How can Christians say this?

Also could someone please tell this non-scientist, where according to evolutionary theory mammals(mammary glands) came from. I have always been truly amazed by the site of my wife breast feeding a baby. This may be extremely simple, but I like information that is relevant to my everyday life.

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dadothree wrote:

Also Gunga's post pointed out that there is resistance to funding research that may be counter to the big bang theory. This sounds very similar to the evolutionist who do not want the holes in their theory to be explored. If science is to be respected, it should not predetermine the results of experiments. It should not rule out possibilities without conclusive evidence. If you don't believe these things are happening, just consider the tone of antibuddha's post.

Just some observations.

Try this:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42600

Smithsonian in uproar over intelligent-design article
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | January 29, 2005

WND EVOLUTION WATCH
Smithsonian in uproar over intelligent-design article Museum researcher's career threatened after he published favorable piece Posted: January 29, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

The career of a prominent researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington is in jeopardy after he published a peer-reviewed article by a leading proponent of intelligent design, an alternative to evolutionary theory dismissed by the science and education establishment as a tool of religious conservatives.

http://66.201.46.114/images2/stephenmeyer.jpg

Stephen Meyer's article advocates the theory of intelligent design. (Photo courtesy Discovery Institute)

Richard Sternberg says that although he continues to work in the museum's Department of Zoology, he has been kicked out of his office and shunned by colleagues, prompting him to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Sternberg charges he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of perceived religious beliefs.

"I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career," Sternberg told David Klinghoffer, a columnist for the Jewish Forward, who reported the story in the Wall Street Journal.

Sternberg is managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. His trouble started when he included in the August issue a review-essay by Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology.

Hans Sues, the museum's No. 2 senior scientist, denounced Meyer's article in a widely forwarded e-mail as "unscientific garbage."

According to Sternberg's complaint, which is being investigated, one museum specialist chided him by saying: "I think you are a religiously motivated person and you have dragged down the Proceedings because of your religiously motivated agenda."

Sternberg strongly denies that.

While acknowledging he is a Catholic who attends Mass, he says, "I would call myself a believer with a lot of questions, about everything. I'm in the postmodern predicament."

The complaint says the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Sternberg's supervisor to look into the matter.

"First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization. ... He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; ... he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'

The supervisor recounted the conversation to Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."

The complaint, according to the Journal column, says Coddington took away Sternberg's office, which prevents access to the specimen collections he needs. Sternberg also was assigned to the close oversight of a curator with whom he had professional disagreements unrelated to evolution.

"I'm going to be straightforward with you," said Coddington, according to the complaint. "Yes, you are being singled out."

Meyer's article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," cites mainstream biologists and paleontologists from schools such as the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford who are critical of certain aspects of Darwinism.

Meyer - a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, a leading advocate of intelligent design - contends supporters of Darwin's theory cannot explain how so many different animal types sprang into existence during the relatively short period of Earth history known as the Cambrian explosion.

He argues the Darwinian mechanism would require more time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated, and intelligent design offers a better explanation.

The Journal notes Meyer's piece is the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for intelligent design.

The theory holds that the complex features of living organisms, such as an eye, are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by random mutation and natural selection.

Klinghoffer notes the Biological Society of Washington released a statement regretting its association with Meyer's article but did not address its arguments.

Klinghoffer points out the circularity of the arguments of critics who insisted intelligent design was unscientific because if had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

"Now that it has," he wrote, "they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific."

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dadothree wrote:

Also could someone please tell this non-scientist, where according to evolutionary theory mammals(mammary glands) came from. I have always been truly amazed by the site of my wife breast feeding a baby. This may be extremely simple, but I like information that is relevant to my everyday life.

According to evolutionists, breasts are modified sweat glands. Rudyard Kipling called that sort of thing "just so stories".

http://www.kcfs.org/images/Neanderthal.jpg

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Re: Stephan Hawkins

dadothree wrote:

Quote:
[ Stephen Hawkings isn't famous for his skill at basketball,

Sorry, but someone had to do this. lol

Lol, seriously though it wasn't actually just a random pick. Stephen Hawkings did play basketball before his degenerative nerve condition kicked in. He was pretty good at it, though not as good as he is at science.

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the religion of atheism

Quote:

"First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist.

The new religious fundamentalists on the horizon are the secular humanist.

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Re: the religion of atheism

dadothree wrote:

Quote:
"First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist.

The new religious fundamentalists on the horizon are the secular humanist.

AMEN!!!!!

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Well Rex I've thought about this forever and you've finally convinved me. I agree with you. Buddha is wrong.

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gungasnake wrote:

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

Evolution, for example, is right because it can be experimentally proved in the lab with bacteria. (granted this only proves true for microevolution, but seeing as the mechanisms for macroevolution are exactly the same, we can infer from the results of such studies that macroevolution is true too). It does not explain everything, but then again, very few things in science actually do.

That's dead wrong, and Gould, Eldredge and all the rest wouldn't have gone to the trouble to formulate "punctuated equilibria" if that were true.

Punctuated equilibria? You mean this punctuated equilibria?

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

i'm sorry, what was I dead wrong about? That scientists have managed to prove microevolution with bacteria in the labs? that we can infer that macroevolution is just as true as microevolution, because they both rely on mutations that build up until an environmental change selects for that mutation?

I find it strange how you're arguing against evolution using something that, although is debated amongst the scientific community, does nothing to contract from the Theory of Evolution itself.

It's a strong scientific theory, which means that experiments have been done to prove it more correct than its null hypothesis (a statement that says the complete opposite of the theory itself). Ah, but aren't we talking about Big Bang Theory here and the creation of the universe, and not the origin of species?

How did we ever get distracted on to the topic of evolutionism? I mean, there's already another evolution thread in the Philosophy and Debate section.

gungasnake wrote:

bouncychicken92 wrote:
How can you say that evolution is impossible? How can you explain the viruses and bacteria that cause disease today to change and become immune to medicines and vaccines? That's what evolution is!

That's called MICROEVOLUTION, which nobody disputes. The thing which people dispute is MACROEVOLUTION, which means the generation of new KINDS of animals. That's the thing which the theory of evolution is actually about and which has been shown to be impossible.

EDIT: see this link http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html for a list of speciation observations that prove macroevolution does occur. I haven't read them all, I must admit, but a lot of them are starting to give us more evidence to support macroevolution.

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Which came 1st the Chicken or the Egg?

Do you have a chicken.. Give it some corn and move on. (why does it matter?)

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bouncychicken92 wrote:

Well Rex I've thought about this forever and you've finally convinved me. I agree with you. Buddha is wrong.

*rolls eyes* Well if you've made up your mind then it is decidedly so. Let the record ring clear that I am wrong for the 92nd bouncy chicken has spoken.

dadothree wrote:

If you don't believe these things are happening, just consider the tone of antibuddha's post.

Wow, with that degree of logic it's inarguable. Of course perhaps someone who thought about the issue for a teensiest bit longest would realise that I, AntiBuddha, am a loudmouthed opinionated extremist whose arrogant tone hasn't varied between the debates on evolution and the completely unrelated and nonscientific debates on politics.

I seriously hope that you don't think that the statements of twenty year old loudmouthed internet nerds are an accurate assesment of the scientific community at large, because that would be very sad. If (as I suspect) you merely object to my tone on a personal level, then perhaps you should have the guts to admit this and mention your objections to my face rather than snide and snipey comments that are attempts to dissuade my arguments on an ad-hominem level.

Perhaps showing me that level of respect would be a good beggining if you don't feel that I'm showing enough.

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word

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As a true believer, I'll be the first to admit we can't KNOW anything for sure. Judging most strictly, on an emperical basis, we can't PROVE, beyond a shadow of a doubt, anything beyond Descartes' "Cogito Ergo Sum" (I think therefore I am). However, using the twin tools of our physical senses and our reason, we can at least make ourselves reasonably sure of various things, such as that our sense should generally be trusted, even though they may be wrong. Also I think we can be reasonably sure of the existence of an intelligent creator. There are many reasons for this. One of the best, I think, is the existence of our sentience. Where did it come from? Did it merely happen to evolve? Why? What is the evolutionary use of animals (in particular humans) being sentient and conscious, rather than merely unconscious stimulus-response organic machines, as plants and some lower animals? Why do we have a sense of ourselves as individual beings? Why am I, as a consciousness, in this body? Why isn't some other consciousness in this body and I non-existant? Can mere evolution explain this? Doesn't it seem likely, while not PROVABLE, that an intelligent being is behind this, rather than it being some accidental fluke somehow.

I recommend you read the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas. He argues more persuasively for the existance of God than I ever could.

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welcome to the forum marsh Smile

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Hey marsh_of_mists and welcome. Smile

As a true NON-believer I may be up for the challenge!

I also cannot prove the non-existence of a creator but I can be at least as "reasonably sure" as you the gods do NOT exist.

How often do we here the word "merely" attached to word "evolve" as though it happened last weekend?

Mainstream scientists are NOT idiots. Remember, they were the smart kids in the class, not the stupid ones. Scientists understand and study evolution that occurs extremely gradually over vast periods of time. Simply put, the time the earth has existed IS ENOUGH that we COULD have evolved to what we are now. That is all that is required of evolutionary theory. That alone is a big nail in god's coffin. To prove that it was the case is the next step, and the evidence for it is so large that every science class ( that isn't ruled by the church ) teaches it as the only likely probability.

Why? Why did we evolve is not the right question. It presumes a purpose that does not have to exist for us to be here. Evolution is just a process, not a purpose. Evolution is blind, deaf and dumb and cares nothing for it's own results.

The evolutionary "use" of being conscious and sel-aware could be many...for example, it is fundamental to self-awareness that I value my self and my life and I want people to like me. This allows me to live with other people who, like me, want me to like them. People need people to survive, we are a social animal. It also allows me better opportunities to mate and produce offspring (who will also be social). The antisocial couple don't meet and don't have offspring.

Or it could be that self-awareness is an inevitable consequence of being highly intelligent. The survival advantages that come from being smart instead of stupid should be obvious enough.

You are, as a consciousness, in that body because you are. Lucky you! That you happen to exist right here, right now, is truly amazing! Doesn't mean that some other consciousness had to be responsible for it. It's a big irrational leap to make (but very comforting perhaps - imagine if one of the OTHER sperm got to the egg first!! You might never have been!!)

Finally the one big flaw in your reasoning may be...who created God?, how did he come to be the conscious sentient being that he must be to have any will or purpose? Any who created that being that created God?

The thing science has done for hundreds of years now is to slowly discover, often WITHOUT intending to, that things previously thought only explainable by the existence of gods could suddenly be explained by natural phenomena.

One of the founding fathers of genetic science was Gregor Mendel (the guy with the peas) and he was a monk !

I have read the arguments of Thomas Aquinas and I am not persuaded. Perhaps if Thomas had the opportunity to read my arguments he would think differently Wink

Did I leave anything unanswered? Bring it on !! Smile

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Quote:

Scientists understand and study evolution that occurs extremely gradually over vast periods of time. Simply put, the time the earth has existed IS ENOUGH that we COULD have evolved to what we are now. That is all that is required of evolutionary theory. That alone is a big nail in god's coffin.

Why is standard evolutionary theory a "nail in God's coffin"? Although some Christians believe that it would be, neither I nor the church of which I'm a part do. Many Christians and other religious believers accept the possibility (even probability) of evolution, but believe it was probably guided by God. Evolution, even other millions and billions of years, does not prove or disprove God one way or the other.

Quote:

Evolution is just a process, not a purpose.

Once the evolutionary process has begin it can be argued that humans and other complex life forms evolved, over billions of years from very simple early forms. But where did those forms come from? From empirical observations here on Earth, it seems that life is only begotten from other life. Unless one assumes an intelligent creative force, one has to believe that the earliest forms of life arose, by chance, from chemical reactions taking place in a very short amount of time. The probability of even the very simplest organism (at least an organism able to sustain itself long enough to reproduce) being created in this way is breathtakingly slim. The biologist Edwin Conklin once said: "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop." Possible? Well, ANYTHING's possible! More likely then there having been some creative guide? Personally, I think not.

Quote:

The evolutionary "use" of being conscious and sel-aware could be many....People need people to survive, we are a social animal....The antisocial couple don't meet and don't have offspring.

Imagine, if you will, an extremely advanced robot. This robot looks and behaves exactely like a human being. You could not tell the difference between it and a regular human being, even after knowing it and being around it for years. But it is not sentient. It is not truly aware. All its actions--even the social ones--the result of a complicated reactionary system. Why did we not evolve like this robot? Why are we truly AWARE, when, if you think about it, we could function just as well being like the robot?

Quote:

Or it could be that self-awareness is an inevitable consequence of being highly intelligent.

Possibly. But how? What neural reactions generate self-awareness, as opposed to robot-like thinking?

Quote:

You are, as a consciousness, in that body because you are....(imagine if one of the OTHER sperm got to the egg first!! You might never have been!!)

Are you sure its a matter of sperm and egg? Why didn't my sperm and egg create a being exactely like me, but with another sentient. Forget the genes, personality traits, neurons, social behavior. Where does the Self come from? And for that matter, what about twins? Where do their seperates Selves come from, when they were originally one fertilized egg?

Quote:

the one big flaw in your reasoning may be...who created God?

There you have me. I have no idea. According to the Bible, He Himself merely said: I AM WHO AM. That simply exists, outside of the cause-effect continuum of the Universe. Some think He somehow exists outside of space-time, that He envelopes all existance, and therefore it is meaningless to talk of him being "created". This is a philosophical hypothesize. I won't attempt to argue it. I have no idea where God comes from. My point is that, when examining the examinable Universe around us, it seems very unlikely that it wasn't generated by a conscious intelligent force, rather then "chance". Where that force (called God) itself originates, it is impossible to say much, because, unlike the Universe, it is impossible to examine God empiracally. Therefore, we must study the Universe and, going from there, use bare reason and inference when we want to say anything about God.

Quote:

The thing science has done for hundreds of years now is to slowly discover, often WITHOUT intending to, that things previously thought only explainable by the existence of gods could suddenly be explained by natural phenomena.

This is an old chestnut. Science explains the "how" of something. It has never endevored to explain "why". That has been left up to theology. As, science has evolved, the "hows" have changed. Instead of imbalances in the four humors, for example, we now see through microscopes that most diseases are caused by microscopic organisms. That does not take God out of the picture. A geocentric view of the solar system does not take God out of the picture. You're actually working backwards. You start with the assumption that people created God to explain natural phenomena, as that modern science, disproving various old assumptions about natural phenomena, also disproves God. I'm working from the assumption that God exists (based mainly on the reasons above) and then use modern science to see HOW the world, created by Him, was created and how it functions.

Quote:

One of the founding fathers of genetic science was Gregor Mendel (the guy with the peas) and he was a monk !

Many great scientists were, and still are, religious believers.

Quote:

I have read the arguments of Thomas Aquinas and I am not persuaded.

Oh well. What do you think of his cause-and-effect argument? He stated, basically, that everything in this world has a cause, going back, like a chain, into the beginning--to the first cause. The "Uncaused Cause", which St. Aquinas said was God. Do you believe in the principle of the Uncause Cause? If it is not God, what might it be?

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

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Acutally, have read about the Miller experiments of abiogenesis. It is actually extremely probable that life was able to form on its own with out a "creator" of sorts.

AFter creating almost exact conditions of the earth 1 billion years ago, and subjecting it to almost constant lightning that the earth would have experienced, complex amino acids, and chains of such began to form on rocks. With this in kind, over 500 million years, and on a much larger scale . . . well ill leave you to fill in the blanks.

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Etruscia wrote:

Acutally, have read about the Miller experiments of abiogenesis. It is actually extremely probable that life was able to form on its own with out a "creator" of sorts.

AFter creating almost exact conditions of the earth 1 billion years ago, and subjecting it to almost constant lightning that the earth would have experienced, complex amino acids, and chains of such began to form on rocks. With this in kind, over 500 million years, and on a much larger scale . . . well ill leave you to fill in the blanks.

I'm not scientist and I really don't want to get involved in some type of technical debate regarding it. It sounds like one of these situations in which you can find experts to quote from both sides, topping each other over and over again.

But, I'll bring up some problems with those Miller experiments that I've found. Firstly, while those experiments created complex amino acids, they failed to go to the next step and create proteins and, more importantly, the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) that contain the information necessary to produce proteins. Actually one of the biggest conundrums in biological science in the Catch-22 situation in which proteins are needed to produce RNA and DNA, while RNA and DNA are needed to tell the proteins how to do it!

Some other problems: The Miller-Urey experiment produced 85% tar, which is toxic to life. And the Miller-Urey experiment was done in an atmosphere lacking oxygen, because oxygen destroys amino acids under such conditions. However, oxygen is necessary to protect the Earth from the suns ultraviolet rays which also destroy animon acids!

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marsh_of_mists wrote:

Quote:
Scientists understand and study evolution that occurs extremely gradually over vast periods of time. Simply put, the time the earth has existed IS ENOUGH that we COULD have evolved to what we are now. That is all that is required of evolutionary theory. That alone is a big nail in god's coffin.

Why is standard evolutionary theory a "nail in God's coffin"? Although some Christians believe that it would be, neither I nor the church of which Iamb a part do. Many Christians and other religious believers accept the possibility (even probability) of evolution, but believe it was probably guided by God. Evolution, even other millions and billions of years, does not prove or disprove God one way or the other.

Quote:
Evolution is just a process, not a purpose.

Once the evolutionary process has begin it can be argued that humans and other complex life forms evolved, over billions of years from very simple early forms. But where did those forms come from? From empirical observations here on Earth, it seems that life is only begotten from other life. Unless one assumes an intelligent creative force, one has to believe that the earliest forms of life arose, by chance, from chemical reactions taking place in a very short amount of time. The probability of even the very simplest organism (at least an organism able to sustain itself long enough to reproduce) being created in this way is breathtakingly slim. The biologist Edwin Conklin once said: "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop." Possible? Well, ANYTHING's possible! More likely then there having been some creative guide? Personally, I think not.

Quote:
The evolutionary "use" of being conscious and sel-aware could be many....People need people to survive, we are a social animal....The antisocial couple don't meet and don't have offspring.

Imagine, if you will, an extremely advanced robot. This robot looks and behaves exactly like a human being. You could not tell the difference between it and a regular human being, even after knowing it and being around it for years. But it is not sentient. It is not truly aware. All its actions--even the social ones--the result of a complicated reactionary system. Why did we not evolve like this robot? Why are we truly AWARE, when, if you think about it, we could function just as well being like the robot?

Quote:
Or it could be that self-awareness is an inevitable consequence of being highly intelligent.

Possibly. But how? What neural reactions generate self-awareness, as opposed to robot-like thinking?

Quote:
You are, as a consciousness, in that body because you are....(imagine if one of the OTHER sperm got to the egg first!! You might never have been!!)

Are you sure its a matter of sperm and egg? Why didn't my sperm and egg create a being exactely like me, but with another sentient. Forget the genes, personality traits, neurons, social behavior. Where does the Self come from? And for that matter, what about twins? Where do their separates Selves come from, when they were originally one fertilized egg?

Quote:
the one big flaw in your reasoning may be...who created God?

There you have me. I have no idea. According to the Bible, He Himself merely said: I AM WHO AM. That simply exists, outside of the cause-effect continuum of the Universe. Some think He somehow exists outside of space-time, that He envelopes all existence, and therefore it is meaningless to talk of him being "created". This is a philosophical hypothesize. I won't attempt to argue it. I have no idea where God comes from. My point is that, when examining the examinable Universe around us, it seems very unlikely that it wasn't generated by a conscious intelligent force, rather then "chance". Where that force (called God) itself originates, it is impossible to say much, because, unlike the Universe, it is impossible to examine God empirically. Therefore, we must study the Universe and, going from there, use bare reason and inference when we want to say anything about God.

Quote:
The thing science has done for hundreds of years now is to slowly discover, often WITHOUT intending to, that things previously thought only explainable by the existence of gods could suddenly be explained by natural phenomena.

This is an old chestnut. Science explains the "how" of something. It has never endeavored to explain "why". That has been left up to theology. As, science has evolved, the "hows" have changed. Instead of imbalances in the four humors, for example, we now see through microscopes that most diseases are caused by microscopic organisms. That does not take God out of the picture. A geocentric view of the solar system does not take God out of the picture. You're actually working backwards. You start with the assumption that people created God to explain natural phenomena, as that modern science, disproving various old assumptions about natural phenomena, also disproves God. I'm working from the assumption that God exists (based mainly on the reasons above) and then use modern science to see HOW the world, created by Him, was created and how it functions.

Quote:
One of the founding fathers of genetic science was Gregor Mendel (the guy with the peas) and he was a monk !

Many great scientists were, and still are, religious believers.

Quote:
I have read the arguments of Thomas Aquinas and I am not persuaded.

Oh well. What do you think of his cause-and-effect argument? He stated, basically, that everything in this world has a cause, going back, like a chain, into the beginning--to the first cause. The "Uncaused Cause", which St. Aquinas said was God. Do you believe in the principle of the Uncause Cause? If it is not God, what might it be?

Thank you for your thoughtful post.

Marsh, thank YOU for your time, your intelligent arguments and your respectful tone. I appreciate it.

OK, to quickly skip across the complex science of evolution. My point is...it is POSSIBLE we evolved without the need for supernatural intervention. This is the currently accepted belief in the scientific world. ie the world that has lots of smart people who study the facts and study the likely scenarios. Some of these people also believe that it is POSSIBLE that God set the whole system in place a few thousand years ago. The most I could reasonably expect from you is to understand why I could think that your position is the more absurd of the two. I do not expect to convert you to my view.

Now about these robots...if they are capable of behaving in human ways (they do not exist yet) then they very likely will be self aware. There has been much speculation about this from scientists for a long time. Conversely humans are not born self-aware...if God puts the awareness in, then why does he wait until at least 18months old? Self awareness is developed in the developing brain and also learned once the brain is capable of doing so. This is why you are in the body you are in...you are the sum of your biology and experience...you gradually became who you rather than being dumped into your body complete. I might even propose you will not even be YOU in 10 years time, you will be someone a little different.

Speaking of old chestnuts, Edwin's argument (from the 1800's) about the print shop explosion is a common form of the "Argument from Complexity". the watch is another favourite. It proves nothing. It proposes that something as complex as man must require a designer. "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins will give you the full answer but it is a weak argument on several levels, the weakest part being...what clever chap put God together?

The dictionary is very complex document...DNA is really quite simple. Just 4 amino acids GATC in various combinations. The more simple the life-form, the less DNA required to encode the data.

Check this out....this simple equation z(n+1) = z(n)*z(n) + z produces infinity in a finite space. And it certainly looks extremely complex. In fact it looks like an artist drew it, and if you magnified it to size of the USA it would look like only a God could have imagined it. The detail at the edges is always as detailed as this picture, no matter how far you zoom in.

http://www.math.utah.edu/~alfeld/math/mandelbrot/large.gif

Chaos scientists found that not only does the universe produce complexity from simplicity, but that it does it all the time!

The probability of life originating from accident is not just possible but highly likely. Poor Edwin didn't know about the mandelbrot set.

Moving on...yes I see that if you go from the assumption that God exists, you can make the pieces fit....but if you go from the assumption that God does NOT exist the pieces also fit (we disagree as to who is left with a neatest jigsaw puzzle). But my point is....that God made it happen is the easy answer....to discover that GOD IS NOT A CRITICAL FACTOR FOR THE UNIVERSE TO BE AS IT IS means that maybe he does not!! Do you agree? If God did create it, why make it look as if maybe he had no involvement at all? To test us? That's just silly.

Now...about "first cause".....

The argument from first cause proposes.....

1. Everything that happens has a cause. (Axiom)
2. At one point, something came from nothing, the Universe came into existence. (Axiom)
3. This must have had a cause. (From 1 and 2)
4. Since no matter existed at that moment, the cause must have been God.

From here I'd like to quote some-one directly for the sake of saving time!

First, we should look at the two axioms. The second axiom, that the Universe once came into being, is the least doubtful. It is almost certain that our Universe did come into existence some 10 to 12 thousand million years ago. It can, however, be said that time did not exist before the Big Bang, and that it is therefore impossible to speak of anything happening before the Big Bang. Therefore, it is not entirely correct to say that something ever came from nothing, because there was no time when there was nothing.

The first axiom is very doubtful indeed. Quantummechanics works with events in nature that are, or at least seem to be, completely random. Particle/anti-particle pairs can come into existence and annihilate again without any apparent cause. Many quantum-processes seem to happen without cause. Saying that everything must have a cause is a very bold thing to do, and would require some major scientific theories. Until and unless these theories are presented, I call the first axiom a falsehood.

This alone should be enough to invalidate the First Cause Argument, but there is more. The first axiom suffers more attacks. Hume showed that humans cannot perceive 'cause' and 'effect', but construct these notions from past experiences. It is impossible to prove that A was the cause of B. We can only see that B happened after A, anything else is just something we think up. This casts doubt upon the notion of 'cause'.

Even if we agree that everything we see has a cause (which for quantum reasons I won't) how can we infer from that that everything has a cause? This is mere speculation, it is not knowledge we can ever have.

And just suppose that every thing has a cause, then the argument is still invalid, for the Universe is not a thing, it is the set of all things. And a set cannot be a member of itself, so a conclusion about things in the Universe is not necessarily valid for the Universe itself.

So, since not everything seems to have a cause, and the Universe is not a thing at all, the First Cause argument fails. But suppose that it doesn't, that everything does have a cause. Then, I'm afraid, we have to say that God had a cause too, and that that cause had a cause too, ad infinitum. If someone protests that God did not have a cause, we see that this person denies the first axiom, and the entire argument falls. The First Cause argument simply fails.

Victor Gijsbers

Ok, I'm done, I gotta get home Smile

Thanks again for listening !!

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well lets face it, one year u didnt exist then the next u did - why cant it be the same for god?

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Quote:

it is POSSIBLE we evolved without the need for supernatural intervention....Some of these people also believe that it is POSSIBLE that God set the whole system in place a few thousand years ago.

I think we can both agree that anything is "possible". Like I said, if we want to be purely philosophical can we absolutely PROVE anything beyond "Cogito Ergo Sum". I don't think so, anyway. What we are dealing with are probabilities.

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The most I could reasonably expect from you is to understand why I could think that your position is the more absurd of the two.

There are many positions in between the belief that the Universe arose out of chance and "young Earth" creationism. I hope you didn't infer that I was a young-Earth creationist--I'm not. I am willing to accept to Big Bang 15 billion years ago. I am willing to accept that mainstream theory of evolution. I believe, however, that this was directed by an intelligent force. This is not an unusual position; many Christians and other theists hold to it. Even the pope himself has allowed that belief in evolution is compatable with Christian faith. In any case, most Catholics (I am a Catholic) believe the evolution vs. creationism debate to be a theological non-issue. For me, the issue is between theistic and atheistic theories of evolution. As for creationism, well, I wouldn't rule it out entirely, scientific theories always change. But you are right that mainstream science basically rejects this.

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if they are capable of behaving in human ways (they do not exist yet) then they very likely will be self aware. There has been much speculation about this from scientists for a long time. Conversely humans are not born self-aware...if God puts the awareness in, then why does he wait until at least 18months old? Self awareness is developed in the developing brain and also learned once the brain is capable of doing so.

Well, I would quarrel with the idea that year-old babies lack self-awareness in any definition of the word , but let's not open that can of worms here. I suspect you still misunderstand what I mean by self-awareness. I think you think that I mean the perception of ourselves as individual units in the world--I don't. I suppose the best term for what I am referring to is "sentience" so let's stick to that word. I'm having trouble defining this thought properly. An unsentient thing is a thing completely lacking in perception or consciousness, like a plant or a rock. It is possible people in comas are this way as well, or even non-dreaming sleepers. Now one school of thought holds sentient appears with a certain level of animal intelligence (I guess it begins to appear somewhere between a sponge and a fish) I disagree with this. Because, I believe, it would be possible for a robot (for example) to be just as intelligent as a sentient human--even able to reason, percieve, respond--without being sentient. AI computer program already "reason", after all, or they perform a process substantially no different from reason. And yet I do not believe they are anymore sentient then a rock. Nor do I believe that they will ever be sentient simply by growing in complexity or computer intelligence. Of course, this wraps us all up in the issue of how we know anything or anybody in sentient, but I hope it helps show what I'm trying to get at.

I'll get to the rest of your post soon, but not right now. I'm overwhelmed with obligations here in meatspace!

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