MWF
Here's a better approach:
What are the four known know fundamental forces?
What are the elementary particles of mass/energy?
Now: are there any phenomena, for which data exist to describe the
phenomena, that require(s) any additional particles or forces to explain the
phenomena?
The final answer, by the by, is no.
The speicific answers to the first two is left as an exercise.
>
>>Dave
>>> You claim you make no assertions.
>>
>>MWF
>> That would be self contradictory :-)
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: Good point (smile)
>
>Michael
>. I make many assertions, I just
>>try to ensure that they are well grounded.
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: Fair enough. But what about things you have no
>"grounds" for? How do you face such things?
MWF
Such as?
>
>>
>>Dave
>>> You believe everything happened by chance,
>>
>>MWF
>> Nope.
>>
>> That's creationst flaptwaddle (to be polite) which has nothing to do
>>with much of anything outside creationist pseudoagruments.
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: If there is no design, then there is only randomness
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTT.
MWF
Much of what occurs in the universe is undirected--->lacking a
definte plan, purpose, or pattern. However it is not "random"-->consisting
of events which all have an equal probabliity of occuring.
To use a word such as "random" in an argument is to set yourself up
for the fallacy of equivocation, which is just where you have landed.
Dave
>- things could have "worked out" any number of imaginable ways.
MWF
The key point to keep in mind is that "any number" of imaginable
ways is NOT an infinite number of ways, or "any way". The components of the
universe interact in specific, predictable, repeatable, predictable ways.
This seems to be utterly fundamental to the universe and shows no
variation--if conditions are repeated, events unfold the same way within the
limits of precision possible. The same physics describes the nuclear
reaction at the core of every star. Every water molecule behaves exactly
like every other water molecule.
Thus the "number of ways" things can happen is severly limited and
channeled.
> That, to
>me, is what chance is (in this context) - what we have become has occurred
>by this chance - it could easily have turned out any other way of the
>myriads of possibilities.
In which case you wouldn't be here wondering about it. (weak
antrhropic principle)
> If you don't think we got here by design, and you
>don't think we got here by chance, then how do you think we got here?
I think the basic explanation is above.
Life violates no physical laws. The physical conditions which allow
carbon/water based chemistry to exist are present on the earth. Water and
carbon and assorted other minerals are present on earth.
Add energy (a minute quantity stolen from that which heats the
surface of the planet) and time, and voila, at some point a molecule reached
the point of self replication, and the rest, as they say, is history.
>>Dave
>>> You claim rationality, yet argue irrationally.
>>
>>MWF
>> Really? When? I'll try and fix it if you show me any irrational
>>arguments I have made.
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: Your arguments aren't what is in question. It is
>your premises that are. You claim that we "just appeared"
MWF
Nope nope nope. Complex carbon chemistry, including the ability to
form self replicating molecules which are able to encode information, is
inherent in the structure of the universe.
Dave
> it seems and deny a creator, without suitable reason to.
MWF
It's time for those latin phrases you hate so much.
Argument Ad Ignoratio. Fallacy of equivocation.
Deny has two definitions which are of importance here:
1) to refuse to accept the existence, truth or validity of or
acknowledge claims of
2) to give a negative answer to
There is no positive evidence that the universe is a created thing,
thus I give a negative answer to the question of "Does God exist?". That is
an existential question, being such there should be postive existential
reasons to accept it as true before one affirms it as such; there being no
postive evidence, I must then not affirm the statement as true.
Thus in the sense of definition 2 above, and only in the sense of
question 2, I "deny" a creator.
You then however fall into the fallacy of equivocation and use
"deny" in the sense of definition 1, which implies a refusal to acknowlege
the very existence of the claim, from the dictionary again: "DENY implies a
firm refusal to accept as true, to grant or concede, or to acknowledge the
existence or claims of ", i.e., to refuse to acknowledge even a legitimate
claim supported by substantial evidence.
But that is not what I am doing.
There is no evidence. I will not give assent to an existential
statement without evidence. Whether that involves loose moose in places they
don't belong, or fairies,--or gods.
This shift in the meaning of "deny" is the fallacy of equivocation.
To assert the existence of a creator simply because no one can
"prove" he doesn't exist as described, is the fallacy of the argument ad
ignoratio.
Dave
> You claim there is error in a Bible
>when it refers to things you do not fully comprehend or know the entire
>background to.
MWF
Since you don't give a specific example, I'll supply one.
The entry into Jerusalem in Matthew v. Mark & Luke.
In Matthew the gospel says two donkeys were fetched and ridden.
In the other two only one donkey was fetched and ridden.
In a court of law, the statement of Matthew (pretending for the
moment that the Gospels are people) would be allowed in as contradicting
evidence against the statements of Mark and Luke, under an exception---
You see,testimony which simply contradicts the testimony of another
witness, and nothing more is normally not allowed. Some othe purpose must
also be met. Except.
When the testimony is of amatter which is of a nature that one who
was actually a witness at the time and place simply could not have been
mistaken about.
Like how many donkeys Jesus' disciples fetched and how many Jesus
actually rode into Jerusalem.
With such a clear contradiction of such a simple fact, the evidence
would be allowed in to impeach the other witnesses (or vice versa).
With such a cear contradiction of fact, I need no more data to know
that at a minimum that someone's statement is wrong.
Dave
> You must believe science and logic hold all the answers
>(what else is there besides God?) yet you don't have answers for everything
MWF
And I don't expect to. I, the entire human race, exist on the skin
of one planet in orbit around a minor star in an average galaxy which is
itself but a speck in the immensity of the universe. And we've been at this
science gig for only about 400 years-->the universe is 15,000,000,000 years
old as well as immense.
Is it any wonder we don't have answers to everything yet?
I should feel bad?
DAVE
>- yet you claim someone is wrong who believes they do have the answers. How
>can you know? That is what I call irrational.
MWF
Where is the evidence that you have "the answers"? What can you DO
with these "answers"? How do you demonstrate the truth of these "answers"?
You say it makes you feel good. Well, just about every other
religion on the world has followers who will make the same claim.
Anecdotes are not evidence.
If you had real evidence then converting other believers from their
religions would be a snap. There wouldn't be 20,000+ denominations of
Christianity in the world.
The fact is you have no evidence, so you really don't have any answers.
>>
>>Dave
>>> You claim there are answers to be found through "reason", yet
>>>you deny things and make assertions without knowing them to be true - very
>>>unreasonable.
>>
>>MWF
>> I deny existential statements when there is no good existential
>>reason for believing them true, or even probable.
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: Then that only tells me you don't "believe" them - an
>act of faith. Which puts you on the same ground as your opponents: relying
>on their faith.
MWF
No no no Dave.
You make exactly the same kind of judgements in every other part of
your life that doesn't involve your god belief. If someone came up to you at
work and told you that the communists had just won a surprise election in
Canada, or the Spanish just got revenge for the humiliation of Trafalgar and
invaded England, you wouldn't believe them without some further evidence.
You are trading on no one else's "faith" at that point, you are making a
rational discrimination based on your knowledge of the world, and nothing else.
Yet let someone make an unsubstantiated claim of a creator to me,
and suddenly I'm unreasonable becuase, without evidence, I refuse to give
assent to the statement.
>
>Michael>
>> As for any assertions I have made you feel are untrue, tell me which
>>ones, and we can discuss why I feel they're adequately grounded.
>>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: I have in the past - granted, time is limited for all
>of us so you may not have had time to respond, but a couple come to mind (I
>don't have exact quotes so please correct me if I've misrepresented you):
>"We have done a pretty thorough investigation of our material universe
MWF
From the subatomic level of the quark, up, down, and charmed, done
by the physicist.
To the awsome radiant display of the quasar at the edge of the
visible universe, made by the astronomer.
We have investigated the unverse across a scale involving
approximately (based on some very quick very rough calculations) over 40
orders of magnitude, from the quark to the edge of space. From intervals of
time so brief light has scarcely time to travel a foot, back 15 billion
years to the birth of the universe.
Sounds mighty thorough to me.
DAVE
....so
>we can conclude that the resurrection of a human body is impossible".
MWF
Come on Dave. If I haven't proved by now, based on all the
biological evidence, that it IS impossible, then the very basis of your
religion is in trouble.
For if ressurection is indeed a normal physical possibility, then no
God would have been involved with Christ. It would have been but a normal,
if rare physical phenomena and nothing to really get excited about (unless
you're the gut with the second lease on life).
>There are two assertions that are irrational.
>
>>Dave
>>>The only "foundation" I can remotely see for "atheism" is that you assert
>>>that God either doesn't, or can't exist.A claim you obviously have no idea
>>>whether it's true or not.
>>
>>MWF
>> Never said that.
>>
>> "God exists" is an existential statement. It implies existence of a
>>particular thing to which the noun "god" is being attached.
>>
>> Before I need accept the truth of any existential statement, I am
>>well within my intellectual rights to demand at least some evidence that the
>>statement might be true that at least amounts to more than whatever evidence
>>there is that it might be false.
>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: Fair enough.
>
>Michael>
>> So far, the confilicting existential claims of competing religions
>>is alone enough to throw profound doubt on the entire concept of supernatural
>>beings. Modern science gives solid evidence against anything supernatural
>>being at work anywhere in the universe, now or in the past.
>>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: WOW - you needed an example? There you are. Tell me
>how modern science proves that there is no supernatural.
MWF
All the way back at the beginning of the post somewhere.
What are the fundamental forces?
What are the fundamental pieces of mass/energy?
What phenomena, for which there is incontroverted data, are the
above not adequate to explain?
>Michael
>> At the moment however, there is nothing analogous to the black body
>>radiation problem, or the orbital precession of the perihelion of mercury or
>>any other problems which require any supernatural hypothesis to explain. So
>>"god" just gets lumped in with "Bigfoot", UFO's, and other such phenomena of
>>the human will to believe until it is proven to be something more.
>>
>>Dave
>>>I hope you are outside cutting the lawn when the roof falls in.
>>
>>MWF
>> Well, I should hope you would be also.
>>
>> I mean, after all, if Zeus shows back up that could cause just a
>>little cognitive dissonance within the Christian community.
>>
>(DAVE 12/4) Michael: I am not an expert on mythology, but I don't think
>Zeus ever said he was coming back, did he?
MWF
I' not a big expert either, but I don't think Zeus gave a damn
about mere mortals, so I don't think he would have felt at all compelled to
leave word. Know what I mean?
Ciao.
Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., lawstudent
http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink/Library/intraits.html
* * *
He that would make his own liberty secure,
must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates this duty,
he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine