Did God Invent Us, Or Did We Invent Him

[Azselendor]

Electricty is also a theory, but like evolution it happens to fit the facts with the evidence that currently exists. Evoltuion itself is slow change via natural selection and/or the result of energy trying to optimize itself (imagine if we unleashed evolution on WindowsXP - we could create a virutal self-feeding black hole.)

This is what I think about Creationism in school.

It should not be taught in the science class - ever. However, the schools should - at the expense of local organized religions and various other Groups - provide a class devoted discussion of philosphy of religion.

Jack, I'm in Dr. Hawking's camp that there may not have been a big-bang in the means portrayed by popular entertainment. That the universe has always existed and always will as it lacks the matter and material to create an ending in the form of a "Big Crunch". I don't see an "intelligent design" to the universe even when going down the chain and examining each link. Now I do believe there is a cause behind the formation of the universe that is natural, not intelligent. That cause is the optimization of energy.

Now you are right, this is a question of what we each think is more logical. However, his "One way or the other" is a Logical Fallacy. It's assuming if A is true, B is false. or vice versa. By far it's his worst fallacy of them and a common fallacy used against proponents of evolution and other theories. There is no proof to such a fallacy as it is hardly a black and white subject as you clearly argued and You yourself, in your rebuttal just used the logical fallacy of accent by placing emphasis on certain phrases in your comments.

This is what science is for me: The process by which the illogical, the fallacy, and the fiction is stripped away and all that remains is the reality, the fact, the truth and this process is ongoing, it does not reach an end at any time. This itself is the processes behind evolution. It doesn't have all the answers, but it looks for them. Progress.

Creationism, however, is the exact opposite. It presents itself as having all the answers already and you don't need to go farther. This in itself is a means of preventing people from even looking for more.

Now, Jack, you argue about the infinite when we much consider the plight of the creator-god in question. Who created him? If no one did, then has he always existed? If so, how? If he did not, then who created his creators? and so on and so forth.

-corrected a grammatical error

[Jack Simth]

Klvino [ORB] said:
Jack, I'm in Dr. Hawking's camp that there may have been a big-bang in the means portrayed by popular entertainment. That the universe has always existed and always will as it lacks the matter and material to create an ending in the form of a "Big Crunch". I don't see an "intelligent design" to the universe even when going down the chain and examining each link. Now I do believe there is a cause behind the formation of the universe that is natural, not intelligent. That cause is the optimization of energy.

Now you are right, this is a question of what we each think is more logical. However, his "One way or the other" is a Logical Fallacy. It's assuming if A is true, B is false. or vice versa. By far it's his worst fallacy of them and a common fallacy used against proponents of evolution and other theories. There is no proof to such a fallacy as it is hardly a black and white subject as you clearly argued and You yourself,

So the concept of non-overlapping sets whose union is U, such as A and A', is a fallacy? It's a fallacy to treat the set of real numbers as three cases: <k, ==k, and >k (for some real value of k) when the function under scrutiny calls for it? Interesting.

Klvino [ORB] said: in your rebuttal just used the logical fallacy of accent by placing emphasis on certain phrases in your comments.

So my pointing out that you didn't actually address any of his arguments - at all - in a large section you quoted - is a fallacy? Interesting. So I picked a little bit of a method you aren't quite used to. I suspect you may be a little trigger-happy on fallacies.

Klvino [ORB] said:
This is what science is for me: The process by which the illogical, the fallacy, and the fiction is stripped away and all that remains is the reality, the fact, the truth and this process is ongoing, it does not reach an end at any time. This itself is the processes behind evolution. It doesn't have all the answers, but it looks for them. Progress.

Creationism, however, is the exact opposite. It presents itself as having all the answers already and you don't need to go farther. This in itself is a means of preventing people from even looking for more.

Gee, and you were slamming me for being black & white. Talk about your double standard.

Klvino [ORB] said:
Now, Jack, you argue about the infinite when we much consider the plight of the creator-god in question. Who created him? If no one did, then has he always existed? If so, how?

Nobody, far as I've read up in The Source. Yes, as far as I've read up in The Source. The precise form of God's existance is not addressed in The Source, as far as I'm aware. This is something we probably will not know until after doomsday.

And you're dodging again.

[Azselendor]

And you're attacking without debating. Don't turn this into a flame war because you think you have an easy prey. Yes I will slam you for being balck and white and then throw the same kind of arguement right back to prove how unfair it is.

I refuse to address, fully, any argument based largely in fallacy. we're not talking about numbers in this discussion, it's about what faith is each of a member as you and electrum have pointed out.

Now something I'll point out to those against evolution is that evolution never said there isn't a god. The frequently mis-quoted CS Lewis himself was a thiest evolutionist.

Can we get back to the topic at hand?

[Phoenix-D]

Klvino [ORB]..it has been my experience that those who point out fallicies a lot mostly do it to cover issues in their own arguments. -Especially- when they do it as you've done, names and all.

Actually you're in a bit of a logic loop, given that you're refering to the fallices almost as an Authority, which is in and of itself a fallacy.

[Azselendor]

I don't consider my pointing out fallacies in another's argument a form of covering issues in my arguements. Basically it allows me to cut through to the core of the other's claims without having to debate the fluff.

I may over use it, but at times it is more than required.


But we are sliding even further off topic now.

[Mephisto]

Easy, guys!

[Electrum]

First, Klvino, I would like to apologize for what you have labeled a cheap shot. Biting sarcasm usually works so well for me. Although, I would ask you to consider this:

2 boys, Johnny & Billy, are on the playground. Well, Billy says something that Johnny doesn’t care much for. Johnny fires off: “Your ugly Billy!”, and no more.

Is Billy really ugly? Maybe he is & maybe he isn’t. Making a charge without the needed specifics amounts to nothing more than name calling. Now, if Johnny started pulling out pictures & pointing to the obvious disfigurements (My apologies to any ugly people reading this. You know who you are.), he is in a much better position to make his claim.

So, when you made your charge without the specifics, along with the condescending way you phrased it (your doing it again), I was feeling a tad attacked when I made the above mentions retort. Still, it was sarcastic, and I apologize. Nuff Said

A couple questions that are kind of fuzzy in you statement. I’m not sure if you are saying you believe the universe is eternal or the energy that the produced the universe is eternal. Would you please clarify this.

Also, please explain why your argument against a Creator (Who created the Creator, etc. infinity) wouldn’t equally apply to the Universe or Energy, perhaps not it the Who sense, but in the what sense (what created energy, what created the force that created energy…etc. infinity)

When it comes to you statements comparing evolution & creation, you picked “creationism”. I’ve previously voiced that, IN MY OPINION, creationism is as flawed as, er…ah.. evolution . Isn’t that black & white thinking. Creationism is flawed, therefore creation is wrong & evolution is right. Creationism is not the same as creation. As I’ve already mentioned, there are many in the scientific community that consider it scientificly viable.

AS far as intelligence in design, consider the field of biomimetics, the study of structure in nature, usually for the purpose of copying it. This field has given us things like Velcro (I’m still trying to figure out if this is a good thing ). We praise the genius the man that “creates” such things, when in effect, their poor imitations of the original. If the imitation is a product of genius, how much more so is the original.

Carl Sagan said this regarding the search for Extraterrestrial life:
“It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligent beings. A modulated signal (‘beep,’ ‘beep-beep,’ . . . ) comprising the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers—that is, numbers that can be divided only by 1, or by themselves. A signal of this kind, based on a simple mathematical concept, could only have a biological origin.”

if 1,271 bits of information in a certain sequence suggested order and design and “unambiguously” proved an intelligent source, what about the some ten thousand million bits of information encoded in the chromosomes of every living cell?

Regarding your comparison of the theory of evolution to the theory of electricity, there are some fundamental differences. With electricity, there are tangable processes which can be observed and measured. What about evolution? Evolutionist have never observed mutations—even beneficial ones—that produce new life-forms; yet they are sure that this is precisely how new species arrived. They have not witnessed the spontaneous generation of life; yet they insist that this is how life began. It sounds more like … I’m sorry, but I need to use the “f” word. That’s right, faith. By all appearances, evolution has emerged as a new religion, complete with dogmatic rhetoric and swift retribution for heretics. And I’m not the only one that feels that way.

The lack of evidence causes scientist T. H. Janabi to call the evolution theory “a mere ‘faith.’
Physicist Sir Fred Hoyle calls it “the Gospel according to Darwin.”
Dr. Evan Shute even said “I suspect that the creationist has less mystery to explain away than the wholehearted evolutionist.”
Astronomer Robert Jastrow said, “the emergence of this extraordinary being out of chemicals dissolved in a pool of warm water seems as much a miracle as the Biblical account of his origin.”

I found this quote interesting:
George Greenstein, an evolutionist, In his book The Symbiotic Universe, talking about the mysterious and incredible series of coincidences that are beyond explaining, coincidences without which life on earth would be impossible.
“I believe that we are faced with a mystery—a great and profound mystery, and one of immense significance: the mystery of the habitability of the cosmos, of the fitness of the environment.” … “to detail what can only seem to be an astonishing sequence of stupendous and unlikely accidents that paved the way for life’s emergence. There is a list of coincidences, all of them essential to our existence.” …t “the list kept getting longer . . . So many coincidences! The more I read, the more I became convinced that such ‘coincidences’ could hardly have happened by chance.”
“But as this conviction grew, something else grew as well. Even now it is difficult to express this ‘something’ in words. It was an intense revulsion, and at times it was almost physical in nature. I would positively squirm with discomfort. The very thought that the fitness of the cosmos for life might be a mystery requiring solution struck me as ludicrous, absurd. I found it difficult to entertain the notion without grimacing in disgust . . . Nor has this reaction faded over the years: I have had to struggle against it incessantly during the writing of this book. I am sure that the same reaction is at work within every other scientist, and that it is this which accounts for the widespread indifference accorded the idea at present. And more than that: I now believe that what appears as indifference in fact masks an intense antagonism. …. As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially drafted the cosmos for our benefit?”
Greenstein recovers from such heretical thinking and reasserts his orthodoxy to evolution, reciting one of their creedal dogmas: “God is not an explanation.”
One more quote:
Le Figaro-Magazine Magazine of Paris. Reporting on an international conference held in Blois, France, where 200 leading scientists from around the world met to discuss the origin of life,
“At present, we no longer have a global explanation for the evolution of life on earth …. the old theories are collapsing.” The magazine sums up the comments of several scientists this way: “The Darwinian theory can explain a certain number of secondary things but not the essential stages of evolution, such as the appearance of new organs or new types of organization such as birds or the vertebrates.” Commenting on the huge gaps that riddle the theory, paleontologist Robert Fondi said: “If we picture a genealogical tree of evolution, only the leaves and a few branches exist but no knots or trunk. It is a tree that cannot stand!”
Nuff for now
Oh! One question off the subject. Where is Mt. Kailasa?