Blowing Up Darwin

[Hollie]

That is your conjecture, not fact.


You would be drawing a bad conclusion there. And I don't have any scriptures. You assume badly again.


Look, I came within an inch of being an astronomer so don't lecture me on stars or stellar creation. It does not sound like you have a very firm grasp on the physics of the early universe as far back as we can explain with science, but the unequivocal fact is that as science progresses, it is actually moving closer to agreeing with and vindicating the existence of God. You see, it is naive to think God is about magic and that science is about fact, or that God exists merely as a tool to explain those things we otherwise have no explanation for.


No. You do not understand. Not all religion is flawed, I was speaking of ancient religions of early man. I remember as a child seeing an early concept of the universe being the Earth as a flat disc supported on the backs of four elephants. Then there were the superstitions about the stars such as the planets being God, etc.

Just because some religions/superstitions were flawed does not invalidate all religion/spirituality.

''the unequivocal fact is that as science progresses, it is actually moving closer to agreeing with and vindicating the existence of God.''

That's not at all an 'unequivocal fact'. There is nothing in science that progresses toward supernaturalism as an answer to or vindicating any gods.

 

[toobfreak]

There really isn't anything natural about appeals to supernatural agents.
What reason can you present to claim that god (define which god(s), is / are the creator of all natural forces. Wouldn't supernatural gods supernaturally create supernatural forces?

You are asking big questions. Worse, it delves into semantics. I'm not sure it is something to be taken lightly much less attempted to explain on social media. The very word "supernatural" is misleading because by definition, if supernatural things exist, then they are part of the phenomenal universe which is defined by natural laws, so then, the difference between natural and supernatural becomes a matter of perspective.

I will leave it at this: I'm a man of science, but I can also tell you that God is real. I do not speak of faith. These are not mutually exclusive items as most try to claim.

 

[toobfreak]

That's not at all an 'unequivocal fact'. There is nothing in science that progresses toward supernaturalism as an answer to or vindicating any gods.

Your language is wrong. You insert the word "supernaturalism" then blame religion for your flaws.
I see you have a poor fund of understanding of quantum science. It dictates that beyond the deterministic newtonian world we live in, that reality is determined by statistics and observation. Change the observational conditions and you change reality.

 

[toobfreak]

''true Scotsman'', eh?

I cannot even guess what that is supposed to mean so I'll ignore it.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

lmao

More completely ignorant assertions about God.

So foolish as to be entirely laughable.

Anyone who thinks they understand God is dumb as a stump.

Like those who claim there is no God or that the universe was not created by God.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

How nice that you claim to know your Gods created everything. You obviously don't know that so let's not pretend you're doing that anything but bloviating.

It's something of a paradox to claim to know your gods created everything when you obviously can't provide any evidence that your gods exist or have ever existed.

The universe exists therefore God exists - simple logic.

There is a paradox in that without any evidence for the existence of your gods its laughable to represent you can know your gods are everything creators.

The presence of the universe is evidence for God, once again what else could it possibly be evidence of? you've offered no answer to my question (and atheists rarely do).

Have you ever presented that paradox to the prayer leader at your madrassah?

Madrassah is just the Arabic term for educational institution, nothing to do with "prayer".

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

TWO THINGS:

1. Science (evolution) and God (religion) are NOT mutually exclusive. You can have both; both can be true.
2. While Darwin was a rich academician, a scholar, a theorist, his theories behind evolution were indeed PROVEN by the field work of Alfred Wallace.

Alfred Russel Wallace - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Malay Archipelago - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Wallace Line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Theories cannot be proven, you're thinking of theorem a different concept.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

"The presence of the universe is evidence of God, what else could it possibly be evidence of?"

Another of the nonsensical "because I say'' admonitions of the religious extremist. You mindlessly store a variation of the 'watchmaker' analogy. Did you steal that from your Harun Yahya madrassah?

Can you give me a reason why the universe is not evidence for God? what is the argument, the logic or is this just another deeply cherished atheist belief you cling to?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Random walks coupled with combinatorial explosion are some of the most powerful forces in the universe.

Either by itself is not very impressive, but when combined the power is formidable.

Few people know, that it is basically impossible for a digital computer to create a random number. There is no "algorithm" for randomness. For that you need a physical device. More specifically, a quantum device. Ultimately all randomness boils down to quantum behavior. Thus the randomness is part and parcel of the universe. Our universe wouldn't function "at all" without it.

I get a special kick out of the people who deny the power of randomness. Some claim to understand physics but can't wrap their minds around the Feynman integral, which requires ALL possible paths. The randomness of the universe is comprehensive.

A real mind blower is the Poincare recurrence theorem. Which states that dynamic systems eventually return to any arbitrary state. The thing is, the second recurrence is not necessarily a multiple of the first. You can have a "recurrence series" where each term is different. And yet, all such series contain no more information than the unit interval, a fact proven by Georg Cantor.

The entire mystery of the universe is in the interval [0,1]. Repeat it, and you get the real number line combinatorially, without the need for any special math.

So why do we employ humans to design and write software if a "random walk" can achieve the same outcome? Answer: It cannot.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

"God is not subject to laws, God created laws laws did not create anything nor can they."

I needed to append "...because I say so" to your nonsense claim.

As you can't offer even the most basic elements of proofs for your gods, it's pointless for you to assign them tasks such as "laws laws'' building.

If there was proof out there how would you recognize it? You never would because you revert too the atheist crutch known as "Science of the gaps" aka scientism.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Except that we have no idea what God is or how God created everything.

Yes we do, we have written revealed knowledge for example we can read "by the power of his will" this tells us that God has "will" intent, and by that will he created everything, we too have will and everything man creates also begins with the will to do so. Have you ever made or designed or constructed anything without the will to do it?

Isn't that exactly what creationists believe? The only difference is they believe the cause of the magic was a theoretical 'God' not natural forces.

Yes, that's my position (I am a creationist). The existence of laws cannot be explained by recourse to laws, we must look deeper, elsewhere for the origin of laws, science (which relies in laws) can never explain the existence of laws.

One might say the same of you.

If you see a paradox in my reasoning please elaborate.

 

[alang1216]

That is your conjecture, not fact.

No. Conjecture would be saying we have a good idea what God is through God himself but having no actual evidence.

You would be drawing a bad conclusion there. And I don't have any scriptures. You assume badly again.

Really? You say you have a good idea what God is through God himself. How is that possible, did God talk to you directly?

Look, I came within an inch of being an astronomer so don't lecture me on stars or stellar creation. It does not sound like you have a very firm grasp on the physics of the early universe as far back as we can explain with science, but the unequivocal fact is that as science progresses, it is actually moving closer to agreeing with and vindicating the existence of God. You see, it is naive to think God is about magic and that science is about fact, or that God exists merely as a tool to explain those things we otherwise have no explanation for.

Magic is about the supernatural and, by definition, God is supernatural. Science is limited to nature.

No. You do not understand. Not all religion is flawed, I was speaking of ancient religions of early man. I remember as a child seeing an early concept of the universe being the Earth as a flat disc supported on the backs of four elephants. Then there were the superstitions about the stars such as the planets being Gods, etc.

Just because some religions/superstitions were flawed does not invalidate all religion/spirituality.

So only your religion is the true one? What religion is it that has no scripture?

 

[alang1216]

Yes we do, we have written revealed knowledge for example we can read "by the power of his will" this tells us that God has "will" intent, and by that will he created everything, we too have will and everything man creates also begins with the will to do so. Have you ever made or designed or constructed anything without the will to do it?

Spoken like a person of faith, not one of science. Science would ask HOW does He create "by the power of his will"?

Yes, that's my position (I am a creationist). The existence of laws cannot be explained by recourse to laws, we must look deeper, elsewhere for the origin of laws, science (which relies in laws) can never explain the existence of laws.

There is much we don't know, always has been, but resorting to the God-of-the-gaps has failed every time.

If you see a paradox in my reasoning please elaborate.

As you told Hollie:

You have no idea how the universe came to exist, none, not a clue. You must believe in magic, the magical ability for laws to just "pop" into existence uncaused, that's how deluded atheists are. Science is based on cause and effect so what caused the first cause?​

Yet you claim that God has the ability for laws to just "pop" into existence. You don't have any evidence as to how this takes place. You also offer God as the first cause, again with zero evidence.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Spoken like a person of faith, not one of science. Science would ask HOW does He create "by the power of his will"?

I disagree. Science rests upon faith, upon belief. For example the belief that nature can be understood, the belief that effects are the result of causes. Science - as you know - never proves any hypothesis so these beliefs are unproven and indeed unprovable - i.e. they are assumed, taken on faith.

Ask any physicist and they'll tell you, we cannot prove that if I throw a ball over and over and over that at some point the ball won't disappear or turn into a frog, we doubt it will, I doubt it will but science does not enable us to prove that.

There is much we don't know, always has been, but resorting to the God-of-the-gaps has failed every time.

I could say the same of "science of the gaps" which is simply a belief and that's not science strictly speaking it's scientism.

As you told Hollie:

You have no idea how the universe came to exist, none, not a clue. You must believe in magic, the magical ability for laws to just "pop" into existence uncaused, that's how deluded atheists are. Science is based on cause and effect so what caused the first cause?​

We can rightfully ask "how" when speaking of the material realm which is governed by laws and cause and effect. The goal of science is to discern and understand those laws, we say we understand some phenomenon when we can reliably predict outcomes. If we throw a ball and can reliably predict where it will land no matter how hard we throw and no matter what angle we throw it, then we say we understand ballistics, if we can't predict the landing point then we do not understand the phenomenon.

Yet you claim that God has the ability for laws to just "pop" into existence. You don't have any evidence as to how this takes place. You also offer God as the first cause, again with zero evidence.

Well that's true but the reason is profound and most people gloss over it. The fact is that epistemologically science cannot explain why laws exist, how laws came to exist. Now I don't mean that we don't yet know, I mean that it is logically impossible, paradoxical to seek a scientific explanation because until laws exist there's no way for scientific phenomena to take place at all.

If there were no laws then no interactions can ever take place because interactions require laws. So we know that the laws that do exist cannot be the results of any kind of scientific process, that is we cannot hope to mechanistically explain the presence of these laws.

The honest seeker after truth when faced with this must acknowledge that the cause of laws existing can never be "explained" scientifically and that means there is no prospect of describing "how" other than "God created" which is an explanation but not a mechanistic explanation. You have no basis to insist that all explanations must be mechanistic that too is just a belief.

The one thing science cannot explain is how or why a scientifically understandable world came to exist, we have to look outside of science, outside of material explanations otherwise we face a paradox and paradoxes are always the result of flawed premises.

 

[scruffy]

When it comes to science, I prefer to remain with the concrete.

For instance - here is one of the results of evolution research, published this week:

Scientists steer the development of stem cells to regenerate and repair organs

Investigators from Cedars-Sinai and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have identified a new way to deliver instructions that tell stem cells to grow into specific bodily structures, a critical step in eventually regenerating and repairing tissues and organs.

phys.org

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

When it comes to science, I prefer to remain with the concrete.

For instance - here is one of the results of evolution research, published this week:

Scientists steer the development of stem cells to regenerate and repair organs

Investigators from Cedars-Sinai and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have identified a new way to deliver instructions that tell stem cells to grow into specific bodily structures, a critical step in eventually regenerating and repairing tissues and organs.

phys.org

Yet you are and must always be, silent when asked to explain the origin of physical laws, because they only way to scientifically explain anything is to assume laws - the very thing we are seeking to explain.

This is all your own fault, you dismiss metaphysics and philosophy and in doing so you pluck out your own eyes, you rob yourself of the very things you need to understand the universe and hence you wander aimlessly in circles.

 

[alang1216]

I disagree. Science rests upon faith, upon belief. For example the belief that nature can be understood, the belief that effects are the result of causes. Science - as you know - never proves any hypothesis so these beliefs are unproven and indeed unprovable - i.e. they are assumed, taken on faith.

So proof is your standard? Do you apply that to God or do you have proof of His existence?

Ask any physicist and they'll tell you, we cannot prove that if I throw a ball over and over and over that at some point the ball won't disappear or turn into a frog, we doubt it will, I doubt it will but science does not enable us to prove that.

Science has theories, not proofs. Ideas with so much evidence they are accepted as truths. Gravity is such an example.

I could say the same of "science of the gaps" which is simply a belief and that's not science strictly speaking it's scientism.

Many things we used to attribute to God are now shown to have natural causes. His gaps are shrinking fast as science offers answers to 'how', God does not.

Well that's true but the reason is profound and most people gloss over it. The fact is that epistemologically science cannot explain why laws exist, how laws came to exist. Now I don't mean that we don't yet know, I mean that it is logically impossible, paradoxical to seek a scientific explanation because until laws exist there's no way for scientific phenomena to take place at all.

If there were no laws then no interactions can ever take place because interactions require laws. So we know that the laws that do exist cannot be the results of any kind of scientific process, that is we cannot hope to mechanistically explain the presence of these laws.

The honest seeker after truth when faced with this must acknowledge that the cause of laws existing can never be "explained" scientifically and that means there is no prospect of describing "how" other than "God created" which is an explanation but not a mechanistic explanation. You have no basis to insist that all explanations must be mechanistic that too is just a belief.

The one thing science cannot explain is how or why a scientifically understandable world came to exist, we have to look outside of science, outside of material explanations otherwise we face a paradox and paradoxes are always the result of flawed premises.

Sounds like a classic 'God of the gaps' argument. You can't know what questions science will eventually answer since we've been wrong so many times in the past.

 

[Hollie]

Spoken like a person of faith, not one of science. Science would ask HOW does He create "by the power of his will"?


There is much we don't know, always has been, but resorting to the God-of-the-gaps has failed every time.


As you told Hollie:

You have no idea how the universe came to exist, none, not a clue. You must believe in magic, the magical ability for laws to just "pop" into existence uncaused, that's how deluded atheists are. Science is based on cause and effect so what caused the first cause?​

Yet you claim that God has the ability for laws to just "pop" into existence. You don't have any evidence as to how this takes place. You also offer God as the first cause, again with zero evidence.

"The existence of laws cannot be explained by recourse to laws,"

"..... because I say so.''

Interesting how the religious extremists know these things with 100% certainty while possessing 0% facts.

 

[Hollie]

Like those who claim there is no God or that the universe was not created by God.

A'splain us how your gods created anything,

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

So proof is your standard? Do you apply that to God or do you have proof of His existence?

Proof means there is no scope for doubt, no basis for doubt. Not quite proof of God, but I regard it as proven that the existence of the universe can not have a scientific explanation, we can prove that something other than laws was involved (because until laws exist nothing can happen yet we know something happened).

Science has theories, not proofs. Ideas with so much evidence they are accepted as truths. Gravity is such an example.

By all means accept theories as truths if you want but that's simply belief, that's what a belief is. You speak of gravitation and that's a superb example that underlines what I'm saying. For several hundred years people accepted Newton's theory of universal gravitation as being a truth, there was no doubt, it was never questioned, it was regarded as a perfect theory fully supported by experimental tests.

But Newton's theory was wrong and that only began to emerge in the very late 19th century when the motion of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit was found to not accord with Newton's mathematical theory. The observations of Mercury eventually disproved Newton's theory yet it had been accepted as a true!

Many things we used to attribute to God are now shown to have natural causes. His gaps are shrinking fast as science offers answers to 'how', God does not.

What was attributed to God? can you give some examples of these "many things"?

Sounds like a classic 'God of the gaps' argument. You can't know what questions science will eventually answer since we've been wrong so many times in the past.

You miss the point (many do) in that we cannot rely on "eventually" here. Look at the number π do you think we might one day eventually find two integers that allows us to show that π is rational? Do you think you could try hard and for long enough and find a rational representation of π ?