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Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
Well, in genetics, the mutations don't exist in a vacuum like coin flips do. A coin flip is just there, it doesn't actually affect anything else. A mutation actually has survival benefits or detriments. A creature has to survive and a mutation either makes that easier, harder or has no effect. If it makes survival easier, that mutation gets passed on to the next generation more often, if not, it doesn't. The evolutionary pressures can operate on that mutation again in the next generation.
Which is what I was referring to in my last sentence. :)

Mutations are random, but selection is external pressure based on many factors, mostly environmental.
 

ImprobableBeing

Active Member
Actually if it is math it must be scientific.

Sure, and if i shoot an arrow into the air on a large field, paint a target around it and then calculate what the odds were that it would land with a millimetres precision in the bullseye i have used math to calculate it.

Would you say i have then verified my findings that i am an expert marksman?

After all, i have the math to prove it.

You are doing exactly that, we know what is, this is "where the arrow landed" and you are painting a bullseye here and then using math to predict the probability for the arrow landing in this bullseye.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Sure, and if i shoot an arrow into the air on a large field, paint a target around it and then calculate what the odds were that it would land with a millimetres precision in the bullseye i have used math to calculate it.
Everyone knows the sharpshooter fallacy and most know it has no application here. Men 5000 years ago did not invent a God to explain what men 5000 years later know that the cause of the universe would have to be like. Men 5000 years ago did not know that the creator of the universe must be independent of time, space, and matter. They did not know life only came from life. They did not know probabilities. They did not invent something in response to a need. The were told something that met every single need in perfect ways for questions that came along centuries after they died. They did not know where an arrow was that needed a target painted around it. I and others have spent many posts explaining why these attempts to explain away an apparently inconvenient truth. How much is required?

Would you say i have then verified my findings that i am an expert marksman?
Nope

After all, i have the math to prove it.
No you don't. You have an arrow that has a 100% chance being where it is. The same with the lottery, specific people, and arrows. Any result will do for you but not for fine tuning. All you need is a person of any type (or actually anything of any type, a lottery winner of any type, or an arrow that came to rest. I need a specific and almost infinitely improbable series of very specific events. Any universe or result will not do for me. Everything you describe has a probability of 1 because it made no difference what you had.


You are doing exactly that, we know what is, this is "where the arrow landed" and you are painting a bullseye here and then using math to predict the probability for the arrow landing in this bulls eye.
I am going to ask you what no one else could answer or even attempted to. How does nature get me 1000 left handed amino acids in a row without a single right handed one anywhere. That is like you painting a target around an arrow and then the archer hitting the bulls eye then next 999 times without a miss and that is one of millions of improbable things you need. No to mention the many constants of nature that nature could not have created. In fact natural law is creatively inert. It has zero potential for even shooting arrows to begin with. Please review the last few posts. I am getting weary of saying the same thing over and over.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Agree with what you're saying and the rest of your post too.

Just adding, the chances for a sequence of any given coin flips goes down. To get head-head, head-tail, tail-head, or tail-tail are each 25%. (Right? Leaving open for the mathists to correct me. :)). And three head in a row is even lower. And so on. So to get HTTHTTHTHHHTHTHHHT is extremely low, but it's just as low as HTTHTTHTHHHTHTHHHH or HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH or TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

The good thing with evolution is that even with random mutations like this, the best combinations tend to increase in presence in the gene pool and increase the chances of reproduction. Which makes it less "random" for best picks.
There is something weird in your math.

They are commonly referred to as left hand and right hand amino acids. Since the left
hand and the right hand amino acids are identical in terms of the atomic structure, all of
their physical properties are exactly identical. When Stanley Miller performed his
experiment in 1953, he created amino acids, both left hand and right hand in a 50-50
mixture. This is what would be expected in a totally natural process. However, the
amino acids used to make up proteins in living organisms are only found in the left-hand
form. A single right hand amino acid introduced into the system would change the
folding characteristics and create problems causing the protein not to function as
required. This can be simplified and illustrated by creating a 2D model. Each line
represents an amino acid and each bond bends to the left 60 degrees. With six lines you
would create a hexagon every time.
But if you insert a single right hand bend, representing a right hand amino acid anywhere
in the six bonds, you would not be able to consistently control the outcome.
If you expand this to a 50-50 mixture of right and left hand amino acids and increase the
protein to 1000 amino acids in a 3D environment, you can see that the DNA code for a
protein would never be able to consistently produce the same protein molecule, and life​
could not exist.
This narrows the focus to the fact that all proteins must consist of all left-handed amino acids. Similar to the example I gave with dropping coins, there are only two
choices, left and right hand amino acids. So to calculate the probability of creating a
single protein of 1000 amino acids would simply be 1 chance in 2​
1000, which comes out to
a probability of 1 chance in 10
301. This may seem like a very slim chance, but many
would argue that the universe is so vast and there's so much time that it is not an
unreasonable probability. However, the universe and time is finite, so let's factor this

concept into the equation.
http://www.universitycad.com/creation/articles/English/The_Probability_of_Evolution.pdf
 

ImprobableBeing

Active Member
Everyone knows the sharpshooter fallacy and most know it has no application here. Men 5000 years ago did not invent a God to explain what men 5000 years later know that the cause of the universe would have to be like. Men 5000 years ago did not know that the creator of the universe must be independent of time, space, and matter. They did not know life only came from life. They did not know probabilities. They did not invent something in response to a need. The were told something that met every single need in perfect ways for questions that came along centuries after they died. They did not know where an arrow was that needed a target painted around it. I and others have spent many posts explaining why these attempts to explain away an apparently inconvenient truth. How much is required?

Nope

No you don't. You have an arrow that has a 100% chance being where it is. The same with the lottery, specific people, and arrows. Any result will do for you but not for fine tuning. All you need is a person of any type (or actually anything of any type, a lottery winner of any type, or an arrow that came to rest. I need a specific and almost infinitely improbable series of very specific events. Any universe or result will not do for me. Everything you describe has a probability of 1 because it made no difference what you had.


I am going to ask you what no one else could answer or even attempted to. How does nature get me 1000 left handed amino acids in a row without a single right handed one anywhere. That is like you painting a target around an arrow and then the archer hitting the bulls eye then next 999 times without a miss and that is one of millions of improbable things you need. No to mention the many constants of nature that nature could not have created. In fact natural law is creatively inert. It has zero potential for even shooting arrows to begin with. Please review the last few posts. I am getting weary of saying the same thing over and over.

Lol, you do realize that you are painting a target here and placing the result as the bullseye?

In fact, you are painting the bullseye 999 times since any possibility is just as likely as the one we have now, this isn't a necessary outcome, it's one in a great deal and all are equally likely but you are painting the bullseye where the arrow landed.

I don't think you understand the sharpshooter fallacy at all, at least you are doing your damnedest to make it appear as if you don't.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Lol, you do realize that you are painting a target here and placing the result as the bullseye?

In fact, you are painting the bullseye 999 times since any possibility is just as likely as the one we have now, this isn't a necessary outcome, it's one in a great deal and all are equally likely but you are painting the bullseye where the arrow landed.

I don't think you understand the sharpshooter fallacy at all, at least you are doing your damnedest to make it appear as if you don't.
I see I have many assertions here, but still do not a have even a single left handed amino acid when I needed 1000 in a row to even get started. I am only going to state this one last time as many of us have done so in many different ways so far.

You have an arrow that could have landed anywhere. I do not. Mine must land in a very very narrow band of the possibilities time after time after time. Not even the first arrow can land anywhere for me (but can for you) but I must have millions hit the exact same spot. That has nothing to do with that fallacy. Fallacies are crutches for weak arguments. I have a degree in math and know how this probability stuff works. Do you understand that life required countless CONTIGENT improbabilities to occur? Sharpshooter fallacies do not apply here.
 

ImprobableBeing

Active Member
I see I have many assertions here, but still do not a have even a single left handed amino acid when I needed 1000 in a row to even get started. I am only going to state this one last time as many of us have done so in many different ways so far.

You have an arrow that could have landed anywhere. I do not. Mine must land in a very very narrow band of the possibilities time after time after time. Not even the first arrow can land anywhere for me (but can for you) but I must have millions hit the exact same spot. That has nothing to do with that fallacy. Fallacies are crutches for weak arguments. I have a degree in math and know how this probability stuff works. Do you understand that life required countless CONTIGENT improbabilities to occur? Sharpshooter fallacies do not apply here.

Again, you are taking the outcome and painting the target around it.

What if the amino acids needed were not there? What if they had been in a different order? What if they didn't exist as we know them at all?

Would any of that be more or less likely? No, it would have been just as likely and it's only because you have the position where the arrow landed that you can paint your target around it and pretend as it was actually shot to be in that place.

You do NOT understand the sharpshooter fallacy at all and it applies perfectly.

I'll give you an out, admit that it's faith alone and has nothing to do with science nor math and you can leave in peace but if you don't, you will have to accept that you are wrong and come up with a better argument.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Again, you are taking the outcome and painting the target around it.
I might give a link or two but I just can't explain the math any clearer.

What if the amino acids needed were not there? What if they had been in a different order? What if they didn't exist as we know them at all?
I asked for answers not questions that make validate concepts that require more faith given less evidence that God requires. I have never understood why atheists will consider anything whether devoid of evidence or even in contradiction to evidence of any kind except theological. The grossest fantasy will do unless it involves a God. Why?

Would any of that be more or less likely? No, it would have been just as likely and it's only because you have the position where the arrow landed that you can paint your target around it and pretend as it was actually shot to be in that place.
It actually would be but even if not why accept any possibility except one?

You do NOT understand the sharpshooter fallacy at all and it applies perfectly.
I have used the math sharpshooter is based on in graduate classes and know what I am talking about. Your not even using it in it's purest form anyway. It is usually concerned with clusters and subsets. Not that it would apply then either. Maybe you can tell Hawking's and other immanent atheists they are wrong as well. As a matter of fact I work for a PhD in information theory. I will get him to type out his judgment of your claims if you will concede them if he disagrees?

"The more I examine the universe, and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming." — Freeman Dyson1
"A bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of the Universe that is carefully fine-tuned — as if prescribed by an outside agency — or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation, a mighty speculative notion to the generation of many different Universes, which prevents one from predicting what a typical observer would see." — Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog2

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." 5
What is the “fine-tuning” of the universe, and how does it serve as a “pointer to God”? | BioLogos

I'll give you an out, admit that it's faith alone and has nothing to do with science nor math and you can leave in peace but if you don't, you will have to accept that you are wrong and come up with a better argument.
I do not need an out. There is no trap I am in but it costs me nothing to admit what I consistent have since I became a Christian. Belief in God is based on faith and science is consistent with that faith. I cam to faith by experiencing God not by science. However I see nothing inconsistent with reliable science and the Bible. Any science that contradicts the Bible is fantasy at best.
 

ImprobableBeing

Active Member

Again, you treat the current outcome as the necessary target as if no other outcome was possible and equally likely.

You'll fail every single time you do this because it's the sharpshooter fallacy.

Now provide the math to show how this universe as is is any more or less likely than any other outcome and you have something to show.

You REALLY don't understand the sharpshooter fallacy, it doesn't matter if you shoot a trillion arrows and paint targets around them in the place we know they landed, it's still the same god damned fallacy over and over and over and over and over again.

That THIS outcome took what it took does not make it any more likely or unlikely than any other outcome, it's NOT special except to those of us here to witness it.

That link of yours is horrid, it's so stupid that i am at a complete lack of words. It's perhaps only constrained by it's own stupidity, don't EVER link to that site again, it makes you look like a potato.
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I see I have many assertions here, but still do not a have even a single left handed amino acid when I needed 1000 in a row to even get started. I am only going to state this one last time as many of us have done so in many different ways so far.

You have an arrow that could have landed anywhere. I do not. Mine must land in a very very narrow band of the possibilities time after time after time. Not even the first arrow can land anywhere for me (but can for you) but I must have millions hit the exact same spot. That has nothing to do with that fallacy. Fallacies are crutches for weak arguments. I have a degree in math and know how this probability stuff works.
Your arguments suggest that you don't, actually. Also, you've reminded me of a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote:

“If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.”

Do you understand that life required countless CONTIGENT improbabilities to occur? Sharpshooter fallacies do not apply here.
Baloney. Do you not understand that there were countless CONTINGENT improbabilities required for that bullet to hit that particular spot on that particular board?

All the fine tuning argument really says is "if things were different before, they'd be different now." IOW, it's a useless tautology unless you mix in a few logical fallacies.

BTW: the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy aside, your whole argument smacks of another logical fallacy: the argument from ignorance. Even if you managed to exclude the possibility of abiogenesis by known natural means, you'd still need to exclude all the possible unknown natural means (which you can't do, since they're unknown) before you could conclude God.

... either that, or you could argue for God on his own merits, but that would never work, right?
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Your arguments suggest that you don't, actually. Also, you've reminded me of a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote:

“If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.”
That must be why every company, expert witness, and college places so little emphasis on credentials. Good Lord man. I will not take humility lessons from a man who never met a camera he didn't practically have sex with. I also notice that you did not provide a argument or a pedigree but simply a commentary that was not even slightly consistent with reality.


Baloney. Do you not understand that there were countless CONTINGENT improbabilities required for that bullet to hit that particular spot on that particular board?

All the fine tuning argument really says is "if things were different before, they'd be different now." IOW, it's a useless tautology unless you mix in a few logical fallacies.

BTW: the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy aside, your whole argument smacks of another logical fallacy: the argument from ignorance. Even if you managed to exclude the possibility of abiogenesis by known natural means, you'd still need to exclude all the possible unknown natural means (which you can't do, since they're unknown) before you could conclude God.

... either that, or you could argue for God on his own merits, but that would never work, right?
I just can't do better than why something was wrong, supplying experts from your own side that say it is wrong, and other posters saying it was wrong. I am talking about a million arrows that have independent inputs all landing in the same spot. Many of those inputs are independent from natural law completely and are just unexplainable (in your world view) brute facts. Sharpshooter would not work even if it was one arrow but is actually millions of independent bow shots. I can't justify investing more time on this issue.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Again, you treat the current outcome as the necessary target as if no other outcome was possible and equally likely.

You'll fail every single time you do this because it's the sharpshooter fallacy.

Now provide the math to show how this universe as is is any more or less likely than any other outcome and you have something to show.

You REALLY don't understand the sharpshooter fallacy, it doesn't matter if you shoot a trillion arrows and paint targets around them in the place we know they landed, it's still the same god damned fallacy over and over and over and over and over again.

That THIS outcome took what it took does not make it any more likely or unlikely than any other outcome, it's NOT special except to those of us here to witness it.

That link of yours is horrid, it's so stupid that i am at a complete lack of words. It's perhaps only constrained by it's own stupidity, don't EVER link to that site again, it makes you look like a potato.
I do not debate those that lack moral discipline and rely on profanity. I never report anyone, but it is not allowed and is not appropriate in debate. Curse at Hawking's and your own scholars if you think your smarter than he is. Ignorance and even a little arrogance is acceptable but vulgarity just is not worth it.

"The more I examine the universe, and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the Universe in some sense must have known we were coming." — Freeman Dyson1
"A bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of the Universe that is carefully fine-tuned — as if prescribed by an outside agency — or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation, a mighty speculative notion to the generation of many different Universes, which prevents one from predicting what a typical observer would see." — Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog2

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." 5
 

Quiddity

UndertheInfluenceofGiants
Some of it comes over the confusion of what the word actually means.

Evidence, as scientist normally use it, is rather foolish to deny. There might be something to say about the conclusions drawn, but evidence is simply facts.

Proof on the other hand can come in the form of an argument or formulation of sorts.
 

McBell

Unbound
Now provide the math to show how this universe as is is any more or less likely than any other outcome and you have something to show.

Good luck with that.

Last time I asked for the math, I was whined at for not showing how the invisible math was wrong...
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
"A bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of the Universe that is carefully fine-tuned — as if prescribed by an outside agency — or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation, a mighty speculative notion to the generation of many different Universes, which prevents one from predicting what a typical observer would see." — Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog2

“The quantum origin of our universe implies one must take a ‘top down’ approach to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology,” Hawking and Hertog write in their latest paper on the subject – “Why does inflation start at the top of the hill?”
Hawking: God may playdice after all
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
“The quantum origin of our universe implies one must take a ‘top down’ approach to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology,” Hawking and Hertog write in their latest paper on the subject – “Why does inflation start at the top of the hill?”

Hawking: God may playdice after all
There is no Quantum origin of our universe. The Quantum is part of the universe. Unlike many non-math or science oriented people the Quantum does not posit uncaused effects. It just has unique causes. I can really get into Hawking or the origin of the universe but regard the Quantum as so new and so bizarre as to be incapable of resolving anything. The only thing about it I feel certain of is that it can't create its self anymore than another natural force or law can originate anything from nothing. The Quantum at it's best only kicks the can down the road an insignificant bit. I have never heard anyone's argumentation as destroyed as a series by Craig, Lennox, and a moral philosopher. Would you like the link? Hawking is a great scientists but a deplorable philosopher and even worse theologian and unfortunately for him almost all his anti-God arguments are philosophical and theological, not scientific.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
There is no Quantum origin of our universe. The Quantum is part of the universe. Unlike many non-math or science oriented people the Quantum does not posit uncaused effects. It just has unique causes. I can really get into Hawking or the origin of the universe but regard the Quantum as so new and so bizarre as to be incapable of resolving anything. The only thing about it I feel certain of is that it can't create its self anymore than another natural force or law can originate anything from nothing. The Quantum at it's best only kicks the can down the road an insignificant bit. I have never heard anyone's argumentation as destroyed as a series by Craig, Lennox, and a moral philosopher. Would you like the link? Hawking is a great scientists but a deplorable philosopher and even worse theologian and unfortunately for him almost all his anti-God arguments are philosophical and theological, not scientific.
I was just putting the quote you mined into context.
 
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