You're right, I am making an argument about you. This has always been about you. I don't care about the whole god argument, I care about why you believe what you believe and that is what I'm talking about. I could care less about what you believe, the 'why' is far more significant.

So in other words, you have such a faith in your position that you aren't even interested in talking about it. You've just admitted that you are completely closed minded to the existence of God, and you're talking to me about confirmation bias? You are a poster child for confirmation bias.

It took you an hour to throw all of those quotes together to make a case. Based on that, do you really expect me to believe that you're not just quote mining from some general creationist website somewhere? Do you really expect me to believe that you've actually studied the subjects that you're presenting as evidence for your claims? You are by definition, cherry picking. You are not taking into account the whole of scientific findings, you are ignoring the information which dis-confirms your existing views, and you are unknowingly misrepresenting the facts. If you were well read on any of the subjects of physics or evolutionary biology then you'd completely understand where I'm coming from.

Actually, what I was doing was disputing your claim that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to open systems. The whole of scientific findings say that the 2nd law applies everywhere at all times, and this is very widely agreed upon. Your claim of cherry picking is bogus; the facts in them are plainly stated and from witnesses hostile to my overall position, which gives them even more weight. If those facts do not match reality, feel free to point out how so. Again, you are coming from a complete lack of substance, saying I am doing this or that, without actually having any real evidence to back up your assertions. If you're not interested in talking about things that require you to demonstrate an actual knowledge of the subject matter, please stop making baseless claims about what I am doing or back them up.

That's you, you said that. Why do you believe those things? Are you willing to attempt to prove yourself wrong? Are you willing to work to subdue cognitive biases in order to be as certain as you can be that you aren't mistaken? How can you say that your god is the correct one and all of the rest are incorrect? How can you justify a jump from the idea that we don't understand entirely how a system works to, there must be agency behind it? That is exactly what you are asking everyone to do. That is a huge leap and it does not directly follow. Extraordinary claims such as a personal god, require extraordinary evidence. You can't simply suggest that because we don't understand something that there must be agency there, that is not how logic works nor science. You can say nothing about the true nature of something if it requires faith in order to have evidence.

My argument is not a God of the gaps argument. I am not suggesting because we don't understand something, God did it. I am saying that God is a better explanation for the evidence. I am saying that even if you were to explain every mechanism in the Universe, you still haven't gone any farther to say that the uniformity in nature which upholds the physical laws that causes those mechanisms to operate isn't better explained by Agency. Unless you can demonstrate a purely naturalistic origin of the Universe, you have no case against Agency. This isn't to mention things like the fine tuning of physical laws, the information in DNA, and the appearance of design in biological systems. They are all better explained by a Creator.

Further, when you talk about faith, there are many examples in science. No one has ever seen macro evolution happening, yet scientists have great faith that it occured. There is absolutely no hard evidence for it, only a just-so story based on very questionable inference from the fossil record. The major predictions of evolutionary theory have all actually been falsified by the fossil record, which would be enough to torpedo any theory, but they are committed to it regardless of what the facts say:

we take the side of evolutionary science because we have a prior commitment to materialism. it is not that the methods..of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation..on the contrary..we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.

richard lewontin

harvard professor of zoology and biology

The thing is, I am in doubt about you. I am in doubt about your sincerity for meaningful investigations into reality. I am in doubt that you have actually read any scientific material in their entirety. I am in doubt that you value critical thinking. I am in doubt that you understand what a logical fallacy is or how they work. I am in doubt that you are doing anything more than attempting to justify a belief that you already hold by attempting to give legitimacy in the face of dissonance.

That's wonderful, but until you demonstrate a knowledge of the subject matter which is not inferior to my own (ala, believing the 2nd law doesnt apply to biological systems), everything that you have said here is irrelevent. Even if everything you said here is true and I understood nothing about this, you have shown you understand even less than that. However, I am going to give you more credit than that, and I would hope, but not expect, for you to do the same, however thus far you have only worked to try to discredit me. That is a logical fallacy called an ad hominem attack. It is a sad testament to atheists that there are only a very few out there willing to engage in rational discourse and not lower themselves to mockery and ridicule. I know rational discourse is possible because I have seen it in debates, and have found it on the internet from time to time. Overall though, it is a very bad advertisement for your point of view.

This was always about you. Your belief is based on quotes taken out of context and stitched together to weave a picture that conforms to what you already believe in while ignoring all of the information that doesn't agree with you. This is called a confirmation bias. You wont know how unconvincing your statements and claims are until you get past that kind of bias and seek to prove what you believe wrong to see if it actually holds water.

Again, this is the pot calling the kettle black. Your confirmation bias meter reads at 100 percent. My claims stand on their own and so do the quotations which flatly refute your claim. Feel free to show me scientific literature which supports your case at any time.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr

You're right, I am making an argument about you. This has always been about you. I don't care about the whole god argument, I care about why you believe what you believe and that is what I'm talking about. I could care less about what you believe, the 'why' is far more significant.

It took you an hour to throw all of those quotes together to make a case. Based on that, do you really expect me to believe that you're not just quote mining from some general creationist website somewhere? Do you really expect me to believe that you've actually studied the subjects that you're presenting as evidence for your claims? You are by definition, cherry picking. You are not taking into account the whole of scientific findings, you are ignoring the information which dis-confirms your existing views, and you are unknowingly misrepresenting the facts. If you were well read on any of the subjects of physics or evolutionary biology then you'd completely understand where I'm coming from.

You are trying to make a case for the existence of a god but the only thing that you can say about this god that you believe in is that it basically follows the christian mythos.

"The God I believe in is a personal God who created us for a purpose. His desire is for us to know Him personally and attain to eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ. I believe He is the true God because He transformed my life and being, made me whole by His love, and because I received the direct witness of the Holy Spirit. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ will receive the witness of the Holy Spirit and then Gods existence will become undeniably true. God Himself provides the evidence if you approach Him in faith."

That's you, you said that. Why do you believe those things? Are you willing to attempt to prove yourself wrong? Are you willing to work to subdue cognitive biases in order to be as certain as you can be that you aren't mistaken? How can you say that your god is the correct one and all of the rest are incorrect? How can you justify a jump from the idea that we don't understand entirely how a system works to, there must be agency behind it? That is exactly what you are asking everyone to do. That is a huge leap and it does not directly follow. Extraordinary claims such as a personal god, require extraordinary evidence. You can't simply suggest that because we don't understand something that there must be agency there, that is not how logic works nor science. You can say nothing about the true nature of something if it requires faith in order to have evidence.

The thing is, I am in doubt about you. I am in doubt about your sincerity for meaningful investigations into reality. I am in doubt that you have actually read any scientific material in their entirety. I am in doubt that you value critical thinking. I am in doubt that you understand what a logical fallacy is or how they work. I am in doubt that you are doing anything more than attempting to justify a belief that you already hold by attempting to give legitimacy in the face of dissonance.

This was always about you. Your belief is based on quotes taken out of context and stitched together to weave a picture that conforms to what you already believe in while ignoring all of the information that doesn't agree with you. This is called a confirmation bias. You wont know how unconvincing your statements and claims are until you get past that kind of bias and seek to prove what you believe wrong to see if it actually holds water.

Seek to prove your beliefs wrong before convince yourself that you are correct.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I said that God doesn’t exist? Oh yeah? Where exactly did I say that? The last time I checked, saying that I reject an idea isn’t the same as saying that the idea isn’t true. Get your facts straight.
You obviously don't think it is true if you reject it. I don't reject ideas I think are correct. What exactly is your position?
Saying “god did it” doesn’t answer anything. It doesn’t answer any question about mechanism and until someone can come up with a testable model of how god interacts with the universe which we can then make accurate predictions with, it’s a useless and meaningless statement. It doesn’t help us expand the frontiers of our understanding of reality.
The fact of the matter is that it is you who is fundamentally uneducated in everything that you mentioned and that is made obvious by your inability to form your own arguments; you’re just cherry picking quotes that support you’re cognitive bias.
You realize that your entire reply could be summed up thusly "nu uh". Just stating that you're right and I am wrong doesn't advance your argument. You don't even have an argument. Everything you've said here is logically fallacious. If you think what I've said is wrong, or cherry picked, address it directly and demonstrate why. I don't think you really understand the subject matter which is why you're trying to make the argument about me instead.
I love it when people like you pull out the second law of thermodynamics card because I know that you can’t name or explain the rest of the laws of thermodynamics without copy and pasting them from Google search. Life isn’t a closed system and the second law of thermodynamics only deals with closed systems. The 2nd law has nothing to do with anything biology or the existence of complex organisms, get your facts straight. If you had any respect for truth, you wouldn’t be making so many entirely misinformed and uneducated statements.
And this is why I don't think you understand the subject matter, because your statement that the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to biological systems shows a total lack of research.
John Ross, Harvard University, Chemical And Engineering News, p.40 July 7, 1980, "Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems."
Arnold Sommerfel, "...the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, p.155
There is no such thing as negative entropy. Everything is always trending towards disorder.
The 2nd law equally applies to living systems:
Harold Blum, Prinston Univ., "No matter how carefully we examine the energetics of living systems we find no evidence of defeat of thermodynamic principles, but we do encounter a degree of complexity not witnessed in the non-living world." Time's Arrow and Evolution, p.14
Everything is technically an open system in nature.
Richard Morris, "An isolated system is one that does not interact with its surroundings. Naturally there are no completely isolated systems in nature. Everything interacts with its environment to some extent. Nevertheless, the concept, like many other abstractions that are used in physics, is extremely useful. If we are able to understand the behavior in ideal cases, we can gain a great deal of understanding about processes that take place in the real world In fact treating a real system as an isolated one is often an excellent approximation.", Time's Arrows, p.113
The argument is that the energy of the sun is what is overcoming the entropy, but that doesn't explain information. Just putting power into something does not magically create organization:
George Gaylord Simpson & W.S. Beck, "But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order. A bull in a china shop performs work, but he neither creates nor maintains organization. The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed.", An Introduction To Biology, p. 466
But there is no mechanism for information to spontaneously arise by itself, overcoming entropy in the system, and we know information comes from minds.
Charles J. Smith, "Biological systems are open and exchange both energy and matter. This explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology." Biosystems, Vol.1, p259.
This is why a Creator agrees with the evidence more so than evolution. Was this quote cherry picked?:
G.J. Van Wylen, Richard Sonntag, "...we see the second law of thermodynamics as a description of the prior and continuing work of a creator, who also holds the answer to our future destiny and that of the universe." Fundamentals Of Classical Thermodynamics, 1985, p.232.
Because I know that none of this is actually going to matter to you, go ahead and enlighten us with more of your church-pamphlet science.
I'm looking forward to your point by point refutation of my argument, with sources. Thanks.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr

I said that God doesn’t exist? Oh yeah? Where exactly did I say that? The last time I checked, saying that I reject an idea isn’t the same as saying that the idea isn’t true. Get your facts straight.

You obviously don't think it is true if you reject it. I don't reject ideas I think are correct. What exactly is your position?

Saying “god did it” doesn’t answer anything. It doesn’t answer any question about mechanism and until someone can come up with a testable model of how god interacts with the universe which we can then make accurate predictions with, it’s a useless and meaningless statement. It doesn’t help us expand the frontiers of our understanding of reality.

The fact of the matter is that it is you who is fundamentally uneducated in everything that you mentioned and that is made obvious by your inability to form your own arguments; you’re just cherry picking quotes that support you’re cognitive bias.

You realize that your entire reply could be summed up thusly "nu uh". Just stating that you're right and I am wrong doesn't advance your argument. You don't even have an argument. Everything you've said here is logically fallacious. If you think what I've said is wrong, or cherry picked, address it directly and demonstrate why. I don't think you really understand the subject matter which is why you're trying to make the argument about me instead.

I love it when people like you pull out the second law of thermodynamics card because I know that you can’t name or explain the rest of the laws of thermodynamics without copy and pasting them from Google search. Life isn’t a closed system and the second law of thermodynamics only deals with closed systems. The 2nd law has nothing to do with anything biology or the existence of complex organisms, get your facts straight. If you had any respect for truth, you wouldn’t be making so many entirely misinformed and uneducated statements.

And this is why I don't think you understand the subject matter, because your statement that the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to biological systems shows a total lack of research.

John Ross, Harvard University, Chemical And Engineering News, p.40 July 7, 1980, "Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems."

Arnold Sommerfel, "...the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, p.155

There is no such thing as negative entropy. Everything is always trending towards disorder.

The 2nd law equally applies to living systems:

Harold Blum, Prinston Univ., "No matter how carefully we examine the energetics of living systems we find no evidence of defeat of thermodynamic principles, but we do encounter a degree of complexity not witnessed in the non-living world." Time's Arrow and Evolution, p.14

Everything is technically an open system in nature.

Richard Morris, "An isolated system is one that does not interact with its surroundings. Naturally there are no completely isolated systems in nature. Everything interacts with its environment to some extent. Nevertheless, the concept, like many other abstractions that are used in physics, is extremely useful. If we are able to understand the behavior in ideal cases, we can gain a great deal of understanding about processes that take place in the real world In fact treating a real system as an isolated one is often an excellent approximation.", Time's Arrows, p.113

The argument is that the energy of the sun is what is overcoming the entropy, but that doesn't explain information. Just putting power into something does not magically create organization:

George Gaylord Simpson & W.S. Beck, "But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order. A bull in a china shop performs work, but he neither creates nor maintains organization. The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed.", An Introduction To Biology, p. 466

But there is no mechanism for information to spontaneously arise by itself, overcoming entropy in the system, and we know information comes from minds.

Charles J. Smith, "Biological systems are open and exchange both energy and matter. This explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology." Biosystems, Vol.1, p259.

This is why a Creator agrees with the evidence more so than evolution. Was this quote cherry picked?:

G.J. Van Wylen, Richard Sonntag, "...we see the second law of thermodynamics as a description of the prior and continuing work of a creator, who also holds the answer to our future destiny and that of the universe." Fundamentals Of Classical Thermodynamics, 1985, p.232.

Because I know that none of this is actually going to matter to you, go ahead and enlighten us with more of your church-pamphlet science.

I'm looking forward to your point by point refutation of my argument, with sources. Thanks.



>> ^IAmTheBlurr

I said that God doesn’t exist? Oh yeah? Where exactly did I say that? The last time I checked, saying that I reject an idea isn’t the same as saying that the idea isn’t true. Get your facts straight.

Saying “god did it” doesn’t answer anything. It doesn’t answer any question about mechanism and until someone can come up with a testable model of how god interacts with the universe which we can then make accurate predictions with, it’s a useless and meaningless statement. It doesn’t help us expand the frontiers of our understanding of reality.

The fact of the matter is that it is you who is fundamentally uneducated in everything that you mentioned and that is made obvious by your inability to form your own arguments; you’re just cherry picking quotes that support you’re cognitive bias.

I love it when people like you pull out the second law of thermodynamics card because I know that you can’t name or explain the rest of the laws of thermodynamics without copy and pasting them from Google search. Life isn’t a closed system and the second law of thermodynamics only deals with closed systems. The 2nd law has nothing to do with anything biology or the existence of complex organisms, get your facts straight. If you had any respect for truth, you wouldn’t be making so many entirely misinformed and uneducated statements.

Because I know that none of this is actually going to matter to you, go ahead and enlighten us with more of your church-pamphlet science.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you know what "the burden of proof" means?
Yes, and you said that God doesn't exist. You have your own burden of proof.
I realize that you're a christian so I've decided to keep this a bit short for the sake of simply providing you with a potentially new view that isn't your own. You may reject it but hopefully you will at least understand how someone else might think about this topic.
I grew up without any religion and was previously agnostic, so I understand both sides of the argument. I used to have many of the same objections that you and others have raised against the existence of God.
One reason that I reject the notion of designer deities is because the question becomes infinitely regress-able; it explains nothing, it helps clarify nothing, and it opens up more questions than it answers. The notion of a designer god begs the question, who or what designed the designer, then that designers designer, and most importantly, how do these gods operate, by what laws?
The answer is that no one designed God. He is an eternal being and has always existed. A created god isn't really a God. God is the one whom no one else created.
This is actually a problem for your side of the fence, unless you believe that something came from nothing, which would be worse than magic. Since the Universe has a beginning there must either be an eternal first cause or else you are left with an infinite regress of causes.
Suggesting that a creator exists because something doesn't make sense to you isn't a valid way of forming believes if your goal is truth.
I don't believe in God because the world doesn't make sense to me. I believe in God because the evidence points to His existence.
The notion of design is for people who cannot understand what it means for systems to assemble from the bottom-up because, to them, it makes more intuitive sense that things are designed from the top down. This is not critical thinking and it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the findings of science.
Actually, to believe that systems become more ordered over time is a fundemental misunderstanding of scientific laws, specifically the second law of thermodynamics. Sir Arthur Eddington says
"...if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.", p.74 Nature of the Physical World.
The second law states that systems become more disordered over time and there is no known exception to this rule. Everything is breaking down and becoming more disorganized. Evolutionary theory claims the opposite, that systems are getting more complex and highly organized over time. This clearly violates the 2nd law, which is why Ilya Prigogin said this:
LIFE WON'T "FORM" Ilya Prigogin (Nobel Laureate) "Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures. The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable, even on the scale of billions of years during which prebiotic evolution occurred." Physics Today, Vol.25, p.28.
True, we do have gaps in our knowledge about systems and mechanism but those gaps should remain gaps instead of prematurely filling them with god fluff. But, you are a believer, and believers do not make critical thinkers.
Again, God is a better explanation according to the evidence, such as the information in DNA, the fine tuning in the universe, and the appearance of design in biological systems. It is not a gap theory, it is a better theory.
I just hope that you come to understand that the answer "A creator did it" isn't an intellectually honest way of thinking.
There is nothing intellectually dishonest in believe that God created the Universe. Did you know that nearly half of biologists, mathematicians and physicists believe in a personal God? To dismiss the possibility is what is intellectually dishonest.
>> ^IAmTheBlurr

Do you know what "the burden of proof" means?

Yes, and you said that God doesn't exist. You have your own burden of proof.

I realize that you're a christian so I've decided to keep this a bit short for the sake of simply providing you with a potentially new view that isn't your own. You may reject it but hopefully you will at least understand how someone else might think about this topic.

I grew up without any religion and was previously agnostic, so I understand both sides of the argument. I used to have many of the same objections that you and others have raised against the existence of God.

One reason that I reject the notion of designer deities is because the question becomes infinitely regress-able; it explains nothing, it helps clarify nothing, and it opens up more questions than it answers. The notion of a designer god begs the question, who or what designed the designer, then that designers designer, and most importantly, how do these gods operate, by what laws?

The answer is that no one designed God. He is an eternal being and has always existed. A created god isn't really a God. God is the one whom no one else created.

This is actually a problem for your side of the fence, unless you believe that something came from nothing, which would be worse than magic. Since the Universe has a beginning there must either be an eternal first cause or else you are left with an infinite regress of causes.

Suggesting that a creator exists because something doesn't make sense to you isn't a valid way of forming believes if your goal is truth.

I don't believe in God because the world doesn't make sense to me. I believe in God because the evidence points to His existence.

The notion of design is for people who cannot understand what it means for systems to assemble from the bottom-up because, to them, it makes more intuitive sense that things are designed from the top down. This is not critical thinking and it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the findings of science.

Actually, to believe that systems become more ordered over time is a fundemental misunderstanding of scientific laws, specifically the second law of thermodynamics. Sir Arthur Eddington says

"...if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.", p.74 Nature of the Physical World.

The second law states that systems become more disordered over time and there is no known exception to this rule. Everything is breaking down and becoming more disorganized. Evolutionary theory claims the opposite, that systems are getting more complex and highly organized over time. This clearly violates the 2nd law, which is why Ilya Prigogin said this:

LIFE WON'T "FORM" Ilya Prigogin (Nobel Laureate) "Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures. The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable, even on the scale of billions of years during which prebiotic evolution occurred." Physics Today, Vol.25, p.28.

True, we do have gaps in our knowledge about systems and mechanism but those gaps should remain gaps instead of prematurely filling them with god fluff. But, you are a believer, and believers do not make critical thinkers.

Again, God is a better explanation according to the evidence, such as the information in DNA, the fine tuning in the universe, and the appearance of design in biological systems. It is not a gap theory, it is a better theory.

I just hope that you come to understand that the answer "A creator did it" isn't an intellectually honest way of thinking.

There is nothing intellectually dishonest in believe that God created the Universe. Did you know that nearly half of biologists, mathematicians and physicists believe in a personal God? To dismiss the possibility is what is intellectually dishonest.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr

Tags for this video have been changed from 'stirling engines, thermodynamics, steampunk, craftsmanship' to 'stirling engine, thermodynamics, steampunk, craftsmanship' - edited by xxovercastxx

Tags for this video have been changed from 'stirling engines, thermodynamics, steampunk, craftsmenship' to 'stirling engines, thermodynamics, steampunk, craftsmanship' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, I am talking about supernatural causes. I think there is plenty of evidence the Universe was designed, for instance the 20 or so values which life is completely dependent on and the fact that if any of them were altered in the most infintesimal way, life wouldn't exist and in most cases, the Universe wouldn't either. Even Dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared designed. But then he goes on to posit multiple Universes and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Instead of investigating the obvious conclusion that if the Universe appears designed, then maybe it is, he comes up with a morass of complexity and speculation which doesn't reduce the need for an ultimate cause in the first place. I think peoples predisposition against a created Universe is predicated more on their bias against a Creator than logic and reason, because I really don't see how it is at all unreasonable or illogical to believe it could have been.
btw, why downvote my comment and then engage in discussion?
>> ^kceaton1:
@shinyblurry

You missed the part were he talked about the quantum foam, etc... The Universe had a beginning the same way your life did. There was a lot that happened before most likely and we may never know what it was (as the quantum foam breaks things down to, literally, chances/glimpses and "something from nothing"; as long as the dime lands head up in your favor in one instance in some far off day; even if your chances are one in 1 x 10^464th power--it just needs one instance in an endless amount of time too happen).



The downvote was for fanning religious vs. science potentials, I saw it as a troll to some degree.

For the rest. Science is a poor man's science, especially nowadays when you use twenty-twenty hindsight. The reason I say this is that you use "the chance for "x" factor ending up in some various fashion by chance" and explain that it is ludicrous for that to be true. The point scientists make is that you don't need chance at all to get there, or if you did it doesn't matter, because that is were the dice landed. Complaining that the dice are improbable, you should also notice besides those 20 reasons you could just as easily make it into a scenario of 500 clauses.

Like not having a super massive black hole near us, or an old dying star near us ready to go up, a large gas planet near us that could play amok with our magnetic field and send loads of radiation at us, etc...

It's much easier to approach it as the dice dropped where they may and that designed our perceived reality.


Last part concerning time. Time if perceived by a slow to register memory system will appear to be going slow, if at the speed of light it would essentially stop. The point I was making is that the Universe has it's own built in clock via thermodynamics and the theory of general relativity. If time TRULY doesn't exist then neither can heat, if heat doesn't exist, neither can electrons, if electrons don't exist then neither do atoms, etc... Time is a fundamentally linked "existence" merely due to the other forces at play that need it to work at all, including the supreme particle/wave, the photon. How can it be a wave without some time variable. What causes time and what it is exactly is still best answered by Einstein and his theory of General Relativity.

Due to entropy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, etc, we know that there isn't such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Everything which begins to exist does appear to end, including the Universe. For instance, the expansion of the Universe into heat death. A record player will wear out, a DVD player will break down. I believe that the temporal is temporary because it was created with a specific purpose which will end. After that, only that which is perfected and can co-exist with God eternally will remain.

Yes, talk of the eternal is intelligible. It doesn't mean we can't grasp a few concepts about it. One, it lasts forever, always has been, always will be. It never began to exist and it will never end. Two, it is essentially perfect, because it doesn't break down. It has no real flaw or weakness. It is self-contained and nothing could be added to it to make it better than it is in this sense.

Yes, you can doubt anything, but reality is orderly. It has a way which works and makes sense. I'm not sure why you believe time is only in the mind, because we can do very precise experiments on forces which show time as an emergent conception. What we perceive of time may be faulty, but clearly everything isn't happening at once; there is a logical progression to events which suggests time is more than in our minds.

As far as astronomical history you're talking about a history which is completely speculative and not based on observation, ie the origin of the moon, dinosaurs etc. If you doubt so much, why do you accept the secular narrative as truth? There are certain things such as the existence of the short period comets that proves a young earth. IE, if they're still here it means the Earth can't be that old. The secular narrative inserts the illusive and unobservable "Oort cloud" which supposedly replenishes all the comets.

Yes, I believe knowledge is certain and true, but I think you must see how limited beings with limited perceptions and knowledge take quite a bit on faith. Just in your normal life, you must see past your senses to navigate and interact with reality. You don't know everything that is going to happen, or even what you do know is even reliable, but you make the best of it. I don't see how anything could pass the "certainty" test.

I said what is spiritual couldn't be empircally proven, but I believe God has material evidence because He is a part of history. Where the rubber meets the road is the resurrection of Christ. God did interact with this world; He redeemed it. God isn't beholden to the world though, as if He needs anything..it is by Grace that He interacts with us. I will also tell you that God proves Himself. He promised to reveal Himself to those who come to Him in repentance of sin, who believe in Him and His resurrection and confess Him as Lord. To those He reveals Himself and grants eternal life. God can change a skeptic to a believer in a nanosecond, but He isn't going to show Himself to the world until the right time. What He wants is a heart willing to change, a broken and contrite heart coming to Him in total humility.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
@shinyblurry
There is no logical necessity for time to have an ending only because it had a beginning. A record player spinning with no end comes to mind. There is no reason to assume the end is necessarily destruction. A comparable analogy would be would be when a DVD is over; the fact that it has ended has nothing to do with its eradication. Either is plausible. There is also no reason to assume that something eternal will arise from temporal. It isn't impossible either, mind you, just not necessarily or shown to be the case.
I don't think it is possible to think about what is more plausible about eternity. We have no idea how to predicate eternity. We don't know "Being" is a consistent idea with "Eternal". Any type of talk about eternal is unintelligible. I don't mean that in a rude way, what I mean is I have no reason to believe anything that is said. If 2 things are logically possible, and I have no understanding of what it means to be eternal, then any talk about what is the more "likely" mode of an eternal metaphysics is a fruitless debate, rife with personal bias and little else.
And once again, this whole line of thought revolves around the very subjective idea of time. I have had no compelling argument to show time to be anything more than an experience of minds any more than the color blue. I have no reason to accept time as anything more than the way in which minds alter the information of the universe to make us more successful creatures.
I don't understand, beyond bias, why you would accept data about a young earth vs an old one with any less skepticism. Assuming they are using the same dating methods, why trust 10k year old earth and not 13 billion? The detective work that goes into the methods of age aren't perfect, prone to mis-calibration, and lack true modes to calibrate with, but it never claimed to be exact, just a rough cut. When they talk about the ages of dinosaurs, it usually has 50ish million year give or takes. Even our own solar history, and the history of our moon, and of Mars speak far more about a much older universe than a 10k year old one. I also can't see the Grand Canyon being made in 10k years. But isn't is a debate on the Christion bible, but on a more basic idea.
I am not an empiricist. I believe my classification is either a existential phenomenologist, or perhaps an transcendental idealist...most likely a combination of the two great schools of rationalism and empiricism. For me, knowledge is the same as Descartes put it. It is certain, and it is true. By certain, that means it passes Cartesian doubt. More to the point, it means that it has the right stuff to have an answer to every criticism. It is the opposite of doubt, it is certain. In that, religious evidence fails the certainty test, as the main element of all the great religions isn't knowledge, but faith. So to your point, prove that it can be known, with certainty and without any doubt any of the claims you have made, you would be the first in history to do so, to my knowledge. And to say that God can not be empirically proven seems rather lonely, for it means that God does not interact with this world; as empirical study is the world as it is beholden to man. If God is not beholden to the world which man exists, then he isn't really our God.

Another thermodynamic possibility for reducing global mean temperature is using wind/solar power to shoot giant lasers into space. But it may be a wash due to solar power's effect on albedo and wind power's effect on convection. Hydroelectric power would be legit for that but not available in sufficient quantity to make a difference.

>> ^MaxWilder:

Um, let's bring the conversation back down to the level it started at.
This is dumb because anybody who has ever examined an air conditioner will notice that cold air comes out of one side, and hot air comes out of the other.
You don't need to know anything further about the laws of thermodynamics to know why she's an idiot.


And if you don't there's no helping you.

Um, let's bring the conversation back down to the level it started at.

This is dumb because anybody who has ever examined an air conditioner will notice that cold air comes out of one side, and hot air comes out of the other.

You don't need to know anything further about the laws of thermodynamics to know why she's an idiot.

Only on the Sift does a video of a douche leading on a dimwit for lulz result in a discussion about thermodynamics and heat sequestering.

Man I love this place!

I concede that she was lacks a complete understanding of heat transfer and basic thermodynamics.

That said, people are actively working on heat sequestering. There are types of air conditioners that are essentially a heat pumps. This idea, in particular, is one that people are interested in. Because the earth is not a closed system we don't have to worry about the 2nd law.

My point would be: making giant heat sink is not the craziest solution anyone has ever proposed for global warming.

I'm positive you know more then I do about thermodynamics... please elaborate.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

This is not a as stupid as you think it is.