Atheist diary at the GWT

[fccool]

Quote:

In which case, we are back to what I stated in one of my posts - neither evolution nor creation can be proved by scientific experimentation. Both of them are worldviews that are taken by faith. The God of creation claims to have been forever. I don't recall any evolutionists claiming that the universe and life have always been here.

I think you misunderstand that science and scientific process is all about, and that's why you confuse yourself about fundamental difference between religion and science.

Let me give you and example to help clear certain things up.

Let's take the phenomenon of thunder and lightning. We have two fundomental approaches at explaining these phenomenons:

1) The guys named Thor, Zeus, Jupiter, or Perun are responsible for causing these. Biblical God was no different:

Quote:

2 Samuel 22:13

Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.

Job 36:30

See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea.

Job 36:32

He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.

Job 37:3

He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth.

Job 37:15

Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash?

Psalm 18:14

He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies , great bolts of lightning and routed them.

Psalm 148:8

lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding,

Habakkuk 3:11

Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear.

Zechariah 9:14

Then the Lord will appear over them; his arrow will flash like lightning. The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet; he will march in the storms of the south,

These people really believed that God is the cause of lightning, and not in the "God created the laws of nature" type of way. In many of these allegories, He literally throws lightning down Zeus style.

2) Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge and can be explained as a purely natural phenomenon apart from any Gods.

The science can look at #1 and say... "We don't really know whether God is or not Throwing lightning down to earth... let's leave it up to people to believe what they want", but it does not make argument from ignorance simply because we can use one set of facts to explain other set of facts with certain pre-existing and demonstrable understanding.

Sure, you can all you want look at lightning and say... well, no one really seen an electron, so God must really be behind this... but it would be extremely ignorant, and I think even you can understand how ignorant this would be.

But, what you are doing with evolution is very similar. I mean there is sooooo much data that points to validity of the theory. I mean there's so much data that Catholic church (which burned people for lesser assumptions) came to recognize it as more than a mere possibility.

After all we:

1) Have examples of improvement via mutations on micro scale

2) We have progressive morphologies that can be cataloged into a progression that does make sense

3) We have DNA studies that support certain predictions

4) We have 31,000 species of fishes, much of which simply would not be able to live in salty waters, and vice versa

5) We have 1,305,250 species of insects! , and if you are naive enough to think that these could all populate the ark in pairs, and then populate to enormous level of genetic and morphological diversity we have today... even though much of these don't live past the 375 days... I'm not sure I can hold a serious conversation about Biology with you.

This is an incontrovertible fact that we can morphologically categorize these incests and trace the common descendents that looked quite a bit different than what you would see as the end result.

Now, you can say that you believe that explanation from creation and all of the animal, plant and insect diversity of almost 2,000,000 species "micro-evolved" from the specimens that survived the flood on the ark, and somehow managed to do that over the past 4,500 years. Than indeed, you would be making arguments from faith, and not reason.

Now, what you can't do is to say that evolutionary biologists are in the same boat as you are on this matter. Not even close. Just like in the lightning example, the more plausible explanation works... because it's more plausible and makes the least assumptions. That's how science works. It does not have to prove anything beyond the reasonable doubt. We still have not seen an electron and it's components. We don't exactly know what drives it, but we don't have to say "God moves the electron" because we don't know. And likewise, we don't have to say "God causes lightning". We can go by the view that makes the least assumptions.

Sorry. But your comparison is flawed.

[fccool]

Quote:

I'm rather getting tired of your insults and consdescending attitude. Did you come up with these ideas on your own or did somebody else tell you?

Although I understand why you may be offended by a term "ignorant", but it's not a necessarily trenchant one. I think it's unfortunate that ignorance is synonymous with stupidity in terms of common understanding. It is not the same thing.

Stupidity is innate inability to comprehend, or process certain information.

Ignorance is having that ability, but lacking the understanding due to lack of certain information, or having an incorrect understanding of what it is that certain view actually holds and postulates.

So, don't be offended when one calls you ignorant. In softer terms, it means that you have ability to understand, but you yet don't, because you don't have the full scope of information to evaluate the argument properly, thus you argue your point out of ignorance (lack of that information or proper understanding of it)

Therefore, when someone calls you ignorant, it's merely a call to evaluate and understand a certain information before making certain claims about a view. You can prove such person wrong by

1) Inquiring about explanation of the view, and then finding problems with such explanation.

2) By accurately showing that you understand the subject at hand, and that you are qualified to make proper counter-arguments.

Being offended does very little in having a conversation.

[BobRyan]

In CARDW's latest "I think someone is angry" thread allowed over at Townhall - he highlights yet another atheist claiming anger for someone. In the opening sentence it is the atheist claiming anger on behalf of any Christian that might actually believe the Bible to be true in sections like Rev 20.

Hint -- notice that the OP of this thread takes the position that the Bible is actually true in Rev 20.

in Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Quote:

In which case, we are back to what I stated in one of my posts - neither evolution nor creation can be proved by scientific experimentation. Both of them are worldviews that are taken by faith. The God of creation claims to have been forever. I don't recall any evolutionists claiming that the universe and life have always been here.

I think you misunderstand that science and scientific process is all about, and that's why you confuse yourself about fundamental difference between religion and science.

[BobRyan]

WHY do the atheist evolutionists listed above - speak that way about their beloved evolutionism? And how does blind-faith-evolutionism differ from actual science such as for example the study of lightning?

In the case of one of the 4 forces of nature such as EM - there is no "imagine the mechanism to be true" argument that you find in blind-faith evolutionism. Rather the claims are entirely reproducible "from scratch" in the lab.

Yet when Dawkins is asked to SHOW an observation in nature for the actual mechanism in evolutionism "seen to work" seen to add new genetic information to the entire genome of a given species causing an upward transition for the entire genome of the species - his 11 seconds of flummoxed silence betrays the paucity in "observations in nature" available to him in that regard.

[Gerr]

[

I think you misunderstand that science and scientific process is all about, and that's why you confuse yourself about fundamental difference between religion and science.

I beg your pardon?

[SivartM]

Yet when Dawkins is asked to SHOW an observation in nature for the actual mechanism in evolutionism "seen to work" seen to add new genetic information to the entire genome of a given species causing an upward transition for the entire genome of the species - his 11 seconds of flummoxed silence betrays the paucity in "observations in nature" available to him in that regard.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/6gHi6jES700-richard-dawkins-stumped-by-creationists.aspx

[Igakusei]

Originally Posted By: BobRyan

Yet when Dawkins is asked to SHOW an observation in nature for the actual mechanism in evolutionism "seen to work" seen to add new genetic information to the entire genome of a given species causing an upward transition for the entire genome of the species - his 11 seconds of flummoxed silence betrays the paucity in "observations in nature" available to him in that regard.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/6gHi6jES700-richard-dawkins-stumped-by-creationists.aspx

I've shown Bob this before, a couple different times. He's also seen Colin Patterson's response to being dragged through the mud like that. Didn't make a difference.

[fccool]

Quote:

Atheist evolutionists such as Collin Patterson have already spoken to this issue.

Colin Patterson (Senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and author of the Museum’s general text on evolution) in a talk given at the American Museum of Natural History 1981

How does it address any of the points that I've made? You don't even attempt to address a single one. You make a blanket appeal to authority without providing any logic beyond your appeal.

[fccool]

Originally Posted By: fccool

[

I think you misunderstand that science and scientific process is all about, and that's why you confuse yourself about fundamental difference between religion and science.

I beg your pardon?

Let me make it even easier.

Religion = virtually all assumed

Science = much less assumptions, and even when assumptions are made, these are derived from factual and observable evidence

Neither you, not Bob can say that evolution is faith based because it makes certain assumptions that goes beyond our direct perception.

I'll make it even more easy:

Evolution is scientific (ciencia = knowledge, thus knowledge-based) because:

1) It is falsifiable

2) It Makes testable predictions

3) That it later either confirms or rejects

4) It formulates a theory based on collective falsifications of some predictions, and collective confirmation of other

Religion is not scientific (not ciencia, or knowledge, because it's a belief) because:

1) It's not falsifiable. There's not a single test you can come up with that would falsify the existence of God. It sort of like coming up with a test to falsify the existence of imperceptible gremlins on Jupiter.

2) It does not make predictions, outside of the generally vague prophecies about the future.

3) It does not revolve around scientific method to test these predictions through experimentation.

4) Virtually all of religion relies on assumption that God exists and that Bible is the inerrant and inspired word of god.

Based on the above... can you explain how you see religion and evolution to be both a faith-based argument?

[fccool]

Quote:

And how does blind-faith-evolutionism differ from actual science such as for example the study of lightning?

Ok. We'll have to go through this high-school level ideas one more time.

Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

In epistemological and scientific sense, knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive. For example, if you know something then you don't believe it. If you don't know something, but accept it based on lack of scientific data... then you believe it.

So, what makes evolution scientific:

1) It's in part observable here and now.

2) It's derived from solid observation based on the causal relationship of #1, and morphological/physiological/genetic data that fits a certain predictions based on #1.

3) It's falsifiable. There's a way to make predictions that can turn out to be either true, or false based on certain expectations of the theory. Then these predictions can be tested to formulate an explanation that makes the least amounts of assumptions.

In conclusion, the same way scientists figured out that lightning is actually an electric discharge, they figured out that evolution is a more plausible theory than a 6 day creation that happened 6000 years ago, and then survived the enormous life re-set cataclysm 4000 years ago, and got to replenish to its full genetic diversity we have today of over 1.7 million species, all in a span of 4000 years, and all from limited specimen from the ark.

An another MAJOR thing that you tend to overlook... nearly half of Christians accept evolution as true on every level of the theory. So, your attempt to equate atheism with evolution is deeply flawed. Evolution is not the same as abiogenesis.

[Gerr]

WHAT IS THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD? - EMPIRICAL

"Science is based purely around observation and measurement, and the vast majority of research involves some type of practical experimentation."

"The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.

2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.

3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.

4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation."

Observable, verifiable phenomena:

1. Only life begets life. Something cannot come out of nothing.

Hypothesis #1 Creation - God, who Himself is self-existent, created everything out of nothing, and is the author of life.

Can this hypothesis be verified empirically? Likely not.

This is accepted by faith.

Hypothesis #2 Evolution - a. Something could come out of nothing. Non-living could give rise to life. Are these empirically verifiable? If this has been done, show the evidence. If it has not been verified, then it is taken as a matter of faith.

b. The universe has always been here. Is this verifiable empirically? Or is this something also taken by faith?

[Gerr]

Darwinian evolution explaining lightning? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

[fccool]

Darwinian evolution explaining lightning? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Huh?

[Gerr]

In epistemological and scientific sense, knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive. For example, if you know something then you don't believe it. If you don't know something, but accept it based on lack of scientific data... then you believe it.

There are different levels of beliefs. There are beliefs that are based solely on no evidence whatsoever, e.g. moon made out of cheese, to beliefs that rest on solid evidence. So please, explain what you mean by "epistemological and scientific sense" that "knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive."

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Darwinian evolution explaining lightning? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Huh?

Your comparison between physicists explaining how lightning occurs and how evolution explains the origin of life looks like apples and oranges to me. The former IS verifiable by experiments. And the latter?

[fccool]

Quote:

Hypothesis #2 Evolution - a. Something could come out of nothing. Non-living could give rise to life. Are these empirically verifiable? If this has been done, show the evidence. If it has not been verified, then it is taken as a matter of faith.

Don't get offended, but you really deserve status of ignorant on this one. Once again, I'm not saying to insult you, but you don't even understand what evolution postulates. I could end at that, but I will save you some embarrassment in the future.

Hypothesis #2 Evolution - a. Something could come out of nothing. Non-living could give rise to life.

This is not what evolution postulates. Please, have it etched into your mind, or write it on a little piece of paper somewhere, so you can remember. Staple it to the book of Genesis 1 in your Bible, if you have to.

Bible postulates that God created universe out of nothing. Evolution does not postulate such ideas. Neither it postulates Abiogenesis, which you obviously confuse with evolution. Once again... Bible postulate Abiogenesis. So, you sort of refuting your own assumptions here.

Evolution teaches exactly the opposite of what you are saying... that living things give rise to life.

Quote:

b. The universe has always been here. Is this verifiable empirically? Or is this something also taken by faith?

Huh? You must be reeeeaaaalllyy confused about what evolution postulates. Here's a wikipedia link that outlines the evolution. Can you do me a favor and find any statement that's remotely resembles this idea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

[Gerr]

So what is evolution's explanation of the origin of life?

And what is evolution's explanation of the origin of the universe?

[fccool]

It has no need to explain it. It does not set out to explain the origins. That's more of a job for physics and theoretical cosmology. Evolution explains the plausible mechanism for the genetic diversity of life that we have today as it improved from a common ancestors.

To ask "what is evolution's explanation for origin of life and universe" is like asking "What's Biological explanation for formation of diamonds?". It makes no sense. That's not what biology sets out to explain.

Just because evolution does not concern itself with origins does not make it any less or more true. It's irrelevant how the universe came about for evolution theory to be plausible explanation for genetic diversity.

[Gerr]

No need to explain origin? WHY? How scientific is that? Creation & evolution are two worldviews that account for origins. So are you saying that evolutionists accept the existence of life as a given? Is that not then a matter of faith?

"Evolutionary history of life

Main article: Evolutionary history of life

See also: Timeline of evolution and Timeline of human evolution

Origin of life

Further information: Abiogenesis and RNA world hypothesis

Highly energetic chemistry is believed to have produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago and half a billion years later the last common ancestor of all life existed.[230] The current scientific consensus is that the complex biochemistry that makes up life came from simpler chemical reactions.[231] The beginning of life may have included self-replicating molecules such as RNA,[232] and the assembly of simple cells.[233]"

Believed? Hmmmmm.

"Timeline

[edit] First living beings

Date

Event

4000 Ma

(million

years ago)

The earliest life appears.

Further information: Abiogenesis

3900 Ma

Cells resembling prokaryotes appear. This marks the first appearance of photosynthesis and therefore the first occurrence of large quantities of oxygen on the earth.

Further information: Cell (biology)#Evolution

2500 Ma

First organisms to utilize oxygen. By 2400 Ma, in what is referred to as the Great Oxygenation Event, the pre-oxygen anaerobic forms of life were wiped out by the oxygen consumers.

2100 Ma

More complex cells appear: the eukaryotes.

Further information: Eukaryote#Origin and evolution

1200 Ma

Sexual reproduction evolves, leading to faster evolution.[1]"

While evolution has to do with life and does not attempt to explain the origin of the earth or the universe, it is tied up to other disciplines such as geology that attempt to explain its origin without the aid of a creator. Without geology and its claim of the earth being billions of years old, evolution would be a DOA theory.

[fccool]

Quote:

No need to explain origin? WHY? How scientific is that?

I don't think you follow your own logic very well. It's a bit confusing. You yourself stated that:

a) Science is in realm of observable and testable

Origins can't be observed nor tested

c) Religious view on origins is not testable and faith based

How is it that you see the view that evolution has no need to explain origins unscientific? Do you understand what you are asking?

Let's say you have a TV in your house that you just bought with all of the furniture. You have a manual to the TV, but it does not have the make. The manual explains everything about how the TV works... does it make the idea of watching the TV unbearable for you? Does it invalidate the quality of the TV, or it's functionality... that you don't know where it came from?

Evolution explains functionality and diversity. It has no need to theorize on something that it can't possibly know or explain.

Quote:

Creation & evolution are two worldviews that account for origins.

Evolution is dragged into this by religious zealots. Evolution has no need to theorize about origins beyond the immediate context of what it's trying to explain. There are multiple possibilities, and SURPRISE! God creating primitive life is one of them. But, none of these are remotely testable, and we have to guess which one is the most plausible. While science can debate this issue, it has little consequence to currently established Theory of Evolution.

When Darwin formulated the theory, he was not seeking for alternative explanation for origin of the universe. He made a discovery that made him formulate a possible ways that we have a genetic diversity of species. Hence the book titled "On Origins of Species"... not universe.

Quote:

So are you saying that evolutionists accept the existence of life as a given?

What other choices are we left with? Accept the life as non-existent Lol. Life is mysterious, and your explanation of God Created everything poses more questions than answers, especially when you say that God created everything in 6 days 6000 years ago.

In fact, it explains nothing. You just run into self-imposed logical dead-ends, like where did God come from?

Quote:

Is that not then a matter of faith?

Are you really asking if we have to have faith that life exists? Are you so desperate as not to recognize the existence of something as an intrinsic state of being?

"Why does existence exist?" is a meaningless question. It's like asking "Why is the rock rock?", or "Why is that that?" It has no other answer other than "Because it is.", or "We don't know, but we believe that..." If you search for the origins of things in terms of causality, you end up with infinite regressive paradoxes as we keep asking these "Why does?" that don't end up explaining anything.

The job of science is not to answer why does something exists, as to answer how it works. And that's what evolution does. It does not do it with perfection, or without any gaps in understanding... but it does not simply resort to the universal "Jesus" type of answer that kids give as answer to any question in Sabbath school.

[Gerr]

How is it that you see the view that evolution has no need to explain origins unscientific? Do you understand what you are asking?

Because evolution is claimed to be based on science that could explain the origin of life while creation is based on faith. Science has no use for the supernatural, is that right? If it cannot give an account of the origin of life, then it is an inadequate hypothesis, and creationsim would be a better hypothesis because it is more comprehensive.

Quote:

Evolution explains functionality and diversity. It has no need to theorize on something that it can't possibly know or explain.

Then why are evolutionists against the teaching of creationism in public schools? Orthe teaching that Intelligent Designer was responsible not only for the existence of life but also for the universe? Is it not because it goes against the belief that no God is needed to explain origins?

Quote:

The job of science is not to answer why does something exists, as to answer how it works. And that's what evolution does. It does not do it with perfection, or without any gaps in understanding... but it does not simply resort to the universal "Jesus" type of answer that kids give as answer to any question in Sabbath school.

Did Newton just give the "Jesus answer" when somebody asked him why things fall to the ground? Did Isaac Newton's belief in God preclude him from trying to unlock the secrets of God's creation? Did he not provide a theory about gravitation? Did it invalidate belief in a Creator? Did Pasteur just give the "Jesus answer" when someone wondered why dead things rot? Did Pasteur's belief in a Creator keep him from studying the mysteries of the microscopic world?

Quote:

Are you really asking if we have to have faith that life exists? Are you so desperate as not to recognize the existence of something as an intrinsic state of being?

So then, if one accepts that something has always been in existence, is that science or faith?

You have previously stated that only life comes from life. Are you now saying that life is intrinsic in nature? Is that science or faith?

Quote:

When Darwin formulated the theory, he was not seeking for alternative explanation for origin of the universe. He made a discovery that made him formulate a possible ways that we have a genetic diversity of species. Hence the book titled "On Origins of Species"... not universe.

While evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of the universe as I have already mentioned, it is closely allied with a cosmology that acknowledges no Creator.

Are you saying that he did not propose an alternative explanation to creation as to the origin of living things?

[fccool]

Quote:

Because evolution is claimed to be based on science that could explain the origin of life while creation is based on faith. Science has no use for the supernatural, is that right? If it cannot give an account of the origin of life, then it is an inadequate hypothesis, and creationsim would be a better hypothesis because it is more comprehensive.

What? It's like saying that some boxes falling in your closed is better explained via supernatural means of ghosts doing it, because it's more comprehensive.

[phkrause]

Gerry some very excellent posts. They make more sense than anything else I've read or heard.

[BobRyan]

Originally Posted By: BobRyan

Yet when Dawkins is asked to SHOW an observation in nature for the actual mechanism in evolutionism "seen to work" seen to add new genetic information to the entire genome of a given species causing an upward transition for the entire genome of the species - his 11 seconds of flummoxed silence betrays the paucity in "observations in nature" available to him in that regard.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/6gHi6jES700-richard-dawkins-stumped-by-creationists.aspx