It did not defy logic, it defied popular scientific belief.
Only by some non-standard definitions of "logic" and "scientific belief".
"Logic" means one of two rather different things, and neither makes your statement true:
1. "A connection between facts that seems reasonable or inevitable" -- or whatever fits "common sense", if you will. This is the layman's usual meaning when he speaks of "logic" or what's "logical". By the conventional wisdom of the time when Ptolemy's earth-centric solar system was the rage, the obviousness of the earth's lack of motion, and the fact that all heavenly bodies moved about it, was so solid that if you could go back in time and tell them they weren't being "logical", they'd lock you up as a madman. Hell, they *did* lock up Galileo for saying basically the same thing.
2. "Symbolic logic", or formal mathematical-style logic. This is a rigorous form of devising a proof by stepwise construction of a string of inarguable propositions from a set of starting premises until a conclusion is reached. The conclusion is rock-solid if the premises are correct. The problem, of course, is that you have to start with correct premises. Back in, say, 1500 it could be rigorously "proven" that the Earth stood still -- based unfortunately on the incorrect premises about physics which were in vogue at the time.
In no way is it correct to say that it "wasn't logical" to believe in an Earth-centric solar system in the mileu in which it was widely believed.
Nor is it correct to say that it was a "popular scientific belief", since at the time *nothing* was "scientific". It was all "common sense", or "dogma", or "divine inspiration", or ivory-tower theorizing, and so on. How many angels could dance on the head of a pin was the sort of topic that could be endlessly debated, for there was no set of principles by which to judge the results.
The scientific method for building a coherent body of theory was founded almost single-handedly by Galileo (early 1600's), although it caught fire rapidly and was widely refined thereafter.
Your statement can be used as easily against evolution.
If you think so, you'll have to explain why.
Push it to it's ultimate conclusion and the assertion becomes "logic is unreliable."
*Appeals* to logic are unreliable. So is formal logic if you don't verify your premises. That's my point. It's easy to declare "my position is logical", but that doesn't mean it's right, it doesn't mean it's been properly grounded in sufficient reality-checks.
That's where science comes in -- it's the best method ever devised (one could argue the *only* one) that has a proven track record of being a reliable way to separate the wheat from the chafe. Thus my next sentence in my original post:
"Armchair "logic" is fine for brainstorming some ideas to test, but sooner or later you need to reality-check them or it's all just alchemy."
I'm all for that. Lets put a reality check on your explanation for the existence of matter. Understand, Mr. Dan, that much of your theory is alchemy.
"My" theory? What exactly do you think is "my" theory? I was just poking yours with a stick to see how sturdy it was.
[Dataman wrote:] 3: The third option is that matter was created.
[I wrote:] Right, by the Big Bang. Thanks for clearing that up for us.
I think you might be in over your head as well.
No, but I think you missed my point.
Why would you, Dan Day, who defends what he calls a scientific theory, ascribe to an explosion the attributes of deity?
I didn't.
My point, which I'm sorry you missed, is that your third option, "matter was created", is larger than you realize.
You obviously presume that if matter didn't "create itself", or "always existed", then the only option left was that "matter was created", *and* (your unspoken premise) that if it was indeed created, then it was created *by an intelligent deity*.
Even leaving aside the fact that I don't think you've convincingly ruled out the first two possibilties, my "big bang" comment was meant to tweak you by pointing out that "matter was created" could *also* include the possibility that matter was "created" by some extraordinary "natural" process.
And no, you can't roll that into category #1 ("matter made itself"), because whatever initiated the Big Bang, it was something other than matter-or-energy as we know it. It was operating by a different set of rules than those which make matter-as-we-know-it and energy-as-we-know-it (or even space-and-time-as-we-know-them) exist.
Might those extra-Universal conditions have been the Mind of some God? Perhaps. But it might also have been some other non-conscious set of physical laws different from our own but no more godly. Just a parallel universe of a different flavor, if you will.
*What* caused it is currently beyond our ability to know (and quite possibly may always be), but the point is that regardless of what we can prove or disprove, you can't just sit there at your keyboard and use "logic" to toss out every possibility except for "it was the old guy with the long grey beard that the Bible talks about". Clearly there *are* other options.
Or maybe matter *did* make itself, or is "eternal". Sure, these possibilities seem to defy common sense, but as J.B.S Haldane once wisely said, "the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we *can* imagine". The headache-inducing weirdness of quantum mechanics seems to lend some credence to that idea. But his central point is that there's no guarantee that the "ultimate" explanations of the universe *have* to make any "logical" sense. They may well be mind-bogglingly in violation of what we would consider logic or common sense.
So I'm not really sure you're on the right track when you unceremoniously throw out whatever you consider "illogical" and seize on the one explanation you find comfortably "logical".
Do you still claim evolution is not a religion?
Yes, but you're getting off track. We were discussing cosmology (e.g., origin of the universe), not evolution. Evolution would still be a science whether the universe was made by the Big Bang, by God, or by the pink unicorns.
Evolution depends as little on where matter "originally" came from as does meteorology, rocket science, or auto repair.
Darwinists must necessarily belittle logic because it worries their theory. It must be minimized, shown to be unreliable and undependable. This is why Hume, after he said it is reasonable to believe in a Creator, also said that because there is no Creator reason must be unreliable. Did you get that? Hume, presumably from an armchair, ruled reason unreliable because it did not suit his worldview!
On to your next post.
Of course, it's also funny that they then assume that it was their deity and not someone else's or the Flute-Playing Locust or the Trickster Coyote or the little pink unicorns or ...
If you think matter and energy haven't always existed and you also think they were not created, then please tell me what alternatives you have in mind?