Creationists

[Youwerecreated]

God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.

then why are you a believer.?
your prose suck.

And you just plain suck.

He is a mental midget and I fear he always will be.

 

[ima]

Who "denied" DNA?

If I am denying anything here, that would be some of the presumptions you seem to be making about it.

And how do you know the stories in the Bible are fantasy?

Because there's zero proof for the big things in the bible. Ex: page 1, god created the world in six days. Says who? From what evidence?

If you're basing your views solely on evidence as you claim then you should have no view on whether life was the product of creation nor was life the product of spontaneous generation because there is no evidence supporting either. Yet it stands to reason it was one of the two methods that started life.

I don't presume to know either way. I'll let the scientists sort out how we possibly came to be. At least they look for real evidence and base their theories on that, whereas the bible has no real evidence to support its claims.

It's also possible that your creator started life out on earth as the scientists theorize. Ever think of that? That evolution is part of your god's plan?

 

[Youwerecreated]

Right. The same question could be asked of a designer. Why something so obviously useless? His rhetorical question is self-defeating. You would expect something like this of evolution, which has no telos, but not of a perfect designer god.

I don't know newpolitics, there is a growing number of men who would like some boobs to go with those nipples, like flyingsaucer man for instance. He sucks you know.

I can look around me at anytime or place and see all sorts of things which are apparently useless, just as so many events seem to lack rhyme or reason.

But who am I to say. Just because I lack an understanding of all things, does not mean that all things can not be understood.

We make the mistake of assuming that we have reached the pinnacle of wisdom when we purport to know the mind of God. That strikes me as more than a little presumptuous on the part of man, even fervent Darwinists.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to live and reconcile oneself with the fact that they don't know everything and maybe never will.

The mistake is not assuming we've reached the pinnacle of wisdom. The mistake is seeing something you don't understand and believing there's a deeper meaning to it when no such evidence has ever presented itself.

Intelligent designers do not put seemingly useless pieces into their products. Have you ever seen an iPad with nipples? There are tons of examples of vestigiality in our body that has since lost its initial use. Heck even one of our chromosomes is the product of fusing two great ape chromosomes together. Why would a designer make chromosomes to appear as if they are two great ape chromosomes fused together when they would work just the same separately? Go on. Tell me something so simple REALLY represents the vast complexity of a deity.

So let's ignore all functions and parts that would suggest design and let's get hung up on something we don't always know the purpose of. Funny they have done that purposely looking for flaws so they can say if we were designed it was not a very intelligent being behind our design. Well if you can draw that conclusion after considering the complexity of the Brain,eyes or a cell then I believe people don't want to consider the possibility of design. The question is why is it that they don't like the possibility of a designer ?

 

[SmarterThanHick]

Oh YWC. Back at the same antics. Years of being on this board and the best you can continue to come up with is "THERE ARE COMPLEX THINGS IN THE BODY, AND I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THEM, THEREFORE IT MUST BE GOD!" Moronic. Your lack of intelligence is not an indicator for a higher being. Complexity does not denote design. There are countless flaws in the human body, structurally, and genetically.

Get some new content, YWC. Oh that's right, you can't. Educating yourself means questioning your loony belief system.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Oh YWC. Back at the same antics. Years of being on this board and the best you can continue to come up with is "THERE ARE COMPLEX THINGS IN THE BODY, AND I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THEM, THEREFORE IT MUST BE GOD!" Moronic. Your lack of intelligence is not an indicator for a higher being. Complexity does not denote design. There are countless flaws in the human body, structurally, and genetically.

Get some new content, YWC. Oh that's right, you can't. Educating yourself means questioning your loony belief system.

No there is far more evidence supporting the view that living organisms produce other living organisms and these living organisms reproduce their own kind.

We have discussed that no form of communication written or in the form of a code or language came about absent of intelligence.

Their are complex creations of man like computers,lights,telephone that was the product of design so why are you willing to draw the line at complex biological systems and organisms or functions performed ?

There is zero evidence of the production of such complexity absent of intelligence. There is zero evidence of these complex things being designed or produced except by other complex things. Why is this the unanimous case ?

I follow the laws of reason not fantasy.

 

[Hollie]

I don't know newpolitics, there is a growing number of men who would like some boobs to go with those nipples, like flyingsaucer man for instance. He sucks you know.

I can look around me at anytime or place and see all sorts of things which are apparently useless, just as so many events seem to lack rhyme or reason.

But who am I to say. Just because I lack an understanding of all things, does not mean that all things can not be understood.

We make the mistake of assuming that we have reached the pinnacle of wisdom when we purport to know the mind of God. That strikes me as more than a little presumptuous on the part of man, even fervent Darwinists.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to live and reconcile oneself with the fact that they don't know everything and maybe never will.

The mistake is not assuming we've reached the pinnacle of wisdom. The mistake is seeing something you don't understand and believing there's a deeper meaning to it when no such evidence has ever presented itself.

Intelligent designers do not put seemingly useless pieces into their products. Have you ever seen an iPad with nipples? There are tons of examples of vestigiality in our body that has since lost its initial use. Heck even one of our chromosomes is the product of fusing two great ape chromosomes together. Why would a designer make chromosomes to appear as if they are two great ape chromosomes fused together when they would work just the same separately? Go on. Tell me something so simple REALLY represents the vast complexity of a deity.

So let's ignore all functions and parts that would suggest design and let's get hung up on something we don't always know the purpose of. Funny they have done that purposely looking for flaws so they can say if we were designed it was not a very intelligent being behind our design. Well if you can draw that conclusion after considering the complexity of the Brain,eyes or a cell then I believe people don't want to consider the possibility of design. The question is why is it that they don't like the possibility of a designer ?

You have never offered anything that supports supermagical "design". It's difficult to ignore what there is no evidence for.

 

[daws101]

another DNA denier..
if there was as much proof for the ark( place laughter here ) as there is for the apes and us being very closely related, then the bible would not be the best selling fantasy of all time.

Who "denied" DNA?

If I am denying anything here, that would be some of the presumptions you seem to be making about it.

And how do you know the stories in the Bible are fantasy?

a little thing called evidence.

 

[daws101]

Who "denied" DNA?

If I am denying anything here, that would be some of the presumptions you seem to be making about it.

And how do you know the stories in the Bible are fantasy?

Because there's zero proof for the big things in the bible. Ex: page 1, god created the world in six days. Says who? From what evidence?

If you're basing your views solely on evidence as you claim then you should have no view on whether life was the product of creation nor was life the product of spontaneous generation because there is no evidence supporting either. Yet it stands to reason it was one of the two methods that started life.

yet another based on nothing comment from ywc.. what reasoning leads you to believe that only two ways could be the only methods for creation?

 

[daws101]

then why are you a believer.?
your prose suck.

And you just plain suck.

He is a mental midget and I fear he always will be.

place irony here

 

[daws101]

Oh YWC. Back at the same antics. Years of being on this board and the best you can continue to come up with is "THERE ARE COMPLEX THINGS IN THE BODY, AND I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THEM, THEREFORE IT MUST BE GOD!" Moronic. Your lack of intelligence is not an indicator for a higher being. Complexity does not denote design. There are countless flaws in the human body, structurally, and genetically.

Get some new content, YWC. Oh that's right, you can't. Educating yourself means questioning your loony belief system.

No there is far more evidence supporting the view that living organisms produce other living organisms and these living organisms reproduce their own kind.

We have discussed that no form of communication written or in the form of a code or language came about absent of intelligence.

Their are complex creations of man like computers,lights,telephone that was the product of design so why are you willing to draw the line at complex biological systems and organisms or functions performed ?

There is zero evidence of the production of such complexity absent of intelligence. There is zero evidence of these complex things being designed or produced except by other complex things. Why is this the unanimous case ?

I follow the laws of reason not fantasy.

not this silly shit again...

 

[SmarterThanHick]

Who "denied" DNA?

If I am denying anything here, that would be some of the presumptions you seem to be making about it.

And how do you know the stories in the Bible are fantasy?

Because there's zero proof for the big things in the bible. Ex: page 1, god created the world in six days. Says who? From what evidence?

If you're basing your views solely on evidence as you claim then you should have no view on whether life was the product of creation nor was life the product of spontaneous generation because there is no evidence supporting either. Yet it stands to reason it was one of the two methods that started life.

And thus we return to the fundamental flaw in your terrible reasoning: you think that if science is wrong or can't explain something, the only other POSSIBLE explanation is god. Science examines all possibilities for a given setup. You examine one.

Anything you don't understand is god. Anything science can't explain is also god. But such has been the case for centuries with morons. Can't explain the sun? It's god. Don't understand plague or microorganisms? God magic. The eyeball is too complex for you to understand? Then surely it can't be science!

In your mind there are only two possibilities, and your crusade is proving the other one, not wrong, but incomplete, as a means of justifying your own. Moronic logic at its best.

I don't know newpolitics, there is a growing number of men who would like some boobs to go with those nipples, like flyingsaucer man for instance. He sucks you know.

I can look around me at anytime or place and see all sorts of things which are apparently useless, just as so many events seem to lack rhyme or reason.

But who am I to say. Just because I lack an understanding of all things, does not mean that all things can not be understood.

We make the mistake of assuming that we have reached the pinnacle of wisdom when we purport to know the mind of God. That strikes me as more than a little presumptuous on the part of man, even fervent Darwinists.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to live and reconcile oneself with the fact that they don't know everything and maybe never will.

The mistake is not assuming we've reached the pinnacle of wisdom. The mistake is seeing something you don't understand and believing there's a deeper meaning to it when no such evidence has ever presented itself.

Intelligent designers do not put seemingly useless pieces into their products. Have you ever seen an iPad with nipples? There are tons of examples of vestigiality in our body that has since lost its initial use. Heck even one of our chromosomes is the product of fusing two great ape chromosomes together. Why would a designer make chromosomes to appear as if they are two great ape chromosomes fused together when they would work just the same separately? Go on. Tell me something so simple REALLY represents the vast complexity of a deity.

So let's ignore all functions and parts that would suggest design and let's get hung up on something we don't always know the purpose of. Funny they have done that purposely looking for flaws so they can say if we were designed it was not a very intelligent being behind our design. Well if you can draw that conclusion after considering the complexity of the Brain,eyes or a cell then I believe people don't want to consider the possibility of design. The question is why is it that they don't like the possibility of a designer ?

You coerce parts of biology into things that would "suggest design." I've asked you this countless times and you've avoided it every one: what litmus test do you have to determine if something is designed or not?

How do you explain the redundancies, the flaws, and the poor design if everything was designed intelligently? Oh that's right, we step back and believe "everything has a purpose" and leave it to more magical thinking. Great. This is why crazies like you don't get to decide what is taught in science classrooms.

Oh YWC. Back at the same antics. Years of being on this board and the best you can continue to come up with is "THERE ARE COMPLEX THINGS IN THE BODY, AND I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THEM, THEREFORE IT MUST BE GOD!" Moronic. Your lack of intelligence is not an indicator for a higher being. Complexity does not denote design. There are countless flaws in the human body, structurally, and genetically.

Get some new content, YWC. Oh that's right, you can't. Educating yourself means questioning your loony belief system.

No there is far more evidence supporting the view that living organisms produce other living organisms and these living organisms reproduce their own kind.

We have discussed that no form of communication written or in the form of a code or language came about absent of intelligence.

Their are complex creations of man like computers,lights,telephone that was the product of design so why are you willing to draw the line at complex biological systems and organisms or functions performed ?

There is zero evidence of the production of such complexity absent of intelligence. There is zero evidence of these complex things being designed or produced except by other complex things. Why is this the unanimous case ?

I follow the laws of reason not fantasy.

Fantasy is the only thing you preach. Laws of reason go out the window because you disallow yourself to see any other possibilities.

 

[Big_D2]

Nobody answered why humans have genes for a tail if never evolved from animals with tails.

 

[daws101]

Nobody answered why humans have genes for a tail if never evolved from animals with tails.

but we did, and that fact scares the beJesus (pun intended ) out of believers. consequently they make shit up!

 

[holston]

Because there's zero proof for the big things in the bible. Ex: page 1, god created the world in six days. Says who? From what evidence?

Genesis was not written as a scientific treatise. Even if God provided us with some sort of manual which explained everything our satisfaction, it's no telling how long it would be and we probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

There are myriads of questions that one could ask about creation and a thousand other things. Why man was created as he is and why is finite in his capacity to understand or do other things is not known although you are free to speculate on that as much as you are about the origin of time, energy, and matter.

When you arrive at the formula you can explain it to us all. I'm sure there are many people that would be eager to learn.

The question I am posing to you is whether it is reasonable to presuppose the existence of a creator before creation.

In other words, does reason permit this theory? Or is there any reason that rules out that possibility altogether?

I submit to you that it is reasonable to assume the existence of a creator that one may logically accept without having to postulate on the mechanisms by which time, energy, and matter came into existence.

Thus far, all the naysayers have yet to provide evidence which rules this supposition out.

And thus we return to the fundamental flaw in your terrible reasoning: you think that if science is wrong or can't explain something, the only other POSSIBLE explanation is god. Science examines all possibilities for a given setup. You examine one.

That's not true. You admit that you have no scientific explanation for the mysteries we are discussing. Yet you claim to have evidence which rules out the possibility of a creator.
You would have us believe that there is no other possibility but the absence or non-existence of a creator.



You are attempting to attribute ideas to others based upon your own suppositions about what they must adhere to in order to maintain a belief in an intelligent designer.

You are welcome to prove your theory. It will remain a theory until you prove it.

Anything you don't understand is god. Anything science can't explain is also god. But such has been the case for centuries with morons. Can't explain the sun? It's god. Don't understand plague or microorganisms? God magic. The eyeball is too complex for you to understand? Then surely it can't be science!

Not at all. Anything I can't understand is simply that, ie something I can't understand.
I believe that we all suffer from deficiencies of these sorts, the best and brightest included.
Despite these gaps in our knowledge, (or should I say, gaping voids), we are still faced with the problems that life presents to us and are still required to respond to them in one fashion or another.
To do this we must do the best with what we have to work with. This may involve forming a frame of reference from which we can base our decisions.
Some people elect to believe in a creator God which provides them with a moral reference and a hope which makes the world more intelligible.

To believe that our conscious minds could emerge from stones however long and convoluted the process is a puzzle we will not solve during our brief existence.

You admit to seeing no purpose in vestigial organs as you have pronounced them to be according to your own understanding of these things. A similar purposelessness could be ascribed to an existence which appears for a brief period and then disappears just as mysteriously as though it never existed at all.

The problem assigning purpose to such an existence such as we humans experience could only be described as absurd given no other explanation than that random collisions of atoms resulted in random mutations which ultimately lead to the existence of sentient beings who speculated upon the meaning of their own existence as it was decreed by a universe which was mindless to begin with.

In your mind there are only two possibilities, and your crusade is proving the other one, not wrong, but incomplete, as a means of justifying your own. Moronic logic at its best.

Can you provide us a comprehensive list of all those possibilities?

You coerce parts of biology into things that would "suggest design." I've asked you this countless times and you've avoided it every one: what litmus test do you have to determine if something is designed or not?

No. We just don't try to assign subjective standards to the things which are observed while we realize an incomplete understanding of them. By the same token, we don't rule out possibilities that may escape our attention either.

The wisdom of design or the lack of it could be as much beyond your reach as it is mine.
Thus far you have given no indication that it is otherwise.

How do you explain the redundancies, the flaws, and the poor design if everything was designed intelligently? Oh that's right, we step back and believe "everything has a purpose" and leave it to more magical thinking. Great. This is why crazies like you don't get to decide what is taught in science classrooms.

If I fail to explain to you what you count as flaws and redundancies can you deduce from the lack of an explanation that there was no design inherent in them?

The idea of "everything has a purpose" belongs more to the realm of the metaphysical or spiritual aspect of life. I can just as easily say that you are trying to force biology to provide you with answers to questions that are misplaced.

In other words, one can't really look to physics for answers to spiritual problems.

I am simply suggesting to you, that the lack of a full knowledge of those things is no reason to despair of the unreasonableness of the universe. After all, you are attempting to place your faith in reasoning to begin with. Otherwise you would not attempt to tout what you are loosely calling "Science" as the be all and end all of everything.

Oh YWC. Back at the same antics. Years of being on this board and the best you can continue to come up with is "THERE ARE COMPLEX THINGS IN THE BODY, AND I'M NOT SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND THEM, THEREFORE IT MUST BE GOD!" Moronic. Your lack of intelligence is not an indicator for a higher being. Complexity does not denote design. There are countless flaws in the human body, structurally, and genetically.

You keep insisting that you know something that rules out the possibility of a creator but you still haven't produced it.
You are suggesting that it is the mark of intelligence to deny the possibility of a creator even before that premise has been ruled out.

To say that a thing is complex might be interpreted as an admission to a level of comprehension which is difficult to attain. Or it might suggest a level of organization about it which could not easily be attributed to chance occurrences or that statistically might be so unlikely as to be practically impossible.

I don't understand why I was born with the physical defects that I am forced to live with or how that could possibly tie in with my moral development. But this lack of understanding about a thing which seems totally pointless to me and absolutely a pain at the same time, does not permit me to escape the riddle of my existence.

If I could reach a level of absolute certainty that my existence was totally without meaning, purpose, or any consequences other than those I can expect to be met out by man and natural law, then I would be freed up to do anything that I might take a notion to without the limitations imposed upon me by a conscience or fear of a greater judgement.

You can find many people in this world who operate on just such an assumption.

Get some new content, YWC. Oh that's right, you can't. Educating yourself means questioning your loony belief system.

Personally I've subjected my belief system to some very demanding tests. I'm not about to relinquish the lessons I've learned from them on the basis of someone else's disbelief.
That time has long since past.

Fantasy is the only thing you preach. Laws of reason go out the window because you disallow yourself to see any other possibilities.

Exactly what is it that you are trying to convince us of?
Feel free to enumerate as many possibilities as you can think of.
I'll let you know if there are any of them that I have not considered.

 

[holston]

Nobody answered why humans have genes for a tail if never evolved from animals with tails.

but we did, and that fact scares the beJesus (pun intended ) out of believers. consequently they make shit up!

If we are going to discuss genetics then we need to be more specific.

If you can provide a detailed description of these genes and give the rational behind the conclusion that you seem to be drawing from the alleged evidence, then I for one would much appreciate it.

Until you had more clarification to what you are trying to say, I cannot speculate as to the meaning you are trying to assign to these alleged findings.

You are welcome to prove your theory. It will remain a theory until you prove it.

The tailbone is commonly thought of as the remnant of an actual tail, left over from a time before we evolved into humans. Some describe it as a "vestigial tail," meaning it has no real purpose in our bodies. However, it does serve as an attachment site for muscles and ligaments, which makes this a misnomer. There are several muscles that attach to the tailbone, including the gluteus maximus, the levator ani, the sphincter ani externis and the coccygeus. These muscles all play important roles in standing, bowel control and pelvic floor support.

Misconceptions

The tailbone is not actually a tail, despite what its name implies. While it is true that occasionally a person is born with what appears to be a tail, these have nothing to do with the coccyx. In fact, these so-called tails do not contain any bones at all.

One can find examples of miscarriages depicted in medical books. We used to call these abortions "monster babies". Why they occur and what role they play in the grand scheme of things is beyond me.

I have to believe that if the universe is intelligible, that it is so despite my ability to comprehend it.

Science functions on the assumption that the universe is intelligible. If it is, then what strikes us "meaningless" may be due to a deficiency or some misconception that stems from our own lack of knowledge and understanding.
As disconcerting as this may be, I am not in a position to draw a conclusion from it that "there is no God", especially if I have no certain working definition of who or what "God" is to begin with.

If the disciples of Carl Sagan can say that "All things are derived from matter" and "Matter just always was" I might be permitted to define "God" as that spirit from which all spirit was derived and that it "just always existed". There's no need to go to war about it, is there?

 

[newpolitics]

I've never heard of anyone claiming that the universe created god. I believe humans created the concept of god, but that is quite different. Is this what you are referring to?

Partly yes.

Why should you assume that matter must precede a conscious entity?

Can you demonstrate what consciousness is?

If only matter can generate consciousness, or if consciousness cannot exist apart from it,
how can you be certain that it can't or that it never does if you can not explain the connection in the first place?

You assert that the concept of God is merely the product of the human imagination, and that the human imagination is the product of the brain, and that the brain is the product of matter.

Which seems more reasonable, that mind should emerge from matter or that matter should emerge from mind?

You assert that mind (consciousness) can only exist as a product of matter. How do you justify this argument apart from the fact that matter is all that is accessible to your physical senses?

The grounds for your argument cannot rest on comprehension since no one understands the process. They merely assume that the matter they perceive called the brain is all there is because that's all they can see or detect. How can they be certain of this assumption?

If the process by which consciousness emerges from the brain is comprehensible, then one can imagine that man may someday understand it. From there, he should also be able to duplicate the process.

People frequently speculate on advancements in science which would prolong life. The logical conclusion of this would be to prolong it indefinitely however theoretical or far in the future that may be.

In the meantime, does it not strike you as something of an impenetrable mystery how disorganized matter and energy could spontaneously erupt in an order which is complex enough to generate consciousness, since the understanding of consciousness remains one of the ultimate challenges to the human mind, to understand itself?

And isn't it strange that mindless matter should create of itself an inquisitive consciousness which would retroactively ascribe to the inanimate origin of the universe the conscious characteristics of a Creator being?

Maybe not least of all is the age old riddle of the watchmaker.

Man considers his machines as being the height of technical complexity. Yet he is not able to mechanically reproduce the simplest forms of life without the aid of preexisting life.

So which "invention" should be considered the more complex of the two, those which are man made or those which are found in nature?

Isn't it strange that mindless chaos should result in the most complex of "machines"?

Anywhere we find a machine we expect that some blueprint existed prior to it's fabrication, if not on paper, in the mind of the one who assembled it.

So is it so unreasonable to assume that the universe with all it's life forms and intricate relations between things could have been the product of a sort of primordial seed which contained within it the blue print for all things which are seen?

Is there any solid understanding of these beginnings which precludes the existence of an organizing factor predating the first building block?
Or why should that concept be more difficult to grasp or even less likely than simply to say that matter simply always existed and that in the grand scheme of things, over eons life resulted as one tremendously long series of violations of the law of entropy?

Okay, so you are talking about the problem of consciousness and the teleological argument. The latter can be dismissed out of hand, as it has been addressed ad infinitum since it was formed millennia ago, but consciousness is an interesting problem for a materialist universe, and one I often contemplate, and would seem the only plausible reason to have faith in the supernatural, as the agent behind the doling out of "souls" from which to have a subjective experience. This has convinced me for a time, and still irks me, and is something which I, nor anybody, has an answer for. God would be a solution, but the that only puts the question And mystery a step back: what is god? Where is it? What can be known about it? How was it created? How exactly does it create consciousness? how does it interact with our material universe? Given these questions, you may have solved consciousness, but opened up a whole new set of questions which completely out of reach and unsolvable, making you worse off, epistemically, although perhaps emotionally satisfied, because you can identify with the concept of "another mind at work." We do it all the time when we talk to other people, yet positing this concept and projecting it ontologically into existence is a whole other step, which you have little warrant to do, aside from the emotional awards reaped from perceived existential security. You ask some good, honest questions, and I appreciate that. However, something seeming unsolvable does not mean "god did it," because you are only allaying the unsolvable onto another realm: the supernatural.

 

[holston]

Okay, so you are talking about the problem of consciousness and the teleological argument. The latter can be dismissed out of hand, as it has been addressed ad infinitum since it was formed millennia ago, but consciousness is an interesting problem for a materialist universe, and one I often contemplate, and would seem the only plausible reason to have faith in the supernatural, as the agent behind the doling out of "souls" from which to have a subjective experience. This has convinced me for a time, and still irks me, and is something which I, nor anybody, has an answer for. God would be a solution, but the that only puts the question And mystery a step back: what is god? Where is it? What can be known about it? How was it created? How exactly does it create consciousness? how does it interact with our material universe? Given these questions, you may have solved consciousness, but opened up a whole new set of questions which completely out of reach and unsolvable, making you worse off, epistemically, although perhaps emotionally satisfied, because you can identify with the concept of "another mind at work." We do it all the time when we talk to other people, yet positing this concept and projecting it ontologically into existence is a whole other step, which you have little warrant to do, aside from the emotional awards reaped from perceived existential security. You ask some good, honest questions, and I appreciate that. However, something seeming unsolvable does not mean "god did it," because you are only allaying the unsolvable onto another realm: the supernatural.

To attribute the creation to Creator (mind, power, source) does open the doors to questions concerning "It's", "HIS" nature.

It is somewhat of a cop out to just dismiss everything that exceeds the grasp of our knowledge as an "act of God". I don't attempt to do that. What I am doing is tempering my desire to know with the practical knowledge of the limits on my time and abilities. Reason itself compels me to admit that there is much more that I don't know than that which I do know, or even can possibly know in my lifetime.

So judging from what I do know and have experienced I ask myself whether it is reasonable to assume that there is a Creator Being. I have surmised that it is. That assumption carries with it the caveat that my knowledge and understanding of that Being is also finite. So it is necessary for me to leave room in my minds eye scheme of things to allow for growth.

I do not really know anything that would rule out that possibility to begin with. After having studied the matter, it seemed more rational to assume the existence of a creator than not. The acceptance of that idea provided a frame work from which to make practical decisions about how to conduct myself whereas the atheistic option reduced to this world and this life to an absurd practice in futility.

Regardless of which avenue one chooses to take, the kind of explanations that we are looking for so far as the tangible world goes remain about as deep one way as the other. Realistically speaking, I will doubtless die never knowing.

Science as we know it does not really address the metaphysical questions of existence or attempt to explain the spiritual nature of it. Therefore it is of little or no use to look to a book such as the Bible for explanations about the physical origin of the universe. One can approach those problems without having to jettison speculation about the supernatural.

Personally I believe that there IS a super natural aspect to the universe.
But I do not mean by that a belief in a sort of anything goes world where one can conjure into existence anything that the imagination can drum up. I think a lot of people who cannot find the spiritual answers they seek in science will embrace an acceptance of the supernatural that will admit to practically anything. I don't.

To clarify this idea, I would be as skeptical as you probably are of some peoples professing themselves to be "witches" or gifted with some other implausible connection to "other worlds". I'm long since past the stage where I have to whistle past grave yards as well.

But as I said, I leave room in my concept of the universe to include a revised and expanded version of it which DOES operate by certain rules.

I am not asserting that the phenomenon of consciousness cannot be derived from matter or that it is impossible for it to be understood. I am saying that this problem and many others are realistically beyond us at this stage and that we should not be overly presumptuous in assuming that the explanation for it lies strictly within our concepts of how the material universe operates. I suspect that there may be concepts involved in grasping it which may include regions that touch on the supernatural. Some developments, like progress in technology, have to wait on other developments to take place first.

Baring some miracle it will be well beyond our lifetimes before anyone will be in the position to approach the problem with any hope of success.
I expect that someone will master gravity and discover the means to travel beyond the stars before that happens.

When I look up at the black sky at night and try to contemplate where the "end" of the universe may be, or how tiny can a thing get before it can't get any tinier, I feel dwarfed if not awestruck. It's very difficult for me to debunk every sensation like that or others that overcome me when I am forced to confront the numinous.

I would define the term "miracle" as being applied only to those things which could be attributed to "God" in which He preforms a deed which lies totally outside the realm of the laws of the physical universe. I do not mean those which may only lie outside of that which is known but those which lie outside the realm of all that could be known. I mean only those acts which would by any conceivable means BE impossible under natural law even with a full knowledge of it. Those are the kinds of acts which I would ascribe to "God", as I conceive Him; the master of all that is, that could be, or which may be possible by any means which one less than God Himself could conceive.

Somewhere between the tangible universe and the one in which miracles may occur, I would place the supernatural. That isn't to say that this realm is illogical or is not governed by principles which are analogous to the physical laws as we are acquainted with such as those introduced by Newton, Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg and those other guys. I bet they would be the first to admit that mankind still has a long way to go before he approaches the status of a Creator God.

Some people imagine the pinnacle of creation to be man. But what if their are aliens on distant worlds that are as far above us as we think we are above ants?
What prevents one from imagining powers derived from knowledge which is even greater than that?
If there is a limit to what can be known, or if all that is knowable is a finite amount, just how far would that go, and what would place the limit on it?

If you proceed in Science on the assumption that all may eventually be understood, then it is only a matter of time until one would acquire the knowledge needed to master any aspect of nature. Doesn't the knowledge of science enable one to control those forces which are sought to be understood? Take the atom bomb for example or light and heat from electricity. Just try to follow the logical conclusion of this procession in your mind. So far all we can do is theorize about these things.

 

[UltimateReality]

Intelligent designers do not put seemingly useless pieces into their products. Have you ever seen an iPad with nipples? There are tons of examples of vestigiality in our body that has since lost its initial use. Heck even one of our chromosomes is the product of fusing two great ape chromosomes together. Why would a designer make chromosomes to appear as if they are two great ape chromosomes fused together when they would work just the same separately? Go on. Tell me something so simple REALLY represents the vast complexity of a deity.

OH. I can see already that you are smarter than the average hick. So pardon me if I humor you a little.

How intelligent is it to assume that a thing is purposeless when you admit that you see no purpose to begin with. That admission is no guarantee of the lack of purpose is it?

Perhaps you should say something like "serves an immediate function which is apparent to me" or
"has some intrinsic meaning which makes sense to me" rather than use the term "purpose" which has different connotations.

As for vestigial organs, what is vestigial, or useless may be subject to some debate. The appendix was once considered to be useless. But the last time I heard there are some very credible people who have been having second thoughts about it.

I certainly wouldn't say that there are "tons" of vestigial organs in our bodies. To begin with, our bodies weigh no where near a ton despite the epidemic of obesity in this country.

There are certain products of our bodies that people deliberately rid themselves of which no longer serve any "purpose" too. But the process of ridding ourselves of them is very purposeful.


I'm sorry but I am unaware of any chromosomes in the human genome which could be fused together to form a great ape. I would think that if there were, there are many people who would like to see it done and others that would certainly give it a try.

Do you have something against apes?

I wouldn't say that an ape is at all a "simple" creation.

If it was that simple the boys in my neighborhood would have whipped one up to go with the tales of the great white ape that was supposed to have roamed the knobs behind our subdivision. All they could conjure up were stories. Most of them weren't creative enough to do even that.

Holston, please don't ever lose the perspective that Darwinists are just making up crap as they go along. Remember junk dna??? Evolutionists didn't have an understanding of its purpose at the time so therefore, since they have to have all the answers, it must be junk, right? "We don't know what does so it must do nothing."

And I love all the tired "The designer wouldn't do it this way" arguments. It goes perfectly with the narcissistic evolutionist who has declared himself the god of his own existence. If he wouldn't do it that way then it must not be valid, right?

From a design perspective, one would expect to find commonality among designs and even basic parts. Why wouldn't a designer include most of the code in a program and merely switch the needed portions on and off to fit the purpose or environment. Instead we hear, "This is the way evolution did it."

Back to the nipples argument, where is the fossil evidence for the Asexual Breast Feeding Mammalian? And please no "might have", "could have" or "probably arose" just-so evolution fairy tales.

 

[UltimateReality]

After all, the fundamental prerequisite for being an atheist is not believing in magical thinking.

Omigosh! I just wiped the tears out of my eyes. This is the funniest thing I have read all morning.

 

[UltimateReality]

I've never heard of anyone claiming that the universe created god. I believe humans created the concept of god, but that is quite different. Is this what you are referring to?

Partly yes.

Why should you assume that matter must precede a conscious entity?

Can you demonstrate what consciousness is?

If only matter can generate consciousness, or if consciousness cannot exist apart from it,
how can you be certain that it can't or that it never does if you can not explain the connection in the first place?

You assert that the concept of God is merely the product of the human imagination, and that the human imagination is the product of the brain, and that the brain is the product of matter.

Which seems more reasonable, that mind should emerge from matter or that matter should emerge from mind?

You assert that mind (consciousness) can only exist as a product of matter. How do you justify this argument apart from the fact that matter is all that is accessible to your physical senses?

The grounds for your argument cannot rest on comprehension since no one understands the process. They merely assume that the matter they perceive called the brain is all there is because that's all they can see or detect. How can they be certain of this assumption?

If the process by which consciousness emerges from the brain is comprehensible, then one can imagine that man may someday understand it. From there, he should also be able to duplicate the process.

People frequently speculate on advancements in science which would prolong life. The logical conclusion of this would be to prolong it indefinitely however theoretical or far in the future that may be.

In the meantime, does it not strike you as something of an impenetrable mystery how disorganized matter and energy could spontaneously erupt in an order which is complex enough to generate consciousness, since the understanding of consciousness remains one of the ultimate challenges to the human mind, to understand itself?

And isn't it strange that mindless matter should create of itself an inquisitive consciousness which would retroactively ascribe to the inanimate origin of the universe the conscious characteristics of a Creator being?

Maybe not least of all is the age old riddle of the watchmaker.

Man considers his machines as being the height of technical complexity. Yet he is not able to mechanically reproduce the simplest forms of life without the aid of preexisting life.

So which "invention" should be considered the more complex of the two, those which are man made or those which are found in nature?

Isn't it strange that mindless chaos should result in the most complex of "machines"?

Anywhere we find a machine we expect that some blueprint existed prior to it's fabrication, if not on paper, in the mind of the one who assembled it.

So is it so unreasonable to assume that the universe with all it's life forms and intricate relations between things could have been the product of a sort of primordial seed which contained within it the blue print for all things which are seen?

Is there any solid understanding of these beginnings which precludes the existence of an organizing factor predating the first building block?
Or why should that concept be more difficult to grasp or even less likely than simply to say that matter simply always existed and that in the grand scheme of things, over eons life resulted as one tremendously long series of violations of the law of entropy?

I think you would really enjoy reading Signature In The Cell if you haven't already.