Posted on 10/15/2001 7:18:15 PM PDT by Heartlander
What exactly is going on here? Schools suddenly want to make a point that God has no place in our children’s lives during a time our country is crying out for Him. If education is their claim than let’s deal with some facts:
1. Had the rate of expansion of the big bang been different, no life would have been possible. A reduction by one part in a million million would have led to collapse before the temperatures could fall below ten thousand degrees. An early increase by one part in a million would have prevented the growth of galaxies, stars, and planets.
2. The material of the observable universe is isotropic (evenly distributed) to an accuracy of 0. 1 percent. Such an accuracy is antecedently improbable and slight variations would rule out life.
3. Had the values of the gravitational constant, the strong force constant (the force binding protons and neutrons in the nucleus), the weak force (the force responsible for many nuclear processes [e.g., the transmutation of neutrons into protons]), and the electromagnetic force been slightly greater or smaller, no life would have been possible.
4. In the formation of the universe, the balance of matter to antimatter had to be accurate to one part in ten billion for the universe to arise.
5. The random coalescing of several unrelated factors necessary for life someplace in the universe is highly improbable. This can be seen by examining the factors on earth necessary for life. The point is not, however, that it is amazing that these factors came together on earth instead of somewhere else. Rather, it is amazing that they came together anywhere, and earth is used to illustrate the factors necessary. Had the ratio of carbon to oxygen been slightly different, no life could have formed. If the mass of a proton were increased by 0.2 percent, hydrogen would be unstable and life would not have formed. For life to form, the temperature range is only 1-2 percent of the total temperature range, and earth obtains this range by being the correct distance from the sun, just the right size, with the right rotational speed, with a special atmosphere which protects earth and evens out temperature extremes. In addition, the planet which had these factors just happened to contain the proper amount of metals (especially iron), radioactive elements to provide the right heat source, and water-forming compounds. Perhaps the proper temperature range could be obtained in another way. But earth shows how delicate and multifaceted are the independent factors involved in maintaining the correct temperature for life. 3
6. The chance formation of life from nonlife (abiogenesis) has been estimated at around 1 x 1040,000 Thus, the probability of life forming anywhere in the cosmos is miniscule. 4 Furthermore, in the process of reacting in some prebiotic chemical soup, the reactants often need to be isolated from their environment at just the right time and reintroduced at just the right time for the reaction to continue. This is achieved in the lab by investigator interference, but it is difficult to conceive of a mechanism to do this in nature and to do it at just the right time.
1. Davies, God and the New Physics, P. 189. 2. See Davies, God and the New Physics, pp. 177-89; The Accidental Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); John Wiester, The Genesis Connection (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), pp. 27-36, 47-50; hn Leslie, "Anthropic Principle, World Ensemble, Design," American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (Aprfl ):141-50. 3. Wiester, The Genesis Connection, pp. 42-43, 47-50. 4. For examples of these estimates, see Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin, pp. 113-66, 218-19; Pierre Lecomte du Noiiy, Human Destiny (New York: The New American Library of World Literature, 1949), pp. 30-39; Robert Shapiro, Origins (New York: Summit, 1986), pp. 117-31; Henry M. Morris, ed., Scientific Creationism (El Cajon, Calif.: Master, 1974), pp. 59 69
By "existence", she meant that the property of existence. She isn't saying that anything in particular exists, just that it is possible for something to exist. It doesn't make sense to talk about the global property of existence in terms of time, eternal or otherwise; the existence of time presupposes the existence of existence.
In fact, I'll go one better and put time in the realm of epistemology, and not in the realm of metaphysics. The universe itself doesn't presuppose the existence of time; time is a property of the universe. (Time exists in the universe; the universe does not exist in time.) The existence of existence, by contrast, is a metaphysical point.
my point exactly.
You realize of course that our individual perception and mode of understanding always track to personal experience and our extended experience codified as knowledge; i.e. we are all prejudiced perceivers now. So much of what we know that is demonstrably important and relevant, however, now cannot be seen, which leads us to lose "faith" in ourselves and concede knowing to the "experts". This is unfortunate IMHO because the experts seem ultimately to relegate the unreconcileable to "noise" or illusion. They/We ignore facts they/we cannot explain. Dreaming is hallucination, for example. A numinous experience or two tends to change that but they seem few and far between and may be, unfortunately, also relegated to the "noise" category.
If you are referring to the "Everett Interpretation" of quantum mechanics, I do not accept it for other reasons having to do with the relative weights of eigenstates.
If you're talking about something like the chaotic inflation of Andre Linde and others, it may indeed be correct, but unfortunately it is not falsifiable. I do find it philosopically--if not scientifically--attractive.
Hmmmm... I think you're very close to the truth, but I'll have to ponder that for a while. Yes, time can be viewed as a "sub-set" of existence, but it seems to me to be inextricably conjoined with existence. That is, the apprehension of time or "before and after, seems to be integral to the "first act of the mind," apprehension of being. Or maybe it's integral to the "second act of the mind" or composition, the act of distinguishing this from that.
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OK, so do you want to work "out" from epistemology? That seems like a good place to start. I'm not sure if I quite understand your system. You seem to be a "deistic materialist." Srict materialism undercuts a realist epistemology. If we are simply machines, there is no way of knowing whether we are mal-functioning. Therefore, all truth claims are cast into absolute metaphysical doubt. How do you overcome that?
All the matter and all the time you want isn't going to produce "information," meaning a code such as DNA which is interpretable to mean something... outside of a cell, protein strands and DNA would be meaningless. ALL the parts of life have to exist at the same time for life to exist. They cannot evolve one at a time.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Did he just pop out of nowhere one day? Gradually evolve from lesser beings? Yes, there are alot of things that we do not understand about the universe, but I have a much easier time believing that we originated due to a series of improbable coincidences than there is some devine being, who appears to be able to transcend all known laws of physics to tinker at a microscopic level with a massively complex universe.
You are starting to sound like a Mormon....
Even if there were a supernatural being behind our every move, who's to say that it is a christian god? Why are the Native American myths of creation any less truthful? The christian concept of god is no less mythical than the Greek and Roman gods of ancient mythology.
In this instance, I think that Catholics, Protestants and any other form of Christian would inform you to look to the Bible
As for public schools, they serve a valuable purpose in ensuring children are exposed to scientific ideals, rather than being trapped in their parent's religion.
Sorry, but even if we take the "science vs religion" issue out of the picture, I have not been impressed with our schools. They are proving more and more liberal. My plans are to soon start homeschooling. I have met children who are being home schooled, and have found that most are above the level of the Public Education system (Not to slam individual schools or teachers... there are many good ones out there).
I was always taught to read the Bible literally. Otherwise you are claiming that either God Lied, or that God, who created everything, can't make sure that his word was recorded/preserved properly(in other words, that He can't write a book).
The primary problem is not that we (collectively) cannont believe in the existence of God based on the facts, but that we (collectively) choose not to despite the facts. It is a problem of our will, not a problem of our intellect.
Take the Bible at face value, with no prejudices, and you will find that it is emminently believable.
I don't doubt it, but I can't help wondering what the biologist's version of the encounter was like.
Exactly. It's the state's job to counteract/undermine parental influence. /SARCASM>
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