In all fairness, gobear, I have to call you on this, in exactly the same manner as I would a conservative Christian. It’s not a fair generalization.
But it’s a fair response to Libertarian’s list above.
What Homebrew said. I’m all for having an honest, fair discussion, but Lib wants to play word games instead.
Homebrew and Gobear
If I am dishonest and unfair, then I invite corrections and clarifications of these:
Testimony is an appeal to popularity
I had written:
“Testimonies of billions of people who, though differing in details of subjective perception, believe in the existence of an objective God.”
The response:
“Appeal to popularity is no way to win an argument. Lots of people believe things that are demonstrably not so. Billions of people believe in astrology, but that doesn’t make it true.”
Hartshorne’s theological theories are irrelevant to theology
Logical fallacies make "darn good lab tools"
I had written:
“Most arguments against God’s existence are weak, and typically are denials of the antecedant or else rejections of axioms that are at least as self-evident as Peano’s Induction Axiom”
The response:
“‘If p then q. Not-p. Therefore, not-q’ [the aforementioned denial of the antecedent — Lib] may be useful to eliminate invalid conclusions in formal argument, but it’s a darn fine lab tool to test hypotheses.”
If a theory is “backed by math”, then it is good
I had written:
“Materialism as a philosophy resorts routinely to calling upon mystical phenomena (e.g., Branes, etc.) much in the same manner that Creationism calls upon secondary and tertiary agencies to underpin weak arguments”
The response:
“Theoretical constructs are not mystical phenomena (Hint: One is backed up by math, the other isn’t), although I admit the difference can sometimes be razor thin. Don’t ask me to defend quantum field theory because that’s waaaay out of my league. I’ll leave that to Orbifold or Ultrafilter to discuss.”
An event or object does not exist if people interpret it differently
I had written:
“And if for whatever reason you have decided that our experiences are not real, I would appreciate hearing what evidence you have (if any) that they are fantasy.”
The response:
“because the experiences of god you claim to be universal vary wildly from Re to Vishnu to Yahweh to the Unmoved Mover to Quetzalcoatl to Thor and so on.”
The philosophy of ethics is not relevant
I had written:
“Ethics arguments for the existence of God are compelling, when God is defined as the supreme agency for goodness”
The response:
“Nonsense. Again [there was no prior mention of ethics — Lib], ethics is a highly subjective business unable to prove the objective existence of deity.”
The universe can be infinitely old and still have energy available to do work.
I had written:
“Arguments for an eternal universe have not accounted for any natural means by which entropy might have reversed during various hypothetical cyclical schemes”
The response:
“Stars form all the time. Stars die all the time. This star is only special from a human perspective because it’s the one that’s here. It’s not particularly remarkable for a second-generation or later star; there are thousands essentially just like it. (And yeah, second-generation at least; the element distribution indicates that there has to have been a previous round of stellar fusion, so this particular star grew out of the remnants of already dead ones.)”
I have gone "Lekatt on us"
I had written:
[I have no idea what prompted the following: — Lib]
The response:
“I do note that Lib seems to be going Lekatt on us, now. Complete with the argumentum and numerum/populum, and ‘testimony is allowed in practically every court in the world.’”
My logic is poor despite that the inferences follow from one another
I had written:
[A modal tableau with no invalid inferences. — Lib]
The response:
“Lib, you seem to be quite a smart guy, even if your argument rests on fallacies and other poor logic, so I hope you can see this.”
All modal tableaux look alike
I had written:
“When you asked, I provided proof in the form of a modal tableau which you ignored.”
The response:
“I also note the same modal-logic ‘proof.’” [It was a different proof — Lib]
The universe can be both infinitely old and have an origin (apparently, the universe moves in mysterious ways)
I had written:
[On one occasion… — Lib] “Entropy in the universe is observed to increase over time. Were the universe infinitely old (i.e., there was no creation), then entropy would be one-hundred percent.”
[And on another… — Lib] “But if you are admitting here that there is no way to account for the universe’s origin by natural means, then you and I agree because that is exactly one of the points that I made.”
The responses:
[One wrote this… — Lib] “In the basic sense, the universe has existed for all time, as time is simply a property inside of this universe, and does not exist independant of it. So while the universe has existed for all time, ‘all time’ is only a few billion years (60 or so, IIRC, though I’m quite likely wrong on that). There was no ‘before’ the universe, and therefor, no “creation” of the universe.”
[Another wrote this… — Lib] “Of course, the universe originated by natural means. We can trace theit back to abnout 12 billion years ago.”
Explaining what logical fallacies mean constitutes "quibbling with words"
I had written:
“What I wish I would see is precisely what the alleged fallacies are, and precisely why the logic is allegedly poor. So far, this is precisely what you (and the one who speaks for you) have not shown me. I’ve seen a link to a fallacy that did not apply, as well as much stomping and protest with ad hominem comparisons to people you don’t like, but that’s about it.”
The response:
“Ahem, I speak for nobody but myself, thank you very much. [PD had said previously that Gobear had said what he wanted to say. — Lib] I have shown you a fallacy that does apply and where you employed it. [But mistakenly, as shown next — Lib] I have used no ad hominems in my posts to you either, so I’d appreciate a retraction [It turned out that GB had mixed up two different sentences — Lib]. Your quibbling over the names of fallacies does not refute the fact that you are using them.”
Explaining what a fallacy means is equivalent to admitting use of the fallacy
I had written:
"Actually, just 'cause you say it don’t make it so. In order that you will understand the nature of argumentum ad populum and argumentum ad numerum in the future, ad populum is what you are doing here — appealing to the gallery. ‘Going Lekatt on us’ is the clue. Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy whereby you seek to win acceptance of an assertion by making appeals to the crowd to join your side.
“Argumentum ad numerum is what you (and the one who speaks for you) were really going for, but you got that wrong as well. An ad numerum fallacy is an assertion that there exists a truth relation between the beliefs of a number of people and a doxastic assertion. In other words, it is to say that X number of people support this assertion, and so therefore it is true.”
The response:
“You have used the argument that “since a lot of people believe it, it must be true” in three different instances, although you claim they are different [That is not the case — Lib]. I am also pleased that you finally admit that you are pleading a case for a doxastic state (although you could have used the synonym “subjective belief” and been more easily understood by the casual reader. Hiding behind esoterica only weakens your case.)”
God does not fall within the purview of science, and yet He does
I had written:
“But if you are admitting here that there is no way to account for the universe’s origin by natural means, then you and I agree because that is exactly one of the points that I made.”
The responses:
[One wrote… — Lib] “Of course, the universe originated by natural means. We can trace theit back to abnout 12 billion years ago. The how we know; it’s the why we dont know because that’'s not in the purview of science, but theology.”
[The other wrote… — Lib] “Sigh. If you accept that God can be exempt from your unusual interpretation of entropy, then you can damn well ascribe the same quality to the universe, or meta-universe that spawned ours as a child process, or whatever the heck caused the big bang in the first place. Don’t make me beat you over the head with TVAA.”
A tautology is a false dichotomy
I had written:
“You cannot have your cake and eat it too: either the universe is eternal or it is not. If it is not, then it had a non-natural origin; and if it is, then it is dead (entropy).”
The response:
“And that’s a false dichotomy.” [It isn’t. It’s a tautology. — Lib]
Evidence and proof are synonyms
[GB had earlier written… — Lib] “Bullshit. Let’s see your inferential evidence, and please, show us something beyond ‘I get a yummy feeling in my tummy and that’s God.’”
[GB later wrote… — Lib] “So far your arguments are extremely bad. It’s not enough to hide behind “well, you can’t disprove God, therefore He exists.” [That is a gross mischaracterization of what I did. — Lib] Show us positive evidence of God’s existence. Do a miracle, drink some strychnine and be unharmed, have God appear in the clouds a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Prove to me that you’re no fool
(walk across my swimming pool)
Do that for me and I’ll let you go free
C’mon, Lib if you choose.”
All evidence of God’s existence is categorically wrong whether it is understood or not
I had written:
“You seem unable to grasp the difference between evidence (which is what you demanded) and proof. When you asked, I provided proof in the form of a modal tableau which you ignored.”
The response:
“Because your formal tableau does not prove God’s existence any nore than Diderot’s use of algebra did. Would you care to spell it out in English for folks like me who are weak in formal logic?”
Hearsay evidence is categorically inadmissible as evidence despite the numerous exceptions of Title 28
I had written:
“That is not the case. Offering testimony as evidence and offering numbers as proof are two different things. To remind you (yet again), what you asked for was evidence.”
The response:
“Hearsay, testimony from a witness who was not the observer, is inadmissible as evidence.”
Science already knows how the universe was created
I had written:
“But if you are admitting here that there is no way to account for the universe’s origin by natural means, then you and I agree because that is exactly one of the points that I made.”
The response:
“Of course, the universe originated by natural means. We can trace theit back to abnout 12 billion years ago. The how we know; it’s the why we dont know because that’'s not in the purview of science, but theology.”
"Nothing" is actually a container for other things
I had written:
“Unfortunately, nothingness implies the lack of any mechanism (including a quantum flux) by which a universe may have arisen.”
The response:
“IANAQM, but aren’t vacuum fluctuations the clarion example of uncaused phenomona? Don’t they provide a mechanism for a universe to spring into being from nothingness with a non-zero amount of energy?”
God, a supernatural being, is subject to natural law
Op. Cit.
My interpretation of entropy as energy unable to do work is "unusual"
I had written:
“There is no need for God to have an origin since He is supernatural. His eternity is perfectly cromulent. :)”
The response:
“Sigh. If you accept that God can be exempt from your unusual interpretation of entropy, then you can damn well ascribe the same quality to the universe, or meta-universe that spawned ours as a child process, or whatever the heck caused the big bang in the first place. Don’t make me beat you over the head with TVAA.”
Though no time existed before the universe, conditions and potential existed
Op. Cit.
The universe is not eternal, and yet something mystical preceded it that somehow "influxed in"
I had written:
“You materialists really ought to make up your mind. Is it as Gobear says, that God is outside the purview of science and the natural world? Or is it as you imply here, that God is contained within the universe? If He is supernatural, then how is He restricted by laws of nature? And if He is natural, then how is His existence not contingent?”
The response:
“Also, Lib, remember that an infinite amount of time has not passed since the inception of the universe. You can reasonably say that time started at the big bang, with the sudden influx of whatever fluxed in.”
Addendum:
Hartshorne’s theological theories are irrelevant to theology
I had written:
“The nature of logical tautology itself suggests that everything proves the existence of God, when God is described as analytic knowledge” [Charles Hartshorne’s theory. Hartshorne was one of the premier philosophers of the 20th century. — Lib]
The response:
“‘Analytic knowledge’ is not a Person that that thinks and creates, and tautologies are not arguments.”
And now, to address Gobear’s list:
That 12 billion years is equivalent to infinity.
That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is that you cannot have it both ways. You can have your 12 billion years and therefore say that the universe is not eternal, but that is a tacit admission that it indeed had an origin. That’s what a paradox means. It’s a gotcha either way you go.
That legends fropm an ancient book are literally accurate in every detail, while data from astronomy, geology, and biology are unimportant
I have never said anything remotely resembling that. Ever. I would ask you to show proof that I did or else retract.
That distorting or suppressing facts to fit a previously held conclusion is a Christian’s duty
Here also, I would appreciate your proof that I have distorted or suppressed facts to fit a previously held conclusion.
**That the truth of a proposition is directly proportional to the number of people who support it **
You are fixated on a minor adjective in the sentence: billions. But the subject of the sentence was “Testimony”.
That debating the name of a fallacy beats having to admit your error
Just yesterday, I admitted two errors in one thread. But that was because I made them. You ignored this before, but I’ll restate it: I don’t care what you call the fallacies, just see to it that you reference them properly.
That saying something is true automatically makes it so
I am willing to support (and I believe that I have supported) every assertion that I have made.
That handwaving is called "making logical inferences"
I don’t even know what that means.
How on earth is that a gotcha? I never made the claim that the universe is eternal; you did and attributed it to me. We both agree that the universe had an origin, but that it had a Creator or that the Creator is the God of the Bible does not follow.
Note that my post was addressed to the theists, not you directly and solely. That bit was aimed at svt4Him and Na Sultainne, and Ah ain’t gonna retract it.
That’s also aimed at your co-religionists.
You continue to ignore the point that your so-called testimony is worthless. Billions of people can also attest to the “truth” of astrology, but that doesn’t affect astrology’s validity one way or the other. The same for theism, particularly since your “testimony” can’t agree on the number, gender, nature, or names of the gods.
Again you’re qubbling, It does not matter that you say “ad populum” or “ad numerum”; what matters is that you continue to claim that the number of people who affirm a proposition is proportional to its validity.
Then renounce the idea that the amount of “testimony” has any bearing on a propostion’s truth. You got cites? Bring 'em on, but stop saying that God must exist because billions of people say so. It’s unworthy of you.
Read my posts and those of Iam punha and Phoenix_Dragon on your arguments for God’s existence. So far, you have made not one compelling argument that has not been refuted.
If ypou want to believe in invisible spirits, by all means do so. But stop saying you can prove they exist because you can’t.
Lib, please stop bloody using ‘eternal’ interchangably for ‘for all time’. Time (as we understand it) goes out the window in situations like the Big Crunch. Eternity, as a concept, does not.
This is the core of our misunderstanding (assuming you’re just not playing silly buggers). Before the universe began, there was no time. A finite amount of time has passed since then. In all likelyhood, the universe will end, and all time will have passed. Eternity will have not.
Mmm. Cake.
Well, I propose you choose non of them, so it’s kind of up to you. Or maybe the theory of micro-evolution, but again, I’ll leave it in your hands. So what do you believe?
That’s not totally accurate, and most theories have some event that hasn’t been proven, nor can be proven, yet has to be taken as fact. The Big Bang is one of those events. You have to start out by believing it happened in order for the rest to fall into place. This then requires faith.
Nope, I’d try no word games. Faith to me means you take something for what it is said or written, based on what you know about who wrote it. Since you can’t go back and see the big bang, chemical evolution, evolution of stars and planets from gasses, organic evolution nor any evidence of macro-evolution, there are things then you must believe because you are told to. Micro-evolution I do believe in, and have seen evidence of it. A lot of evolution of man from monkeys has been disporven, but it is still taught. As a side note, my friend from Africa said they never teach man evolved from a monkey, as there are too many monkeys around for them to believe it.
As for the age of the earth, like I said before, I have heard arguments on both sides of it, and read about things like moon dust/moon gravity, carbon dating and the error of estimates, and my personal belief is that God made Adam as a man, so he was made aged. Could God not have made the Earth the same way? To say this is unscientific to me is fine, but to say I’m anti-scientific or non-scientific isn’t an accurate statement either. Now I’m no scientist, but I know people who are, and through the internet we have tons of information at out fingures.
‘They [most Americans] believe that the Earth is billions of years old and that life evolved gradually from simple to complex forms. But they also believe that evolution was a means by which God carried out a plan to create humans. For tactical reasons, Darwinists don’t rush to tell all these people that they are missing the point, but all in good time. Let people first learn that evolution is a fact. They can be told later what evolution means.’
Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of law at Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. ‘Unbelievers Unwelcome in the Science Lab’, Los Angeles Times, November 3,1990.
Now here are some pretty interesting questions, for the scientific mind:
-
Where did the space for the universe come from?
-
Where did matter come from?
-
Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
-
How did matter get so perfectly organized?
-
Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
-
When, where, why, and how did life come from dead matter?
-
When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
-
With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?
-
Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)
-
How can mutations (recombining of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombining English letters will never produce Chinese books.)
-
Is it possible that similarities in design between different animals prove a common Creator instead of a common ancestor?
-
Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?
-
When, where, why, and how did: a) Single-celled plants become multicelled? (Where are the two- and threecelled intermediates?) b) Single-celled animals evolve? c) Fish change to amphibians? d) Amphibians change to reptiles? e) Reptiles change to birds? (The lungs, bones, eyes, reproductive organs, heart, method of locomotion, body covering, etc., are all very different!) How did the intermediate forms live?
-
When, where, why, how, and from what did: a) Whales evolve? b) Sea horses evolve? c) Bats evolve? d) Eyes evolve? e) Ears evolve? f) Hair, skin, feathers, scales, nails, claws, etc., evolve?
-
Which evolved first (how, and how long, did it work without the others)? a) The digestive system, the food to be digested, the appetite, the ability to find and eat the food, the digestive juices, or the body’s resistance to its own digestive juice (stomach, intestines, etc.)? b) The drive to reproduce or the ability to reproduce? c) The lungs, the mucus lining to protect them, the throat, or the perfect mixture of gases to be breathed into the lungs? d) DNA or RNA to carry the DNA message to cell parts? e) The termite or the flagella in its intestines that actually digest the cellulose? f) The plants or the insects that live on and pollinate the plants? g) The bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or muscles to move the bones? h) The nervous system, repair system, or hormone system? i) The immune system or the need for it?
Imaginations certainly took flight over Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis, a birdlike fossil with a meat-eater’s tail that was spirited out of northeastern China, ‘discovered’ at a Tucson, Arizona, gem and mineral show last year, and displayed at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. Some 110,000 visitors saw the exhibit, which closed January 17; millions more read about the find in November’s National Geographic. Now, paleontologists are eating crow. Instead of ‘a true missing link’ connecting dinosaurs to birds, the specimen appears to be a composite, its unusual appendage likely tacked on by a Chinese farmer, not evolution. “Archaeoraptor is hardly the first ‘missing link’ to snap under scrutiny. In 1912, fossil remains of an ancient hominid were found in England’s Piltdown quarries and quickly dubbed man’s apelike ancestor. It took decades to reveal the hoax.” U.S. News & World Report, February 14, 2000 “Darwin admitted that millions of ‘missing links,’ transitional life forms, would have to be discovered in the fossil record to prove the accuracy of his theory that all species had gradually evolved by chance mutation into new species. [See next page.] Unfortunately for his theory, despite hundreds of millions spent on searching for fossils worldwide for more than a century, the scientists have failed to locate a single missing link out of the millions that must exist if their theory of evolution is to be vindicated.” Grant R. Jeffery, The Signature of God “There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist . . . denies that this is so. It is simply a fact. Darwin’s theory and the fossil record are in conflict.” David Berlinsky “Scientists concede that their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record.” Time magazine, Nov. 7, 1977 “The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing.” G. K. Chesterton
I would like to submit the adjective lekattite. A lekattite is one who consistently posts in threads about hard science with mush, and is unwilling to respond to arguments with anything other than more mush.
1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
The space is the universe. It has existed for all time. There is no such thing as “next to” the universe in the same way that there is no such thing as “north of th north pole”.
2. Where did matter come from?
It has existed for all time. There is no such thing as “before the start of time”. Strictly, it is left over from the annihilation of matter and antimatter in the first moments of the universe, but this “stuff”existed for all time beforehand
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
They have been the same for all time. They might be different in other universes, and so asking “how come they’re not different?” is like asking “how come I don’t live in Chad?”
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
It isn’t. It is nicely balanced between order and disorder. Entropy (“disorder”) has been increasing for all time. Note that local decreases of entropy (increased “organization”) does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics - you happen to live in one such locality and so you see more “organisation” than is elsewhere in the universe.
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
Elsewhere in the universe. The increased “organizing” from the formation of the sun is paid for by massive overall disorganization of the gas cloud which formed it. The increased “organization” on Earth is paid for by massive overall disorganization in the sun.
I’m a physicist, so I answered your physics questions. Hopefully Darwin’s Finch or Ben or someone will answer your biological questions. I urge you to listen carefully.
Nonsense. To break it down for you:
In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that the glaxies we observe are all racing away from each other at a high velocity. This implies that there was an origin point when the matter in the universe was gathered together. Further evidence for Big Bang theory was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered in 1965 that the universe was filled in all directions with radiation, as if the universe were filled with haze from a giant explosion (to put it very crudely).
After a great deal of observation and gathering of data over the past 74 years, the current consensus is that that gathering point happened 12 billion years ago, which we call the Big Bang. Bear in mind, though that Big Bang theory has no bearing on animal evolution. If tomorrow we discovered that the Big Bang theory was in error (not bloody likely), that would have nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. They are two entirely different subjects, OK?
First, nobody teaches that man descended from monkeys; rather, men, monkeys, and apes all descended from a common ancestor. Second, the development of new species does not require the elimination of the parent species.
Well, if you’re a Last Thursdayina, there’s not a lot we can discuss. However, if you really want the answers to that laundry list of questions, the answers may be found in books and Web sites.
On the Web:
Talk Origins, a Web site dedicated to the creation evolution controversy.
Wikipedia gives a good outline of biological evolution.
Books:
Evolution:
Get a Grip on Evolution by David Burnie
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea by Carl Zimmer
Cosmology:
The Whole Shebang by Timothy Ferris
Don’t Know Much About the Universe by Kenneth C. Davis
[Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees.
I also recommend [url=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767908171/ref%3Dbr_books_wwr/103-9447622-7921409”] A Short History of Nearly Everything](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465036732/qid=1059500109/br=1-9/ref=br_lf_b_9//103-9447622-7921409?v=glance&s=books&n=13449) by Bill Bryson, a breezy, informative overview of the current ideas on evolution, the age of the universe, and other topics. It’s an easy read, although the editor should have done better fact checking because a few small details are wrong.
In addition, Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World is a useful guide to separating science from pseudoscience.
Gobear
One more time:
Given: Nothing exists except the natural universe
(1) The universe is temporal — Okay, but then there is no natural means by which a potential for its emergence could have preceded it
(2) The universe is eternal — Okay, but then none of the energy in the universe should be available to do work
No, the clause, “I learned from them the following”, merely included you. I did not mean for a plural reference to apply to you alone.
The former follows, but the latter does not necessarily. As shown above, without some agency of origin that is not natural (i.e., is supernatural), there is no potential for an origin.
Fair enough. I apologize for missing that, and admit my error.
Okay, but I do not consider myself to hold to any “religion” any more than you consider yourself to hold to any “life style”.
I’m not ignoring the point that our testimony is worthless — I am arguing against the point that our testimony is worthless. My disagreeing with you does not constitute my failure to hear you. The whole of history, much of which you do doubtless believe, is entirely based on testimony. Testimony is not “worthless” per se. It is worthless only when it is false or irrelevant.
And you have yet to offer an argument to back your assertion that differences in perception constitute nonexistence of that which is perceived. I already asked you before whether our disagreements over our perceptions made my wife’s and my trip to the museum a fantasy. I submit that we really were there.
Incredile. Just above where you wrote that, you quoted this: “You ignored this before, but I’ll restate it: I don’t care what you call the fallacies, just see to it that you reference them properly.”
However, it is important to note that “ad populum” (or whatever you choose to call it) and “ad numerum” (or whatever you choose to call it) are two different fallacies. If you want to say that appealing to the gallery is the Duck Bill Platypus Fallacy, that’s fine by me. And if you want to say that appealing to numbers of people is the Ring-Wing Conspiracy Fallacy, suit yourself. But don’t pretend that appealing to the gallery to whom you’re speaking and appealing to a population at large are the same. They are not. That is not quibbling. That is drawing a distinction between two dissimilar things.
I have not ever said that God must exist because billions of people say so. As you can see if you read the original post, I prefaced the entire list by saying this: “And although no one argument stands alone as irrefutably sound, the entire set of valid arguments make a case sufficiently compelling…” That you choose to characterize the entire argument in the manner that you do — a solitary assertion that you perceive as a logical fallacy — is unworthy of you.
I’ll explain this again. Please, this time, do not ignore it.[ul][li]This — “Testimonies of billions of people who, though differing in details of subjective perception, believe in the existence of an objective God” — references testimony as evidence. “Billions” are cited so that if you believe that a given testimony is unreliable, another may be offered for reevaluation. It is not an appeal to popularity of the belief, but an appeal to the possibility that you might potentially hear credible testimony. This is the kind of evidence that a person accepts when he believes (as I do) that Nero was a Roman Emperor.[/li]
[li]This — “Like many other things in life (e.g., there exists seafood that tastes good), God’s existence has been subjectively proved to the satisfaction of a statistically significant portion of the population, whereas atheism is statistically insignificant” — references a statistical sampling of human experience as evidence. It is a necessary truth of existence that for you or anyone to hear a fact, you must perceive it. It is not an appeal to the popularity of the perception, but an appeal to the possibility that you might acknowledge other people’s experiences to be at least as valid as your own. This is the kind of evidence that a person accepts when he believes (as I do) that homosexuality is not a sinful practice.[/li]
[li]Finally, this — “Expressions of faith in the form of philanthropy and art have been an integral part of man’s culture for as long as we have written records, indicating the influence of God on man without temporal boundaries” — references observational data as evidence, namely that there appears to be manifestations of God’s influence on people. This is the kind of evidence that person accepts when he believes (as I do) that electrons exist.[/ul]You have lumped those three (which are only three out of the total eleven!) together and assigned to all of them unilaterally a single fallacy that you looked up on a web page somewhere clearly without knowing what you were talking about. Not one of these three points is dependent on the number of people; it is merely a fact that the numbers are huge.[/li]
That is simply wrong. Your disagreement does not constitute refutation.
But I am glad you mentioned Pun, because here is what Pun said:
“I have seen the evidence you posted (though the fact that it is an incomplete list of evidence is duly noted) and remain unconvinced by those arguments.” (Emphasis mine).
He acknowledged that the challenge had been met (the challenge was to present evidence), and then he stated that he disagreed with that evidence. He even acknowledged that the list was not the totality of the evidence (whereas you cherry-pick three items, analyze them incorrectly, and refuse to admit your mistake). Pun has displayed an honorable way to respond to an adversary who has made an argument that is reasonable but with which he disagrees. Unlike him, your pretense this entire time has been that I have offered no argument whatsoever except for logical fallacies and fantasies. Imagining that to be “refutation” is, well, just crazy.
Robertliguori
For your future reference, “or” is disjunctive. When I say that either the universe is 13 billion years old or it is eternal, it does not mean that I am using them interchangably. Rather, the opposite is the case: I am distinguishing them as distinctly different.
Unfortunately for the materialist, the phrase “before the universe began” is not sensible. Equally unfortunate is that, if it began at all, then it is not eternal. For the materialist, there cannot be an entity — including eternity — that exists outside the universe.
I have got to say, this post is probably one of the finest mishmashes of gibberish masquerading as argument I’ve ever seen.
I believe inGod. I accept the evidence of science and the theories constructed to account for that evidence.
Play word-games with me, and you get them right back. Or is your devotion to God and the Bible your unexamined opinion that a Creator Entity exists and in some way inspired a 66-section volume of lore, having nothing to do with what you rely on in your daily existence? :rolleyes:
Do you know someone to whom the Big Bang revealed itself, its omnipotence and benevolence, and offered to save that person? Acceptance of that person’s testimony would be the only reasonable grounds for “faith” in the Big Bang.
Me, I accept it as the reasonable implication of the evidence made available from data indicating an expanding universe and from high-energy/high-temperature astrophysics.
So your faith is in the Bible and in preachers, not in God?
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First, offer me one cite affirmatively claiming that “man evolved from monkeys.” A cite alleging this as something it attempts to disprove is not an acceptable answer.
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By the logic of your second sentence, it must be that all the stuff I learned about sex is wrong, since typically children have mothers and/or fathers who are still alive.
You are clearly not interested in reasonable answers to these questions, but rather just posing them (plagiarizing them from a Creationist website?) as snotty nyah-nyah betcha-can’t-answer-these material.
(And, by the way, how does proving or disproving any of this stuff conduce to the Great Commission?)
However, there are a couple of them I’d like to respond to:
It no doubt reproduced by binary fission or by budding as had its ancestor cells. Later, when a fair number of cells capable of sexual reproduction came into existence (by descent from tat or another cell), some of them did reproduce that way.
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9. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)[/qute]
Man, I’d hate to be your child! :eek:
Sure, they will, if the books are in Wade-Giles or Pinyin. As for the other, do you ever play solitaire? Even assembling enough sequences at random – and the weeding of harmful mutations ensures that it’s not totally random – “better” sequences will arise “by chance.”
Neither proves a damn thing. Does it provide evidence for either one? Certainly. But that’s not the totality of the evidence suggstive of evolution. Whereas your version depends entirely on the human interpretation of one verse from Genesis, lifted out of context.
a) Ever hear of colonial algae? Go to Shark’s Bay, Western Australia – you’ll see living stromatolites identical to two-billion-year-old fossils. Their cells are capable of either independent or colonial life – and prefer colonies for greater survival.
b) No data at hand – and no desire to research it for the sake of your rejecting it.
c) Google “Eusthenopteron” and “Ichthyostega” and compare and contrast the skeletons.
d) The sole distinction between the latest anthracosaurs and the earliest cotylosaurs is that the latter are believed to have laid amniotic eggs.
e) “Reptiles” did not turn into “birds” – but rather went through transitional phases. Small, agile dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx very closely resemble each other. I have carefully studied the thoracic chamber of “Willo” the dinosaur, in a museum about 20 miles west of my home, which has a concretion which appears to be a fossilized heart. It shows every evidence of being a four-chambered bird-type heart to me. (Note that crocodylians, closest relatives to dinosaurs other than birds, also have a four-chambered heart on the mammal/bird model) There are numerous fossils which may or may not have been feathered.
As we’re accustomed to saying to high school kids looking for a easy fix – do your own damn homework!
In case you missed seventh grade entirely, the function and purpose of science is to create and test hypotheses, and reject those which are found lacking. Such frauds do occur, and are discovered as time passes. Unlike, by the way, the “man tracks” that are still proferred as evidence by some Creationist sites despite the fact that they were frauds and discovered to be so.
By the way, Grant R. Jeffery lies explicitly – during my lifetime there have been numerous transitional forms found, including the ancestry of whales, the derivation of Hallucigenia, and several links in the reptile-bird transition.
Now, this little excursion into biology was no doubt fun, but what exactly does it have to do with the salvation of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, or with what gay men and women are supposed to do about their lives, – or even, surprisingly, the OP?
Neither is God, but I argue about Him just fine. Besides, all I said about the null concept before the universe was that there was no time. Before the universe began wasn’t purple, either.
Yup, it’s silly buggers. The universe has always existed. The universe has (probably) not existed for googles of years. The fact that the universe has not existed for a google of years does not mean that there are extra years floating about with unaccounted-for entropy. It means that time (since the inception of the universe) is finite.
No, the universe hasn’t existed for a google of years.
Yes, the universe has always existed.
Ahhh! Another fine post from another nine-commandment-Christian.
First, I do not have to take on faith anything presented regarding evolution or cosmology. In some cases I do accept the evidence presented second-hand that others have produced, but I am not required to do so to examine the evidence and draw the conclusions. With sufficient time and resources, I can perform the exact studies they have performed and either accept or deny the conclusions they have published. There are, indeed, some small aspects of these studies where I have done just that. To claim that the acceptance of other people’s studies–especially when those people are open to criticism from anyone else who chooses to make the same effort (and all such studies are routinely criticized)–is to use faith in a remarkably different way than to accept a faith in God. I know this because I do both, accepting or challenging theories put forth based on the plausibility of the presentation or based on my ability to critique that presentation, and accepting my experience of God based both on my experience and on the witness of others’ experiences.
I do not need to accept any information regarding speculations about the big bang or about the evolution of stars, because I can read the material, see that multiple people have produced corroborating evidence, and do the math to see whether their speculations are consistent with their evidence. Similarly, I can review the materials on evolution, see the evidence presented for it, and make my own decision regarding the plausibility of any single aspect of it. So far, all the evidence that has been brought forth regarding evolution has consistently supported the general theory of Natural Selection as proposed by Darwin and modified by the Mendelian information as applied by Dobzhansky. Specific aspects of the identification of certain species or their relationships have been challenged and either confirmed or overturned. No evidence has been presented to disprove the basic theory.
(You, too, have the opportunity to actually examine the same information. If you choose to not do so, that does not make other people’s efforts matters of faith, it simply means that you would prefer to “believe” the complaints of non-scientists over the evidence of scientists.)
Now, if you will insist on posting lies, such as “evolution of man from monkeys” (a point that has never been asserted by an evolutionary biologist) I will have to conclude that you are willing to bear false witness on other issues, as well, so you seem to be deliberately weakening your position.
Pointing to individual errors made by different paleotologists does not weaken my view of science, it strengthens it.
First, “missing links” are a dream of the popular press and have no place in science. Every occurrence of a species is a link and the transitions are too small and too slow to be encapsulated in any individual species–and every person who studies science knows this.
Second, Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis was, as usual, an error of the popular press, (National Geographic), not of science, as the link I have provided, shows. The fossil(s) had not yet been vetted by the paleontological community and given a complete analysis when National Geographic pematurely published its claims. Note, however, that it was the scientific community (not any anti-scientific Creationist) who discovered the error.
Piltdown Man was a fraud that was never wholly accepted by the scientific community before it was exposed as a fraud–again, by a scientist.
The “Fossil Gap” is also a case of misinformation (bordering on deceit) published by Creationist sources (with some statements from scientists printed out of context) or by sloppy reporting in the popular press. Darwin proposed (in good scientific protocol) that it might not be possible to confirm his theory if there were too few transitional forms discovered in the fossil record. In contrast to the claims of the Creationists, we have, indeed, found numerous transitional forms (not silly “missing links”) throughout the fossil record. Given the extraordinary requirements to create a single fossil, we have actually already found more transitional fossils than early scientists had feared we might, and we continue to increase that number daily.
Right. A few notes, if anyone other than Lib is paying attention to me.
gobear, no amount of trying to convince Lib here that his evidence is flawed is going to work. None. It is not going to work. You two are sufficiently separated from the original proofs/evidence that this is going to degenerate until you are equally fed up with each other and possible one of you ends up on the other’s ignore list. Then at the next dopefest where I see you, eventually the topic will come up of “there is no proof of God”, and you’ll start railing against Lib. And being rather fond of Lib as I am, I will defend him because you will be, then, acting irrationally. I’ll say there is at least a credible element to his evidence, and you’ll say there’s as much credible in those as there is in Creationist theory. And I’d rather not have to go through that. Would you?
Lib: no amount of convincing gobear here that his analysis etc. is flawed is going to work. None. It will not work. Besides, what faith is it which is rested not upon that innate sense that God exists but a bunch of physical/logical evidence (I say this so you will, I think, see part of where gobear is coming from)? All this will do is get you both quite more angry at each other than you should be. Meanwhile there is probably someone looking on who sees an angry atheist unable to accept The Truth (forgoing for the moment any other impressions/thoughts) and someone who is hurtfully disenfranchised from Christianity who sees you trying to put a square peg in a smaller round hole.
So let us save that much arguing and posturing and pain and do this:
Open a GD thread, one of you. Or one of you email the other. Whatever. Start again over there and have as the OP/original email/whatever the list Lib gave. Work through it not as someone out to disprove his opponent but as one seeking to understand his opponent. Fake it, if you must:) Frankly if you don’t want indirect traffic (as I am sure you will see in GD), best thing is to take it to email.
You are not, either of you, getting anywhere with each other here in this. And unless you actively seek to waste your time when there are more fruitful (IMO, anyway) things to do or ways to go about it, you should really reconsider this whole Pit effort.
I think you missed my point, and I’m not really sure why.
Well my quote was a direct answer to a question, and I quote "Which theories of evolution do you propose I accept?
Now who’s talking about word games? My whole point is there are elements of evolution that have to be taken by faith. I was told this is untrue, and I was simply saying that it is.
Ok.
Nope. More in the Bible, which is why I may like something someone has to say, but I’ll check it out with the Bible. But if you were a doctor, and you said I had this wrong with me, I’d have faith that you were correct, based on who you were. So do I have faith in people? To a certain extent. But don’t read too much into that.
I’d scan in the progresssion of apes who are all hunched over and by the end it is a man, but I think if you honestly think about it, you’d know what I’m talking about.
You lost me here. Because they don’t teach man from monkeys in Africa, your sex teaching is wrong?
Again, I was proving that there are elements of faith, and I don’t find anything snotty about that.
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(And, by the way, how does proving or disproving any of this stuff conduce to the Great Commission?)[/qutoe]
Hmmm, good throw in of Biblical truth.
I think they recently disproved the million monkeys typing a million years, but I could be wrong. And I won’t even get into entropy, as it’s been talked about before.
This is just plain wrong. First off, you are the first one to say it proves anything, as the quote says it is possible, in the same way evolution uses this to prove we evolved from the same rock. And when you say one verse, I won’t even use the Bible, I’ll ask you to cite a case of macro-evolution.
Ok, I’ll apply point b as well.
You know, when I said this I was blasted for not being able to back up a claim I made. That amazes me.
And how is a hypotheses tested?
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By the way, Grant R. Jeffery lies explicitly – during my lifetime there have been numerous transitional forms found, including the ancestry of whales, the derivation of Hallucigenia, and several links in the reptile-bird transition.
[/quote
Now, this little excursion into biology was no doubt fun, but what exactly does it have to do with the salvation of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, or with what gay men and women are supposed to do about their lives, – or even, surprisingly, the OP? **[/QUOTE]
Actually, I think it was because I said evolution requres faith, and don’t know what happened from there. But if you really are concerned with the salvation of the world, why are you here? Again, I don’t mind anyone questioning what I believe, and I do then go look it up. There is nothing wrong with that. For instance, I said they carbon dated a monkey that was alive. I checked the ref to that, and it has been removed. I have since found they’ve carbon dated other stuff and found errors, but I will not use that example again. As for the original OP, I don’t know why that was started. I think it was just to cause conflict, but I don’t know. Ususally if I disagree with something, I keep it in the thread, I don’t start a new one.
Personally, I’d be happy if the argument that p->q implies ~p->~q would just go away. p->q implies ~q->~p, and specifically does not imply either ~p->~q or q->p.
If a statement is true, its contrapositive is true. However, the truth value of a statement has no bearing on either its inverse or converse.
And in all this foofaraw, I can’t figure out if anyone’s pointed this out flatly or not, or even figure out who was saying it, but it’s irritating the hell out of me. 
(The whole origin of time foofaraw is pretty amusing to this particular theist whose mythology includes the creation of time as being intrinsic to existence, and not happening outside of the context of the extant universe, by the way. Not that I expect y’all are bitching about it to amuse me. 
)