also speculations of some crazy scientist.

That is not what most of the ten Quantum systems entail. Most are deterministic and no one has the slightest idea which one is correct. Many even say we can never know. So the mysterious and little known realm of the quantum is little help to you. I tell you what, you invent a truly random number generator and I will fund the patent application. You can even have the Nobel and the cover of time to your self.

Well, the sun produces low entropy energy which can be turned into something sort of useful, complex life for instance.

This is another chicken an egg issue. This can only be done by sufficiently complex systems. Well these were not among the first system to arrive in the evolutionary tree/bush/jungle/ whatever theory is in vogue today. There was in that chain the first system complex enough to concert energy into complexity, what produced that system since nothing before it could turn energy into complexity. The sun destroys about 99% of what it touches. How did anything evolve through billions of steps that allowed the first of these marvels to arrive?

But, again, you seem to ignore what information really is. We have very clear cut and unambiguous definition of it. And they do not include intent or depend on the presence of (information carrying) agents, last time I checked.

The definition of a tire does not include air but you cannot drive well without it and you can't get information without intent/mind. Forget what I know. Bill Gates looked at DNA and said the only difference between it and software was DNA is far more complex. Does he not know what information is? What about the co-cracker of the DNA sequence who's faith did not faith with the effort? Does he not get it? Forget his name.

So, in order to debate something, I think it helps to actually know what this something is. Polluting a fundamentally simple concept with intent, agents and other foreign things will not take you anywhere and exposes you to circularity.

As I have said my boss has a PhD and his specialty is information theory. Much of the work in my lab deals with information theory. We discuss it for hours every day. I am quite certain what information is and requires.

Do you really believe that the first form of life was a cell with all its machinery already in place?

I do not think anyone knows. I however hear a cell given as the first form of life constantly by evolutionists. I agree it is absurd but it is not my theory. If you have another first, then name and I will consider it but by far the cell is claimed (maybe out of convenience or laziness) as the first life form by evolutionists.

Universe from nothing? That is a strawman. As a supporter of the block universe, I do not need to be concerned about Universes "coming" from anything.

You mean the block diagram used to represent the universe I presume. As I said you guys give tools and theories more concreteness than the reality they represent.

And again, everything that happens has several trillions odds against its happening, the conditional probability of your own birth in the already available universe included. A-posteriori probability calculations would make it almost impossible to have any result of basically everything.

Oh brother, not the sharp shooter crutch. I am dealing with multiplicative probabilities not a single one. If a guy won the lottery every one would think well he was lucky but someone had to win. If that same guy won it a thousand times in a row every sane human in history would instantly think agency and intent. No crutch available here. Without God you need to win trillions of lotteries.

Unless, we are ready to beg the question that the Universe exists because it "wanted" to generate you or things that duplicate and transmit their duplication procedure to their offsprings so that it can be improved by opportunistic selection of random noise.

Nature and natural law has no intent, no goals, and no desires. The universe is a trillion lotteries all coming up life. I have an explanation, you do not.

 

[1robin]

Just take a look at the calculations in this link. The chances of you existing The chances of our exact DNA coming into existence is practically zero. I suppose this shows that the DNA of every organism living today and in the past, including the first one, must have been designed and created by a god right 1robin?

As I said there is no sharpshooter crutch available for you. Fallacies are horribly abused by your side. If a guy won a lottery (which is what you describe) everyone would think he was lucky, but someone had to win. No tricks, no intent, no agency, just chance. However if he won a thousand lotteries in a row every human who ever existed would instantly think an agent with intent was at work. Now this universe keeps winning lotteries with numbers that make lotteries look like certainties and wins them by the trillions in favor of life. The one who needs to explain themselves is you. Why agency in one case but not the other?

I wish you guys would really look into your claims beforehand. I have to say the same thing over and over and over. I need to can these arguments and just paste them.

 

[viole]

I have no idea how prestigious that source is but does have some credibility and their sources even more. I would be happy to have a single standard (regardless of what it was) and apply it across the board. I usually find non-theists use scientific standards for faith and faith standards for science. You pick a standard for objectivity and we will just use it for everything.

And why do you need a standard? So that you you know that you are not wrong?
Well, it surely gives some cozy feelings.

I think you should always assume that you might be wrong about anything. Even if you had a standard, you will never know that you are not wrong about the standard, anyway. Therefore, the possibility that you are wrong is unavoidable. So, rid the standards, and rely on yourself.

The good news is: in the naturalistic framework there is not a think like right or wrong in the metaphysical sense.

So, what is right and wrong depends on us. Entirely on us, without any external manual or directive.

That makes things more difficult, but surely more interesting, don't you think so?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

This just displays a lack of understanding of Newtonian physics. According to Aristotelian physics something had to start things in motion. But according to Newtonian physics something in motion may have been in motion forever and can continue in motion forever and ever.

Well, supplanting both Aristotle and even Newton is reality. The real universe has no known infinite property to it or in it.

 

[1robin]

Well, you mentioned a pracher from Missisippi with a 3rd grade education, or something of the sort. I am sure he believes also that things change according to their kind, whatever that means. That is a far cry from accepting evolution.

I invented a hypothetical preacher. If evolution had 100 claims, I may agree with 50 of them, be unsure about 25, and very skeptical about 25. Put whatever label on that you need to.

I don't think you do. There is not a thing like microevolution or macroevolution, except in creationists circles.

For pity sake who cares? I believe in microevolution in reality. I care not for what the theory claims.

So, do you think we need divine inspiration to deduce that rat terriers and pit buls are related? I would be more impressed if some goat hearders deduced that spiders and themselves are related, as they are.

That was not my claim. I said the bible and what we can actually see happening are consistent.

Yes, but why do you mention it, then? You made it sound like they anticipated Darwin, which is frankly funny. As I said, then they anticipated Eisntein and Newton too by observing the obvious.

The bible beat scientists by thousands of years in countless categories. Oceanography, germ theory, cosmology, etc..... but that was not it's intent. God is not competing with anyone. The bible's only burden is to be scientifically accurate. The fact we were still killing people in our scientific ignorance by the tens of thousands by not doing as the bible instructed as late as the 19th century is just reality.

Well, let's try this: do you think you decayed between your conception and the day you were born?

I don't remember. I was busy kicking and stuff. I have repeatedly asked you to give me any other case besides biology of thermodynamics reversing its self. Why have you not done so? Biology is very hard to view thermodynamics through so I wanted a much simpler example of this miraculous occurrence.

And what do you mean with another place where thermodynamics does not work? it appears it always works. I am not aware of any scientist who singles out life as a violation of thermodynamics principles, are you? It is just your interpretation of the second principle that does not work, I am afraid.

They claim it is the result of an open system but it is not an open system. Biology alone among anything I have ever heard of is claimed to increase in complexity by natural law. If true that effect should show up in much easier places to confirm it. Where are they? I will give you at least failed attempts. Snowflakes and mineral crystal structures. They fail but are close to what I am asking for.

You can actually pack the whole (darwinian) evolutionary history on earth in a few decades and still have no violation of the second principle. It is relatively easy to compute.

This was lost on me.

I might have missed the note. Are you referring to the purely random effects of quantum mechanics? Or to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM?

Neither. The Quantum is still in such a state of infancy I do not draw certainties from it. I am referring more to things like single causal chains both positing a question and instantly answering it. Or correlating actions with semi-random instructions. These could not happen with regularity if determinism was true.

All scientific theory we know of are unitary, or can be interpreted as unitary. And unitarity entails determinism or, better, complete reversibility of a certain state to a previous one.

I disagree, No matter what size slice you take of the universe it does not contain it's own explanation. From an atom to the whole thing it does not explain it's self. There is also issues with sufficient causation. Whatever led up to my driving down a road it is not sufficient to explain why I would chose to run over a turtle instead of a baby. Cold natural law cannot assign values greater to a baby than a turtle. It can't make value judgments at all. It also can't explain complex intentionality. Like my car over heats, why would cold determinism allow me to stop and get more water? It has no interest in the health of my engine. Determinism should produce an irrational and semi-random universe but this one is full of rationality and intent that leads to solutions.

What Christian countries? You mean Uganda? Well, they give life sentences to gays just for being gay, which is morally suboptimal. In a place "molded" by Christianity, like Europe, the death penalty exists only in Belarus, which is a communist dictatorship.

I did not ask any question an never mentioned Uganda. I said that the only relevant issue is what the bible says. Not what Uganda does. If in Uganda 4% of them that are gay produce 60% of the aids cases as they do in the US then why is it not optimal. I am not agreeing with them, I am disagreeing with your claim. It is impractical to go through Christianity country by country and I do not see the relevance.

C'mon. Killing people in front of an audience? In case of doubt, and there isa lot of doubt, I would choose life and delegate God for compensating justice. You don't seem to trust him a lot.

What killing? What audience? If the last part is true why does your side support killing millions of the most innocent lives that exist. In the US we support killing murderers and sparring baby's. The side that reverses that no longer has moral credibility.

Dang it: Continued below, again!!!

 

[1robin]

Repeating Himself? Lol. I think He needs to, with all these covenants confusion.

It has nothing to do with our ignorance of morality. It has to do with our neglect of morality. Repeating it is not the answer, obeying it is.

Test concuded, indeed. My episcopalian friend asked Him the same question. He said nope, apparently. So, the conclusion is obvious.

You gave me a task, I completed it. Your friend is not relevant. Actually neither is true I was just being facetious as the question. God is not my employee and communing with him just does not work like that in my experience.

Why not? You don't have to, but you can. If you showed me an agreement you could support your position. Unless God accepts only personal relationships that are restricted to discussing the weather or the interview for your next job.

I have lost the context for this.

If the source is the moral giver, then yes, disagreements are against the source of the concept. Even if the source is wrong, we should observe agreements. We don't. How do you explain that, apart from the obvious explanation that you guys just talk to yourselves or choose your denomination according to taste?

I said proof not disagreements. In this case the source cannot be wrong. Whatever God was is morally correct, no higher standard exists to condemn him by. When I was born again I had little reliable doctrinal knowledge. I felt certain I should not go to any church until I knew what core doctrine stated. I spent over a year with no TV, just me, the bible, and the Holy Spirit. I spent 3 further years daily making certain and 3 of the very few miracles I would testify to confirmed my most central question. Only then did I select a denomination who's creed matched my understanding. So your attempt to dismiss my doctrinal methodology will not work.

The existence of many imaginary things lack a defeater. I could make a case for blue fairies if I really try hard. And yes, I expect agreements if a thing is declared objective. Disagreements have the bad habit of being subjective.

I did not say it was a strong criteria. I said it was faith's actual requirement. I raise it up to being the best explanation by choice not necessity. My point you seem to apply faiths standards to science and sciences standards to faith and in general that is true of your side of the issue.

Because your optic apprehensions tend to be shared by all people seeing the same things. Unless you, or the others, are hallucinating.

So do my faith observations. I have written in depth on request about salvation specifically. It is my specialty I guess you could say. I had to find vast amounts of personal testimony about it. They almost all had core similarities. Other faiths do not even have the doctrinal promises of the experience nor significant numbers of claimants so my data set is more that sufficient. Among the billons who claim to have experienced Christ most are very similar.

Yes, not everywhere. But I thought that the homogeneity of space and time are an argument you are using. Do you think that what what we observe here, might not be true 1000 light years away?

I have no idea. My point was that science assumes it, and it is best explained by a rational creator.

Yes, it is called proof by absurd. You postulate a premise and prove it false by coming to an absurd conclusion. So that its negation is true.

It may be completely absurd but it is also the exact conclusion many people on your side use the argument you made to arrive at. There are many threads here concerning "is God evil" and countless claims to the affirmative in them.

I would like to hear those reasons. And I mean reasons which lead to a logical inconsistency and not reasons which fight with our adaptive fallible belief creating systems, i.e. Intuitions.

In my area of mathematics infinity is almost always destructive or a boundary condition. It is the place you can never get, the speed you can't reach, the amount you can't have. In the rest of it destroys equations, make things undefinable, and produces incoherent results. It really makes a mess when applied. It also does not line up with reality. I hear many times that the singularity was infinite. How so? If infinitely hot then why is the entire universe not still infinitely hot? If infinitely powerful why has that power produced only quantifiable results and has largely dissipated? Those are plenty of good reasons to doubt it exists in nature. Infinity like fallacies are much abused. Infinity is a very caustic idea.

If I were a consistent (Christian) theist, I would not care. God has sufficient, albeit inscrutable, reasons to allow all that. For final justice will settle everything. Or not?

Hard for me to say, I have very finite information. To get rid of God by the use of evil makes the burden yours not mine. You must show there is unjustifiable evil. However we were discussing what amount of evil and good recommended a specific generation. I have no idea but there is certainly not much moral progress over time. In 5000 years we have had 300 of peace and the costs have been far greater in recent times.

Yes, thanks technology. Not necessarily a worsening or improving human kind. Evolution goes much slower than that. So, I even postulate that the almost certain guarantee of mutual annihilation (including annihilation of the trigger pullers) has been a major motivator to have peace in Europe after millenia. The cohincidence is there.

Europe hosted the greatest war in history less than 70 years ago. I don't think that data is on your side. The closest we ever came to nuclear war was not in Cuba but eastern Europe as recent as the 80's. We have almost wiped everyone out twice in less than 60 years and you think that is cause for hope?

 

[1robin]

And why do you need a standard? So that you you know that you are not wrong?
Well, it surely gives some cozy feelings.

I need a standard for common ground. At this point I don't even care what it is just as long as it is applied consistently.

I

think you should always assume that you might be wrong about anything. Even if you had a standard, you will never know that you are not wrong about the standard, anyway. Therefore, the possibility that you are wrong is unavoidable. So, rid the standards, and rely on yourself.

Every debate, every court case, every classroom requires and mandates standards. You ignore them if you want but please do not try and convert me to material nihilism.

The good news is: in the naturalistic framework there is not a think like right or wrong in the metaphysical sense.

So, what is right and wrong depends on us. Entirely on us, without any external manual or directive.

That makes things more difficult, but surely more interesting, don't you think so?

Ciao

- viole

No that is they hopeless, sad, and deplorable state of affairs we might have if God did not exist. Thank God that societies and virtually everyone acts more consistent with my world view than yours. Social Darwinism is abhorrent. I would argue that if God does not exist we should all pretend he does anyway.