SO what, I never tried to present a mechanism where chance plays no part, what's mroe I've explained why I think that's impossible.Originally Posted by Javan502
What I have done is to reveal you arguments against the first cell forming entirely by chance alone, to be a straw man.
I have no interest in doing so. I don't believe in predestination. I'm curious as to whether you do now. I had credited you with enough sense to not do so since you agreed that Intelligent design involved chance too, but now you seem to think that predestination is evidence of "God Will" or some such. In which case you have the issue of whether it is by Gods will alone that humans suffer on earth and for eternity in hell.Thats what YOU should explain me. Predestination requires a mind to predestine our universe. Thats what you try to avoid. No ?
Yes, I posted the basics about the alternative being predestination. Just over a century or so ago a clockwork universe was the concessus model among physicists. Everything ran according to Newton's laws and if you knew the exact state of every particle in the universe then it would be theoretically possible to calculate all their future interactions. Chance would play no part.
You'll note incidentally that this model of a predestined universe requires no mind. Even the prime mover argument doesn't actually infer that such a prime move be in any way aware.
But I digress. The spanner got thrown into the works by Heisenburg's uncertainty principle. You can't measure something without affecting it. Thus the exact state of the every particle in the universe cannot be known. Well D'uh! you might say, no-one was actually trying to measure the exact state of every particle in the universe. However they were trying to do that for certain isolated systems. It had been assumed that with the appropriate will and technology it would be possible to decrease the inaccuracy of measurements, if not to zero then to any whatever level was needed. Heisenburg revealed an absolute limit to this. A limit that mattered on the quantum scale.
However even then it was assumed that the particles did actually have an exact state even if that was a variable that was hidden from us. Nonetheless we had to work with the measurements that would could take rather than these hidden variables. As such equations were created that treated these variables as probabilities rather than exact values. Perhaps surprisingly these formulae produced remarkably accurate results. They were proven to be an accurate model of the laws of nature on this scale.
A debate ensured as to whether there were hidden variable in play or not. If there were then the universe was still predestined if not then chance plays a part in everything. The fundamental building blocks of physics were in fact probabilities.
More recently experiments in quantum entanglement have put pay to all but non-local hidden variable theories. Thus it is believed that chance plays a part in everything. To absolutely eliminate the role of chance from your estimations requires that you overturn the crowning sucess of 20th Century physics.
My understanding is that this is the current concusses. That's all I'm claiming. Not an absolute proof. I leave absolutes for people of faith like yourself.
So what happens when the origins of cells and DNA is explained, without reference to any deities? Do you change your argument or do you accuse the scientists of getting it wrong? Or do you say the deities didn't do as much as you first thought?
There is research that currently suggests that RNA and cell vesicles appeared around the same time and interacted to form the origins of cells, including the ability to divide and compete. It's early days yet but no one is so far suggesting the need for any deities. So the answer to which came first DNA or proteins appears to be they were around together. Amino acids have been found in interstellar dust clouds and so may not even have started on Earth.
Why don't you be more explicit : do you believe, there is another mechanism than chance, or not ?
I have understood that. But so far, you have failed to present a argument, why its a straw man. Where is your argument that supports this claim ?What I have done is to reveal you arguments against the first cell forming entirely by chance alone, to be a straw man.
I think you evade the issue discussed here. You brought up predestination as anwer another mechanism than chance. So you admit now, its not a alternative mechanism. So would you mind to present another one ? If you can't, why do acuse me of presenting straw man arguments ?I have no interest in doing so. I don't believe in predestination. I'm curious as to whether you do now. I had credited you with enough sense to not do so since you agreed that Intelligent design involved chance too, but now you seem to think that predestination is evidence of "God Will" or some such. In which case you have the issue of whether it is by Gods will alone that humans suffer on earth and for eternity in hell.
The claim I countered was that the mechanism being suggested was chance alone. I'll be explicit there. Yes I do believe that there are other plausible mechanisms to chance alone.
Do you know what a straw manargument is?
The mechanisms I've presented do not rely on chance alone. They do not call upon chance as "the driving factor"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
It seemed to me that this is what you thought was being seriously considered in studies of abiogensis in your post 52
I asked for clarification pointing out that if it was "Chance Alone" that you thought was your opponents' position then it was a Straw man: a misrepresentation of your opponent's position. It is not my position that chance was the driving factor in the formation of the first cell, nor is it the position of any serious scientist I read.Chance is really ridiculous as explanation, as driving factor to explain all created, even the simplest cell is immeasurably more complex than even the most advanced machine, man has ever created.
I don't pretend to know how much of a factor chance played but I don't need to assume any outlandish coincidences.
No, I presented mechanisms that were not chance alone. Since then you'd tried to move the goal posts to mechanisms that don't involve chance at all. My mention of predestination and the evidence against it, merely demonstrates that the goalposts you've shifted are now sitting on an poor foundation.I think you evade the issue discussed here. You brought up predestination as anwer another mechanism than chance. So you admit now, its not a alternative mechanism. So would you mind to present another one ? If you can't, why do acuse me of presenting straw man arguments ?
Predestination is that alternative to events having any element of chance at all. It is refuted by discoveries in quantum physics.
The alternatives to chance being the driving factor have already been demonstrated. That there may be some element of chance involved does not mean that chance is the driving factor.
Angelo…
Sorry for the delay in replying , but I foolishly followed your advice …
all pretty well explained at my forum. have a look :
Let me just recap… My question was….
6/How do you suspend your disbelief ,you must have questioned the wilder parts of the Bible, you know genocide ,rape ,forced marriages ,slavery misogyny etc,etc…
And you were right…there were answers there….(All copied and pasted from the websites of American Evangelists)
Appalling answers , that demonstrate just how far removed from normal human beings these strange and dangerous people really are.
To be fair I had seen all of these answers before , but reading them again all in one place has reminded me of just why I despise religions and the religious so much.
All of the attached quotes concern the destruction of the Canaanites….
David Couchman summarises as follows;
God ordered the destruction of the people because…
The outcome was important,
The people were not just individuals,
The nations were not innocent,
God was not impatient and escape was not impossible.
There is much more that needs to be said. This is nothing like a complete answer to the problem of the destruction of the Canaanites, but it may give us some pointers towards an answer.
Oh yes..it points the way…
William Lane Craig agonizes over the apparent wrong done…
So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.
Damn those Canaanites upsetting the poor Israeli soldiers.
Robin Schumacher poses and answers his own question
So is the God of the Old Testament a merciless monster? After a thorough review of the facts, the evidence overwhelmingly demands an answer of ‘no.'
NO ???
But hang on guys…its all ok …
R.Deem says its nothing compared to what is to come..
God's judgment of people groups found in the Old Testament actually pales in comparison to the judgment He will render at the end of time. According to the New Testament Book of Revelation, God will judge and kill billions of people who reject Him when Jesus returns, including 200 million killed in a single battle.
Now there’s reassuring….
Now Angelo , I’m sorry to have to say this but if you truly believe all this b0ll0x then you are not just ignorant or misguided. You are a vicious ,cruel ,barbarian ,savage and you should be scraped from the sole of humanities shoe like the in human filth you are. Objectionable ,deliberately and wilfully recidivistic you contribute nothing to the onward march of civilisation. In short you are a subhuman and I will have no more of you…
excellent. please present them.The claim I countered was that the mechanism being suggested was chance alone. I'll be explicit there. Yes I do believe that there are other plausible mechanisms to chance alone.
still waiting to know what else you believe......It is not my position that chance was the driving factor in the formation of the first cell, nor is it the position of any serious scientist I read.
you repeat yourseld, despite i answered you. you can only mention predestination, if you believe in a personal cause of our universe.I presented mechanisms that were not chance alone. Since then you'd tried to move the goal posts to mechanisms that don't involve chance at all. My mention of predestination and the evidence against it, merely demonstrates that the goalposts you've shifted are now sitting on an poor foundation.
what does quantum physics have to do with abiogenesis ?Predestination is that alternative to events having any element of chance at all. It is refuted by discoveries in quantum physics.
how can you be that indignated ? according to your world view, humans do not have special value. We are just some more evolved animals, and killing one or the other, whats the problem ?Isnt it us to determine, what is right, what is wrong ? we are free to do so, since everything is relative......and after we die, there are no consequences anyway. What we did, or left to do, will not make any difference at all. You can be the worst jerk , if it fits your interests, and it benefits yourself, you just do what is perfectly logical .Now Angelo , I’m sorry to have to say this but if you truly believe all this b0ll0x then you are not just ignorant or misguided. You are a vicious ,cruel ,barbarian ,savage and you should be scraped from the sole of humanities shoe like the in human filth you are. Objectionable ,deliberately and wilfully recidivistic you contribute nothing to the onward march of civilisation. In short you are a subhuman and I will have no more of you…
Craig puts it quit clearly :
http://www.bethinking.org/resources/...ithout-god.htm
The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners
So, you live inconsistently with your own world view. You cannot condemn someone for killing and torturing other people, since everything is relative......
http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz/2...he-canaanites/
We should expect God’s purposes to be often unclear and even baffling, but not let this eclipse the overwhelming revelation of God’s trustworthy character.[/b]
We cannot measure God by our own defective standards, afterall, humanity is incapable of refereeing God’s actions. Apart from God, we have no transcultural standpoint to assess the moral fitness of a culture, least of all, judge God Himself and His purposes in judgment. We must remember both His “kindness and severity” (Rom. 11:22) and realize God’s unique cosmic authority will seek to correct our profoundly selfish human ways, even in civil contexts. Given the inadequacy of our “cognitive position”, and the recognition that even in human relationships there must be room for trust, the full picture of God’s purposes may not always be available to us.
In a world without God, who is to say which values are right and which are wrong? Who is to judge that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint? The concept of morality loses all meaning in a universe without God. As one contemporary atheistic ethicist points out, “to say that something is wrong because . . . it is forbidden by God, is . . . perfectly understandable to anyone who believes in a law-giving God. But to say that something is wrong . . . even though no God exists to forbid it, is not understandable. . . .” “The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone.”9 In a world without God, there can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments. This means that it is impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can one praise brotherhood, equality, and love as good. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.
Lime flowers are very calming, apparently. Perhaps you should them a try.
That is what I love about empiricism, instead of relying on anecdotes and predjudice, one checks against the evidence. So let's look at our god fearing brethern - Rawanda, Dharfur, Palestine, Northern Ireland, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Sri Lanka etc. Yes belief in a god is associated with a fixed world view - and those who take a different view get whats coming to them as decreed by a mythical higher power who is above merely human standards.
For the atheist it is indeed more nuanced, so it does require a small amount of intelligence to work out that killing, torturing and otherwise abusing others is wrong and brutalising - but the evidence shows that most can manage this easily (almost by instinct) and even those who can't rarely have a unifying belief to rally around and hence do not partake in organised campaigns of destruction.
Piffle.
Biblical mass slaughter is pretty "baffling", eh? As are all the other crimes committed by either God (allegedly) or his followers throughout history.
A world with rape, torture, starvation, disease and natural disasters like the Pakistan floods is pretty "baffling" too. Or at least it would be if it were created by a 'moral' God.
If your God exists Javan, he must be a sadist.
More piffle.
How about 'we take responsibility ourselves'? How about 'we make moral judgements based on common good'? How about 'we make these judgments based on 'modern knowledge and best evidence' as opposed to ancient texts full of superstition and ignorance?
This is not rocket science....
As you well know I already have. Your pretence at being too stupid to realise this is becoming wearing.
Be specific and I'll answer. If you want a random apposite belief, I believe that all life on earth today is descended from a common ancestor.
And so you make me repeat myself again by repeating your own deliberate misrepresentation of my position.
Predestination does not require a personal cause, as demonstrated by classical mechanics.
I do not believe in predestination. As strongly indicated by quantum mechanics. However I'm curious as to whether you believe that your omniscient God knew of precisely of each and every future soul he was condemning to eternal suffering when he set about his ineffable purpose?
Predestination means nothing left to chance. If like me you don't believe in predestination either then there is a role for chance. However that doesn't mean that chance is "the driving factor"
I presented a number of examples where chance was not "the driving factor"
I mentioned the RNA world hypothesis, clay theory and pointed you toward the wikipedia resource which details further options.
It governs the probability of chemical reactions.what does quantum physics have to do with abiogenesis ?
So what is the driving force , which makes these theories work ?
Last edited by Javan502; 7th September 2010 at 05:28 PM.
Now the question is, is this evidence of cerebral inefficiency induced through bible reading, or is there a genuine issue being raised?
Different for each theory. Sometimes there's not a clear single candidate but a confluence of factors.
In one of them there is a clear single candidate, it's a deity.
In another variation aliens take the place of a deity.
With panspermia with have a number of factors, the likelihood of material ejected from another life bearing planet containing microbes. The resilience of such microbes to the interstellar medium. The conditions on early earth. You may want to also include whatever conditions introduced life to this alien world.
In a couple more there's a number of additional factors but the common driving force might be said to be the natural selection of pre-biotic replicators. Any of those proposed additional factors might also be said to be a driving force e.g. deep sea vents, or a radioactive beach.
Really the answers to your questions are available in the material I linked to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Why not try to understand it.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks