Why God??!!

[Spiffor]

Glad to see Black Knight has finally seen the light

[Arrian]

You find green elves implausible. I agree, and find "God" equally implausible.

*shrug*

-Arrian

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by Kucinich
What I never understand is how they make the leap from "God says this" to "this is right". Why do they assume that, just because God is omnipotent, one ought to do what he says? Isn't that just an extreme example of might makes right?

Exactly!
Is Something right just because God says so or does God tell us what IS right.

The former translates into might is right (as Kucinich said) and the latter means that their is some higher moral authority that God appeals to when declaring what's right.

Anybody read Russel Bertrand's "Why I am not a Christian"?...interesting stuff

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Just because the existence of God cannot be proven through empirical means does not mean that empirical evidence does not exist in favour of God. Rather, it emphasises God's omnipotence, that he is not bound to submit to our experimentation. He could indeed have a profound effect on the universe, and yet not fulfill the requirements as a testable observation.

Really? So would you also think that all those dinosaur fossils were put in place to test your faith?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Someone who believes in God would claim that He does affect the universe and therefore has in principle observable consequences.

So Rogan, please propose an experiment where such consequences can be observed. Any rules to be applied to little green elves must apply to your God as well.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Your invisible green elves ( ) are strawmen

The term you are looking for is "red herring."

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
In fact, all the statements you have made can be said about many many different physics theories which exist today.

The big differences are these theories can be tested, verified, and falsified. Can your God be subjected to the same criteria? If not, you should not talk about them in the same breath.

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
There are lots of things I 'believe' which I do not have proof of. I do not have proof that you exist - should I not believe that you do?

There's a difference -- he exists regardless of your belief.

Same thing with your God -- why would such an entity require your believe to exist? And if it doesn't, how would your belief change things?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kucinich
Neither does God.

everything exists inside the universe

Why do I always have to point this out?

Christians hold that YHWH exists outside of this universe. If you hold it differently, you will just have to think it differently.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Here is a little lesson for you from my book (none of the quotes were from creationists):

Please attribute these quotes and indicate where they came from, so we can look them up in their original context. Creationists are notorious for misquoting.

Originally posted by Lincoln
Now if you don't mind, could you tell us how a fully functioning information system evolves without intelligent input?

You have so far failed to substantiate the assertion that DNA is an information system. Again, who is the intended receiver of this information?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
You still have an absolute statement founded on nothing. It has "attributes" and "properties," but these are described in terms of other things which are derived from the thing itself. The nature of the argument doesn't clarify, it merely establishes a new set of absolutes with a new set of unknowns behind them.

Please explain.

Originally posted by Elok
As in my oft-repeated complaint about evolution; it's an idea that, even if it were true, would be irrelevant, because it cannot be acted on. We cannot stand the idea of "is."

Not so. This cannot be further from the truth. As it is said modern biology cannot be understood without the foundation of evolution, this alone makes evolution extremely relevant.

However, it has interesting practical consequences, one of which is known as "genetic algorithm." Furthermore, knowledge of evolution can be used to combat diseases such as AIDS, not to mention it has been in use in agriculture for thousands of years.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
So Rogan, please propose an experiment where such consequences can be observed. Any rules to be applied to little green elves must apply to your God as well.

Things do not have to be verified in a controlled experiment before they exist (as you point out yourself later on in your post). The difference between God and your green elves is that I have personal experience of his existence (which I cannot 'prove' to you) whereas you have no (admitted) experience of your green elves. So my God has had an observable effect in my universe (if not under reproducable experimental conditions), whereas your green elves have not.

This is an interesting point though. Have you personally performed experiments that prove to you that General Relativity (for example) is true, or do you just trust the observations of others? If you have not, are you not just taking GR's validity on faith?

The big differences are these theories can be tested, verified, and falsified. Can your God be subjected to the same criteria? If not, you should not talk about them in the same breath.

String theory cannot be tested in the forseeable future, and will not be testable in my lifetime. I guarantee that I will meet God long before string theory is tested....

There's a difference -- he exists regardless of your belief.

Prove it. The thing is, you can't. Proof is highly dependent on definition and is highly subjective. I may believe the evidence for some phenomenon to be greater than for another while you may see things the other way round - and both viewpoints may be equally valid. Even when one can adopt very exact definitions of 'proof' (as in physics) there can be disagreements as to whether or not the assumptions made invalidate the proof. God's existence is as certain to me as Boris's existence is to you.

The problem is that you are trying to apply scientific ideas to intrinsically non-scientific things. You have to learn when science is applicable and when it is not - what sort of statements science can make and what sort of statements it cannot make.

[Ramo]

He could choose to be observed. In fact, this is what he did 2000 years ago. It may not be empirical evidence (ir is certainly not repeatable in an experiment) but that does not make it false, or mean that it didn't happen. Therefore (unlike the green elves) God has had an influence on the universe.

Why couldn't the elves choose to be observed?

[Elok]

Uh, UR, we haven't KNOWN about evolution for thousands of years. Any human use of "evolutionary principles" is basically domestication and breeding as we've been doing since the dawn of civilization. Don't need Darwin for that. I'm not arguing about its verity or falsehood, but that knowing it has no special value. As for understanding modern biology, in the sense it's argued about the most at least, it describes a process far too slow to be observed by humanity in real time, and at any scale it happens over the course of several generations. With genetic engineering, evolution as a principle can only become less important to know. It's academic knowledge.

As for explanation, I might need explanation myself, but for example, the argument about the "shape of the universe" a few weeks back.

The idea that the universe has a shape is incomprehensible, to me at least, because the word "shape" implies an ending, and the idea of a point where space itself ends is self-contradictory; "in the space outside the universe" is like "a shade of yellow that's like, not yellow, and stuff." If there's no more physical space past a certain point, there is no "past a certain point" at all, as we understand space at least.

At the same time, the idea of space going on forever is equally incomprehensible, because our concept of reality is of relations; we think of every single thing, even the universe itself, as a fixed quantity, and the idea of forever is quite literally immeasurable. We might say that the universe goes on forever, but nobody can really adjust to that mentally. It's like "with liberty and justice for all," something we repeat without understanding in any real, visceral sense.

It's a quirk of human thought; we can't bear the idea of the finite or the infinite, because both force contradictions in our understanding of the world. We think of all things in context, and context demands both a complete knowledge of the surrounding objects and a greater unrelated field in which the objects in question interact-the known and the unknown. So we describe the nature of things within the universe in terms of the universe itself.

It's an insider's understanding where no outsider's opinion is available, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything, any more than a dictionary can be read by an illiterate to learn English. It's how things "relate to the rest of the world," not what they are, because their actual nature is more than can be defined by pure relation, like the words in a dictionary only tell you what a word means with a set of other words you have to know in the first place. It's hard to explain, but it really does make sense to me when I think of it, honest.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
How do you know?

Because the universe is defined as the set of everything that exists

Philosophy tends to get nearer the truth than science does.

Because philosophy answers questions that AREN'T about the universe. Philosophy couldn't tell you, say, that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
Okay, sky, what term ARE we allowed to use to describe the heretofore "supernatural?" If you want us to just say there is nothing that can't be described by science, you're asking us to use self-defeating arguments, which is unreasonable.

"Supernatural" is an oxymoron.

[Lincoln]

Sorry everyone but I have to bow out of this debate until I can fix my computer. This is the third time I have tried to post between crashes.

UR,

The quotes are attributed in the text on the previous page and some come from: Mae-Wan Ho's book , Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare? 1998 edition. You can read more on her and the subject here: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/genet.php

Your other question was already answered on this thread. The intended receiver of informaion is the componant parts of the machine just as your computer and this program we are using here receives the benefit of intelligent input in it's programming. Surely you would not deny that there is intelligent input into a computer program or the computer itself. In a cell the various chemical reactions are directed by the information within the DNA. Now, I have explained this about 4 or 5 times in the other thread that Boris referred to. If you don't like my answer then that is your privilege but at least have the courtesy of not repeating the falsehood that I did not answer it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
He could choose to be observed. In fact, this is what he did 2000 years ago. It may not be empirical evidence (ir is certainly not repeatable in an experiment) but that does not make it false, or mean that it didn't happen. Therefore (unlike the green elves) God has had an influence on the universe.

Ah, except that 1) the evidence for the actual miracles is doubtful and 2) that specific influence lies contrary to all other scientific knowledge.

This is a very niave viewpoint. Science does not (and cannot) encompass or describe everything in the universe. I does not try to.

Scientists don't. Science, however, is simply the study of the universe. Anything that is about the universe is the domain of science.

It only aims to describe mathematically any laws governing physical processes.

Where'd you get math from?

Even if we were to find that we can form an equation or a principle which would allow us to encompass all of physics (I don't believe we ever will....) then we would still not know why we have that particular principle or equation.

Circular reasoning! For there to be a why, a purpose, you must presume an intelligent creator! Otherwise, there is no purpose.

Since I don't accept that there is an intelligent creator, I don't see how there could possibly be a why. And if there is an intelligent creator, science can figure out the why - by asking him!

Physics and its equations are not laws governing the universe - they are our descriptions of our perceived laws. There may very well be phenomena in the universe which cannot be described by physics (in principle) - should we just make a blanket claim that these phenomena do not exist because we can't explain them?

Of course they can be "described" by physics.