Did God Invent Us, Or Did We Invent Him

[Instar]

I'm afraid you missed the point of the software example. The process of evolutionary software does NOT involve any human input, besides the design of the algortithm, that is, setting the code up to evolve. The software itself creates several versions of a program, each with some randomly chosen changes, and then runs simulations to see which version of the program works best, and then combines the best ones to be members of the next generation.
To reiterate, there is absolutely NO human intervention beyond actually setting it up to evolve. Evolutionary software mimics the natural process, and even can create many novel and interesting solutions to problems.

[Phoenix-D]

Evolution is not random, Klvino [ORB]. It is mainly driven by natural selection; the organisms that aren't good at dealing with their current envioroment don't do as well as the organisms that are. Either they just breed more, they live longer, whatever.

Yes, you've got mutations and genetic drift in their too. And those are important, since they can seperate two otherwise identical populations into sub-species or species, given enough time. But natural selection does most of the 'work'.

GBrutt, see the above and also note that abiogenesis and evolution are two different topics. Evolution theory doesn't care how life got here- it just covers what happens when it did.

Abiogensis does rely on random processes to an extent, though, but you don't have to maniuplate anything. Give conditions much like the early earth and early components of life will form spontantiously. Given that its estimated it took several billion years to go from that to single-celled organisms to multi-celled organisms, its not surprising we haven't gotten any farther yet.

That's why research is still continung in that area. It gets really murky because the early life left very few traces; bacteria simply don't fossilize well, and just to make things complicated bacteria "species" are very flexible, given that many bacteria can eat DNA and sometimes instead of eating it use it in their own chromosome.

[Instar]

gbrutt, the Bible also says that God killed a guy for, well, spilling his seed on the ground. God also says in Malachi 2:3 that hes going to wipe poo on people's faces.
Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a ton of such inconsistencies (and yes, there is a Skeptic's Annotated Koran too).

[Azselendor]

You forgot the one for the Mormons too, Instar! lol

Pheonix-D, Natural Selection is one of several evolutionary processes Darwin proposed. Had the Indian Subcontinent not smashed into Asia, then our ancestors would have never had a practical reason to climb down from their trees. Off course, it did happen and the monsoon didn't go to africa any more thus changing the climate where our ancestors lived dramatically.

[gbrutt]

Response to Klvino (and the many others)

Behe didn’t really plumb the depths of intelligent design as much as expand on the idea of irreducible complexity. He is not, by his own admission, a Christian. He is a scientist who is trying to make sense of the Creation/evolution debate for himself while at the same time is perplexed at the lack of response from the scientific community. The examples of I/C he lists the development of the eye, exploding beetles, blood clotting, all point to intricate systems which have no way of developing on their own. You say that there are some examples of scientists who disproved this, I would be interested in hearing more about them. Behe never says evolution is impossible, rather, he is a rare scientist who cannot answer the questions which face him in the evolutionary model and is honest about it. Read the book again.

On to your field of expertise, software. There I must bow to your knowledge and experience, it is quite beyond my reckoning, except for the gadgets and games that I immensely enjoy. Still, in your anecdote, each step involves a human mind adding to or manipulating data in order to achieve a desired result. No software yet has ever sprung up whole from nothing. There is always a programmer, and engineer, a tech, who put each piece in place. It all requires a mind, your mind, to make it move and work. The program may evolve, but that is only after a great many steps were taken to insure that the conditions were favorable to this result.

The reason that I say that life must come from life is that every scientist knows that it is so. The Laws of Biogenesis prove that life comes from life. All living organisms come from living organisms. We cannot create matter and energy in a lab, no matter who controls the experiment. So how is it then, according to your beliefs, that life came to be? The Steady State Theory was abandoned years ago as untenable, so it must have come about in some fashion.

Also, I never twisted your words. I quoted them and then commented on that quote. I said that no one can escape theological language as it is the way that we are. To use the word miracle is to give assent to the concept of something, whether you admit it or not. If you don't like it, choose another word. On another point, “The fact is that creationism mythology is not science and cannot ever compete with it.” Klvino, look at your own post. It is littered with phrases like, "more than likely," "by random chance," "no one knows," "the extreme possibility." This is fact that you flout, the mighty truth which is to topple Christianity? If you read the same halting words, but from another's post, would you call it science, or in the words of the Apostle Paul, “science falsely so-called.”?

I have a question for you. In the words of Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History. “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing…that is true?” What evidence can you provide to prove your your hypothesis? In your evolutionist point of view, how did all that is get here? How do you explain irreducible complexity in relation to forms of life? Can you tell me how is it possible that they could have come about? What about the utter lack of intermediate forms, which should be superabundant, given the amount of time and fossils which have been uncovered? Or the fact that even given the greatest possible amount of time, the radical changes from one type to another are impossible?

As to the God made a booboo when he made man idea, you err because you assume that man is now as he always is. A man named Descartes also said something similar, but from the perspective of the philosophical. “If there is a god, he is a devil.” In trying to understand how God could make man, who is inherently beautiful and creative, yet also ugly, or evil; Descartes reasoned that if there is a God, he is a devil. This presumes that God made man as he now is. If this is the case, Descartes is right. There is another factor that changes all of the speculations. Something happened to sever the relationship that God had with man. Christians know this as the fall. As a result, man is both beautiful, capable of creating wondrous works to stir the imagination; and is able to commit unspeakable horrors. It also means that we must turn to God to be rescued from our present state. If you have further interest on the subject, Francis Scaeffer’s books are highly recommended to expand on this further. He is a far better spokesman than I could ever be. Try his trilogy, The God is There, He is There and He is Not Silent, and Escape from Reason.

Lastly, (for now), and this is to Instar. You mention two passages of Scripture. The first one details Onan, found in Genesis 38:4-10. The second is Malachi 2:3. Just what your post is supposed to mean, I'm not certain. Was there a context to this, or is the reader left to guess at the underlying motivation? Perhaps you should go back and try it again. Better yet, lay aside your Skeptic's Annotated Bible, pick up the Bible, and read it. I recommend the same to all of you. Job 38 is a nice place to start. Goodnight for now.

[Instar]

The point of those two scriptures was to show how ridiculous portions of the Bible are.
And yes, I've read the Bible. I spent a lot of time in Bible study classes. I read the story of Job too. He went though a heck of a lot of torture for some celestial game. That is a very kind God... and don't say he gets it all back either, because his first set of kids are DEAD.
You're missing the point. I've tried to explain how life is thought to have first arose, in the primordial earth of billions of years ago. Experiments in conditions similar to what the earth was like then show that some parts could have been formed from natural processes.
Admittedly, the software analogy doesn't work because you don't know software or programming enough. Essentially what evolutionary software is is a simulation of evolution. And we're not debating evolution, so the example isn't needed.

meh

[gbrutt]

Perhaps they seem ridiculous, as they are lifted out of context without any backround or explanation. A tenent of basic Bible study is that, “A text without a context is a pretext.” The Bible is never meant to be taken as some pretty, sanitized look at what we want life to be. It is life and death and war and love. There are songs and psalms, history, battle accounts, science and every other imaginable detail that God wants us to know. That is why it resonates with such force. Lewis Sperry Chafer said this about the Bible, “It is not such a book as man would write if he could, because it condemns him, or could write if he would, because it surpasses him.” There are details in it that are disturbing and difficult to explain, but they are hardly ridiculous. Read the Scriptures yet again, my friend.

As to your comments on the issue of prebiological evolution, there is still too much- perhaps, maybe, kinda- in the pro-evolutionist posts to even pretend that it is rooted in science. The sticking point of this is the fact that there has never been a way for Darwinists to explain how life got started in the first place. It is one thing to say that this is what could have happened, given the right conditions. It is quite another to show that it did happen, let alone how it happened. That is precisely what evolution cannot do; prove any of its claims. The Miller-Urey experiment of the 50’s showed all too well the fact that even under controlled conditions, all you end up with is a dirty glass beaker, not life.

The software analogy doesn’t work, not because I do not understand programming, but because the analogy is faulty. Even if it is a simulation of evolution it is not evolution. First, because it is only a simulation of what someone thinks might have occurred, given the properly staged conditions. Second, evolution is at best a philosophy. In desperation, some cling to this old and unproven theory and look in vain for anything to support their hope of random order derived from nothingness. Lacking this, as all evolutionists do, they go to any and every concievable extreme to cling to their beloved “faith”. Such are men like Eldredge and his admission that, “We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports the story of gradual adaptive change, all the while really knowing that it does not.” Better still is Francis Crick and his “directional Pan-spermia” theory. He believed that aliens seeded our planet. Isn’t this the humanist equivalent of a miracle? At its worst it all smacks of a bizarre form of pseudo-religion, with all the trappings and none of the content.

Consider this for a moment. If what you and others believe is true, that we are nothing more than accidental groupings of molecules, what is the purpose to life? What ultimate meaning and reason do you have for your existence? Does your faith in nothingness and chance give you comfort at the end of the day? Does it lead you to strive for excellence in all that you do? That’s not the answer given in the Bible. Man is made in the image and likeness of God. Each and every man has great worth in God’s eyes. We can choose to ignore the truth, or look into it for ourselves and see if these things are not so. I leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul.

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” Romans 1:19, 20

[Instar]

I tried my best to explain it, but I guess it wasn't good enough. You failed to understand, which is partly my fault, but I guess you didn't want to understand, either.
The evolutionary algorithm analogy IS relevant. Self-modifying programs can create concepts similar to what we see today: a diversity of life, natural selection, and so on. Of course, I'm just repeating myself.

"that we are nothing more than accidental groupings of molecules"
Accidental? Hardly, evolution can explain where we came from, and study into the first life forms can find that origin. Study of astrophysics tells us that everything seems to have come from the Big Bang.
"what is the purpose to life?"
Why must there be one?
"Better still is Francis Crick and his “directional Pan-spermia” theory"
His ideas are NOT representative of the whole. Just as I cannot judge you by the words of Anne Coulter ("Hang all liberals from lampposts" and "Forcibly convert muslims to christianity"). Anne Coulter is a horrible person (specifically, she is ethnocentric, racist, and suggesting mass homicide).
"Does your faith in nothingness"
Who said I have faith in nothingness? I have faith in myself, in science, and other things. I think you're just tossing an emotionally loaded and vague term around here.
"Does it lead you to strive for excellence in all that you do?"
In fact, yes. I strive to be the best person I can be, everyday.

You've had your turn.

The Christian faith is full of logical inconsistencies.
Christian dogma says that God is omniscient -- past, present, and future -- and omnipotent. This premise is core to the Christian faith.
Also, the Christian faith says that man has free will.
The premise that a supernatural being being omniscient, past, present, and future, automatically negates free will. You are not free to choose if someone has already charted your every thought and action. You cannot choose a different path. It has already been determined.

Christian dogma also states God is benevolent. It would seem that this supernatural deity isn't omnibenevolent, because it is well within this omnipotent deity's powers to prevent all suffering, and indeed, "save their souls." Given that you have no choice in the matter (no free will), human suffering and eventual trip to purgatory (for bad people) is all but determined. What kind being would arbitrarily condemn many individuals to eternal torment?
It would be like a child care facility sourrounded by stoves, with the children unable to stop themselves from getting burned.

The Christian faith has also divided the world many times. If God was so kind, he would not have let the various factions of Christian war against each other for so long. Christianity must not be his chosen church, because of its fractitious nature. Also, I hope you're willing to condemn at least 4/5 of the world's population to eternal suffering. How kind of God to let only the majority of Europeans and related groups only go to heaven.
"Each and every man has great worth in God’s eyes"
Unless you're a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or Buddhist.

If the only way to get people to behave is through the promise of eternal paradise (heaven), that doesn't say much about humanity. In my opinion, people ought to be good, not for some reward, but because it is the wrong thing.

" I leave you with the words of the Apostle Paul."
If you keep quoting the Bible, I will start quoting the Qu'ran, or better yet, some crazy *** Wiccan stuff. Or maybe one of the many Christian cults. Or Satanists. Big whoop.

[Phoenix-D]

One comment since I don't have time to do a thourgh reply tonight:

If the Bible is not meant to be taken out of context and used as examples, etc..

WHY do Christians insist on doing it? You begin your post telling him not to do that and end it doing exactly that!

[Azselendor]

Gbrutt, That's the problem, behe didn't discuss the topic he used, he simply offered opinions. Thay didn't expand on the topic, this is what his critics point out. Oddly, you say he's not a christian, however, any research into his work history shows the amount of work he did for creationist/intelligent design schools. By simplying saying someting is complicated and thus has to have someone design it on purpose, means nothing. It's grasping. Blood Clotting is a bio-chemical process and any doctor can tell you how it happens. Eye Development could more than likely be answered or even covered by any high school biology teacher. Exploding beatles? Come on now, that's something you can look up in a library. Science is never about answers, it is about finding the answers. Behe really needs to think before he rights. You should be able to find his critics by simply running a google search just like I did and pulling up the relevent articles and clippings.

On computers, while each step does involve a human mind, it's not the direction of a sole individual. It's the input and suggestion and needs of many being realized via the efforts of a single process. the programmer merely acts as evolution, not as god. that is a significant difference. As for the outcome requiring favorable conditions, not always. Infact, life has shown a remarkable ability to endure and continue even when faced with certain doom. to quote, "Life Finds a Way"

Excuse me, Biogenesis today is a corruption of the original concepts of Biogenesis. Creationists have latched onto it hoping to unseat evolution. Keep in ming the Miller-Urey experiment produced some of the organic components of life, but failed to produce a living, reproducing organism. not a borken breaker. This should be looked as not as a failure, but as a simple example that the technology doesn't exist yet to preform the tasks. And yes, we can create matter and energy in a lab. living creatures are just harder

Yes, the Steady State Theory has been alrgesly disproven, but keep in mind that the rate of expansion in the universe shouldn't be accelerating either. Big Bang theory doesn't make allowances for that.

Using the word 'Miracle' doesn't validate theology. Miracale is a way of expressing extreme probability.

The problem with creationist mythology is the fact that it does not answer questions. It just provides commentary from a book that people write off as answers without giving it a citital thought. You attack my phrases, but examine your own. You'll say one thing, a retract it or say something counter to a previous post. Behe, for example. How can you not know his religious standings? did you even read his book or just the inside dusk jacket flap? You own attacks on evolution are merely questions poised to look like you mock it. Answer Colin Patterson if they were directed to a creationist. The bible doesn't provide testable answers, it just says, "this is the answer, don't question it or you're satan". Besides, SJ's beat me to it. lol

Actually, I do not assume humans are as they always are today. Humands today differ from humans 100 years ago and from humans another hundred years more. Creationism and Bible Apologists assume humans have always been the same. You're entire argument on the lines from your misassumption of what i was talking about actually has nothing relevent to what I was saying. lol

What I was saying, and you didn't grasp it, was that if you assume god designed humans as they are today, then you also assume he did a piss poor job of making us in his image. Not a booboo, a PissPoor Job. The kind of job I'd expect from someone not paying attention to what they are doing.


SJ, I was pointing out humans are promoting evolution in various insects and bacteria by allowing the strongest of them to survive and reproduce by eliminating the the lower 99.9% of all life. Survivial of the fittest via dues ex machina.


back to gbrutt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
Read an learn beyond the bible thumping. You need to get your facts straight.