Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Ubiquitous Miracles Of Our Existence

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In another thread, I asked daveS why he was an atheist. He responded:

The proposition “there is no god” also appears to me to be consistent with what I observe in the world.

When asked what that meant, he expanded:

Well, I don’t know of any inconsistencies between this proposition and my observations. For example, I’m not aware of a god blatantly intervening in the world, as some people say happens.

I’ve addressed this in the other thread, but this comment is reflective of what a lot of atheists say is a convincing lack of evidence for god: the supposed lack of observed miracles. Atheists think we live in a world that looks like a world without a god. Of course, that’s circular reasoning based upon a groundless assumption; the assumption that what we experience is what we would be experiencing if there were no god and no supernatural commodities – a world dictated by more-or-less predictable cause-and-effect sequences of matter interacting according to intrinsic properties and orderly patterns.

Unrecognized by atheists, however is that therein lies what I call the ubiquitous miracles of our existence. We don’t consider them miraculous because we take them so utterly for granted that we, for the most part, aren’t even consciously aware of these miracles.  We’re blind to the miraculous because the nature of our very existence is miraculous.

1. The miracle of an orderly, predictable experiential context. What if the universe was not orderly? What if the constants and properties that guide matter into patterned behaviors were not constant at all? What if they fluctuated randomly? Why should matter have any consistent properties at all? What holds these properties and forces at certain values?  Without an orderly universe, how would we have any rational thoughts? Nothing would be coherent.  How would we even come into existence unless something was keeping activity in the universe orderly?

2. The miracle of an individual conscious existence. Why should interacting matter become conscious and have individualistic thoughts? How does such a thing even happen? Why should our thoughts be apparently controllable and orderly? How is it that we can seemingly create a virtually unlimited amount of highly complex, coherent ideas/information on demand?

3. The miracle of mind over matter. How is it that without any knowledge whatsoever of how any of it works, we can simply will an action and cause the correct sequences of countless microscopic physical interactions to properly occur to achieve body movement? I was playing with my year-old great granddaughter the other day and she saw me wiggle my eyebrows, then immediately wiggled hers. Okay, she had no idea how to do that, and couldn’t even see herself doing it. How did she wiggle her eyebrows in response? It can’t be anything other than her, in whatever conscious state she has developed at this point, seeing me do a thing and then willing her body to do the same thing, and the her body immediately and correctly translating a pre-language, entirely uneducated intent into countless physico-chemical events that ended up being her wiggling her eyebrows.

I honestly don’t know how anything gets any more miraculous than that which we take for granted every moment of our existence. IMO, the existence of an orderly, predictable world where conscious entities exist and have intentional control (to a large degree) over their physical bodies and thoughts, and the existence of logic and mathematics as functionally valid correspondences to that experience is far, far more profoundly miraculous than if I saw somebody flying or solving a super-complex problem or parting an inland sea. Frankly, I’ve seen “miraculous” faith healings and all kinds of “miraculous” things that most people would simply not believe unless they experience them (and perhaps not even then), and none of it even remotely compares to the ubiquitous, every-day miracles that allow all of us this incredible experience of being deliberate, conscious entities in an orderly, lawfully predictable universe.

Comments
Vy @ 51 LOL! Apparently, rvb8 is in the lead for this year's UD Piñada Award. Seversky, Chesterton is not objecting to science, he is objecting to fantasy conjecture masquerading as science. For example, the evidentiary quality of the multiverse theory is not fundamentally different than that of a cosmic turtle laying universe eggs.
In other words, he would turn to materialist resources because they are known to work.
Materialism is not the same thing as the scientific method. According to an internet definition . . .
Materialism is the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.
The problem with materialism is the demonstrated scientific fact that conscious, apparently human, observation determines reality at the quantum level; and since about 2010, experiments have shown that there's no separation between micro and macro scales in this regard. Here are a couple of relevant quotes:
"It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." – Eugene Wigner “We have become participators in the existence of the universe. We have no right to say that the past exists independent of the act of observation.” – John Wheeler,
These discoveries do not negate the scientific method, but they do falsify materialism. -QQuerius
October 1, 2016
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Barry Arrington @ 7
When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is MAGIC. It is not a ‘law,’ for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, ‘law,’ ‘necessity,’ ‘order,’ ‘tendency,’ and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, ‘charm,’ ‘spell,’ ‘enchantment.’ They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a MAGIC tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy The point Chesterton makes is both obvious and irrefutable. Yet it somehow escapes our materialist friends
In other words, Chesterton is rejecting scientific accounts of the natural world because they do not yet all possess the "pathetic level of detail" that he and others of his persuasion demand. This ignores the fact that any alternative accounts, which invoke miracles for example, offer far less detail but, nonetheless, he prefers the charm of magical thinking and terminology. That's his choice, of course, but I strongly suspect that if he or any of his loved ones had fallen seriously ill, he would hardly have been satisfied with a diagnosis of bewitchment or possession by evil spirits. He would have demanded to know, in no uncertain terms, what was actually wrong with them and how it was to be treated. In other words, he would turn to materialist resources because they are known to work. That's what any rational person would do.Seversky
October 1, 2016
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Post 53 and 54 have been put in an article:
Meanderings on Atheism, Darwinism, and Science (Atheism of the Gaps) - Oct. 1, 2016 http://religiopoliticaltalk.com/meanderings-on-atheism-darwinism-and-science/
bornagain77
October 1, 2016
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KF @ 47 Thanks. I always appreciate your very insightful posts. Many points to ponder.CannuckianYankee
October 1, 2016
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rvb: almost every post at this site deals with the, ‘how can evolution/the Big Bang etc theories explain morality, beauty, art etc. Flat out false. I have mentioned before that Darwinian evolution is worthless in explaining higher mathematics. If higher mathematics were necessary for survival then it would have arisen in all cultures and not just Western Civilization. Human language on the other hand has arisen in all cultures. The problem for Darwinian evolution here is the utter lack of precursors in any other mammalian species, which indicates that your sacred RMNS is really a miracle after all if it had anything to do with language. Whatever intermediate species between us and the great apes (with partial language ability) somehow did not make it to modern times. However since those intermediate species were more 'fit' than the great apes, otherwise they would not have been 'selected', why did they not survive but the apes did? This conundrum for you guys and Darwinian evolution has been admitted to by Noam Chomsky et al: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401/full Chomsky even says that 40 years of trying to shoehorn language into a Darwinian explanation has been a total waste. Not surprising really, because Darwinism is a story, not a science. It was invented by a non-scientist as the creation story for philosophical materialists.groovamos
October 1, 2016
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As well, Darwinian evolution, the supposed pride and joy of Atheistic Materialism, is itself useless as a heuristic in science
"Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self-centered and aggressive – except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed – except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery. Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology." Philip S. Skell - (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. - Why Do We Invoke Darwin? - 2005 http://www.discovery.org/a/2816 "In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all." Marc Kirschner, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to "Evolutionary Processes" - (2000). Doctors and Evolution - May 19, 2015 Excerpt: Coincidentally, a correspondent today sends across my desk this from biologist Jerry Coyne, of Why Evolution Is True fame. Writing in Nature ("Selling Darwin"), Coyne has conceded: "[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/how_is_it_possi096181.html
In fact, to the extent that Darwinian evolution has influenced scientific research, it has sent science down blind alleys by making wrong predictions, such as the false predictions of vestigial organs and junk DNA. The following paper evaluates 23 fundamental false predictions of evolutionary theory from a wide range of different categories
Why investigate evolution’s false predictions? Excerpt: The predictions examined in this paper were selected according to several criteria. They cover a wide spectrum of evolutionary theory and are fundamental to the theory, reflecting major tenets of evolutionary thought. They were widely held by the consensus rather than reflecting one viewpoint of several competing viewpoints. Each prediction was a natural and fundamental expectation of the theory of evolution, and constituted mainstream evolutionary science. Furthermore, the selected predictions are not vague but rather are specific and can be objectively evaluated. They have been tested and evaluated and the outcome is not controversial or in question. And finally the predictions have implications for evolution’s (in)capacity to explain phenomena, as discussed in the conclusions. https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/why-investigate-evolution-s-false-predictions “The thyroid gland, pituitary gland, thymus, pineal gland, and coccyx, … once considered useless by evolutionists, are now known to have important functions. The list of 180 “vestigial” structures is practically down to zero. Unfortunately, earlier Darwinists assumed that if they were ignorant of an organ’s function, then it had no function.” "Tornado in a Junkyard" - book - by former atheist James Perloff Vestigial Organs: Comparing ID and Darwinian Approaches - July 20, 2012 Excerpt: A favorite criticisms of ID is that it is a science stopper. The opposite is true. The Live Science article shows that the "vestigial organs" argument has not changed for over a century, since Wiedersheim coined the term and listed over a hundred examples (in 1893). Evolutionary theory, in fact, has been worse than a science stopper: its predictions have been flat out wrong. Only a handful of alleged vestigial organs remains from Wiedersheim's original list, and each of those is questionable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/vestigial_organ062281.html
In fact, the false prediction of vestigial organs by Darwinists led to much medical malpractice in the past:
Evolution's "vestigial organ" argument debunked Excerpt: "The appendix, like the once 'vestigial' tonsils and adenoids, is a lymphoid organ (part of the body's immune system) which makes antibodies against infections in the digestive system. Believing it to be a useless evolutionary 'left over,' many surgeons once removed even the healthy appendix whenever they were in the abdominal cavity. Today, removal of a healthy appendix under most circumstances would be considered medical malpractice" (David Menton, Ph.D., "The Human Tail, and Other Tales of Evolution," St. Louis MetroVoice , January 1994, Vol. 4, No. 1). "Doctors once thought tonsils were simply useless evolutionary leftovers and took them out thinking that it could do no harm. Today there is considerable evidence that there are more troubles in the upper respiratory tract after tonsil removal than before, and doctors generally agree that simple enlargement of tonsils is hardly an indication for surgery" (J.D. Ratcliff, Your Body and How it Works, 1975, p. 137). The tailbone, properly known as the coccyx, is another supposed example of a vestigial structure that has been found to have a valuable function—especially regarding the ability to sit comfortably. Many people who have had this bone removed have great difficulty sitting. http://www.ucg.org/science/god-science-and-bible-evolutions-vestigial-organ-argument-debunked/
Moreover, in so far as science has been able to advance in spite of Atheistic materialism, it can be argued that Intelligent Design was and is central to the advancement of science itself since almost all, if not all, of science has advanced by technological advancement in the instruments of science. That is to say, almost all, if not all, of science has advanced by humans infusing new information into material substrates, in a 'top down' fashion, in better and better, i.e. more sophisticated, ways:
Describing Nature With Math By Peter Tyson - Nov. 2011 Excerpt: Mathematics underlies virtually all of our technology today. James Maxwell's four equations summarizing electromagnetism led directly to radio and all other forms of telecommunication. E = mc2 led directly to nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The equations of quantum mechanics made possible everything from transistors and semiconductors to electron microscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. Indeed, many of the technologies you and I enjoy every day simply would not work without mathematics. When you do a Google search, you're relying on 19th-century algebra, on which the search engine's algorithms are based. When you watch a movie, you may well be seeing mountains and other natural features that, while appearing as real as rock, arise entirely from mathematical models. When you play your iPod, you're hearing a mathematical recreation of music that is stored digitally; your cell phone does the same in real time. "When you listen to a mobile phone, you're not actually hearing the voice of the person speaking," Devlin told me. "You're hearing a mathematical recreation of that voice. That voice is reduced to mathematics." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/describing-nature-math.html Excerpt: page 5: A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics, ,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77
October 1, 2016
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as to soundburger at 49: "Perhaps the gaps he is referring to are things like lightning (yep, gotta hand it to science; definitely not thrown by Zeus in piques of anger)" Actually the 'lightning gap' remains unclosed:
We Don't Actually Know What Triggers Lightning Strikes - Aug. 2013 Excerpt: Lightning is a natural electrical discharge—but scientists are still scratching their heads trying to figure out what triggers it. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2013/08/lightning_strikes_what_causes_lightning_is_a_mystery_could_it_be_cosmic.html Physicist finds mysterious anti-electron clouds inside thunderstorm - May 13, 2015 Excerpt: In August 2009, Dwyer and colleagues were aboard a National Center for Atmospheric Research Gulfstream V when it inadvertently flew into the extremely violent thunderstorm—and, it turned out, through a large cloud of positrons, the antimatter opposite of electrons, that should not have been there. To encounter a cloud of positrons without other associated physical phenomena such as energetic gamma-ray emissions was completely unexpected, thoroughly perplexing and contrary to currently understood physics. "The fact that, apparently out of nowhere, the number of positrons around us suddenly increased by more than a factor of 10 and formed a cloud around the aircraft is very hard to understand. We really have no good explanation for it," says Dwyer,,, Says Dwyer, "We really don't understand how lightning gets started very well because we don't understand the electrical environment of thunderstorms. This positron phenomenon could be telling us something new about how thunderstorms charge up and make lightning, but our finding definitely complicates things because it doesn't fit into the picture that was developing." http://phys.org/news/2015-05-physicist-mysterious-anti-electron-clouds-thunderstorm.html
Verse:
Job 38:35 "Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?"
Moreover, the 'gap' problem is far worse for Atheists than just not being able to explain lightning. Atheistic materialism cannot even explain how a single photon gets from point a to point b, nor even how a photon is emitted or absorbed, much less how lightning occurs:
"The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable." Anton Zeilinger Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1127450170601248/?type=2&theater Quantum Electrodynamics Excerpt: It is important not to over-interpret these diagrams. Nothing is implied about how a particle gets from one point to another. The diagrams do not imply that the particles are moving in straight or curved lines. They do not imply that the particles are moving with fixed speeds. The fact that the photon is often represented, by convention, by a wavy line and not a straight one does not imply that it is thought that it is more wavelike than is an electron. The images are just symbols to represent the actions above: photons and electrons do, somehow, move from point to point and electrons, somehow, emit and absorb photons. We do not know how these things happen, but the theory tells us about the probabilities of these things happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics#Introduction
Verse:
Acts 17:28 For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
And although Theists are often accused of making ‘God of the Gaps’ style arguments by atheists, the fact of the matter is that, as science has progressed, it is the Atheist himself who has had to retreat further and further into ‘Materialism/Naturalism of Gaps’ style arguments. i.e. into “Science will figure a materialistic answer out to that mystery some day” style argument. To clearly illustrate the ‘materialism of the gaps’ style argument that atheists are forced to make, the materialistic and Theistic philosophy make, and have made, several major contradictory predictions about what type of scientific evidence we will find. These major contradictory predictions, and the evidence now revealed by advances in modern science, can be tested against one another to see if either materialism or Theism is true.
Theism compared to Materialism/Naturalism - a comparative overview of the major predictions of each philosophy – video https://youtu.be/QQ9iyCmPmz8
As you can see from the preceding video, when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. - In fact science is even very good at pointing us to Christianity as the solution for the much sought after 'theory of everything'
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death as the “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHST2uFPQY&list=PLtAP1KN7ahia8hmDlCYEKifQ8n65oNpQ5&index=4
Moreover, let us be VERY clear to the fact that ALL of science, every discipline within science, is dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility.,,,
The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - Justin Holcomb - audio of the 1985 Greg Bahnsen debate available at the bottom of the site Excerpt: When we go to look at the different world views that atheists and theists have, I suggest we can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,, http://justinholcomb.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-exist/
Moreover, if we cast aside those basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility, and try to use naturalism as our basis for understanding the universe, and for practicing science, then everything within that atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. sense of self. observation of reality, beliefs about reality, free will, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasy and imagination.
Darwinian evolution, and atheism/naturalism in general, are built entirely upon a framework of illusions and fantasy – Sept. 2016 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q94y-QgZZGF0Q7HdcE-qdFcVGErhWxsVKP7GOmpKD6o/edit
bornagain77
October 1, 2016
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@rvb8 wrote "You say, ‘Precisely where did I mention the OOL question?’ Implicitly, with every post, so I answer your implicit question, explicitly. It’s not fun to be ‘outed’, but if you started being more honest in your assertions, we could both be clearer in our posts." Perhaps you need a midichlorian transfusion...your mind reading is malfunctioning. The force is weak with you. Please don't bother posting another round of fiction about what you think I mean. It's 100% clear you have no ability/intention to engage in a rational discussion.RWalk
October 1, 2016
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Religion was one (extremely limited) way to know things, now we have science, infinately more satisfying; except to some people, who cling to the former!
And yet belief in God is practically the reason science exists. You can't help but stumble, can you?
You see what I mean by clarity, your side is extremely poor at this, try ours: 1) there was a Big Bang.
So did physics and the "natural forces" which would enable the singularity to even exist exist before, after or during the big bang? Where did the singularity exist in since it is supposedly the source of existence?
2) this produced energy and matter.
Bald assertion.
3) through the natural forces created (yes, ‘created’) by this enrgy and matter, the laws of nature evolved, (yes, ‘evolvd’)
So the big bang which required physics and the "natural forces" created said natural forces. You don't think you sound insane?
4) Over time this matter and energy coalesced, producing us.
Oooooo, the awesome power of the probablymaybecouldness god.
Where did number 1) in the list come from? Don’t know. But I am equaly certain you don’t know either.
It certainly couldn't have happened.
I however have the ‘multiverse’ answer, the ‘dark matter, dark energy’ answer, and the ‘parallel’ universe answer. All naturally explicable.
Ergo, naturalismofthegaps/probablymaybecouldnessdidit.
You have, what exactly? Please be clear.
Follow your advice.
As has been pointed out before, my IQ does not befit this site.
No kidding! :)Vy
October 1, 2016
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I’m sorry, I used Miller/Urey as it was the first such kind of experiment in ‘origins’ science.
Er, nope. Spontaneous generation has been disproved for decades, way back during Louis Pasteur's time (probably even earlier).
Here’s a question; “When this innovative idea was first mooted, and tested, did other scientists say, ‘what a good idea, I’m looking for evidence of the Flood.’?” No! What other scientists did was to refine it, suggest other early earth atmospheres, increase or decrease electrical discharges and ultra-violet inputs. They didn’t know, nor could they possibly know this environment. But, they did know chemistry, and how chemistry works, and physics, and many of the laws of physics. Knowing these they experimented, and experiment. There have been many, many, many other experiments in this NEW field of ‘origins’ research. Also, these NEW experiments are easy to find and read online, if you have an index finger, a working pre-frontal cortex, a computer, and above all, curiosity. If none of the above, support ID, it requires zero effort. Basically they took the idea and did what scientists do, experiment. This experiment (Miller/Urey), may have been done in 1953, but all I get here is, ‘that was 1953, this is today.’ What kind of self imposed box do you live in? At present the research has now produced a binding of lipid molecules, resembling what is theorised to be the first cell wall. This is amazing and wonderful. Your side is doing what, exactly?
Why this convoluted babble?
Oh! And RWalk, the problem of, ‘where did the stuff come from before the BigBang?’ is just as silly a question as, ‘where did God come from?’
Only an ignorant Darbot would say this.
The, ‘uncaused cause’ childishness is unprovable, however the BigBang can be traced, sorry, is traced to a definate time (13.75 billion years ago), and a definate place; where the Dopler ‘red shift’ directs.
Conclusively false.
An intelligent tinkerer is a poor substitute for this reality, try again.
A mindless, useless, purposeless, imaginary supposedly natural process elevated to godhood and pimped up with supernatural magical creative powers is way worse. Trying again is the least of your problems.
I’m not sureif your readers are impressed by impenetrability, they seem to be.
You're reaching.Vy
October 1, 2016
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My Lord, but rv is a ninny! Any number of examples will serve, but this line stands out "Best hurry gaps have a tendency to close." No, they don't! Perhaps the gaps he is referring to are things like lightning (yep, gotta hand it to science; definitely not thrown by Zeus in piques of anger) and the earth being flat (not that any sacred text in history ever wrote, "And God created the earth FLAT, NOT ROUND"). rv, what 'gaps' have closed recently? The only ones that really matter all that much are a.) what existed before the Big Bang? b.) how did life evolve from non-life? c.) what is consciousness, and how did it arise from brute chemistry? rv, if you can close any of these gaps, by all means do so. If not, I can suggest something else for you to close. And it even happens to rhyme with 'gap'soundburger
October 1, 2016
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RVB8, it remains that across the past 40 years or so credibly 800+ million innocent unborn children have been killed in the womb, manifesting the utter moral bankruptcy of our day through the worst holocaust in history, the war on our own posterity. That our blood guilt benumbs us to the horror we are STILL carrying out only compounds our utter moral bankruptcy and exposes that we profess ourselves wise and enlightened when we are in reality patently endarkened and insistent on a march of ruinous folly. KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2016
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CY & JDH, my response earlier this morning to WJM here on in another thread may prove helpful. KFkairosfocus
October 1, 2016
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Raving lunacy. Cats eat flesh. Big cats eat human flesh sometimes. What does it matter whether you're aware or not? The big cat is totally aware and it's hungry. Evolution is survival of the fittest, not survival of the aware. Where did you get the silly idea of "aware" from, Mr. Atheist? -QQuerius
October 1, 2016
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Q, anything ethically wrong with abortion? Of course not. Is there anything wrong with eating human flesh, or babies, or whatever other absurd example you can provide? Of course! Why does this atheist make this distinction? Because of the issue of self-awareness. When I am brain dead, and on life support, I am at the same level of 'self-awareness' as the fetus. That is I don't know I am me, and therefore have no opinion on whether I should live or die. I hope to God (figure of speech), I am in that state when I pass away. Enter BA with his 'bag of chemicals', 'piece of meat' nonsense. Or, better still, his 'you cannot say 'I' as 'you' don't exist at all, 'you' is a construct 'you' made via chemicals and energy. My answer; 'correct!' You'vve finally clicked. Abortion, abortion, abortion! What happened to new advances in ID research? RWalk, almost every post at this site deals with the, 'how can evolution/the Big Bang etc theories explain morality, beauty, art etc. The higher human achievements. You say, 'Precisely where did I mention the OOL question?' Implicitly, with every post, so I answer your implicit question, explicitly. It's not fun to be 'outed', but if you started being more honest in your assertions, we could both be clearer in our posts.rvb8
September 30, 2016
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RWalk, Don't let it bother you. Rvb8 also refuses to answer the questions such as
From an atheistic and evolutionist point of view, is there anything ethically wrong with abortion or with eating human flesh?
Even easier questions such as
Do you rescue baby mice from a cat?
Instead, rvb8 jumps into another post with sound and fury, filled with unsupported assertions, non sequiturs, and ad hominem attacks. The nature of these "rebuttals" leads one to believe that we might actually be dealing with a AI troll-app. Just sayin'. -QQuerius
September 30, 2016
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"there is no workable explanation withn the Big Bang scenario for the very first stars.." OK! So eveything else, the energy and matter arising from said explosion can come together to form life? You have no problem with evolution, it is just that you would like to know what was before? You see what I mean by clarity, your side is extremely poor at this, try ours: 1) there was a Big Bang. 2) this produced energy and matter. 3) through the natural forces created (yes, 'created') by this enrgy and matter, the laws of nature evolved, (yes, 'evolvd') 4) Over time this matter and energy coalesced, producing us. Where did number 1) in the list come from? Don't know. But I am equaly certain you don't know either. I however have the 'multiverse' answer, the 'dark matter, dark energy' answer, and the 'parallel' universe answer. All naturally explicable. You have, what exactly? Please be clear. As has been pointed out before, my IQ does not befit this site.rvb8
September 30, 2016
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@rvb8 once again you are making things up...you wrote: "RWalk, so you accept that the science can eventually crack the origins of life question" Precisely where did I mention the origin of life question?? At any rate, you've made it clear the you're happy with your "science of the gaps" beliefs.RWalk
September 30, 2016
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RWalk, so you accept that the science can eventually crack the origins of life question, but then has the problem of explaining where the original material came from? This is not goal post shifting, this is removing the goalposts, putting them on the Space Shuttle, and heaving them to Mars. I just explained how science is, as we argue, finding clues as to how chemicals and energy came to assemble life, and you want, 'a workable explanation'? I DON'T HAVE ONE! No one does! That is why we are looking, you see? Twiddling our thumbs is not human. As a species we are hell bent to know why things happen. Religion was one (extremely limited) way to know things, now we have science, infinately more satisfying; except to some people, who cling to the former!rvb8
September 30, 2016
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@rvb8 you wrote: "Oh! And RWalk, the problem of, ‘where did the stuff come from before the BigBang?’ is just as silly a question as, ‘where did God come from?’ The, ‘uncaused cause’ childishness is unprovable, however the BigBang can be traced, sorry, is traced to a definate time (13.75 billion years ago), and a definate place; where the Dopler ‘red shift’ directs." Which leads me to believe that you didn't even read my comment as your statements are completely non-responsive... Who said anything about before the Big Bang?? I simply pointed out there is no workable explanation within the Big Bang scenario for the very first stars and thus for everything that depends upon these first stars...RWalk
September 30, 2016
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I'm sorry, I used Miller/Urey as it was the first such kind of experiment in 'origins' science. Here's a question; "When this innovative idea was first mooted, and tested, did other scientists say, 'what a good idea, I'm looking for evidence of the Flood.'?" No! What other scientists did was to refine it, suggest other early earth atmospheres, increase or decrease electrical discharges and ultra-violet inputs. They didn't know, nor could they possibly know this environment. But, they did know chemistry, and how chemistry works, and physics, and many of the laws of physics. Knowing these they experimented, and experiment. There have been many, many, many other experiments in this NEW field of 'origins' research. Also, these NEW experiments are easy to find and read online, if you have an index finger, a working pre-frontal cortex, a computer, and above all, curiosity. If none of the above, support ID, it requires zero effort. Basically they took the idea and did what scientists do, experiment. This experiment (Miller/Urey), may have been done in 1953, but all I get here is, 'that was 1953, this is today.' What kind of self imposed box do you live in? At present the research has now produced a binding of lipid molecules, resembling what is theorised to be the first cell wall. This is amazing and wonderful. Your side is doing what, exactly? Oh! And RWalk, the problem of, 'where did the stuff come from before the BigBang?' is just as silly a question as, 'where did God come from?' The, 'uncaused cause' childishness is unprovable, however the BigBang can be traced, sorry, is traced to a definate time (13.75 billion years ago), and a definate place; where the Dopler 'red shift' directs. An intelligent tinkerer is a poor substitute for this reality, try again. WJM, thank you for caring for my mental well being. You correctly note that deep philosophy, and biblical exegesis, do indeed leave me numb. I'm not sureif your readers are impressed by impenetrability, they seem to be. All I can say is the best way to disseminate your ideas (such as they are), i to follow Owell's 4 rules; 1) Never use a big word when you can use a small word. 2) Never use complicated grammar, when you can use simple grammar. 3) Never use long sentences, when short sentences will do. 4) Above all, ignore th above rules when necessary. I'm paraphrasing of course, but I sincerely hope you get the hint.rvb8
September 30, 2016
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JDH: "In this way, faith is its own evidence. The fact that God chose faith to be the means of salvation is not reason to disbelieve, but is evidence of a God who makes salvation available to all. I invite all the irrational physicalists of the world to drop their foolishness of insisting that there is no evidence for God. The problem is that the evidence is all around you, and you have closed your eyes." Excellent point. What the materialist views as the mundane workings of an impersonal universe, is in reality, the wonder of the cosmos in all its grandeur, completely reflective of a sovereign and benevolent Designer.CannuckianYankee
September 30, 2016
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Never mind the immune system part above: got my stories mixed up.tommy hall
September 30, 2016
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As if existence itself is not self-evidently miraculous, all one needs to do is look into biology and the miraculous nature of adaptive organismal change. The following example shows how mother finches manipulate birth order in order to protect male offspring from mites. Not only is she is able to make sure eggs with females are laid first, but she accelerates the males' development and revs up their immune systems to better deal with the threat. Somehow the mother bird is able to sense or know mites are a threat and is able to take action against them to better-ensure their male offspring's survival chances. But how is this accomplished? It's inexplicable. https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/bird-moms-manipulate-birth-order-protect-sonstommy hall
September 30, 2016
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WJM @24, Agreed! It certainly doesn't stop the Darbot from posturing like the epitome of all that is rational and scientifically accurate, free from the "shackles" of faith, irrational beliefs and savior of the deluded. Too bad he can't help but stumble at every turn.Vy
September 30, 2016
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Lately I have been thinking what a ridiculous critique it is of the gospel that salvation is by faith. Let's look at faith rationally. 1. Obviously, I have not met everyone on earth, but I have never met anyone past the age of majority, who could not believe. Faith is the universal ability. a) if the gospel was built upon any athletic ability, then it would be unfair for the weak. b) if the gospel was built upon scientific logic, then it would be unfair for people of lower intelligence. c) same problem if the gospel was built upon mathematics, economics, art, ... but everyone of God's creatures can choose to believe. My personal experience is that faith is the great equalizer. People that believe the gospel come from all walks of life from former prostitute to Nobel Laureate. 2. It is the one ability that I think materialistic beings could not do. In a purely materialistic world there seems to be NO mechanism for the development of beliefs of moral or abstract or speculative concepts. There seems to be plenty of mechanism for learned stimulus response, and there even seems to be memory based instances on learning who is friend and who is foe, but there just does not seem to be a need to for beliefs in a purely mechanistic world. 3. In this way, faith is its own evidence. The fact that God chose faith to be the means of salvation is not reason to disbelieve, but is evidence of a God who makes salvation available to all. I invite all the irrational physicalists of the world to drop their foolishness of insisting that there is no evidence for God. The problem is that the evidence is all around you, and you have closed your eyes.JDH
September 30, 2016
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As Marfin mentioned above, Rice University biochemist Dr. James Tour recently gave a lecture where he claimed that no one, including world leading biochemists like himself, has any idea “how the molecules that compose living systems could have been devised such that they would work in concert to fulfill biology’s functions… Nobody has any idea on how this was done… using… commonly understood mechanisms of chemical science. Those that say they understand are generally wholly uniformed regarding chemical synthesis… He makes it clear up front that he is not talking about Darwinian evolution which, for sake of argument, he assumes could explain the subsequent evolution of multicellular life. He is limiting his discussion to the origin or so called “chemical evolution of life”—abiogenesis. He goes on and states: “It is intellectually baffling as to how Nature could have progressed toward complex functional systems, over and over again, from basic molecular structures, where no basis for their collective function had preexisted.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQXgJ-dXM4 Watch his lecture and see if he claims that because we do not know how life originated that this necessarily falsifies the hypothesis that the origin of life can be explained naturalistically. His argument for this lecture is simply that nobody knows but also sadly there are a lot of influential scientists who are unwilling to be honest about that fact. However, if we compare explanations on the basis of one’s world view—theism vs. naturalism, for example—I would argue that theism AS A WORLD VIEW has more explanatory scope and power than naturalism. Indeed, theism as a world view has the best explanation for not only the origin of life but for the origin of the universe as well as mind and consciousness. While in the above lecture Tour was limiting himself to simply the science, as an out spoken Christian himself I think he would undoubtedly agree with me that theism is a better explanation than naturalism or any other world view.john_a_designer
September 30, 2016
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AD "but in so not doing, they prove WJM’s thesis over and over." Indeed. "Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead." Proverbs 15:21 ESVCannuckianYankee
September 30, 2016
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True, CY, but in so not doing, they prove WJM's thesis over and over.AnimatedDust
September 30, 2016
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@rvb8 "the building blocks of life came from the first stars, and continue to be produced by Super Novas, and are ubiquitous throughout the universe." This theory requires the existence of the very first stars, does it not? Unfortunately, there is no materialistic theory (that works, that is) for the formation of these very first stars, and so there is really no functioning materialistic theory for the existence of any of the products of subsequent generations of stars...including the building blocks of life. If anyone here knows of an explanation, within the big bang scenario, for the existence of gravitationally bound objects the size of stars, please point to where the details are described. I've been looking for 40 years now... Thanks.RWalk
September 30, 2016
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