Posted on 08/01/2006 12:42:58 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Spoken like a true evolutionist. I think everybody who sees the beauty in nature and natural processes would be thrilled about how physics, chemistry, genetics, astronomy, geology come together in giving us humans the understanding of how we got here. It really is beautiful.
I do not see it as an argument/apologetic for a god. Human beings figured this out--with a lot of effort over centuries and with opposition from churches.
"By the way, I am convinced that trying to prove or disprove the existence of God by reason is and always will be a futile effort."\
You may be right. I'm not sure you can prove anything about the world by reason alone. You have to use observation and testing of concepts which you cook up in your brain, or you have to accept the testimony or evidence provided by someone else.
Mathematics is pretty much pure reason, and science could hardly exist without it, but math by itself is not science.
You mean, Catholic scholars, apologeticists, Biblicalists with 100 arguments over 100 centuries haven't convinced you? You mean that Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist scholars, apologeticists, 'scripturalists' with 100 arguments over 100 centuries haven't convinced you?
You might be a skeptic, or even worse a Unitarian or a Druze.
There are some that say, "your immortal soul is in danger", but actually there is no evidence for this.
"Human beings figured this out--with a lot of effort over centuries and with opposition from churches."
Wow. Despite their phenomenal wealth and power, churches somehow couldn't stop the march of science. In fact, science got started in the Christian world. Funny, isn't it. Maybe the scientists went off into an "alternate universe" to do their work and escape those Christians who were always "opposing" them. Then they popped back in through a wormhole to publish their work.
And about your tagline ("I just believe in one fewer god than you do"): If I were a Hindu and believed in 300 million gods (or whatever they do--it's some such immense number), does that mean you believe in 299,999,999 gods?
Maybe some hyper intelligent species did it all. How did such an postulated hyper intelligent species come into being? Only the shadow knows.
"I'm feeling something pointy in my back...."
Maybe Occam's Razor?
This is one of the great non sequiturs of all time.
Nowhere, NOWHERE did anyone suggest that persons holding office stop having their personal faiths. Your illogic is an example. Note that the Constitutional oath does NOT contain the phrase 'so help me god.' Look it up, this phrase is NOT there.
The Constitution says that office holders with power of office are not permitted to use their personal faith to discriminate against pagans, atheists, and other non-believers.
How do you interpret Art. VI?
Spoken like a true evolutionist. I think everybody who sees the beauty in nature and natural processes would be thrilled about how physics, chemistry, genetics, astronomy, geology come together in giving us humans the understanding of how we got here. It really is beautiful.
And God is behind all that science too! Ain't it wonderful! When I'm out in a beautiful part of our great outdoors I see the geology and biology and I see God's hand too
Nor do I but fantasy is not reason, it is fantasy. Oscillating universes fit that bill quite nicely.
If not oscillating or some other means of interdicting the implosion half-cycle of the Universe we'll have to create a universe to live in. Else wise we perish.
BTW, what you are decribing is design by intelligent beings.
Yep. The most intelligent being known is the conscious human being.
Do you think that we are unique in that capacity, we humans who have been here but for the blink of an eye?
3,000 years of consciousness is a blink of an eye. Unique in that there is no other known conscious animal. The ability to create metaphors, analogies and introspection is unique to human consciousness. Consciousness is the capacity. How long it takes in the scheme of things -- cosmic time -- it will likely be a blink or two, maybe less.
Adhering to the laws of nature -- physics -- man has controlled nature to outpace evolution. And soon will render human death obsolete.
There is no evidence for the existence of God, nor should there be. Faith alone is the way.
I didn't know threats fell under Occam's purview.
Why is it that when someone posts something interesting to Christians, all the atheists show up?
Why are they so interested in God if they don't believe in God?
Why do we swear on a Bible in a court of law? You know, "I swear to tell the truth so help me God". Is a court of law no longer a government institution?
"The Constitution says that office holders with power of office are not permitted to use their personal faith to discriminate against pagans, atheists, and other non-believers."
Please give a specific citation where the Constitution of the United States makes any mention whatsoever of "pagans atheists, or non-believers."
I love your tagline.....still laughing
Christians can't even agree on Catholic or Lutheran doctrines. Catholics are schismed into 12 or so groups; Protestants into 189 sects. Who compete with each other to advance "the one true faith". Give me a break. So many claims, so little evidence.
It is clear that 340,000 pastors and priests have an agenda to keep them supported without doing anything productive.
And you think they are not qualified?
No one is. Nobody today has the knowledge necessary to determine that. They don't even understand all the properties of *this* universe that result from the "basic variables" (whatever *those* are, and no one knows *that* either) that go into making a universe, much less what *other* kinds of universes would or would not result from changes in those variables, nor what physical processes would be possible in those universes which do not exist in ours, nor what those unknown physical processes might or might not contribute to the capability of something to exist in those alternate universes that might be worthy of the name "life". Anyone who believes that this is knowable at this point in time is immensely foolhardy.
I think you should read what they say.
I have. It's arrogant nonsense, based on vastly incomplete information about what "alternate universe generation" producing "alternate universes" with "alternate physics" and "alternate life" might be possible.
The ones I have read are very well informed about other fields of science.
...none of which prepares them for the wild-ass speculations they make.
Nor do I know of any biologists or other scientists who can contradict them, or even try.
Then you haven't looked real carefully, this kind of nonsense gets frequently refuted.
Remember, we are not talking about conditions which are merely different in the way submarine hot springs are, or the surface of Mars is. We are talking about conceptual universes in which no matter is possible at all,
And how exactly do they determine what kind of matter is or is not possible in a "conceptual universe", when they don't even understand the workings of *our* universe well enough to have been able to predict, based on nothing but the values of the physical constants, whether life would have been possible in this one?
A "conceptual universe" is just someone using their imagination. And the conclusions they draw about it will be as accurate as those based on any complete fantasy.
or in which the Big Bang would already have reversed and collapsed, without leaving enough time for life to form.
...or in which other forces would result, totally unknown to us in this universe, which would have obviated that "problem".
Thank you.
Life is a virtual impossibility.
I doubt that.
How can we prove it exists at all?
Decartes solved that one.
It could all be a delusion.
Even if it is, we're still alive in enough of a sense to *have* that delusion. Again, see Decartes.
Now, would you care to address anything I actually wrote?
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