"Real" ringworlds

[Fyron]

Well I'm neither Christian nor Atheist, so I guess I get to keep talking as much as I want!

[Ruatha]

I can talk too, I'm an agnostic.

[Krsqk]

Again, astronomical theories can not be proven, as there would have been no observation. We can't see what other stars and such are actually like, just make guesses as to their nature based off of facts we do know and our observations. Much like evolution and origins theories. Hmm... anyone else see a connection?

Well, yes. In both cases, the observations made are very distant from the subject (whether in time or distance), and both are inordinately based on extrapolation of mathematical measurements and constants which may or may not be accurate--the length of time involved more or less ensures a lare margin of error for the results. Surely you don't put the results gleaned by astronomy on the same level as those from, say, botany or chemistry. Theoretical science has exploded in the past few decades, and it will take quite a bit of time for it to "settle out" and yield some hard facts, instead of just theoretical entities which currently only exist (to us) mathematically.

...[religious origins theories] are based off of what some random person claimed to be true thousands of years ago with no evidence to back it up.

Well, we don't know that. If that person was receiving direct revelation from God, I would think they could accept that as evidence.

I was asking for a counter theory to evolution. Other people have commited the fallacy of comparing evolution with the origins aspects of Creationism, but I have not.

So you're asking for what, exactly? An explanation of speciation under creationism? It is not possible under most forms of creationism to separate origins from our present-day state.

quote:

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God's too busy answering my prayers to answer your questions.

I certainly hope that you are not really such an intolerant elitist as you just painted yourself with that remark... I am going to assume (hope) the contrary because of the smiley you included, but you never know. Such remarks do not help you make your point at all; in fact, they hurt it pretty severely.

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No, they don't hurt it any more than saying the Big Bang doesn't accept interviews hurts it. As for the intolerant elitist thing, I think the smiley was sufficient for that. Or would you prefer a instead of just a ? The point was, there is no possible observation of the past and there is no one to interview who was there. Thus, the standard methods of verifying historical theories are unavailable.

Maybe you should take lessons in logic then. There are more ways to prove something than hard physical evidence. This is how things like origin theories can (though not all of them) fall under the realm of science.

Actually, I have taken lessons in logic. I can spot and spit out Bulverisms, ad hominems, and amphibolies right along side everyone else. I am aware of many of the various philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God, the supernatural, and (for that matter) reason itself. Not one of those arguments is a proof for anything--at most, they are an intellectual diVersion which is picked up, toyed with, and set aside. We can experience and/or believe in any of those examples. We can, in some sense, observe reason, though this is a subjective, not objective, observation. The bottom line is, the ability to logically discuss something does not equal the ability to logically prove or disprove it.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

What was the point of saying that? It is irrelevant to the preceding quote. The meaning of the quote and the post following it is exactly the same. The semantics do not invalidate his point.

seen is not the same as percieved. if you hear an object, you percieve an object, even if you don't see it. i believe there are ways of percieving that involve spiritual senses rather than physical ones.

This is because most of the world would say that lighting is a transfere of electrons created by static electricity.

just becuase lightning is a transfer of electrons doesn't rule out god creating the lightning. if i throw a rock with a quantum cannon and you discover newtons laws, it doesn't rule out the quantum cannon. not to sure that quantum physics is right, though. just stating, don't want to start anothere debate.

Hmmm. Step out for ~24 hours, and there's a ton to respond to. [Smile] I guess I'll just have to excerpt quotes from the Last three pages:

2 pages for me

Don't make Fyron straighten you out on evolution versus origins. Unless, as 99.9% of people, you use evolution to mean how everything came to be here, from the beginning to the present. Again, no origins theory can be proved, as there would have been no observation.

no mortal observation. so, origin theory can be proven.

Well, we don't know that. If that person was receiving direct revelation from God, I would think they could accept that as evidence.

yup.

[ May 20, 2003, 23:52: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Fyron]

Narf:

seen is not the same as percieved. if you hear an object, you percieve an object, even if you don't see it. i believe there are ways of percieving that involve spiritual senses rather than physical ones.

That was my point. You are implying that there is something wrong with the quote because it only involves sight, but I was trying to explain that it involves other forms of perception too. The post following the quote was not focusing on sight alone, just using it as a synonym.

Krsqk:

Well, we don't know that. If that person was receiving direct revelation from God, I would think they could accept that as evidence.

That requries extremely circular logic. You are using that to prove itself, which most certainly does not work.

So you're asking for what, exactly? An explanation of speciation under creationism? It is not possible under most forms of creationism to separate origins from our present-day state.

I am asking for something more than just trying to pick out every minor perceived flaw (most of them are based on incorrect assumptions or a lack of knowledge about the specifics of the reasoning behind the theory). It was not directed at you specifically, but at everyone that has been doing things like this.

And you are right, such things are not possible under ignore-all-the-evidence-around-us forms of Creationism. But there are other forms of Creationism.

[Krsqk]

That requries extremely circular logic. You are using that to prove itself, which most certainly does not work.

Actually, I was trying to demonstrate that a theory can be valid without being provable. Assuming creation to be true, if God did give divine revelation about creation to someone to be written down, that doesn't mean He sent copies of the interview to everyone with a press credential. There would be no objective proof of the creation, but it would nonetheless have happened. That is just the way a supernatural event would be--it's nothing against logic; it just isn't subject to logical proof or disproof.

[Fyron]

Sigh. I think you need to take some new philosophy classes.