Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

c_logic wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:
baddog1 wrote:

Deist: Are you saying that energy & mass were or are not created?

That's correct. If they can be created, I'd like to see how.

Well, if I remember correctly from high school: "Matter cannot be created nor destroyed" in our universe. The theory is that all this stuff originated from an infinitely small and infinitely dense single point (precursor to big bang). That "single point" itself - in terms of "how" and "why" - is a mystery.

(I know you may be tempted to say that it has to do with intelligent design, but that would be highly speculative and wouldn't really explain anything )

The reason this 'single point' is a mystery is because it is a dilemma for naturalism.

If the 'single point' came into existence before it expanded/exploded in the Big Bang, then it violates the law that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

However, if the single point NEVER came into existence (i.e. it always was, in some form) then it is also obvious that 'eternally pre-existent matter' poses the same problem of infinite regression , (i.e where did it come from?) that you pointed out earlier as a paradox to those believing in an 'eternally pre-existent God' , (i.e. where did He come from?).

Naturalism teaches that all things have a cause (a natural cause), but eternally pre-existent matter would have no cause. Quite a dilemma.

Christian thought has always taught the opposite , (i.e. that not all things have a cause, specifically that God had no cause.) The fact that we can't understand this doesn't mean that it cannot be so. And the alternative that naturalism gives us (all things have a cause) is obviously contradictory.

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real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
(Creationism refers to the beginning, I thought you knew that.)

Creationism has several definitions. Which one do you want to talk about? I was assuming you were talking about definition #2 because you put a capital "C" in front of creationism (as noted in the dictionary below). But if you want to talk about #1 that's fine.

Which is it?

cre·a·tion·ism [kree-ey-shuh-niz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-noun

1. the doctrine that matter and all things were created, substantially as they now exist, by an omnipotent Creator, and not gradually evolved or developed.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the doctrine that the true story of the creation of the universe is as it is recounted in the Bible, esp. in the first chapter of Genesis.
3. the doctrine that God immediately creates out of nothing a new human soul for each individual born.

I have no problem with any of these.

So which one are you going to show evidence for, or are you going to show evidence for all three?

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real life wrote:

The reason this 'single point' is a mystery is because it is a dilemma for naturalism.

If the 'single point' came into existence before it expanded/exploded in the Big Bang, then it violates the law that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

However, if the single point NEVER came into existence (i.e. it always was, in some form) then it is also obvious that 'eternally pre-existent matter' poses the same problem of infinite regression , (i.e where did it come from?) that you pointed out earlier as a paradox to those believing in an 'eternally pre-existent God' , (i.e. where did He come from?).

Naturalism teaches that all things have a cause (a natural cause), but eternally pre-existent matter would have no cause. Quite a dilemma.

Christian thought has always taught the opposite , (i.e. that not all things have a cause, specifically that God had no cause.) The fact that we can't understand this doesn't mean that it cannot be so. And the alternative that naturalism gives us (all things have a cause) is obviously contradictory.

No problem.

http://images.cafepress.com/product/12593698_240x240_Front.jpg

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real life wrote:

The reason this 'single point' is a mystery is because it is a dilemma for naturalism.

It's not a dilema for naturalism. Naturalism is merely a philosophical basis for addressing questions within our Universe.

None of our scientific laws say anything about what happened outside of our Universe. We don't know what can happen out there. We don't know if time exists, we don't know if cause and effect exist. It is beyond our science.

real life wrote:

If the 'single point' came into existence before it expanded/exploded in the Big Bang, then it violates the law that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

No it doesn't, because the matter creation/destruction laws only apply within our Universe, they say nothing about what may, or may not have happend outside our Universe.

real life wrote:

However, if the single point NEVER came into existence (i.e. it always was, in some form) then it is also obvious that 'eternally pre-existent matter' poses the same problem of infinite regression , (i.e where did it come from?) that you pointed out earlier as a paradox to those believing in an 'eternally pre-existent God' , (i.e. where did He come from?).

This is a paradox of your own making because you're making invalid assumptions about where our physical laws apply.

real life wrote:

Naturalism teaches that all things have a cause (a natural cause), but eternally pre-existent matter would have no cause. Quite a dilemma.

That's not the definition of naturalism. The word 'cause' is never used in naturalism.

nat·u·ral·ism [nach-er-uh-liz-uhm, nach-ruh-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-noun
4. (Philosophy)
a. the view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual.
b. the belief that all phenomena are covered by laws of science and that all teleological explanations are therefore without value.

real life wrote:

Christian thought has always taught the opposite , (i.e. that not all things have a cause, specifically that God had no cause.) The fact that we can't understand this doesn't mean that it cannot be so. And the alternative that naturalism gives us (all things have a cause) is obviously contradictory.

You have invented your own world of misconceptions, and then concluded that your world is full of contradictions. Brilliant.

But at least you've changed the subject away from your claim that evidence can be interpreted in such a way to support Creationism. Good job.

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real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

When you say 'everything' what do you mean exactly?

*sigh*

*sigh* right back.

You never answered the first simple question to support your ridiculous claim that evidence can be interpreted to support Creationism. And now you won't even provide details so we can answer your other diversionary questions.

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rosborne979 wrote:

real life wrote:
The reason this 'single point' is a mystery is because it is a dilemma for naturalism.

It's not a dilema for naturalism. Naturalism is merely a philosophical basis for addressing questions within our Universe.

None of our scientific laws say anything about what happened outside of our Universe. We don't know what can happen out there. We don't know if time exists, we don't know if cause and effect exist. It is beyond our science.

real life wrote:
If the 'single point' came into existence before it expanded/exploded in the Big Bang, then it violates the law that matter cannot be created or destroyed.

No it doesn't, because the matter creation/destruction laws only apply within our Universe, they say nothing about what may, or may not have happend outside our Universe.

real life wrote:
However, if the single point NEVER came into existence (i.e. it always was, in some form) then it is also obvious that 'eternally pre-existent matter' poses the same problem of infinite regression , (i.e where did it come from?) that you pointed out earlier as a paradox to those believing in an 'eternally pre-existent God' , (i.e. where did He come from?).

This is a paradox of your own making because you're making invalid assumptions about where our physical laws apply.

real life wrote:
Naturalism teaches that all things have a cause (a natural cause), but eternally pre-existent matter would have no cause. Quite a dilemma.

That's not the definition of naturalism. The word 'cause' is never used in naturalism.

nat·u·ral·ism [nach-er-uh-liz-uhm, nach-ruh-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-noun
4. (Philosophy)
a. the view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual.
b. the belief that all phenomena are covered by laws of science and that all teleological explanations are therefore without value.

real life wrote:
Christian thought has always taught the opposite , (i.e. that not all things have a cause, specifically that God had no cause.) The fact that we can't understand this doesn't mean that it cannot be so. And the alternative that naturalism gives us (all things have a cause) is obviously contradictory.

You have invented your own world of misconceptions, and then concluded that your world is full of contradictions. Brilliant.

But at least you've changed the subject away from your claim that evidence can be interpreted in such a way to support Creationism. Good job.

You do not consider scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning point relevant to creationism?

How could it not be?

Creationism has to do with the beginning, thus the name.

Why do you keep pretending that the subject has been changed?

You asked for a discussion on creation, but apparently the only thing you are comfortable discussing is evolution.

Creation deals with the beginning, long before evolution supposedly came into the picture.

As you know, I am not averse to discussing evolution, so if you are uncomfortable, we can do so. But we are here because this is what you asked for.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you believe that matter was eternally pre-existent, Ros?

If so, how do you deal with the problem of infinite regression?

If not, at what point, and by what means do you propose the first matter came into existence?

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real life, like many believers, is avoiding questions by answering different ones.

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real life wrote:

1. yes, to the two specifics you mention
2. insofar as the big bang theory shows the universe had a beginning point, yes. I would disagree with the timeline , commonly held to be billions of years.

So what timeline would you say is more proper?

real life wrote:

Do you agree that everything has a cause? (I hope you understand what that means.)

In some sense, but I don't know enough about causality to answer that question with confidence...
This question actually seems to create another infinite regression and paradox: If everything has a cause, what causes the original cause?

The other problem is that we don't really know in what way causality works outside of our universe, and that things are also a bit strange within our own universe as well... For example, there's a lot of talk about quantum unpredictability and randomness. There's also some talk about how we could NOT accurately predict the future even if we had a computer that could handle the calculation of all the variables in the universe - It would be impossible due to quantum randomness.

real life wrote:

The reason this 'single point' is a mystery is because it is a dilemma for naturalism.
...
...
Christian thought has always taught the opposite , (i.e. that not all things have a cause, specifically that God had no cause.) The fact that we can't understand this doesn't mean that it cannot be so.

What's wrong with the scientific approach running into mysteries? That doesn't mean that the approach is flawed... It simply means that we currently don't have enough knowledge to explain certain things.
What you're suggesting is that any answer is better than no answer.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you: There's not much that suggests that God absolutely cannot be, but I don't see your evidence that suggests that God MUST be.

Have you ever lost anything or had something stolen, real life? Well, I could say that this is due to Santa Claus' less generous brother Dirty "Pig" Claus, who instead of giving stuff (like his brother) steals stuff from people without ever getting caught...
Then I could say that just because we don't understand it or it doesn't make sense from a logical perspective, it doesn't mean that it cannot be.

Even though there's an infinitely small possibility that "Pig" actually does exist, there's no reason to assume so by default.

So, real life, why should we assume that God does exist and that he created everything... without any evidence on hand?

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real life supports big bang if he thinks it supports a version of creationism, and he supports a 6000 year old universe if that supports a version of creationism. Conflicts between the two extremes can be ignored as long as a creator is included somewhere.

The important thing to real life, is to ridicule any idea that may not demand the involvement of his pet creator. His (and largely all creationists) feel no need to provide any evidence other than the bible. They merely attempt to destroy all other explanantions and point smugly back to the bible every time any gap appears in the evidence.

Those gaps are getting smaller every day, but that just makes them more desperate and determined.

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real life wrote:

Do you believe that matter was eternally pre-existent, Ros?

If so, how do you deal with the problem of infinite regression?

If not, at what point, and by what means do you propose the first matter came into existence?

Do you believe that God was eternally pre-existent?

If so, how do you deal with the problem of infinite regression?

If not, at what point, and by what means do you propose that God came into existence?
P

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Pauligirl wrote:

real life wrote:

Do you believe that matter was eternally pre-existent, Ros?

If so, how do you deal with the problem of infinite regression?

If not, at what point, and by what means do you propose the first matter came into existence?

Do you believe that God was eternally pre-existent?

If so, how do you deal with the problem of infinite regression?

If not, at what point, and by what means do you propose that God came into existence?
P

The logical position is that something or someone[/i] was eternally pre-existent, i.e. did not 'come into existence' at any point, but always was.

The problem of infinite regression is just another way of saying something is/was eternally pre-existent.

So the question is, which is a better explanation for all that we see and know as the universe, with it's complex and interdependent systems , especially living organisms with their complex and interdependent biological systems?

a) eternally pre-existent matter

b) eternally pre-existent Intelligence

Science currently favors the hypothesis that all matter came into existence at a point commonly referred to as the Big Bang, so that doesn't look so good for eternal pre-existence of matter.

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These are hard questions. Turning to magic is the easy answer. The right answer will likely never be known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE440.html

What do you suppose was going on an hour before time itself began?

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Gah. 'An hour before time began' is meaningless because an hour is a measure of time and if time doesn't exist why/how measure it.

We are trapped by our own brains - I'm sure it's been postulated that time is just how we perceive a particular aspect of the universe - just like we think we see things but in actual fact light hits our retina's and sends signals to our brains which interpret what we think we see.

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hingehead wrote:

Gah. 'An hour before time began' is meaningless because an hour is a measure of time and if time doesn't exist why/how measure it.

I think he knows that.

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I can never tell - never play poker with Eorl - I had to go home in my undies last time....

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As I recall, that was more than you arrived with.

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Eorl wrote:

These are hard questions. Turning to magic is the easy answer. The right answer will likely never be known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE440.html

What do you suppose was going on an hour before time itself began?

Do you think matter was eternally pre-existent?

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real life wrote:

Eorl wrote:
These are hard questions. Turning to magic is the easy answer. The right answer will likely never be known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE440.html

What do you suppose was going on an hour before time itself began?

Do you think matter was eternally pre-existent?

The answer is not dependant on what we believe. Being that we have not ever been able to create matter nor witness it's natural creation or evidence there of, we are drawn to the conclusion that matter is pre-existant.

When we deal with the universe, we can say thin's like it expands indefinitely and in our universe, it seems to be accellerating. When looking at the the scale in which we are dealing with the semmingly intanglebe concepts of infinity become nothing more than the boudry parameters.

We must therefore draw a conclusion, knowing all the while that some degree of error exists.

The creationist will come define the answer to the challenge involved in the question. God (or some other being) intentionally created/designed the universe to be as it is. To the Creationist, ity closes off all unanswered questions. To them it holds water. Their evidence is that their contrived answer leaves nothing unaswered. The answer comes before the evidence.

The scientist will come to the conclusion that the rules of the universe that we experince now are not variant in time and that rules of the universe such as the conservation of mass and energy must have held true at it's beginning as it does now. The scientist understands that there are still unaswered questions but focuses more on the evidence leading to the answer as opposed to the alternative.

I'll admit that creationists have an answer for everything, but it's no more impressive than what I can generate in am tter of minutes. For all scientific purposes, I could even adapt every belief that the creationists have and edit only to the degree that says that instead of a being such as God creating everything, that a concept such as Love created everything. I'd certainly have an answer for everything, but NO evidence.

But my declaration of no evidence is better than any creationist will allow themselves to admit.

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real life wrote:

Eorl wrote:
These are hard questions. Turning to magic is the easy answer. The right answer will likely never be known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE440.html

What do you suppose was going on an hour before time itself began?

Do you think matter was eternally pre-existent?

I have no idea. It's certainly possible.

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Diest TKO wrote:

real life wrote:
Eorl wrote:
These are hard questions. Turning to magic is the easy answer. The right answer will likely never be known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE440.html

What do you suppose was going on an hour before time itself began?

Do you think matter was eternally pre-existent?

Being that we have not ever been able to create matter nor witness it's natural creation or evidence there of, we are drawn to the conclusion that matter is pre-existant.

Why don't you simply admit that this is not a 'scientific conclusion'.

It's a guess.

Call it what it is.

You're guessing.

'Since we have no evidence, we therefore conclude.......'

Garbage. You are guessing.

Diest TKO wrote:

We must therefore draw a conclusion, knowing all the while that some degree of error exists.

Since it is a 50/50 proposition (matter was eternally pre-existent/ or not) then you have a 50% chance of your guess being correct. The same chance as those who disagree with you, eh?

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Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

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