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Hi Nick
I’m well and I hope the same for you too.
Quote Our God can and does heal and help people.
Anecdotal evidence says yes. Meta-studies of properly controlled double-blind research over large numbers of subjects (the kind of work that verifies that medicines are safe to take) consistently say no. Appeals to the supernatural have exactly the same effect as a placebo.Quote We have the historical record of His works recorded and most of us have seen His blessings.
If by recorded you mean the Judeo-christian creation myth as recorded in Genesis, you can just make that fit observed history if you bend it completely out of shape then treat it as allegory, as David has tried to do. There are few creation myths that do not work just as well under this treatment. If you mean the canonical gospels then as we have discussed previously they are almost certainly not eyewitness accounts and are only credible to those who already believe them to be true. The miracles are hearsay initially passed on in an age that had little capacity for critical scientific analysis. You could reasonably expect people to believe anything, and the gospels and other co-contemporary writing show evidence of trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes.Quote But He does not impose on us or interfere with things we choose to do.
Except if you touch his ark like Uzzah did, then you should expect instant death.Quote The safe place is in his will which we can find through prayer.
If prayer doesn’t cure people when it is claimed to, what is its reliability for finding out the will of god? Is it enough to rely on when fundamentalist christians try to tell other people what to do?Stuart
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 07 2007,14:40) Hi Stu,
Were there always seas on earth?
Hi Stu,
What about the springs of the great deep bursting forth?
Gen 7
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 07 2007,14:40) Hi Stu,
Were there always seas on earth?
Not until the atmospheric temperature dropped below 100decC, following the cooling of the molten surface about 4.4 billion years ago.stuart
Quote (Stu @ Dec. 07 2007,14:43) Hi Nick I’m well and I hope the same for you too.
Quote Our God can and does heal and help people.
Anecdotal evidence says yes. Meta-studies of properly controlled double-blind research over large numbers of subjects (the kind of work that verifies that medicines are safe to take) consistently say no. Appeals to the supernatural have exactly the same effect as a placebo.Quote We have the historical record of His works recorded and most of us have seen His blessings.
If by recorded you mean the Judeo-christian creation myth as recorded in Genesis, you can just make that fit observed history if you bend it completely out of shape then treat it as allegory, as David has tried to do. There are few creation myths that do not work just as well under this treatment. If you mean the canonical gospels then as we have discussed previously they are almost certainly not eyewitness accounts and are only credible to those who already believe them to be true. The miracles are hearsay initially passed on in an age that had little capacity for critical scientific analysis. You could reasonably expect people to believe anything, and the gospels and other co-contemporary writing show evidence of trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes.Quote But He does not impose on us or interfere with things we choose to do.
Except if you touch his ark like Uzzah did, then you should expect instant death.Quote The safe place is in his will which we can find through prayer.
If prayer doesn’t cure people when it is claimed to, what is its reliability for finding out the will of god? Is it enough to rely on when fundamentalist christians try to tell other people what to do?Stuart
Hi Stu,
Certainly our Awesome God is to be feared.Heb 12
” 14Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.
18You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.”[c] 21The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”[d]22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, 24to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”[e] 27The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
28Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29for our “God is a consuming fire.”[f]
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 07 2007,14:46) Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 07 2007,14:40) Hi Stu,
Were there always seas on earth?
Hi Stu,
What about the springs of the great deep bursting forth?
Gen 6
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
For the earth to be covered in rainfall to the height of the highest mountains as they were just a few thousand years ago (basically identical to now), the atmosphere would have been hotter than about 400decC, to maintain the required condensation temperature. For that much water to come just from underground would have meant an eight-kilometre high vacuum under the surface of the earth. This is reality in the world of the televangelist, but not in that of anyone with a brain.Genesis gives a mixture of the two as the source of floodwater. Given that the second is fantasy, how do you expect Noah and the Polar Bears coped in 400 degree heat?
Stuart
Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 07 2007,14:51) Certainly our Awesome God is to be feared.
I don't fear non-existent deities. What I do fear is the actions of the devoutly deluded who want to tell other people what they are allowed to do, or what is good for them, or what gruesome things others believe will happen to them, or who are keen to take others with them in an attempt to acquire 72 virgins (same god!); or the ones who are doctors and refuse treatments because of the their own medieval beliefs. That's what worries me. You are not being at all comforting to me quoting scripture that is a political manifesto of grief for others.Stuart
Hi Stu,
Fair enough.
The gospel is not compulsory.
But it is essential to be rescued from the wrath of God
Jn 3
” 33He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.34For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
35The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand.
36He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
Many sincere people wrongly apply the teachings given to those in Christ instead to those of the world believing Christ came as a political saviour. They adopt a judgemental form of external religious phariseeism that gives God a bad name. God will acept all who come to Christ and sinners are keener than the righteous to avoid the judgement of God on the world.
Quote Do you have an intelligent point to make My point stu, that I think you must have missed (as you went on to explain the difference between between living things and non-living things for the 14 time) is that mostly, it seems like you sit around discussing the “patterns” that humans have found between different species. Yes, humans see patterns everywhere, as you've pointed out yourself. But, you really have little to say about how we got to that stage, a stage that needed countless highly improbably things to happen and all in the right order.
Hi Nick
Quote The gospel is not compulsory.
Very pleased to read of a considerate fundamentalist. You are rare, in my experience!Quote But it is essential to be rescued from the wrath of God
If I came face to face with the OT god I think it would be necessary to save him from my wrath. (Please see the “Why all the Killing” thread for more details). Given that you say the gospel is not compulsory (do I hear a ‘free will’, anyone?!) it is astonishing that god has in the past apparently been willing to simply smite those not prepared to follow its warnings.Quote Many sincere people wrongly apply the teachings given to those in Christ instead to those of the world believing Christ came as a political saviour. They adopt a judgemental form of external religious phariseeism that gives God a bad name. God will acept all who come to Christ and sinners are keener than the righteous to avoid the judgement of God on the world.
I don’t see myself as a ‘sinner’, nor as righteous. Maybe others see me in those terms, but for me they are a nonsense. I was born into the largely secular world of modern New Zealand that has cultural rules to add to the genetically-based ones and it has been overwhelmingly the trend that religious-inspired laws have been repealed one after the other. So in a pragmatic sense christianity has been very political. On murder and theft (to name three) I’m sure we largely agree regardless; working on the sabbath and the vindictive nonsense of Leviticus on homosexuality are areas where the law has moved away from scripture; as far as I know idolatry never has been illegal, nor adultery, nor dishonouring parents, nor coveting next door’s stuff, nor lying (except under oath, which no longer has to be sworn on a bible!), nor polytheism.Interestingly, through political inertia or to garner a section of the rapidly diminishing christian vote, we still have a blasphemy law, and I am curious to know what I would have to do to get arrested for that crime.
I think you have a very pure view of christianity, and one that I could find little objection to, portraying Jesus as a nice chap who told people to be pleasant to one another. I even have some sympathy for the church of england vicar who doesn’t really believe in virgin births and that sort of thing but would just like us all to be a bit more thoughtful and get on better. However I’m sure others here would have the capacity to tear your last paragraph to shreds using scripture alone, if they wanted to.
Stuart
Hi David
Quote My point stu, that I think you must have missed (as you went on to explain the difference between between living things and non-living things for the 14 time) is that mostly, it seems like you sit around discussing the “patterns” that humans have found between different species. Yes, humans see patterns everywhere, as you've pointed out yourself. But, you really have little to say about how we got to that stage, a stage that needed countless highly improbably things to happen and all in the right order. Well that is exactly the point. Regardless of how improbable the things were, they did happen so lets do the forensic science and explain it. Big Bang (from a fraction of a second onwards) — stellar fusion here and elsewhere — supernova elsewhere with heavy elements attracted into orbit round our sun — planetary accretion — cooling of big molten blob of iron, silicates and lots of other stuff — crust forms — atmosphere and later oceans form —
OK so far? Anything here that you would not expect from the application of well-described physics? Probability isn't that relevant if you are applying these laws, avoiding here the sophistic question of 'how those laws came into being'…
— abiogenesis, which is a fluky and poorly understood event, for very good reasons — evolution by natural selection —.
Where are the least likely events in this chain? It's hard to comment on the time before the inflation of the universe in the first step, because the word 'before' is a bit meaningless. Let's jump to abiogenesis. There really is no good forensic evidence here. Noone on earth knows how it happened, not the Pope nor Stephen Hawking nor Richard Dawkins nor Benny Hinn. An interesting question is why has it not happened since, and almost certainly it is because there is life here already and a new replicating molecule would become food for something else very quickly. The probability that abiogenesis happened = 1. Even the Judeo-christian myth has a man made from dirt. So lets carry on with a cell that has a self-replicating coded molecule in it, and the ability to make its own cell membrane and cytoplasm at least. No mitochondria – they came later. Possibly no DNA yet.
What conditions will allow this cell's survival? As has been pointed our here already there are many bacteria living in quite extreme conditions, each adapted to its environment. So it turns out that the properties of water give bacteria a particular niche to exploit and perhaps this has led to life as we know it – had the properties of water been different life would be different today. There is no probability calculation here because the puddle fits its hole, it's not the other way round. P=1. The same obviously applies to all other physical and chemical properties. If it’s not right it won’t happen. The fact that it did happen just means the conditions were right, there is nothing else that can be logically concluded or implied.
So the conditions are right for the particular version of life of which we are a part. The probability of a whole bunch of cells just getting together and forming into a fully functioning mammal at once is too small even to imagine – even thought the Judeo-christian myth has a man's rib cells formed immediately into an entire woman. We need step-wise changes, each one resulting in a tiny improvement in survival and reproductive capacity. Now instead of having monkeys typing randomly to produce Shakespeare we have monkeys adding one more letter to a phrase that already does the job of ‘being Shakespeare’ with all the other versions that are not Shakespeare eventually being torn out of the other typewriters. Adding the next right letter by randomly typing has a probability of about 1 in 30 (to include a few punctuation marks, but not uppercase letters). In a room with even just a few monkeys, starting each time with a new copy of the ‘best’ version, progression towards Shakespeare will be slow but definite. The significant place where this analogy breaks down is that natural selection has no goal. The design of the code is completely retrospective. The probability again is an irrelevant concept because so many paths are taken through the evolutionary landscape – what is the ‘probability of choosing the ones most likely to survive'? Either some get chosen, or they all do, or none do. The probability that there are breeding pairs of a species by the end of a particular day will either be 0 or 1.
Building ready-made people from a pile of cells is the biblical model, not the scientific one. The biblical version is the one used as a strawman by creationists trying to discredit the scientific model. I’m sure the irony is lost on the entire shower of these lying IDiots.
Stuart
Quote I don't know what asymmetry in proto space-time caused the asymmetrical separation of baryons and antibaryons into matter and antimatter separated sufficiently that the likelihood of collisions between particles and their antiparticles was reduced enough for protons to become hydrogen nucleii orbited by electrons, an event that may prove very difficult to investigate given the extreme change in the nature of time that 'concurently' occurred. Neither do you, but let's hear what the Old Testament has to say about it by comparison. OK, I may not necessary disagree with the matter antimatter inhalation, but let's look at the stage before there was a singularity.
How did nothing create a singularity so dense that it spread out as big and dense as the universe we see today.
You say something like you do not know how it started, but could you at least give me the options of this “I don't know” part.
I would like to start from the very beginning. All the other stuff is either explaining the process of the creator or not and it is irrelevant because it can be used for both views.
No I want to know how nothing can become something basically.
What are the options?
You said “I don't know”. Is that the final answer?
…from Forum restrictions thread…
Hi Nick
Quote (Nick)True science is a progression towards the truth of creation.
But belief in magic and the theory of evolution is far more popular.Why is science a progression in any particular prejudiced direction? Why can’t it be seeking truth, no matter what it says about Judeo-christian mythology? If ‘creation’ is as you portray it here, it will bear no particular hallmarks of a creator at all. Our bodies either bear witness to the ‘creator’s’ carelessness, or are a history lesson in natural selection. In the absence of any evidence at all for a creator, I go with the second option.
Belief in evolutionary theory (which is a convergent kind of knowledge, unlike religious doctrine) is commonplace because it is the best explanation we have. If you have a better one, feel free to let us know what it is. And pick up your Nobel Prize in Sweden in a couple of years’ time.
Stuart
…from discussion of making a boys’ room for believers… or a girls’ room…
Hi Morningstar
Quote of course I could be wrong. I view this as a weighing of evidence, both from of an empircal and personal nature.
Well this is miraculous (if you’ll pardon the pun), for this forum. Now what do you mean by ‘evidence…from personal nature’? Anecdote is a starting point, an hypothesis for further investigation. It has little place in the body of evidence that may be used to support a proper theory.Quote But I Know (meaning have no doubt) that there is a God by my previous definition concerning the First Cause. Like I said it is for me a matter of Defining him.
Well your lack of flexibility on the definite existence of something is dogmatic but your deity is no particular problem for many famous philosophers and scientists of the past. If the ‘first cause’ is not a sentient being but a force, why not just say I believe in Newton’s Laws of motion, or whatever natural laws apply to proto-matter/energy/spacetime?Quote I don't refute any scientific claims, for me science is not an enemy at all to belief in God.
The problem for you then is that science seeks to explain everything in the most parsimonious way, and since you claim a first cause, it needs a zeroth cause to explain it in turn.Stuart
Evidence from a personal nature, means my philosophy.
Why don't I use scientific method in all cases, because it can't be used to answer “certain” questions I want answered. I want these answer before death and don't have the time to wait on something that science might never be able to answer anyway.
Ask yourself what you think the First Cause is. Ok, now my philosophy says that is God. Now I just need to define God. It really isn't dogmatic it's logic. Scienctific method doesn't allow an effect without a cause.
How, is it a problem that science seeks to explain everything in the most parsimonious way? Sounds like I have something in common with science.
you can't have zeroth cause, that would actually be the first.
The First Cause is eternal regardless of time or lack of time.
Stu,
Would you please listen to the lecture on the link found on this webpage when you have a chance?
http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2007/november/milleraudio.htm
Hi t8
Quote OK, I may not necessary disagree with the matter antimatter inhalation, but let's look at the stage before there was a singularity. How did nothing create a singularity so dense that it spread out as big and dense as the universe we see today. You say something like you do not know how it started, but could you at least give me the options of this “I don't know” part.
This is the second-best question ever asked on this forum.Quote I would like to start from the very beginning. All the other stuff is either explaining the process of the creator or not and it is irrelevant because it can be used for both views.
This could be the truest and most balanced thing ever said here.Quote You said “I don't know”. Is that the final answer?
This is the best question ever asked on this forum. It cuts straight to the essential nature of the knowledge gained by science. What we know scientifically is always provisional. Contrast that with revelation and scripture.Quote I want to know how nothing can become something basically.What are the options?
Although I have suggested before that fundamental particles are known to frequently go out of, and come into existence, I think a fundamental problem is deciding what “not nothing” is. Until matter and energy, especially the stuff that makes up what we call dark matter and dark energy can be adequately described, any explanation for why there is something and not nothing will not be very satisfactory. We live in an age where the explanations of science have exceeded the wildest dreams of many who lived centuries ago. Maybe it is not unreasonable to give cosmologists time to develop what is a very young science. You can have ‘we don’t know yet’, or god did it, or the Wicca godess accumulated spirit which in turn created matter, or the maddening Jainist ‘never created’ model, or the ‘suddenly from the darkness emerged a thin disc’ model of the Kiowa Apache, etc ad nauseam.The first one is undoubtedly true. The others are not explanations of the kind that will answer the question.
Stuart
Quote (Morningstar @ Dec. 09 2007,00:16) Stu, Would you please listen to the lecture on the link found on this webpage when you have a chance?
http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2007/november/milleraudio.htm
Hi MorningstarAs you know, and is discussed in this programme, Kenneth Miller was instrumental in demonstrating intelligent design to be not worthy of teaching in science classes in Dover, Pennsylvania.
In this he goes on to advocate a form of intelligent design of the deist kind you wrote about – the creation itself is completely preordained and would seem to have irreducible complexity contained in it for humans to be the final destination of evolution. This directly contradicts the known mechanism of evolution and his own scientific testimony against IDiocy. It assumes that evolution could not possibly take any other route, which is not supported by evidence and again is contradicted by how evolution is known to work.
Frankly his parading of a series of scientists who were also christian is cheap, demonstrating nothing about the actual truth of the claims of christianity and, it is not even the kind of thing Dawkins would do to promote atheism.
He has glossed over a lot of details, for example he mentions but does not explain the apparent contradiction between the cruel and indifferent natural world and the special loving, purposeful concept of life he has. He claims that the assertion that life is purposeful is equivalent to the case that it does not have a particular purpose specified from outside. However the evidence mounts up very high on the 'no particular purpose' side of that.
What do you make of it?
Stuart
Hi Stu,
Belief in evolution is belief in a force that drives the changes.
Survival of the fittest starting in in a ever existant swamp does not seem enough.Quote (Nick Hassan @ Dec. 09 2007,05:08) Hi Stu,
Belief in evolution is belief in a force that drives the changes.
Survival of the fittest starting in in a ever existant swamp does not seem enough.
NickCorrectly, you have not said that evolution has a forward-looking purpose. The driving force is partly caused by changes in the environment of the living thing, which can come about for example as the result of a group of animals splitting off from a larger group and walking away to a new place. That is just one mechanism for a force driving speciation. The important thing to remember is that in succeeding generations there will be more of the ones that are good at survival and reproduction and fewer of the ones that aren't. Successful genes are more likely to be passed on. Eventually the two groups will be reproductively isolated because they have drifted apart genetically and then you have two species where there was only one before.
Starting in a swamp (more likely in the oceans for my money) is very poorly understood. Once, though, you have a molecule that can replicate itself the rest is fairly well explained in natural terms.
I think you might be surprised just how much evolution can be observed today in species that reproduce quickly. New species have evolved even in the time since Darwin. The complexity of the eye for example is not very difficult for natural selection to 'achieve' given enough time and selection pressure, in fact it has done it more than once. It may not seem enough to you but there it is, a slow process of change that has gone on a long time, leaving a fossil trail in its wake that tells the story pretty well.
Stuart
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